Michael Cocks reviews Scholarship and Fierce Sincerity Henry D A Major, The Face of Anglican Modernism by Clive Pearson, Allan Davidson, and Peter Lineham. 2006.

[Polygraphia Ltd,  P O Box 167 Clearwater Cover West Harbour Auckland 1008 New Zealand. 2006  ISBN 1-877332-19-4  $NZ48-00]

It might be said that the general value of this book is that it helps our understanding of the internal tensions and dialogue within the Church of England as it tried to come to grips with a changing world between 1900 and 1940 where the Church seemed to be gradually losing its authority and was needing to come to grips with the varying views of reality emanating from scientific method, and a changing society. It also throws some light on New Zealand church history. In preparing this book, there has been thorough and exhaustive research, which has also provided a large number of end-notes of considerable interest in themselves. Clive Pearson, Allan Davidson and Peter Lineham are to be congratulated on producing such a readable, interesting and informative book.

If you have never heard of Henry Major, then I should quote from the back cover of this book:

“Henry Dewsbury Alves Major (1871-1961) arrived in New Zealand with his parents and siblings in 1878. They settled in Katikati where Henry Major received his early education. He later attended Auckland College (later the University of Auckland) which was affiliated with The University of New Zealand, completing honours in Geology. He attended St John's College, Meadowbank, where he prepared for ordination within the Anglican ministry. A sense of inadequacy of his education persuaded Henry Major to return to England where he read theology at Oxford. He dedicated his life to theological education, becoming Vice-Principal and then Principal of Ripon Clergy College.

“Henry Major was a controversial figure. He espoused the modernist cause which arose from the application of critical scholarship to the biblical text and his energy and commitment led to him taking a leading role in the modernist movement....

“The title of this book is part of a statement of support by a group of his students when Major was under attack. It encapsulates the essence of Henry Major. The full quote refers to his 'excellent scholarship, fierce sincerity, disarming charm, kindness and diffidence'(page 170)”

In writing this review, I have to say that I am in no way impartial. While I was reading Theology at Oxford I resided at what was then called Ripon Hall, on Boar's Hill. It had a Liberal or Modernist tradition. The hall had previously been built as an almost baronial mansion for Lord Berkeley. Students dined in great style in the great hall, and there were extensive grounds with a lake. Kenneth Prebble is quoted as describing Ripon Hall as a “laid-back country club” (p.12) I was there in the early fifties, when Dr R.D. Richardson and Bishop Geoffrey Allan were principals. It was a rich and stimulating environment, with visits from scholars such as A.R.C. Leaney and S.G.F. Brandon. In our chapel services we were helped in being flexible in worship, following Anglo-Catholic and more Evangelical formats. I appreciated the varying background and the calibre of fellow students. In the years of study there, in vacation time I had the great privilege of staying with Henry and Mary Major in Merton Vicarage, near Bicester. Of Henry Major Prebble wrote: “At first I loved him without doubt or question. It was he who would lead me into all truth in the things which I cared about, but as the months passed I came to see his faults, as a growing son does his father, and he began to exasperate me with the exasperation that only comes with those you love.” (p.11) In my relationship to the Majors I can certainly echo those words. Perhaps I was less exasperated, for they had almost treated me as a son while I was with them. Their son Michael had died in an air accident perhaps six years previously, and when I finally left for New Zealand, I left with Michael's piano accordion, Henry's private communion set, and other precious items. Henry had very poor sight and hearing, and I sometimes relieved Mrs Major in reading to Henry, and in helping to write down articles that he was preparing for The Modern Churchman.

Our book has an introduction by The Most Reverend Sir Paul Reeves in which he introduces Henry Major and Modernism, and describes how he had visited Merton shortly after Major's death. He remarks how in spite of his theological liberalism, Major was very conservative politically and socially. Major's views on race and war would indeed offend the modern mind. Reeves appends a memoir by Kenneth Prebble who describes Major as an old man, exactly as I also remember him. “Yet this aged body carried an acute mind, a shrewd judgment of people, and above all, an unfailing sense of humour. He laughed at his disabilities, and his little world of students laughed with him. Nor mirabile dictum, did his physical weakness inhibit his capacity for effective work.” “He approved wholeheartedly of the Church of England as the established church, and the parson's freehold which gave the Vicar a freedom to believe what he wanted and to say what he pleased – unless of course, the man started to preach socialism. Henry (for that is what we called him) was as full of prejudices as a porcupine with bristles.” (I personally remember that he was so conservative, that there was no electricity in the house. Lighting was by kerosene or paraffin lamps, and cooking was on a kerosene stove. I remember their upsetness when Clement Attlee became Labour PM after Churchill.) On page 61 we read, “The tragedy of his later years was that he sold himself short. The period from 1937 onwards was marked by a succession of crises within the movement carried on against a background of impending war. These controversies had to do with ecumenism and church union, with whether the movement could support a sociological aim, and, then once war was declared, on what basis should peace be negotiated and what might the future of Europe look like. On every one of these issues Major espoused the points of view that he always had and thereby alienated those who were more catholic in tendency and those who were younger and concerned for social change.”)

