Panel  included the Archbishop Rowan Williams, Rev’d Dr Angela Tilby and Rev’d Jonathan Clark. See Image Gallery Below »

Catholic and Evangelical: Two Sides of the Same Coin - Affirming Catholicism Conference held at Bristol Cathedral, July 20th, 2009.

A National Day with The Archbishop of Canterbury

The local press headlined it, ‘Archbishop says we should listen to each other.’ Over three hundred people from all over the UK and Ireland gathered to hear a far more nuanced message than that from Archbishop Rowan. Whereas evangelicals and anglo-catholics are often seen as holding opposing views about the heart of the Christian message, it was Methodist Gordon Rupp who argued that Luther and Wesley were seeking to recover the depth of catholic theology. In a lecture on the Reformation, when asked, ‘So what do you mean by Protestant?’ a Jesuit responded, ‘Exactly what you mean by Catholic.’

The Reformers believed that the Church in which they grew up was not a catholic church. It talked to itself and did not listen. It needed to be driven back to the Scriptures. Evangelicals today can be too hasty and not listen to the other.

The Church of England is under authority, answerable. Not all the answers are available but in our uncertainty we are called to explore, not through an unfocussed ‘spirituality, but by being invited to enter into a reality. The current quest for spirituality is good but we must beware its consumerist aspect. It can be sought to make an individual more at ease with the world whereas it should make us uneasy as we come to see more clearly the world’s ills.

Some evangelicals reduce the Bible to a series of proof texts. Some Catholics ask why we need the bible at all. ‘I’ve read the Bible.’ ‘I’ve been to Mass.’ This is reductionist because both the Bible and the Mass are endlessly different. We have to ‘become like little children’ and listen all over again.

Authority, for evangelicals is usually regarded as Scripture; for catholics, the Church. But Scripture is more than an historical document, the Church more than a sociological phenomenon. Scripture is what God wants us to know for our life’s flourishing and its truth lies not in ‘How many children did Nebuchadnezzar have?’

The Bible is not a repository of answers but is inexhaustible. It is always, as Werner Peltz wrote, ahead of us. It has a supernatural, not a magic property. We will never get to the end because it is always drawing us further.

The Nicene Creed is not so much a list of dogmas but a series of invitations.

Because Christ comes to us in the other, the Church is one of the ways in which God challenges the self. Because we need to live with what is strange, it contains not just the people we like.

Our missionary imperative is not ‘Here is the truth’ but to offer a unifying language to a divided and fractured world. What is given is to be shared. We are recipients of that which we wouldn’t know by ourselves. Mystery requires growth in a territory into which you move rather than simply occupy and seal off. Thus the Bible is something to be read and shared, not in private but in the life of the assembly. It is a book designed to be read in community: a community of readers and interpreters learning together, mutually questioning and building each other up.

The Archbishop celebrated a Solemn Eucharist for the Feast of S. Mary Magdalene, during which Canon Angela Tilby preached: Like Mary Magdalene our small part of the Catholic Church is possessed by fragmenting forces. At the personal level Mary Magdalene represents us all at our most needy and desperate. Whatever the demons that fragmented her life, all the pieces had to come together for the sake of her wholeness. It is critical that Affirming Catholics do not give up on our unity and our communion but we should not seek to be too respectable. The gift of Anglo-Catholicism has been to challenge the sometimes po-faced conventionality of the Church of England, sometimes with incense, sometimes with gin; always with a love of the poor, the sad, the estranged and the strange. Mary Magdalene is patron of those whom the Church finds hard to accept, the shamed, the passionate, the heterodox, the wronged and perhaps, above all, for those who are not believed.

The Bishop of Salisbury chaired a panel discussion with the Archbishop, Canon Tilby and Jonathan Clark, answering questions from the floor. Issues included: at a time when all authorities are viewed with suspicion, the gaps are filled by the demonic in a way not visible or nameable and there is a ‘thinning out of the humanity’ of people in public positions so ordinary people who ‘have a life’ should discern whether that are called to be involved; Muslim leaders want the church to have more influence and witness; Christianity is distinctly about reconciliation; money is often a metaphor in the New Testament yet modern capitalism treats everything as a metaphor for money, everything is commodified; God has allowed there to be all sorts of Christians, perhaps, in response to our inability to attain Christian unity so the diversity of gifts reminds us that we can’t do it on our own; secular people seek a community where people can feel they belong and ask questions, which sounds pretty much like the church; protestants and catholics don’t really know each other; people have always been called to protest, to stand out, yet you can’t remain stuck in protesting mode for ever but need to move to the lost and to all creation.

We are grateful to the chapter and vergers of Bristol Cathedral for their help in ensuring that everything went smoothly and to the Bishop of Bristol who assured Archbishop Rowan of our support for him in his difficult role.

Original Details - For Archive Purposes

20 July 2009
10.30 am-3.30 pm
BRISTOL CATHEDRAL

£10 Per person including Lunch

(coffee & tea on arrival and at lunchtime)

Programme Was

10.30 a.m.  Arrival – Coffee

11.00 a.m. Welcome – The Bishop of Bristol ‘Catholic and Evangelical – two sides of the same coin?’ – Address by Archbishop Rowan Williams

11.40 a.m. Questions

12:00 p.m. Noon Break

12.15 p.m. The Eucharist Celebrant: The Archbishop Preacher: The Revd Dr Angela Tilby

1.30 p.m. Lunch

2.15 p.m. Panel Discussion:

• Archbishop Rowan Williams
• Rev’d Dr Angela Tilby
• Rev’d Jonathan Clark

3.15 p.m. Closing Devotions and Blessing - The Bishop of Salisbury

3.30 p.m. Depart

Location

Bristol Cathedral

A map is available here » with Bristol Cathedral marked in the centre (link opens in new window)

If you are travelling by Train: Travel to Bristol Temple Meads, then catch no 8 or 9 bus on station forecourt to College Green.

Plane: Travel to Bristol International Airport, then catch the airport bus to College Green.

Car: If coming into Bristol by A4, B4053 or B4466 follow signs to the Centre and then to College Green.

Car Parking: Millennium Square – end of Cannon’s Road (behind Cathedral) 521spaces/24 hours manned. A six minute walk and crossing of Anchor Road.

The following car parks have limited parking time:

• College Street – behind Council Offices, NW of Bristol Cathedral. Approx 100 spaces/Pay & Display. A two minute walk.
• Brandon Street – behind Council Offices, WNW of Cathedral. Approx 50 spaces/ Pay & Display. A two minute walk.
• College Square – West of Cathedral, by Abbey Gatehouse. Eight spaces only/Pay & Display, one minute walk; ideal for less mobile.

Limited Disabled Facilities