St Mellitus College Inaugural Service |
This is just the beginning.
How appropriate that we have heard the story of the beginnings of the re-conversion of London. “Mellitus was consecrated to preach in the province of the East Saxons. Its chief city is London on the banks of the river Thames and is an emporium for many nations who come to it by land and sea.” [Bede’s History]
In the beginning, this Cathedral Church was built in the ruins of what had been once a gracious Roman city. The commercial activity to which Bede refers was centred on the stretch of river by the Strand and Aldwych.
Little by little however a new civilisation emerged from the ruins. It was built out of the labour of Roman monks like Mellitus, Saxons, Normans like Bishop Maurice who built a much grander St Paul’s, Lombards, German merchants in the Steelyard down the hill, Huguenots who played such a large part in founding the Bank of England, the Jewish community of Bevis Marks, those who arrived at Tilbury on the Empire Windrush sixty years ago and so many more.
Everyone had a gift to bring and something fresh emerged as new communities settled here. All the time however the skyline was punctuated by pointers to our moral true north. The moral and spiritual compass of this civilisation was worship of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Faith was its vital spark; faith which means living god-ward with intention and energy.
What has all this to do with our fledgling College?
First the foundations – we are part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church to which Mellitus belonged, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We profess the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the Catholic Creeds. We acknowledge the challenge to proclaim this faith afresh in our own day.
Then our disposition – the Holy Spirit has many witnesses and in this Spirit we look to welcome and embrace. It is good that the College is called by the name of a missionary bishop who was called to serve London and Essex and I rejoice in the presence of the Bishop of Chelmsford and thank God for our partnership in the gospel and the growing sense of unity of purpose in our two Dioceses.
Reflecting on Church History it is obvious that there have been those with a different disposition; those whose preference is for exclusive assemblies of the like minded. The great lay theologian, Sir Thomas Browne who was born in London said of them, “they are complexionally propense to schism and by degrees they will mince themselves into atoms”.
That is not the disposition of this College as we reflect on some of the things which God is doing in our own time.
To communicate the good news which Paul brought to Lystra – “we bring you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God” the gospel community must keep three elements in balance, the institutional, the intellectual and the charismatic.
When I was ordained, churchmanship considerations balked very large and for some people they still do. Now however I detect a new spirit of openness which looks forward to a charismatic catholic orthodoxy, ancient but fresh. There have been suspicions that this College is simply the cloak for a takeover by one of the existing traditions in our church. Great pains have been taken and will be taken to avoid even the impression of this because everyone involved shares the conviction that God in Christ is making all things new.
But our unity as a region and as a part of the one church is too small a canvas against which to assess what God is doing among us. London and Essex may have been an emporium for merchants for Gaul and the odd Jute but now we are the cross roads of a new world. The Western hegemony which has lasted for three hundred years is not over but it is being modified by the re-emergence of the powers of Asia.
The communications revolution has given the Church in this region a special responsibility for world wide dissemination of the good news that we should turn from the vain attempt to secure our happiness and fullness of life by acquiring more and more things and as Paul says turn to the living God. We live at a time and in a place where many people have much to live with but little to live for. We have a gospel to proclaim, especially now that the skyline is dominated by the priapic symbols of getting and spending.
We are thinking too small. We have insufficient godly ambition. We risk becoming a church averse to risk taking; a domesticated church immobilised in the parochial comfort zone. St Mellitus has a potential world wide educational role. What we do here for Jesus Christ will reverberate throughout the world for good or ill.
But this does not mean that we have no need of intellectual humility and the courage to apply our faith - our intentional and energetic orientation to the living God - to the new knowledge and possibilities which are opening up. Sir Thomas Browne again referred to those who “too rashly charged the troops of error and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth”.
In so many fields the modern project which encouraged the development of art, morals and science in isolation from one another is giving way to a new holism. One example involves what the Germans call “das Adam Smith problem” – how to relate the immensely influential discourse on economic laws in Smith’s Wealth of Nations to what he says about human flourishing in his early book The theory of Moral Sentiments. It is possible to paint a picture through statistics of increasing prosperity while at the same time people’s quality of life is actually deteriorating.
Theology and science; theology and economics should not declare a truce on the basis of mutual irrelevance but find a new way of relating in a common search for a more adequate description of the whole of reality. The appointment of Keith Ward and Alastair McGrath as honorary Professors in our College is an earnest of some of the work which lies ahead.
In this new era of holistic research the Christian community must make its contribution. There should be no more skulking in our tents.
Faith should not be confused with some ideology which seeks to impose a doctrinal strait jacket on researchers but faith is an intentional and energetic orientation towards the living God which provides a wider context and a moral compass within which research may most creatively be pursued.
We can understand this better if we consider the nature of the Bible which is where we say faith “is uniquely revealed”. We want neat orderly systems which our minds can comprehend and God gives us Himself in the answer he gave to Moses – simply “I am”. We want absolute truth nailed down in propositional form and we are given a huge drama, a symphony of the many ways in which God has related to human kind. We want bottom lines for life and God gives us those and then moves beyond them to the law of love. We want programmes to follow, preferably with SMART objectives and the Bible teaches us to follow closely after God when he calls. We want something tangible and the Bible instructs us to have faith in the unseen. The Bible reveals truth, tragic and glorious; bloody and violent; nurturing and inspiring by breaking in upon our understanding from another realm and taking us by surprise.
The College begins with training people for Christian ministry, both ordained and lay but the ambition is to make a distinctive contribution to the academy as a whole.
The great Sir Humphrey the Senior Civil Servant in charge of Jim Hacker’s ministry in Yes Minister holds up for admiration the perfect hospital where the administration is impeccable because there are no patients. We are praying for a College with the ambition to engage with the pain and confusion and possibilities of the global cross roads where we find ourselves.
Tonight we give thanks for the hard work of students and staff from the participating partners in this enterprise. To the London and Essex Course LEC which is perhaps better known as NTMTC. To St Paul’s and the Kensington DLM scheme; to associates like WTC and Ethelburga’s and the Institute of this Cathedral Church. These are the pioneers. We salute their work and thank God that we are just at the beginning and the best is to come.
St Mellitus in his time made an honest beginning and then left rather hurriedly, exit stage left pursued by Essex Lads. We are here for the long haul but for no other purpose than that which brought St Paul to Lystra – “we bring you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God.”
