The Bulldozer of History

Tim Stanley writes:

May the Lord preserve us from liberal Anglican bishops. This week the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote a letter that was published in this newspaper explaining why gay marriage is a good and Christian thing. 

His argument is that theology evolves along with society, that “sometimes Christians have … to rethink the priorities of the Gospel in the light of experience.”

As proof of the evolution of morality he cites the example of slavery: “before Wilberforce, Christians saw slavery as Biblical and part of the God-given ordering of creation.” And this error of historical understanding is a very revealing one. 

As Fr Lucie-Smith points out in the Catholic Herald, Christians prior to Wilberforce were not universally sold on slavery (I’m guessing Christian slaves were especially unconvinced). The Catholic priest says that Bishop Nicholas’ letter,

…will come as major news to Pope Pius II who condemned slavery as a great crime and who died in 1464. The same is true of Popes Paul III, Urban VIII, and Benedict XIV, all of whom long predated the English reformer, not to mention the founders and members of the Mercedarian and Trinitarian Orders, which were dedicated to the redemption of slaves.

Of course, there were Christians who used Biblical literalism to justify racism (the curse of Ham) or to give slavery the false ring of paternalism (some US slave holders insisted that it was kinder than capitalism).

But the Catholic tradition rightly saw it as a sin. To Aquinas it was a perversion of natural law, replacing reason with coercion and denying rational souls access to equal justice.

Protestants could be a lot more pro (Calvin saw no need for abolition and regarded obedience to masters as a sign of visible sainthood), but many campaigned for an end to slavery long before Wilberforce was born.

In colonial America, emancipation was promoted as early as 1718 by William Southeby, an influential Quaker in Philadelphia.

Bishop Nicholas is not a fool, so why did he choose to misrepresent Christian history in this way? Because it accords with his own theological understanding of how history works.

Since the 1960s, the Anglican Church has been dominated by a liberal strand of Christianity which sees history as a narrative of progress guided by human reason.

Over the centuries we have slowly evolved from narrow-minded serfs to enlightened citizens, from the Medieval oppression of the Roman tradition to the liberation of women priests, gay rights and social democracy today.

The Bible is not the literal word of God – a text with a fixed meaning – but a historical document that man reinterprets as he improves.

The Church must serve society; as society changes so too must the Church’s teachings. We are all on a journey. Together. Hand in hand…

The irony is that in order to justify this worthy narrative of liberalisation, the Bishop has signed up to a whole new dogma.

If the story of the world is a one way road from bigotry to enlightenment, it must be the case that in the past everyone was bigoted by the modern definition of the word.

The Bishop tells history not as is it really is (a confusing mess of one thing happening after another, of competing philosophies, of moments of light and darkness) but as an instructional lesson.

He tells us that mankind is progressing towards justice and anyone who opposes his concept of reform is doing nothing less than standing in the way of history.

By implication, he’s saying that people who reject gay marriage are the same as those who once owned slaves. That’ll come as a big surprise to black supporters of traditional marriage, like Martin Luther King Jr’s niece, Alveda.

Bishop Nicholas is motivated by good intentions and I’m sure he doesn’t mean to distort the record on purpose.

But he is part of a liberal establishment that sees all social conservatives as simultaneously sexist, homophobic, racist and – worst of all – behind the times.

These reactionaries have laid down in front of the bulldozer of history and refuse to move. I’m sure that Bishop Nicholas would love to drive straight over them.