This book is an unusual and, for that reason, an engaging one. It uses an autobiographical method to reflect on various aspects of the life of the Anglican Communion over the past 100 years. That gives it a much more ‘human’ feel than many such tomes.
Andrew Norman writes lucidly and thoughtfully, using his own experience and that of his family in a meticulous and thorough reflection on the state of the Church. His grandparents were active Anglicans in Canada and this country and his parents were very involved in the Church in England. We are led from the history of the Church in the First World War and its aftermath through to the present day. The author himself, having been educated at an Anglican school, has occupied an impressive variety of posts – from a curacy in Paris to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for International, Ecumenical and Anglican Communion Affairs, from Principal of Ridley Hall in Cambridge to Director of Mission and Ministry for the newly formed Diocese of Leeds. He has also spent time in India and Nigeria, as well as inner-city Leeds.
He describes his fascinating whistle-stop tour of his immensely varied ministry in these posts as a ‘box-set of Anglican episodes, with their mixture of soap opera, documentary and costume drama’ (p. 295). It might be that, but he brings many thoughtful insights to bear upon his experience.
Following the last of them, which covers his time as Principal of Ridley Hall, the author quotes the then First Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam-Smith, who told the General Synod at the beginning of Justin Welby’s tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury that the Church of England was facing ‘an existential crisis’ (p. 294). He tells us that this brings him back to his reason for writing the book which is encapsulated in the question ‘What does it mean to be Anglican as times change?’
He suggests a number of factors which constitute influential motivators for significant change, including a perceived lack of spiritual vitality, recognition of missionary change and opportunity, fluctuations in clergy numbers, popular culture, the presence of other religions and finally, unplanned developments, the most significant of which he identifies as the charismatic movement. Having identified these drivers, he goes on to ask what authority should be appealed to when there is pressure for change.
He identifies a list of twelve possible candidates as ‘ingredients’. If that seems rather a lot, the succeeding ‘Framework for Being Anglican’, which he develops in the final chapter, is an exhausting list of no fewer than 22. He follows this, and concludes, with ‘Ten Challenges for Anglicans’.
I can cope with Ten Commandments but, writing as someone who finds five marks of mission and even three quinquennial goals to be quite sufficient to be going on with, I find this recipe somewhat indigestible. What the author reinforces to me through the excellent first chapters of this book is that Anglicanism is best engaged with through narrative. Anglicans have generally insisted that nothing other than the scriptures and the creeds is necessary to define their faith.
Most countries have a written constitution, the British do not: it develops. The French seek to define and order their language through the ‘Academie Française’ while the English simply observe theirs evolve. Though global, Anglicanism remains a very British or even English phenomenon in character. It developed as a pragmatic response to particular historical circumstances and has grown organically since. A German friend of mine, a philosopher, tells me that he does not understand the British, who use the term ‘as a matter of principle’ in a pejorative sense, often in combination with the words ‘just as’, whereas for Germans, he adds, principle is everything.
In short, I find the narrative of this book engaging and insightful but the prescription at its conclusion less helpful: I should have been happy to stick with what the title promises: ‘A Church Observed’. Having said which, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who holds the Anglican tradition dear, as the author clearly does, and as do I. Maybe if we just continue to love God within it and through it, God will do the rest.
