Review: The Naked God – Fighting for a Graceful Humanity

Rowan Williams describes The Naked God as a “tremendously engaging and positive book”, and indeed it is just that. The author, Vincent Strudwick, must be at least 84 years old but writes with the fire, passion and conviction of a man half his age. And the book is a strange amalgamation of autobiography, 20th-century church history, radical polemic, and cri de coeur for a better world, a better church, and a better outcome for all, especially the dispossessed, the poor, and the suffering. .

So what is your book about? Essentially, it is about reimagining the role of the church, specifically the Anglican community (but its principles extend to all churches), in the modern world. Citing Christopher Dawson’s ideas that the church has had six different and distinctive epochs: the Apostolic, the Fathers, the Carolingian, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, and the Enlightenment, but is now approaching a seventh and very different epoch. U.S. And, Strudwick argues, this new era is revealing the very real inadequacies of contemporary Anglican beliefs and practices both during the 20th century and in the present. In the final part of the book, Strudwick presents some glimmers of hope, although I have to say that I personally didn’t find them very hopeful, as I found them patchy: patchy in that they describe small, isolated activities and patchy in that they commendably cover a problem, but unfortunately only in a fragmentary way.

The essence of what is wrong with the Church is summed up in the chapter diagram Towards a Very Strange Church. Here we have three types of response to Christianity: the traditional, the liberal, and the radical. There’s no question where Strudwick’s loyalties lie: the radical. So, for example, in the series of contrasts he draws, under the heading ‘Power’, the traditional wants ‘authority… mediated through a hierarchy’; Whereas the liberal position is “on management”; and finally the radical wants ‘everyone contributes through participation and challenge’. Or let’s take the issue of Ideology: the traditionalists want ‘Divine Right: everything is ordered’; while the liberal sees that ‘the market leads’; and the radical says, ‘the conflict must be recognized and worked through’.

It’s all very admirable, and I especially like his exhaustive and extremely interesting notes that consistently punctuate the text. Strudwick is well-versed not only in the history and traditions of the Anglican church, but also in other denominations, especially Catholics. Even Quakers get a mention (although not in the Index, oddly enough). As his long (and lifelong) association with the Anglican church and his uncompromising refusal to embrace radicalism neared the end, it was to the Quakers that he, through Richard Holloway, turned: “The Quakers They believed in the authority of the inner light…and if the Bible said otherwise, then the Bible was wrong.” On top of that, Strudwick likes and frequently cites poets and literature as well. Wonderful: a little cornucopia of heaven for someone like me.

But with that being said, there are some less enjoyable aspects of this narrative. The autobiographical plot reveals someone who has been at the center of things for a long time, but possibly too obsessed with the center. Firstly, there’s a bit of a nagging feeling about dropping names, especially of all the Archbishops of Canterbury over the decades, but of other luminaries as well. Then, you also seem to think that going through your notes or ideas from lectures held decades ago will be useful or interesting. In his mind, clearly, he’s still fighting those fights, but what I think we need is more basic recaps and moving towards where we are now. A good example of this is where he repeats the ‘guidelines’ for the 1997 Quebec Conference where he was invited to lead by the ‘Anglican Bishop of Quebec, Rt Rev. Bruce Stavert with the title ‘Models for a Changing Church’, and then media guidelines page. Everything is too micro-oriented and the big picture is somewhat blurred by all these details; however, I do not doubt that Strudwick was very pleased to be invited to speak, as is clear from other examples.

Perhaps my biggest criticism, however, would be that for all his energy and enthusiasm for his Church, I’m not sure he really sympathizes with those who disagree, or accurately sees the nature of what he is discrediting. As the book progresses, we feel more and more how in tune with John Robinson’s ‘Honest with God’ position he is, and this position, of course, demythologizes Christianity. It becomes clear that Strudwick does not believe in miracles or other central aspects of the Creeds as traditionally understood, and this has consequences that I think are important.

First of all, while he genuinely wants to help the poor, he seems not to realize that the demythologized version of Christianity he espouses is not something the uneducated (often the poor) easily ‘get’ or ‘understand’; and despite his claim that the personality of Christ is central, it boils down to why bother with Christianity? Do we just need to love people and have lots of soup kitchens? But the problem with that, apparently for Strudwick, is that he would miss the cathedrals of him. Behind the radical, perhaps, a traditionalist in some deep and uncomfortable ways.

He further writes: “Many were horrified to see bishops lining up in the House of Lords to vote against marriage equality, which had so much support in society at large, especially among the younger population that the church so desired.” desperately attract.” This is a complex subject, but one thing I believe to be true: Christianity, and no other religion that I know of, has its policies and beliefs dictated by popular vote or plebiscite. In fact, the Bible wisely advises us not to be satisfied with the thought of this world, but to transform ourselves by renewing our mind. Despite all the analysis and learning, I suspect that Strudwick is simply a partisan: even his phrase ‘marriage equality’ begs the question before determining whether such a thing is right or wrong, good or bad. The early Christians went to their deaths because they didn’t conform to what society thought was right and proper, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to Strudwick even as a spiritual possibility, so obsessed is he with getting people to go to church. and thus vitalizing it.

There’s much to commend in this book, and it’s certainly an interesting read: I didn’t want to put it down, even though I found much in it that struck me as indigestible, naive, and, yes, hopeless. But for an overview of the Anglican church in the 20th century, this is a useful and gripping story, even if it is sometimes overloaded with finicky detail.