The Book of Common Prayer should be our manifesto

11 September 2010

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Conservative Anglicans should resist the temptation to convert to Roman Catholicism, says Peter Hitchens. It is the Church of England that is best placed to challenge our secularist age

What a pity it is that all the hate and slime now directed against the Pope’s visit is not aimed instead at the Church of England. Why do God-haters and militant secularists have to turn on a pensionable German theology professor and head of a Rome-based religious multinational organisation, when they want to condemn the steadfast defence of Christian morality?

For at least some Anglicans, the savaging of the Bishop of Rome will give rise to sinful pangs of envy. We would like Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman — and, I am rather compelled to mention, my brother Christopher — to be hurling their fiery darts at Thomas Cranmer’s church instead. But these professional scoffers unkindly refuse to scoff at our texts and formularies. They even put in a kind word for the beauty of Evensong, and the poetic majesty of the 1611 Bible and 1662 Prayer Book. In this they are mistaken, as we shall see, though not about the beauty or the majesty. More sensibly, they cannot find it in their hearts to loathe or rail at the exasperated, kindly, furry and baffled figure of Rowan, our Archbishop.

Even so, Dr Williams is not in fact the Church of England, and nor are its current prelates, who squabble and chatter beneath the giant arches of the great cathedrals. A mighty institution, armed with scripture, tradition and reason, and adorned with centuries of poetry, courage and devotion looms behind them. Why is it that a foreign church, whose leader (according to the confident 37th of the 39 articles) ‘hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England’, is the chosen target of the modish ‘new’ atheists? Why is it that, in recent years, it has been generally assumed that any conservative religious person in this country is a Roman Catholic, or about to become one?

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Tess

September 19th, 2010 11:07pm Report this comment

Beautifully said, Peter! Amen.

j.p.

September 22nd, 2010 4:34pm Report this comment

One cannot but concur with Peter Hitchen�s analysis of modern society and the "culture of death" (a term coined by Pope John Paul II) and the role of the "68ers" in it, as well as the real reason behind the hatred the Church faces from so much of published public opinion. This being said, I strongly doubt the Church of England is the answer to that problem, or ever could be. It is weak, divided and long since part of the problem, imho. There is but ONE rock Christ built His Church upon, and his name is Peter.

Stephen Gray

September 22nd, 2010 7:01pm Report this comment

I thought Hitchens was Jewish.

CharlieRay15

September 24th, 2010 5:25pm Report this comment

There is still a Church which practises Christianity as it was practised by the Apostles and the early Christians. It's called the Orthodox Church and it exists in Britain too.

Edwin Tait

September 24th, 2010 7:45pm Report this comment

What "liberalism of the days before John Paul II"? Certainly the pontificate of Paul VI (and much of JPII's pontificate as well) was marked by a high degree of toleration for liberalism throughout the RCC. But by what standards could Paul VI, or even John XXIII, have been said to be liberal? Not, I think, by standards that make much sense in an Anglican context. Is Humanae Vitae a liberal document by Anglican standards?

Anglicans flee to Rome for the simple reason that Anglicanism is not truly Catholic, and has not been since the sixteenth century. The BCP is glorious indeed, and is the reason I became an Anglican myself. But it isn't enough. Anglicanism broke not just with "foreign jurisdiction" but with historic Christianity in the sixteenth century, and we have been wandering in circles ever since.

Whether Rome or the East is the answer I honestly don't know. Perhaps neither of them is as currently constituted. But there's more going on than a desire for "conservatism." What converts (and perpetual almost-converts like myself) crave is Catholicity.

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