Questions & Answers: 'Risen Today', the Resurrection as Good News now

Question:

'Where was the risen Christ when children were being abused in Jersey?'

Archbishop:

Somebody said to me that there's always the risk of underrating evil. The short answer to the question has to be that the risen Christ was, as he always is, in the people he has called to him who are called to make such abuse impossible: who are called to resist all those things which lead people into horrendous and cruel and inhuman actions. Then many Christians would say, as I would want to say myself, in some sense the risen Christ is in those victims, his wounds re-opened in them. Always risen, and yet never without the wounds. Pascal in the seventeenth century said 'Jesus will be in agony till the end of the world, and we must not sleep during that time'. That's a phrase that holds both those things together – our calling, that we have to keep awake, and the agony of Jesus in the vulnerable, in some way persists through that time, holding that together with belief in the Resurrection. It's part of this 'living in the overlap' in the most difficult way possible and nothing said about that ought to make it comfortable. The Resurrection is not a comfortable doctrine, actually. It's an exhilarating, life-changing belief, but it's not there to make us feel better. And from time to time it's very important that we allow our 'feeling better' to be punctuated by the reality of that continuing agony, and therefore our continuing call.

Question:

'What actually is the concrete difference that the Resurrection makes? What's practically available to us, post-Resurrection, that wasn't, pre-Resurrection?'

'What is available to us that wasn't available to Moses or Isaiah?'

Archbishop:

What's practically available to us post-Resurrection is the freedom to know God as Father. It's there as a metaphor, patchily, occasionally in the Old Testament. It's there as something utterly foundational and comprehensive in the New Testament. I think that's the difference: because of the Resurrection, we know God in a fuller, and therefore a radically different way, and we receive the Spirit in a different way, bringing this particular form of life to being in us, which is Christ-shaped. And what God made known to Moses or Isaiah is real, true and transforming,but itself looking forward all the time, to something deeper and greater, which is what the Resurrection is about.

Question:

'How do you balance silence in prayer with the role of intercession?'

'How do you tell the difference between the voice of God and sanctified common sense?'

Archbishop:

I've yet to hear any absolutely infallible and credible recipes for recognizing the voice of God straight away. If I ever get the chance to talk to the prophet Samuel about it, I may well ask him! I think the voice of God is much more like the gradually flowering discernment with the help of other Christians and with the help of your own common sense, thinking 'that seems to me to be the course of action; that chimes/resonates with the sort of God I'm praying to'. And it doesn't very often happen rapidly. It may be for some people who are deeply steeped in prayer and mature in holiness and whose minds are so habitually aligned to God, that that discernment process is a bit shorter. But for most of us, I think, there is quite a bit of that checking it out and turning it over, matching it up with how God works in your own life and in other people's lives.

Question:

'A question about Eucharistic liturgy and 'de-cluttering'.'

Archbishop:

I think nearly all liturgy needs a bit of de-cluttering and it's not so much a matter of having fewer words as having a bit more space between them. It's about the style in which we do our worship. I've been in highly elaborate (some would say fussy) services where there's still been a degree of spaciousness because people are taking their time and not looking anxious and tense about what they're doing. Orthodox liturgies are often like that. I've been in circumstances which I find more where I settle in, where not very much is said or done and the pace is slow and the spaces are obvious and the words are few. There are many ways of it going right and many ways of it going wrong as well, and the going wrong is always when you're trying to fill the space, you're trying to keep talking, to look or sound good: and when the atmosphere of worship conveys anxiety, mental and spiritual clutter, then something's wrong. So, I think I would just come back to that fundamental question about anxiety and the messages we give off as we conduct worship. We need to keep examining ourselves about it.

Question:

'Should we expect things to get better because of the Resurrection, or just to get worse and worse, as Jesus said in Matthew 24?'

