New Cromwell Society

Each year the synod (~parliament) of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne meets to hear the Archbishop's charge and to discuss and debate issues. Unsurprisingly, within the synod there are different parties (although not explicitly identified as such) that represent different perspectives on different issues. I know some people may hear this and be surprised - as though a church body should be above partisan politics - but the reality is that all human institutions tend to work this way and there's really no fundamental problem with that; it's just a way of coordinating similar voices. (The bigger question is how the parties choose to conduct themselves, but that's for another day... )

On the evangelical* end of the spectrum, the main organising body is the New Cranmer Society, but while this group has a good reputation and great mailing list, I don't think it has yet fully flexed all of its muscles. The main activities of the NCS are to coordinate voting tickets for the various elections that are held at synod (and it does an excellent job in this) and to host an annual synod breakfast where evangelicals come together for fellowship and to hear from an encouraging speaker.

While it's worth asking whether NCS could do even more good stuff, there's another related question regarding how much institutional change can really come from above anyway and how much it needs to be driven from the ground. Clearly, this isn't just a question for the Anglican Church, but it is a question that members of the Anglican Church should think about.

I've heard some people suggest that much of the time spend in synod, on diocesan committees, etc, etc, is largely wasted time because the only thing that really makes a difference in the long run is the local church being healthy and switched on and the only way to see this happen - under God - is to put our best efforts into local church ministry. In a way, it can be argued that this was actually Archbishop Cranmer's view too. He worked hard to produce accessible and theologically sound homilies and liturgies for England's parish churches so that the rank and file of the nation's churchgoers would be soundly converted to the Protestant faith. How successful his program was will always be debatable, but this was a key part of his strategy nonetheless. And here in Melbourne, it's certainly the case that the local Anglican churches that have been blessed with a generations of faithful, strong gospel ministry are the ones that are now largest and, as a function of their size, able to have quite an influence on the Diocese overall.

This view certainly resonates with me and my passions. I'd much rather pour energy into local church communities than into things like committees. But it would be naive to think that putting coordinated effort into the broader institutional machinery wasn't also important to the long-term prospects of the church. And the Anglican Church's pre-history in the English Reformation is one that saw as much important change come from the top down as from the bottom up.

If Cranmer may be characterised as the 'theological reformer' of the Church of England, Thomas Cromwell was his political counterpart. And it would be fair to say that Cranmer's work, which really blossomed under Edward VI, may never have had anywhere near as much impact if Cromwell hadn't first worked the political landscape so effectively under Henry VIII. Cromwell's role in things like the Reformation Parliament, the distribution of English Bibles and the dissolution of the monasteries - however you assess them morally - were clearly critical to the Church of England becoming what it eventually became.

So perhaps it would indeed be worth Melbourne's New Cranmer Society choosing to get even more involved in the political scene. And if it does, perhaps it should mark the decision by renaming itself the New Cromwell Society! Of course, Cromwell didn't end well and it's hard to always read his motives so the connotations may not be so positive. But then again, when you look into it, this isn't really so different for Cranmer.


PS. For a great read on Cromwell, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is an historical novel that won the 2009 Booker Prize. Well worth the time even if English Church history isn't your hobby.


* The word 'evangelical' doesn't carry the same meaning in the Anglican church as it does in American politics.