RITE AND REASON: Dean Andrew Furlong's denial of the divinity of Jesus has been something of a trial for one of the Church of Ireland's most inclusive and liberal bishops, writes Patsy McGarry.
It is somewhat ironic that the Dean of Clonmacnoise and rector of Trim, the Very Rev Andrew Furlong, should have his episcopal authority withdrawn by Bishop Richard Clark. One of the more "open" bishops in the Church of Ireland he would be seen generally as among the least likely to use the blunt instrument of discipline, albeit in this case to allow Dean Furlong time to reflect on his situation.
Few, it must be said, have found the bishop's decision unreasonable in the circumstances. It is difficult, after all, to see what else could be done when one of his senior clergy publicly denied the very basis of Christianity while also proclaiming he wanted to stay in the Church.
It is also believed that Bishop Clarke was anxious about the effects of the Dean's views on his parishioners in Trim. Many there were understood to be deeply upset, and not least when it was discovered he had held those views for over 30 years. Some parishioners even queried the validity of baptisms and Eucharists at which the Dean officiated, but, and above all, many were deeply concerned about the effect on their children of the Dean's denial.
It is understood this has been exacerbated since mid-December by Dean Furlong's "campaign" in media interviews, as well as letters and articles in newspapers.
Bishop Clarke has been silent on the issue since December 5th when he withdrew episcopal authority from the Dean for three months. It is understood he wishes to continue to allow the Dean to reflect on his situation, out of a sense of fairness, and despite pressure from parishioners in Trim to have him removed.
They feel he has given little time to reflection since his suspension. Instead, and as he himself has said, he sees it as an opportunity to be "more transparent about my present searching and beliefs", which he has certainly been doing.
What the controversy has done is to focus attention on the extent of Bishop Clarke's liberal Christianity. He would be known as a churchman with an almost instinctive abhorrence of fundamentalism. In his book And Is It True? (Dominican Publications, 2000) he described as "spiritual terrorism" a religion which "offers faith in Jesus Christ as an alternative to eternity in the fires of hell, these having been ignited personally by a God of infinite love". He believed that "neither truth nor God may be found in what we might call entrenched positions". Truth (and God) resided in "a metaphorical no-man's land" which for many was "the only place where integrity is possible and where the God of the Christian vision 'may in truth' be encountered."
In the same book he said ". . . there should always be on the Church's agenda a series of new understandings, sometimes new qualms, sometimes new insights, new certainties - rather than final conclusions."
He was, however, dismissive of "a philosophy of relativism". If Christianity was to have any meaning there had to be boundaries. For him one such boundary was "the affirmation that Christ is a unique and decisive disclosure of God in humanity and that his earthly life not only shows us uniquely the reality of God, but does in a mysterious way effect a reconciliation between God and believing men and women".
HIS belief in this centrality of the Incarnation was also underlined in an essay he wrote for the current issue of The Furrow. Discussing the "Faiths of Abraham in the 21st Century" he said that "for any adherent of Judaism and any adherent of Islam there is a total blasphemy at the heart of Christianity - the Incarnation. We cannot square that circle and, were we to do so, we do no honour to either of the other faiths or to the Sovereign God of us all."
The Incarnation was also a central theme of his Christmas Day sermon to the parishioners of Trim, in St Patrick's cathedral there. Christmas was "the great festival of the Incarnation, God with us, God one with us in the person of Jesus Christ", he said.
On Christmas Eve he also preached at St Patrick's in Trim. Then he told the parishioners that "the Incarnation is not just an interesting philosophical query - it is at the heart of everything." The gospel reading that evening, he said, told them "all we need to know about the God we worship here tonight. That he is within the world. That there is nothing in human longing, human sorrow, human pain and human aspiration that he does not know from INSIDE (his capitals). That is the God we worship here in this Eucharist."
Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times