Archbishop:

How do you preach that!? In a way it's where I started with the question about Jersey. A lot of me wants to say that I don't expect things to get better or worse. I know with all my believing heart that God is victorious in Jesus Christ and that nothing in heaven or earth in this life or the life to come can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Now, that doesn't tell me whether tomorrow is going to be better or worse than today, it doesn't necessarily give me a confident programme of social reform that I can carry through on the grounds that I believe this is how the kingdom of God comes in. Nor does it lead me to think that it's all necessarily going to get worse and that the appropriate response to our present social situation or whatever is in the literal sense, apocalyptic. Jesus asks, 'when the son of man comes, will he find faith one earth?' As if Jesus is saying to us 'nobody's going to know exactly what it is that's there at the point when it's all wrapped up and he's revealed in glory'. There is no fixed programme for the future because there is always freedom. But the very fact of that freedom is established more deeply, more lastingly by the Resurrection victory. So I think we need to preach what so many of the spiritual masters have recommended: and that is detachment, not in the sense of chilly detachment, but in the sense of being able to look with equanimity at a difficult future and at a promising future and, as St Paul says (II Cor 8.2, 9), to know how to abound and how to endure poverty. The reality of God and the trustworthiness of God and the finality of God's victory in Christ don't depend on things just getting better: which is consoling really, given that we're at present in a very uncertain period in the history of our country and our continent and indeed our civilization, and a very challenging and uncertain point in the history of our Church.

Question:

'If change is possible, what sort of changes need to happen within the Anglican Communion for the Lambeth Conference to happen with integrity?'

Archbishop:

I'll answer that at the level at which it matters to have it answered, and that is: the Lambeth Conference will take place with integrity when people come to it prepared to give thanks for each other as fellow Christians; prepared to be honest with each other; and prepared to let go of certain things for the sake of the integrity of the Body of Christ. That's the challenge to everybody coming to the Lambeth Conference, myself included, and it doesn't make for an easy meeting or an easy prospect: but it's what we have to pray for.

Question:

'Do we struggle for justice etc with the expectation of change in the world? Or do we do these things as obedient citizens of the world to come?'

Archbishop:

I think you may see that part of the answer to that has already been suggested. We do things for justice and so forth because they're right. We do things because they reflect the glory and the justice of God. That's why we do any righteous action: we do it so that God's gift in us may bear fruit. And if that changes things substantially in the world, well hooray! If it doesn't, God is being honoured. But what Christians do know is that even small things in the economy of God can make a bigger difference than you could ever imagine, and that's one reason why it's worth doing things because they're right. You never know what seeds a righteous action might sow. I am reminded of the wonderful story of Desmond Tutu's account of his first meeting with Trevor Huddleston, when Desmond was a little boy in Soweto, and how he'd seen Trevor raising his hat to Mrs Tutu. This was the first time Desmond had seen a gesture of affectionate respect towards a black person from a white person, and that was part of the beginning of his journey. I think one can reasonably say that he made a fair bit of difference in this day and age! And I don't imagine that when Trevor raised his hat to one of the local ladies in the Soweto parish, he thought he was starting the train of events that would finally explode in the Desmond Tutu we know and love: he did it because it was the right thing to do; honouring God and God's people. So, never mind the scale; do it.

Question:

'In what ways would you challenge the underlying worldview of atheistic scientists like Richard Dawkins?'

Archbishop:

I think I'd probably tell him he's wrong!

It's actually been quite interesting in the last year or two, getting to know Richard Dawkins a little. In his own sphere he can write the most wonderful things about the mysteries of God's world – it's exhilarating. Where I would challenge him would be to ask if there is any way of understanding that the exhilaration in the richness of reality which is the mainspring of his scientific research, could be connected with the act of faith? Because to go into scientific research is in itself an act of faith, you believe that it's going to make sense. Here's a problem you don't see the way out of: well let's start on a hugely complicated, risky, expensive process of research, on the off-chance that it may finally come together. I think that's a bit like the act of faith, a trust that the world is trustworthy.

