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Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness ... a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck. [1]

The General Synod of the Church of England recently came within a whisker of imposing severe censorship on its clergy. The vote in July, 2004, was shockingly narrow when the Synod debated the Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) Report of a working group set up by its House of Bishops.

Of the 456 who voted, 166 voted against and 290 for a draft Measure contained in the Report. However, these figures don't reflect what actually happened.

The Synod, as I understand it, consists of three power blocks - a House of Bishops, a House of Clergy and a House of Laity. I'm unfamiliar with Synod's rules, but I think that a Measure such as this must be passed by a majority in each house if requested.

In this case it was passed by the House of Bishops (27-12) and by the House of Laity (164-51). But it was rejected in the House of Clergy by 103-99 votes. That is, three more positive votes out of a total of 202 clergy and the draft Measure would have effectively become law in the Church..

Cutting to the Measure's core, what would this have meant to the ten thousand or so clergy ministering to congregations and institutions throughout the land? Severe penalties would have been imposed on

• any bishop, priest or deacon "professing, advocating or promoting" any belief which is not compatible with the Church's doctrine,

• should he or she preach, teach or publicly communicate such beliefs.

The Measure leaves no gaps for heretical clerics to slip through. It defines "publicly communicating" so tightly that only strictly private heretical communication and thoughts are allowed.

An act of public communication doesn't have to be to large numbers of people to attract attention. The ban also relates to any "section of the public". Should a court be asked to test the meaning of the latter phrase, I suspect it would have to define what is meant by a "group". A group is a section of the public. This is likely to mean something like "more than six" or a similar number. Perhaps, harking back to the gospels, it might mean "two or three".

The Church of England is an established church. That is, it is regulated by laws passed by Parliament. At present a cleric is by law required to baptise, bless the marriage of, and bury anyone who lives in his or her parish, regardless of religious affiliation. It seems therefore that the "public" to which a cleric may not communicate heresy is any English citizen, including Muslims. Given that heresy damages the "public", I see no intrinsic reason why it should harm a Muslim less than a Christian. The prospect of heresy trials borders on the surreal if this is indeed the case. At any rate, those who wish to pursue heretical clerics have a wide open field.

That a "section of the public" might be communicated to on private premises may not, I think, matter in law. Certainly it did not in South Africa during Apartheid days. The one-time Anglican Dean of Johannesburg, Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, was tried under terrorism laws for addressing a women's meeting in a private home.

The scary thing about this latter aspect is that a priest or deacon could in theory, if not in practice, fall foul of the Measure just by talking honestly in a Bible study group. An irony is that a layperson or (presumably) an unlicensed cleric in the same group would be immune to prosecution. But not active clergy, who could be censored for using the words "I believe" - or maybe just "I think" - in relation to a heretical doctrine. Who knows?

The term "censored" is, I think, rightly applied because of what "public communication" means in practical terms. It includes any recording of sounds or visual images made and distributed to the public by an accused. This specifically includes any sort of broadcast as defined by the Broadcasting Act of 1990. 

The added words "or otherwise" extends censorship to any sort of communication. The Report spells out that the "otherwise" would cover any false doctrine communicated (i.e. professed, advocated or promoted) in any radio or TV program, broadcast or not, or on an audio or video tape, or via the worldwide web. The net is cast very wide indeed.

The Report explains that academic or other clergy who merely teach about false doctrines would not be at risk unless

... either there was some personal commitment on their part to the false doctrines in question or they were positively encouraging others to hold them. (p.31)

The words "personal commitment" are ominous. Does this perhaps mean that if an accuser can establish "personal commitment" then it doesn't matter whether or not the heresy has been communicated publicly? At first sight it appears not. But a paragraph in the Report indicates that an academic cleric's "personal commitment", if communicated, might be open to prosecution:

The [Working] Group believed that the formula employed in the draft Measure meant that a complaint could only be made under it if the cleric in question had a personal commitment to the views being expressed or could be said to be advocating or promoting it - which was different from merely exploring a doctrinal position, with detachment, for the purpose of academic discussion or stimulating students or others to engage seriously with it. (p.32 - my italics)

As if this aspect of the Measure were not sweeping enough, the Working Group goes further.

The Group also addressed the issue of expressing [communicating?] false doctrine implicitly rather than expressly. (p.32)

It was agreed by the Group that the Measure could and should extend to such implicit expression if it could be seen as promoting beliefs incompatible with the doctrine of the Church of England. So if a licensed cleric wrote, firmly tongue-in-cheek of course, that "Nobody but an insane person could possibly imagine that I might think that Jesus did not rise from the dead", he or she might nevertheless be prosecuted.

It is clear to me that promotion of false beliefs does extend beyond the public sphere into the private. Though it is only fair to say that, except when a person is being relentlessly pursued (as a heretical Bishop of Durham might be), the chances of an accused arriving in court are not great. The Draft Measure's administrative precautions against frivolous or purely vindictive charges are substantial.

Having said that, only a fool would suppose that in circumstances where warring parties are implacably opposed, such frail barriers could not be circumvented or simply stepped over. It has happened many times before in the Church's history. There are distinct signs today that certain sections of the Church of England are shaping up for a power struggle. This Draft Measure is itself one such sign.

However, nestling comfortably behind the entire Measure is an assumption which must fill many with dread. It is that a charge of heresy may be brought with the worst of motives. Indeed, that would be invariably likely. It may not indicate mere cynicism to state that I would bet my bottom dollar that sooner rather than later a prosecution will derive from bad motive. I have two reasons for suggesting this:

1. Each of us, without exception, is liable to find laudable reasons for our actions - while at a deep and unconscious emotional level desiring revenge, or self-justification or advancement. We are all easily self-deceived. That this is even possible should be enough to ring loud warning bells for the kind of legal action about doctrine being here contemplated.

