After The Deluge: Essays Towards the Desecularization of the Church

Written by William Oddie (ed.) Reviewed By John S. Went

The main thesis of this collection of essays is that the church in the West faces a major crisis, greater even than that at the time of the Reformation. In his introduction William Oddie, the editor, pinpoints a growing gulf between the ‘faithful’ and those who often speak for the church at a national or institutional level. He draws attention to the failure of the church to attract new converts and to the increasing loss of the committed from the institutional church. The unifying theme for all the essayists is that the root cause of this malaise is the church’s flirtation with secular society, allowing her agenda and her methods of understanding to be determined by Western post-Enlightenment culture. Dean Inge spoke of the danger of the church that is married to the spirit of the age finding herself widowed in the next generation. Today’s church is at special risk because of the rapid contemporary change of ideas.

William Oddie traces generally the background of secular thought invading the church. From the contemporary scene he selects David Jenkins and traces the roots of both his political thought and his radical theology in secularism and especially the idea of a non-interventionist God. Oddie’s plea, a plea reiterated in the book, is for a return to the traditional Christian approach to understanding, reflected in Augustine and Anselm especially, namely that faith must be the starting-point of the church’s intellectual journey rather than its hoped-for conclusion.

Wayne Hankey, a Canadian Classics Professor, tackles the issue of biblical foundations. He shows how disbelief, especially in the miraculous and the supernatural, has determined the results of biblical criticism over recent decades. He challenges the appropriateness of such an approach with C. S. Lewis’s words: ‘Everywhere except in theology there has been a vigorous growth of scepticism about scepticism.’ He challenges too the impact of secularism in Praxis-oriented theology. Roger Beckwith, Warden of Latimer House, highlights a distinctively biblical view of wisdom, dependent on God and his self-disclosure rather than on human insight and resources, defending such a view of wisdom against any charge of anti-intellectualism. An Oxford Nuclear Physics Lecturer, Peter Hodgson, explores the relationship between science and religion, showing how modern science sprang from a distinctively Christian world-view. He argues that 20th-century scientific understanding, especially physics, by no means rules out a Christian world-view; various scientific views of creation are reconcilable with a Christian view of God’s relationship as creator and sustainer to our physical universe. James Munson traces some secular roots showing how politics came to be central to the new secular society. He traces the church’s developing involvement with the political arena especially in Non-conformist churches. The final essay, by the Bishop of London, challenges whether a political ideology, even a supposedly Christian one, can ever be compatible with the gospel. He examines several areas where the presuppositions and methods of an ideological approach are in conflict with Christian truth.

This collection of essays is a timely reminder of the danger of dated secular thought determining the methods and results of biblical study and Christian understanding. In its desire to be ‘with it’ the Christian church is in danger of losing hold of her distinctive biblical message and of failing to make a spiritual impact where there is recognized spiritual need. Those engaged in theological study need to question inherited presuppositions and be sure they are not simply following the ‘spirit of the age’. The essayists are right to call for a renewed commitment to faith as the presupposition of theological study, a presupposition leading to God-given understanding. However, I find some difficulty with the approach of some of the contributors. The style is sometimes quite polemical, resulting in some unwarranted conclusions. Is scientific achievement in the USSR really less significant because of the absence of Christian commitment? Is the decline in Non-conformity attributable solely to an abandonment of the traditional understanding of the gospel in favour of socio-political concerns? Is commitment to the ordination of women to the priesthood simply an expression of secularism invading the church? Two of the essays hint that the relationship between the Christian church and society is not completely straightforward, but it would be good to have seen a greater recognition of the difficulties involved historically in working out this relationship, a greater recognition of the complexity of hermeneutical issues, a greater recognition that among Christians committed to the authority of Scripture as God-given there are today many different solutions to various complex issues, such as the place for and nature of Christian socio-political involvement. Again, I wonder who the book is directed to. There is a tendency in some of the essays to assume a given position without arguing in such a way as to convince the would-be critic. For all that it is good to read a book that challenges the secular presuppositions that so often lead to liberal theology and a purely ‘social gospel’.


John S. Went

Wycliffe Hall, Oxford