Richard and I have had a couple of conversations on this, and quite recently we were recording together something to celebrate centenary of Darwin. And interestingly, he does understand the sense of awe and excitement in the scientist's relationship with the world: and yet I think he feels that the way we believers talk is so irrational, sentimental and empty that he just cannot see any connection. So there's the challenge, and those are the grounds on which I'd want to try and meet him and engage. 'Do you see that there is an element of stepping outin faith, you're not always acting on evidence, you're projecting what the world just might be like?' There's something in common with faith. 'Do you see also that the overflowing exuberance of scientific research itself has an element in it of love and gratitude, and that maybe the natural thing to do with love and gratitude is to direct them towards their proper source?'

I think we can have rather better conversations at that level, rather than just going round and round (as we sometimes do) with arguments about the nature of creation, what Christian theology does and doesn't claim about it, and so on. Scientists are very interesting to talk to, and so many of them – while they don't like being thought to be conventional Christians – do have a religious dimension in their approach to their work, and I would underrate the importance of that in our culture. The trouble is – and Dawkins bears some responsibility for this – that we have a climate in which it's taken for granted that science is about hard stuff and religion is soft, and flabby and soppy: that science asks the hard questions and religion gives easy answers to hard questions; that science is precise and religion is woolly, and so on. Those are the things we need to challenge in our culture as a whole. Because so many people have bought into what is actually a thoroughly mythological and sentimental view of science, as the way in which we control the world. And the work of John Gray – a philosopher from the London School of Economics – is very interesting on this, because he is a non-believer and is very, very critical of this rather false, exaggerated view of what science can deliver.

Question:

'Can the Church of England carry on as the established Church, when the future king wants to be known as 'defender of faiths'?'

Archbishop:

I think so, because whatever he wants to be known as, he will be known as Defender of the Faith – it's on the pound coins! Or to be a little more precise: the monarch of this country is at the moment not simply instituted by some constitutional process, but anointed in the context of a service of Holy Communion. That's what the monarchy of this country still is, and as long as that's the case, something is still there. Whatever the individual views of the monarch - and I guess many monarchs over the last few hundred years have had some quite strange individual views about religion – that is how our polity, our state system overall, recognizes where its centre is. I find myself very much in two minds or more about the desirability of establishment in principle, having been for a long time very happily, a bishop in a disestablished Church, where day to day I didn't notice very much difference! What I'm a little apprehensive about is if you have a push for disestablishment coming from the sort of people who just want to see religion marginalized in public debate and discussion: that would be bad news for both Church and State. Can we cope as a Church without the State link? Of course we can – this is the Church of God! But at the moment I don't feel I want to join any kind of Gadarene rush towards disestablishment, precisely because we are at a rather delicate time in our understanding of the place of religion in public in this country. I wouldn't particularly want to collude with those bits of our culture that want to push us to the edge and say that the natural way of being a citizen in this country is to be secular: it's just not true. So, I have mixed feelings, but I don't worry too much about what Prince Charles may have said.

Question:

'Given that that the Gospel began in the Greek culture, how much do we have to adapt to make sense of the Gospel to people today?'

Archbishop:

