Calling on the Spirit in Unsettling Times

Calling on the Spirit in Unsettling Times: Anglican Present and Future

by L.William Countryman

Reviewed by Carol O'Connor

It is good to read a book concerning the identity of contemporary Anglicanism in a time when the Communion is struggling to hold itself together. William Countryman has written a work that speaks to each group within the Anglican Church, and reminds us that the spirit works through us all. He advocates a vision of the church that is not self-referential, claiming 'any kind of certainty or perfection for ourselves.' It is a vision about not creating or maintaining boundaries. Our goal needs to be working 'toward a community in which we can praise one another, accepting one another's gifts with joy and generosity.'

The way we work towards this community is by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is with the spirit that we can find 'new possibility and hope for religious conflicts and internal disputes.’ And the sharing of the gifts given to each of us by the Holy Spirit, in love, is ‘our highest calls as Anglicans.’ However, the 'Spirit doesn't always play nice'; she can be both a builder as well as a wrecker. Sometimes the spirit works in our lives with a 'wrecker's bar' to break down our false idols. These are the times when our images of God have to be broken in order to save us from grave misunderstanding.

Many of the things William Countryman says in the book are not new - the importance of focusing on Jesus, belonging to a communion of saints, the need for humility, the tensions between Liberal, Evangelical and Catholic groups of Anglicans. However, it's how he talks about these foundations of the Anglican faith, and the unique perspective that he brings to bear in this discussion, that makes this work of just over a hundred pages such a refreshing and engaging read.

As always, poet that he is, Countryman links us into the world of many poets from our tradition. The words and prayers of Christina Rossetti feature prominently. Countryman says that she lived in times similar to our own, 'when the church seemed threatened by indifference from without and conflict within.' Her poetry and her prayers have much to teach us.

With Rosetti as his exemplar, Countryman emphasizes that the Anglican Church as a whole should recognise the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit, rather than only scripture or reason, to assist us through these turbulent times. The spirit was present with the disciples at the very beginning, Countryman explains, involved and present to their confusion and uncertainty. And it is by means of the Incarnation that we truly come to know the spirit. We are 'caught by it; outrageous as it is, the Incarnation of Jesus turns out to be revelatory.' Amongst the many images of Jesus that Countryman lists, the two that he is most interested in here are Jesus as Priest and Jesus as Lover.

Countryman has a great ability to speak with a voice that is accessible, imaginative and direct. When Jesus is imaged as Priest, he becomes that person who can help you to 'stand in the presence of God and understand something about what you experience there.' Jesus is the Priest who stands at our side; he or she reveals 'God is love - more yet, that God is in love with you.' Throughout this work Countryman encourages the reader to deepen into the God of love. So Jesus is imaged as our truest friend, our lover, one beside whom we 'feel desire' (even if it is not sexual) to be in his company. This is because we find ourselves there to be more truly ourselves. It is a relationship where there is both a certain deep quality of desire and a fulfilment found. And by accepting this love we are drawn into a 'circle of lovers’ which inspires us to create and share, not just consume.

Countryman often addresses the reader directly, which has the quirky effect of personally involving you in what he is saying. His style invites dialogue. It also models a way of addressing the way we approach the current divisions inside the Anglican church - through dialogue and listening engagement, rather than by issuing pronouncements or lecturing. His approach is gentle and non-threatening. It also attempts to be transparent. Countryman readily concedes to feel, at present, more in tune with the Catholic group of Anglicans, although he has an ongoing ‘love affair’ with all three of these ‘internal sects.’

Though the work is short, it is carefully structured. Having looked at the importance of the spirit and the images of Jesus, having posed the hairy question (Is it really vital that the Anglican church survive?) Countryman goes on to explain that he believes the world would be poorer without it. God is not limited to any single Christian tradition, but the Anglican one holds a breadth and diversity, a 'broad-spectrum God' who communicates to us through sacrament and scripture, which comes together in public worship. After a discussion on ‘the collected writings we call the Bible’, its transmission into our tradition, and its failure on its own to complete our understanding of or relationship with God, Countryman reflects on the importance of and our communion with the saints.

The saints are not just those 'officially' whom we have considered have led role-modeling lives and now passed on. They are all those who have lived and worked among each one of us, helping shape our lives in God. They are signs of God's grace and transformation amongst us, present now, and part of a continuity of the Anglican tradition. It is at this point in his work that Countryman calls on that particular grace, humility. Real humility is 'a deep awareness that we are not God, not even when we are speaking of God, teaching about God, celebrating God.’ He warns that groups within the Communion profess to being custodians of God, but ‘the only kind of God that has custodians is an idol.'

And it is in this context that he begins to speak about each of the three major current divisions within the Anglican Church, each with it's own 'impulse to sectarianism': Liberal, Evangelical and Catholic. Each of these groups has a tendency to over-represent one aspect of the 'three legged stool' of Anglicanism: reason, tradition, scripture. Countryman carefully reflects on the valuable aspects of each group, as well as their more damaging tendencies. He is cautionary about the Liberal tendency to over-emphasise the ‘cerebral intellectual approach to faith’ as though complete in itself. Evangelicals can have the tendency to bind themselves only to scripture, refusing to recognise complexity or even inherent textual contradictions, let alone affirm historical context. Though currently feeling closest to the Catholic tradition, Countryman is cautionary about its tendency to believe in 'entitlement'. In other words, as the proprietors of tradition this group tends to see itself as the arbiters of authentic Anglicanism. Wisely and humbly, he reflects on his own ongoing spiritual journey with this group of Anglicans:

Over time, I began to realize that I had given far too much credence to a definition of tradition that overstated its clarity and unchangingness. I had assumed that the tradition had a clear answer for everything. I had not entirely left the Spirit out of the equation, but I had given her pretty firm directions that she should confine herself to channeling grace through the sacraments and leave orthodoxy to the theologians.

Countryman is passionate about humility and dialogue. Each of these strands of Anglicanism has shown him, at various stages of his life, the face of Jesus and deepened his love and knowledge of God. But each has it's own tendency to commit ‘idolatry.’ And it is at this point that Countryman reveals the seed out of which this book is written:

So truth to tell, I have an ongoing love affair with all three of the internal sects that make up Anglicanism. I have received graces from God through all three. And I get angry at all three. I suppose I get angry partly because I can see myself fully capable of committing all those errors still. But I also get angry because I see our idolatries putting this great gift from God, the Anglican Communion, at risk.

He finishes with a call for all Anglican's to listen to the spirit and join 'in the spirit's building project.' It’s a call for repentance, for a joining together in community. He offers several images of how the church can be a flourishing place: a community of large welcome; a place with deep roots; a temple of worship; a many levelled school; a banqueting house; a place where mercy and truth meet; a place where humanity participates in creation; and - this is my own favourite - a treasure house of spiritual arts.

Countryman closes the work as he opened it: not only with a bid to urge us to hope in the Holy Spirit who will lead us, and a warning that she is ‘clearing her site,’ but also with reference to a poem, by Christina Rosetti: To What Purpose This Waste. It’s a ‘dream vision’, with what Countryman perceives to be a prophetic utterance; ‘if we refuse to join in the worship offered by creation as a whole...we are without faith ourselves and will end by violating the earth.'