Why I am an Anglican… and Why I’m Not
This essay is part of a series where I look at various faiths and explore where they have inspired me and where I have issues. Although I am a Christian, I believe that God wants us to explore and learn from other traditions as part of our spiritual journey. This is my journey, no one else’s, and the articles merely record how I see things. They are not intended to offend or convert, nor do I expect you to agree with me. I do however, appreciate feedback, friendship and further learning.
Other essays in the series:
Why I Am A Sikh… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Sufi… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Catholic… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am An Orthodox Christian… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Pagan… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Hindu… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Buddhist… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Jew… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am an Atheist… and Why I’m Not
The Tory Party at Prayer[1]
“The Church of England… is a class religion, the cult of a special society and group, not even of a whole nation, but of the ruling minority in a nation. That is the principal basis for its rather strong coherence up to now. There is certainly not much doctrinal unity, much less a mystical bond between people many of whom have even ceased to believe in grace or Sacraments. The thing that holds them together is the powerful attraction of their own social traditions, and the stubborn tenacity with which they cling to certain social standards and customs, more or less for their own sake. The Church of England depends, for its existence, almost entirely on the solidarity and conservatism of the English ruling class. Its strength is not in anything supernatural, but in the strong social and racial instincts which bind the members of the caste together; and the English cling to their Church the way they cling to their King and to their old schools: because of a big, vague, sweet complex of subjective dispositions regarding the English countryside, old castles and cottages, games of cricket in the long summer afternoons, tea-parties on the Thames, croquet, roast-beef, pipe-smoking, the Christmas panto, Punch and the London Times and all those other things the mere thought of which produces a kind of warm and inexpressible ache in the English heart.”[2]
That summing-up of the Anglican Church by Thomas Merton, former Anglican and later a Roman Catholic Trappist Monk, is damning. It presents one with a religion that no one would wish to follow. Parts of it one can argue against. His words were written over seventy years ago and the world, including the Church of England, has changed greatly since then. Conversely though, even the staunchest defender of the Established Church would have to admit that when he wrote, a lot of what Merton said was true and, what is more, it still is.
Despite that, millions of people today are still officially Anglican, and I am one of them.
An Early Start
My relationship with the Established Church began early in life. Early, though not at the very beginning. I was actually Christened Methodist, at the Temple Street Chapel near to where we then lived. That was because my mum came from a staunchly Methodist family. My dad’s side, far less religious, were Anglican. I don’t think my gran was particularly enamoured with the idea of him wedding a chapelgoer. Still, better that than a Catholic. Such were the ideas of the time and town she grew up in.
But, Christening aside, my childhood was Anglican. I attended the small village primary school where there were hymns every morning in assembly and the vicar came in regularly for a chat. Indeed, despite it being a state school, not sponsored by any church, my early education was saturated with Christian teaching. We had sermons in those assemblies, and we said grace before meals. We would pray in the classroom and RE lessons basically consisted of a helluva a lot of Jesus with just a smattering of Passover, Diwali and Ramadan to sate the appetite of an awareness of diversity in the UK that was only just beginning to sprout.
Outside of school, it was not dissimilar. We were not regular churchgoers, but when we did attend, it was in the ancient parish church of St. Margaret’s. Weirdly, it was an attendance that followed a very strict cycle, but not one recognised by mainstream Christianity. Without fail, we attended the Christmas Carol concert a week or so before Christmas, but never once went Christmas Day. Easter Sunday was also important, but no more so than Mothers’ Day, Harvest Festival and Remembrance Sunday. It was a liturgical cycle based as much on the spiritual pulse of the nation rather than the life of Christ.
And at home, it persisted. My mum was not a fervent believer, but she did believe. Her God — and that of her mum who lived up the road — was the loving, kindly Jesus who sat down with children in meadows and told them nice stories. He did not judge or get angry, but he did comfort you when you were feeling down. His favourite flowers were daffodils, and he was far happier in the meadows around my village than in the arid wastes of Israel where all they did was crucify him.