I think that what happens at every point as the Gospel moves out and around in the world, is that it takes hold of different cultures and it changes them. The Gospel began in a Greek culture and it began - as Acts 17 reminds us – with an extremely un-Greek emphasis on the resurrection of the body: which is why the Athenians got so panicky when Paul started talking about resurrection instead of all these nice general philosophical ideas. So the Gospel made a difference in Greek culture. Some people have rather superficially said that the Creed represents the triumph of Greek philosophy in the Church: no, it doesn't, it represents what the Church did to Greek philosophy. The Creed represents the battered and bruised remnants of Greek philosophy when the Gospel of the Resurrection had been let loose on it for a couple of centuries, making its own new language and categories. We may think these are Greek, alien, remote ideas, but they were ideas forged as the Church grappled with the intellectual world of its time and brought out new things. I think that's always the pattern. It will be very interesting to see what kind of theology comes out of China in the next century, where the Church is growing at the most phenomenal rate - the conservative estimate is fifty million protestant Christians already, and that's probably too conservative, the figure is nearer ninety million – and Christians that I've met in China are seeking to find ways of being authentically Chinese and orthodox-ly Christian. It's no easy task, but it's a rather exciting prospect and it means we can never just say it's a matter of being faithful to the Gospel and ignore the culture, but waiting to see what difference the Gospel makes as it engages. What doesn't change about the Gospel is the sense of knowing who the God is that we worship; the God who raised Jesus from the dead, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the God who continues to speak in Scripture, to act in the Sacraments, to live in the Body of Christ. That doesn't change, because everything flows out from that, all the cultural engagement flows from that newness, the real good news, and all these things are fresh in the light of the Resurrection. So I don't think we can predict in general terms what differences will be made, but yes we engage with our culture we try to make the most of it, we try to make it serve a proclamation of these things and from time to time we need to be shaken up a bit by being reminded that some of what we thought was intrinsic to our way of talking about God, is actually cultural. There are plenty of instances of that in the history of the Church. So, no generalities, but I think we need a clear sense of where the fundamentals are, and then be prepared for some adventures.

Question:

'Does facing the fear of death really banish all other fears: of failure; of loneliness?'

Archbishop:

I wouldn't like, again, to generalize about people's experience but what I was suggesting was that behind the fear of failure and loneliness is often just the fear of being out of control: and death is perhaps the ultimate form of being out of control; the ultimate passivity and helplessness. And maybe if that fear of passivity and helplessness can be addressed by the good news: that communicates itself to, and makes a difference to, all the other fears from which we suffer.

Question:

'How do you communicate the story of Good Friday and Easter when it's 'not even on the agenda of our post-Christian society?'

Archbishop:

One of the ironical advantages of being a post-Christian society is that stories we find familiar and perhaps even over-familiar can become very fresh and very converting for people who are hearing them for the first time. And I would say this is opportunity, not just crisis. When on occasion I've been doing school assemblies in non-Christian schools, I've sometimes asked if anyone knows the story of the Good Samaritan, or whatever, and the general answer is 'no', and then you have the chance to tell them the story for the first time. And what strikes me again and again is how amazingly gripped they are by these stories when they hear them for the first time: that's an opportunity. But I think we need a strategy (and some people have got one) of using all the literary and imaginative and artistic resources of our day, to convey the Christian message. The Bible Society has done some brilliant little dramas, some of which were on television a couple of years ago, with Gospel content but with very little overt or familiar religious language. And there's a great deal can be done in that way: I think we need very, very sophisticated apologetic strategies to get such narratives across, and I think it can be done.

Question:

'How will my father, who died when I was young, recognize me in heaven?' (Question from a ninety-nine-year-old woman)

Archbishop:

I can't give you, obviously, a clear answer about that, because I'm not in heaven. And yet, it seems to me that what we're promised is not simply the slightly fairy-tale picture of people, as it were, recognizing each other across a crowded room in heaven: what we're promised is that we are taken into God's nearer presence together and that all the relationships that have been part of us and our reality on earth, are part of the Resurrection reality. And whatever in that is represented by 'my father recognizing me' is there: how, I don't know. But that's the trust; that we are there together; all those formative relationships are there.

Question:

'People have used religion to inoculate themselves against the Good News?'

Archbishop:

Getting out from under religion is one of the things that is very very challenging for Christians and others, and the difference between religion in this rather negative sense and belief in the Gospel, is that religion is so often about what I do and the Gospel is about what God does. That's the bottom line. When people are most anxious and most pre-occupied about 'what should they do?' should do, can do, have done, might do: they do need to be reminded that God does. God acts, and has acted in Christ, and is acting now. That's why good worship moves us away from pre-occupation with what we can do, or should do etc to a focus on what God is doing, will do, in the light of what God has done.