2. Accusers are, I suggest, likely to be those most firmly wedded to a particular point of view - that is, those who are driven by a more-or-less unshakable conviction that they are right and the accused wrong. What motive could be more laudable in the Christian book than sincere conviction? How can firm "faith" be counted unworthy? Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is in this respect that considerations of charity are least likely to operate.

Add to this the possibility that, sooner or later, a prosecution will be brought by a clever manipulator who is hiding evil motives. Like nuclear war, it's not a question of if, but of when this will happen given the present hard feelings and lack of charity between warring factions. Add again that trials may be held "in private" (that is, in secret), or with a restricted audience, and the outlook is not pretty.

A constant theme of the Report, and of the documents which preceded it, is that few, if any, prosecutions are likely to be brought under the Measure. This may be correct. A long and quite demanding process must be worked through before the final court is reached. In addition, the likelihood of any but a foolhardy cleric braving the cleansing fire of prosecution is relatively small.

On the other hand, there are indications from the current furore about homosexuality that certain sections of the Church of England are on the warpath. They appear determined to bring to book any cleric, bishops and archbishops included, who steps outside the hallowed halls of sexual propriety. The signs are equally strong that, driven by rocklike certainties, the factions may be gearing up to do the same for those who wander away from the theological straight and narrow.

But what kind of personal commitment, explicit or implicit, is to be counted as incompatible with the Church's doctrine? How is heresy to be defined?

The Group calls on Canon A5 of the Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure of 1974 for its definitions. This is not available to me at the moment, so I must rely on the Group's own rendering of its contents.

Every Church of England cleric must at ordination affirm and "declare my belief in"

... the faith which is revealed in the holy Scriptures and set  forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness ... (p.9)

The "formularies" are, as I understand it, primarily the Thirty-Nine Articles preserved in the Prayer Book. That is, they are expressions of "right doctrine" more than 300 years old. Interestingly, one authority comments on the Articles that they are

... not the statement of Christian doctrine in the form of a creed ... [but] rather short summaries of dogmatic tenets ... laying down in general terms the Anglican view. [2]

Be that as it may, that short summaries deriving from a pre-modern era should be a standard on which heresy in the 21st century is to be judged is worrying, to say the least. It discounts all that has been thought through for more than three centuries by many of the wisest, most intelligent and most faithful Christians. It is as though fundamental changes in the way we in the West approach truth had never happened.

Even more like theological quicksand is the supposition that the "holy Scriptures" should be a standard. Which version of the Bible will be used? Whose interpretation will rise above the rest? That the Bible can become the means by which any doctrine is established firmly enough to penalise an accused stretches one's credulity.

A passing glance at the Athanasian Creed reveals a quagmire of meaning which must surely daunt even the most sure-footed. Despite its greater simplicity, the Nicene Creed is not much better. Can anyone really expect such formulas to be a valid test of orthodoxy?

All the above would be distinctly unpleasant, but of relatively little practical account, if the penalties imposed on condemned heretics were mere censure or some similar rap over the knuckles. As it turns out, possible penalties can be extremely severe, so severe that I wonder if they can be sustained in terms of European Union legislation. They include:

1. Prohibition from exercising ministry for life;
2. Prohibition for a set period (presuming, one supposes, that the heretic will at some point in the future have denied his or her stated beliefs);
3. Removal from office (but presumably remaining able to minister);
4. Revocation of a licence to minister;
5. An order to refrain from doing a specified act;
6. A rebuke.

Lest anyone wonder why a fuss should be made about the Measure, it should be pointed out that a cleric who may have served the Church faithfully for many years can have not only a ministry but a livelihood destroyed by these penalties [3]. If he or she is banned from ministry or defrocked, it becomes impossible to work anywhere in the Provinces of Canterbury or York. It is also probably impossible to work anywhere in the Anglican Communion. 

I know of no other profession where communicating personal beliefs and commitment carries such draconian penalties. A doctor, for example, may be removed from the role for bad practice - but not because he or she believes and teaches abortion is wrong, or proclaims that a certain drug is harmful or that a thousand angels can dance on the tip of a hypodermic needle.

The Draft Measure was defeated. Should that not draw a line under it all? 

Given the currents presently flowing in the wide sea of the Church of England that is unlikely. There exists a relatively small but highly determined shoal of fanatics who will undoubtedly return to General Synod with this or a similar Measure. Indeed, the tiny margin of defeat this time must only encourage them to try again.

This probability has been confirmed by Peter Selby, Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester:

... some are sorry at the outcome [of the General Synod debate]. They might still hope that the report will be brought back to the next General Synod, and that eventually something along the lines of its proposals will be implemented. [4]

Those who wish to muzzle the clergy are, I think, terrified of what they perceive as chaos. Christians are seeking to understand Jesus in the context of all that has happened in the preceding three or more centuries. Uncertainty, disagreement and wild ideas are part and parcel of this process.

That real men and women should become casualties of a search for truth runs counter to natural justice in our times.
____________________________________________________
[1] Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Penguin, 1954
[2] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Eds F L Cross & E A Livingstone, OUP 1997
[3] This has already happened. The Revd Andrew Furlong, Dean of a Cathedral in the Northern Ireland Province, was recently fired for heresy. His settlement was a year's salary - after more than 30 years of faithful service. Today he contemplates menial work, having been unable to find new employment. Anthony Freeman suffered a similar fate, mitigated only by his fortune in finding a new job.
[4] Church Times, 23 July, 2004 

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