Prebble ascribes his eventual Anglo-Catholicism to reaction against Major, and says that he is now a Roman Catholic layman. (Incidentally Paul Reeves' citation of Prebble is not properly indented, possibly leading a careless reader to suppose that it was Sir Paul who had become a Catholic.)

Clive Pearson then begins Chapter One “In Search of Henry Major”. (Pearson is Acting Principal of United Theological College and Associate Professor in the Sydney College of Divinity) “Major gradually emerged as 'the organising genius' or 'sergeant-major' of the Modern Churchman's Union.” (p.13) “With the benefit of hindsight his 'Gospel of Freedom' for the 'modern man in the street' has the feel of a theological position that was at its most convincing in the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War.” (p.15) But Pearson modifies these words with, “The hermeneutical tension Major faced is still with us. The problem of relevancy remains. How to move into a new future is still a highly contested affair and the focus of sharp ecclesiastical politics. It is still easier to 'play the man' and misrepresent the prophetic than really address the issues at stake. What is the proper location of theological education and the shape of ministry formation remain open questions.” (pp.15-16) I can only concur with this. More than fifty years after my stay with the Majors I still hold them and what they strove towards in high esteem. They were honest, brave and determined, and rigorous in their thinking. The same battle that they fought still needs to be fought, but on other battlegrounds. There does seem to be a consensus that the problem that Major posed as an elderly man, is that he did not shift the battleground when it became necessary, and that he was keeping such a grip on the MCU that new thinkers, new leaders found it hard to influence the debate. All this notwithstanding, the issues that Major did address have not gone away, and are still the subject of debate. It is simply that theology since his time has been focussing in somewhat different directions.

Reading this book has been an important experience for me. For the dramatis personae who featured in innumerable conversations with the Majors at home are brought to mind, brought to life once more. Bishop Boyd Carpenter of Ripon, Dean Fremantle, Kirsopp Lake, Percy Gardner, and most notably Hastings Rashdall who was Major's most important mentor. J.M. Thompson on Miracles in the New Testament and B.H. Streeter on the Four Gospels. The latter convinced Bishop Gore “that there had emerged a school of clergy whose 'stewardship of faith was in error'. In his opinion 'the guantlet (had) been thrown down.'” (p.39). “The pivotal issue... was the ethics of clerical subscription [to the 39 Articles of Religion]” (p.40) Henry Sidgwick in line with Gore's position maintained that clergy must accept these articles literally, as a matter of 'social utility'. “The extreme unease that Rashdall then felt was for the ordination candidate who was asked whether he 'unfeignedly believe(d) all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.' It seemed an impossible demand that would sorely tax 'the veracious man' and leave the church more restricted in its ministry than it should be.” (p 41) Other leaders featured are M.G. Glazebrook and J.F. Bethune-Baker. The dispute between Gore and the Modernists was in practice resolved by Archbishop Davidson's unwillingness to face an exodus of scholars that the church could ill afford to lose. He “had sympathy with Gore, but not enough to facilitate a schism.” “Major's great achievement was that he had been the modern churchman most responsible for putting into place an organisational structure that had effectively read these 'signs of the times'. Those who evaluate his significance in the light of his failures in the 1930's have lost sight of this work and its continuing legacy.” (p.42).

Other dramatis personae in Merton conversations are recalled for me in this book: Hewlett Johnson, the “Red Dean” of Canterbury, William Temple, Major's student Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, S. R. Driver, Armitage Robinson, William Sanday, W.C. Allen, Charles Raven, Gordon Fallows, Alan Richardson, Edwyn Hoskyns. I didn't see a mention of Renée Chateaubriand, and his Génie de Christianisme. He was an important figure for Major, and he gave me his copy of this before I returned to New Zealand.