Question:

'Should the Church year begin with Easter rather than Advent?'

Archbishop:

No. I think Easter has to come as the climax of the story and I value the Church year beginning with Advent for the very simple reason that I think we all need annually to be brought back to the point where we haven't yet seen it; to be reminded that there's so much we haven't yet grasped. And for four weeks to behave as if we've never heard the Christmas story, to behave as is we were Moses and Isaiah, is very good for us because all being well, when the moment comes, we might just think 'my goodness, I never noticed that'. And I think, for a lot of us there's something about Christmas which does have that element in it, just a moment when a line in a carol strikes us, even when we've sung it three thousand times, and we think 'gosh, that's true isn't it?' and something comes together. The process of livingthrough from Advent to Easter: walking through the process matters just as doing Holy Week properly, matters, starting with Palm Sunday and working right through to Easter Day. During that Holy Week we have to be the crowds welcoming Jesus; the disciples running away; the crowd shouting for Jesus' blood. We have to be there in the middle of it, and only then, with all the guilt and the muddle and the misery that implies, do the alleluias of Easter morning really mean what they should mean. So, no short cuts there: we start with Advent.

Question:

'How can we make our voices heard through the fear being stirred in part by the media in our own situation?'

Archbishop:

I think you go on telling the good, ordinary stories. When there are scares about Muslims, or young people or whatever in the media, it's very important for all of us to be ready and willing to say 'but these are our neighbours and I can tell you why I think they're our neighbours, I'll tell you this story and this story about it. Often the local media will be friendly and helpful and supportive about good stories. The national media is allergic to good stories. I see no quick way round that, but it is important to go on being ready to say 'who are our neighbours?' and if that rings any scriptural bells for you, well and good.

Question:

'From all that you've shared, what one point would you choose for a primary school assembly this Easter?'

Archbishop:

Well, as somebody who really loves doing primary school assemblies, I find that rather a welcome question. I think it might be this: the disciples ran away from Jesus, and lots of other people hated Jesus and hurt him; and neither the disciples running away nor the hate and the hurt made a difference to what Jesus wanted and what Jesus did. And when we run away and when we hate and hurt, God doesn't run away. God didn't run away from Jesus, he brought him back from the dead. So, when you're frightened and inclined to run away, when you're thinking it's hard to do the right thing, and when we're inclined to be unforgiving and hurtful or you're aware that you've done something wrong, God's not run away. Easter is about God not running away. He didn't run away on the cross, he didn't run away in the tomb, he brought Jesus from the dead.

Question:

'What is the role of the parish priest today?'

Archbishop:

It is to be in the middle of both the Christian and the non-Christian community as somebody who 'keeps the door of the empty tomb open' in people's lives. Someone who holds that openness of the world to God: that through that great emptiness, the empty tomb, and the stone moved aside; through that God came through and made a difference in the world. And we who preach the resurrection have that responsibility – our holding that door open. Now that means in terms of the Christian community that the parish priest is someone who preaches and celebrates and – if that's your tradition – hears confessions too: keeping the doors of grace open, reminding people in the household of faith that again and again God comes in and is free to come in. But in the wider community - because the parish priest is as we all know, not just there for the believers – it's finding all the ways possible of saying to folk 'there's more to you than you realise', 'things are possible that you didn't know'. And that's where the parish priest's involvement in all sorts of community work and regeneration and keeping the wheels of common life turning, is a theological thing: not just doing it for secular reasons, but doing it out of obedience to the Risen Christ. And that sense that here is someone in the middle of a community 'keeping the door open' I think that's the very heartbeat of the parish priest's life, and I find myself immensely moved by the courage and the imagination with which parish priests up and down the country do that day after day, hour after hour. I so glad that that is done.

© Rowan Williams 2008