As a child, I was an avid reader, and one of my favourite books was the majestic Bible for Children as retold by Bridget Hadaway and Jean Atcheson with a forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I loved losing myself in the stories, brought to life by some wonderful images, although I do recall much preferring the drama of the Old Testament to the staid life of Jesus in the New, and I once asked my class teacher if we could stop talking about Jesus all the time and instead do some lessons on Joseph and his brothers, Moses, and Jezebel.
Less piously, as I grew older, I recall the picture of Potiphar’s wife trying to tempt Joseph by loosening his robe being one of the first times I felt a latent sexual arousal for the female form.
Perhaps the largest part of my early brushes with religion came through my own actions. As a child, I was fascinated by history, particularly local history, and in my village that all centred around the parish church. Over seven centuries old and constructed on the site of an older wooden church and, possibly a Pagan worship site, it functioned as the community’s museum as well as its temple. The Lords of the Manor had been Catholics and there were romantic tales of secret passages, secret treasure, and plots to overthrow the monarch hatched in the rectory. The walls were ridiculously thick, the tower had a mediaeval ladder, the wood smoothed to a shine by countless hands and, in the Lady Chapel, the effigies of a knight, with Tudor and Stuart ladies and gentlemen. More than anywhere else, that building caught my imagination. I imagined archers making arrows forged from the branches of the yews in the churchyard, ladies in fine gowns kneeling to pray, druids sacrificing on a stone altar back in the mists of time. Inside, the building, opened by an enormous iron key, there was a musty aura of sanctity and reverence and painted above the door to the tower, the immortal words, “This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven!”. From my earliest years I made a subconscious mental connection: old is holy, new is less so.
As I grew, this quiet, non-threatening, history-soaked, local faith stayed with me. Jesus was no scary judge but a friend. I chatted to him as I strolled around the lanes and fields of my adolescent years and, even after I discovered alcohol and adulthood, I still felt that there was a certain sacredness in visiting a church. Indeed, at university, I even attended an Alpha course at the local Anglican church, although that was perhaps as much due to the free food provided and the attendance of a certain young lady named Rachel whom a friend and I were rather smitten with.
Potiphar’s wife is with us still.
Leaving the Garden
But as I tentatively left the Garden of Eden that was my village and childhood and explored the world, I came into contact with other ideas. This essay series has been a summary of much of those explorations. Contrary to my primary school education, not everyone believed in Jesus, indeed, a lot of people simply didn’t believe at all. And, in the open marketplace of religious ideas, a Church founded on the whim of a king who wanted to get divorced and steal all the wealth of the papacy, did not seem so sure and certain. Buddhism taught me the importance of impermenance, where had that been in my childhood lessons? Hinduism and Paganism taught me that many gods might not be a bad thing after all. Sikhism taught me that seeking converts is not necessarily an act of piety. Catholicism taught me that the female aspect of the Divine matters. Paganism taught me that it’s not just the Christians who are martyrs and that the very Englishness of my Anglicanism can be expressed in other ways. And so on.
And within the Church there are issues. The Anglo-Catholic parish church where I live now tries to be as Catholic as possible and abhors the idea of female priests. Are they right? My gut says no, but their services are a lot more fulfilling than the paired down liturgy at St. Margaret’s. Whilst at the opposite end of the Anglican spectrum are the Evangelicals with their simplified, black and white, judgemental theology. I’ve never felt happy in their camp, yet they claim to be inspired by the same Jesus as I am. How can that be?
And how can members of a church so in touch with the land and traditions be scared of Halloween?
And then there is St. Margaret’s itself. I still attend but much of the aura of mystery has been stripped away by the onset of adulthood. And as a member of the Parochial Church Council, then the sublime faith that offers a gateway to heaven is instead reduced to a committee meeting where matter like whether the drive should be tarmacked or should a fifth hymn be included in the Sunday service are discussed in great detail.
It is enough to make anyone an atheist.
So, am I still an Anglican?
Erm… yes.