Two quotes in line with the ethos of this journal:

Dogmas as working hypotheses: “Major transferred [the] idea of a 'working hypothesis' to theology. The term became a common refrain in his writing. It could be employed to describe how dogmas were not 'something to be believed before one can become a Christian'; rather, they were 'working hypotheses to accepted by the Christian provisionally and put into practice – experiments which it was hoped would be confirmed by experience','A Modernist's Pilgrimage', p.7” [p.113]

“A Swedenborgian Tract – science and scripture.

On a number of occasions Major cites the importance of this Swedenborgian pamphlet. See, for instance, 'A Modernist's Pilgrimage', p.1. There is no hint of any sustained personal contact with the New Church or any of the other 'Writings' of its founder, Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). In the light of his subsequent modernism it is not surprising that Major found some Swedenborgian ideas attractive. Swedenborg himself had a background in science before he turned to theology. Major's own faith emphasised the moral and the ethical but his scientific temper meant that he was also inclined to be a keen student of experience and psychic phenomena. Swedenborg was reckoned to be a 'spiritualist' or 'medium' but this side of him was tempered by a rigorous critical philosophical mind.” [p.113]

(I remember conversations under both these headings, while with the Majors. And I had a great-aunt who was a Swedenborgian. The renowned Gilbert Murray of Oxford Dictionary fame, lived at Yatscombe near Ripon Hall, on Boar's Hill. There was an occasion when Ripon Hall students visited him, and he related some of his personal experiments in telepathy I think with his daughter Mary. I don't remember whether Murray had any continuing connection with Ripon Hall.)

More in general, about our book:

“The last volume of The Modern Churchman edited by its founder, Henry Major, was published in December 1956. For forty-six years he had fulfilled this function and gone about the task of being an advocate for an English modernism. In the course of that vocation Major had established friendships and coalitions of interests with a wide body of scholars and (usually well-educated) lay members of the church.” p.72

“Almost all of the 'goodly company' described in the last volume of The Modern Churchman that he edited lived and worked in England. The notebook that follows establishes a link between these two worlds [New Zealand and England]. It puts a personal face upon the otherwise hidden earlier years of Major's rather public life. The commentary attached to this autobiographical fragment is longer and more detailed than the notebook itself.... The impressionistic nature of the writing masks a description of the relatively complex task of how any one of us comes to hold our theological beliefs” p.73. This commentary is far reaching and of great interest. It occupies the next hundred pages, and because of its varied nature, hard to summarise here.

Allan Davidson's contribution to the book now follows: it is a chapter entitled A Modernist Prophet Without Honour in his own Country? This chapter will be of special interest to New Zealanders. Davidson remarks at p. 190 that “his influence in New Zealand was largely limited to individuals who appreciated his liberal approach to the Bible, the Church, its history and theology.”

He mentions, “Colin Brown, who was on the staff at [the Anglican theological college] St John's College, 1956 to 1966, pointed to the way in which for Anglican ordinands in New Zealand, 'Until about 1960 teaching on doctrine and the relevant examinations for the Licentiate of Theology, were tied to the Thirty-Nine Articles.' From 1936 the only Board of Theological Studies theology textbook was Bicknell's, A theological introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles. This included 'Modernism' although a footnote indicated that 'The majority of so-called Modernists in England are more accurately described as “Liberal Protestants.”

“The teaching of church history, particularly from the Reformation onwards 'was taught as institutional history and relatively less attention was given to the history of theology.'”

At page 199 Peter Lineham begins a chapter entitled “The Great Bible Demonstration against H.D.A. Major Auckland 1929.” It is suggested that Fundamentalism finally found its controversial voice in New Zealand at this demonstration attended by 3000... it had been a distant enemy, and the struggles for control of the denominations and the seminaries had been on a distant stage. H.D.A Major brought the target into the local arena.. The Great Bible Demonstration was a huge success but it needed a greater sense of threat to sustain it. It found this in the teaching of evolution in the schools, and Fundamentalism in New Zealand defined itself primarily in respect to this topic. It still does.”

All in all, Scholarship and Fierce Sincerity is an admirable and involving vehicle for exploring the history of the development of theology in the Church of England in the first half of the twentieth century.