In fact, not only am I an Anglican but I have never seriously thought about being anything else. It is true that, if asked, I always say that if I had to change church, I would become Orthodox and if I had to change faith, I would become Pagan, but I have never seriously considered shifting to either. That may change over the coming decades but, as things stand, it is not so. Indeed, I probably feel surer in my Anglicanism now than I ever did and it is worth exploring why.
Firstly, whilst there is a lot that I struggle with — the stripped-back liturgy, the connections with the monarchy, the militarism around Remembrance Sunday, etc — none of these are central to Anglicanism. I can be an Anglican and be a republican. Sure, it raises a few eyebrows when I vote against anything celebrating the royal family in a PCC meeting, but it is not a cause for excommunication. Sure, the paired-back liturgy is annoying, but it is not mandated. More traditional, more spiritually-fulfilling liturgies are allowed. As too are white poppies on Remembrance Sunday. The central tenets of the faith are not affected.
And that allowing is important. The Church of England works hard to include everyone. Yes, it does not always succeed. In the global Anglican communion, there are rows around attitudes towards homosexuality (especially from some of the more conservative African communions), but it still holds together. The Church tries to include all. Unlike the Catholic Church, all those who receive Communion in their own church are allowed to partake in an Anglican service. Yes, you may not believe in transubstantiation, but conversely you might go for that position. There is room for all.
And that matters. In my essays around Orthodoxy and Catholicism, I criticise how one is expected to accept a theological straitjacket, how they can be exclusive and bar the door to a newcomer. The Church of England has tried hard not to be like that and, as such, it should be celebrated and supported. I have liberal-minded friends who have converted to strict conservative creeds (various) and then who constantly rail against the misogyny, homophobia, and inherent conservatism in their new faiths, wishing to change them into something more accepting and open. Well, I am happy to say that I have never had that issue. Not once. True, there are Anglicans with different opinions to me on the ordination of women or the marriage of gay people, but they never judge and never exclude.
And that to me is a greater proof of God at work than any textual justification.
Also, the Anglican Church does not take itself too seriously. Vicars are often a figure of fun rather than stern authority. But isn’t that a good thing? I mean, I find The Life of Brian funny, and it is reassuring that I am not condemned for having that reaction. In all the talk of the might and majesty of God, what is most often forgotten is that He — or She — has a sense of humour.
Finally, though, I guess the Church of England just feels right for me. I go on a lot in this essay about my childhood, and I do that for a reason. Any psychologist will tell you that your childhood matters. Dig into any issue and it often has its roots there. When our minds are being formed, the influences upon them make a huge difference. And, for better or worse, Anglicanism was the prevailing one on my religious formation. When I meet God, I meet him walking along an English country lane, not in an Arabian desert or on the banks of the Ganges or in the mountains of Japan. True, I can go to those places, enjoy my time there and even have a spiritual encounter there, but they will always be alien, always belong to someone else.
What I am about to say would not be true for an African, a Vietnamese person or even an American or Australian with the same racial heritage as me, for it is our childhood experiences that form us. And so, God for me, is to be found over a cup of tea in a market town café, by a pool in an ancient woodland, on a windswept moor or a Welsh clifftop, in a pretty village of ancient cottages or, most of all, within the welcoming embrace of St. Margaret’s, Draycott-en-le-Moors.
For God wants us to know Him as ourselves. He does not wish for us to change our name or put on foreign clothes. To do so might be fun as a game, but it is not true to our deepest selves and that is what God is most interested in.
After all, he is our dearest and oldest friend.
Written 16/09/2023 Stoke-on-Trent & Smallthorne, UK
Copyright © 2023, Matthew E. Pointon
[1] The origin of this oft-quoted maxim is unsure. The earliest reference I can find is by one Maude Royden, a suffragette who, in 1917, said, “The Church should go forward along the path of progress and be no longer satisfied only to represent the Conservative Party at prayer.”
[2] ‘The Seven-Storey Mountain’ by Thomas Merton, p.65–6 (1948)