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Theological Table-Talk
By John J. Carey

IN recent years it has become fashionable for interpreters of contemporary British theology to speak of "the Cambridge radicals." This expression had its genesis in some of the activities and publications of Cambridge theologians in the early sixties. In the fall of 1961, a group of twenty-two Anglican theologians sent an open letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on "intercommunion." This letter touched on a sensitive Anglican nerve, in that to this day the Church of England does not practice intercommunion with its sister churches. The public letter, signed by some of Anglicanism's most impressive theologians (nearly half of whom were at Cambridge),¹ denied that Anglican ministers are somehow unique from ministers of the English free churches, or that differing views of the ministry are a barrier to full intercommunion. The open letter precipitated a furor in the Church of England, and the fact that it had its origin and greatest support in Cambridge led to the first public identification of the "Cambridge radicals."

Even before the intercommunion controversy had died out, Alec R. Vidler, the influential Dean of King's College and long-time editor of Theology, edited a volume in 1962 entitled Soundings,² in which ten Cambridge theologians (and R. Ninian Smart, then of the University of Birmingham) expressed some major reassessments of Chrstian beliefs in the light of the impact of secularization and contemporary philosophy. The Soundings essays grew out of a theologi-

John J. Carey is Associate Professor of Religion at Florida State University, Tallahassee. He was educated at Duke and Yale Universities. Together with Jackson L. Ice, he edited The Death of God Debate in 1967. Recent articles by Dr. Carey have appeared in Religion in Life and The Christian Century.

¹ The Cambridge signatories were Donald M. MacKinnon, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity; G. W. H. Lampe, Ely Professor of Divinity; Charles Raven, Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of Christ's College; Alec R. Vidler, Dean of King's College; Hugh Montefiore, Dean of Gonville and Caius College; Howard E. Root, Dean of Emmanuel College; G. F. Woods, Dean of Downing College; J. S. Bezzant, Dean of St. John's College; W. C. Frend, fellow of Gonville and Caius College; and A. C. Bouquet, University Lecturer in Divinity. John A. T. Roibinson, who at that time had left Cambridge and was serving as Bishop of Woolwich, was apparently not approached by the theologians because of his Episcopal office; however, he wrote an independent article in the same vein that was published as "The Church of England and Intercommunion" in Prism, March, 1962.
² Cambridge: University Press, 1962, 268 pp.

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cal discussion group at Cambridge which had been convened by Vidler to probe the present theological situation and to examine some of the future tasks of theology. The purpose of the essays, as Vidler has remarked, was to ask questions rather than to answer them;³ the effect of the book was to convey clearly to clergy and laymen that many theological issues (especially the problems of God, Christology, and ethics) were far from being settled in the traditional terms of British theology. This would hardly have been epochmaking for any American or continental European who had been theologically alert for the preceding ten years, but the British theological tradition had developed over the years an amazing insularity from American and continental influences, and the Soundings essays jolted the British theological market.

Shortly after Soundings was published, John A. T. Robinson, with the publication of Honest to God⁴ in 1963, became the most discussed British theologian since William Temple. Robinson was at the time Bishop of Woolwich, but it was well publicized that prior to his episcopal appointment in 1959, he has been Dean at Clare College, Cambridge, and a University Lecturer in Divinity. Some journalists even wrote about the "Vidler-Woolwich" axis, implying a collusion between Robinson and his former Cambridge colleagues, although this was denied by both parties. While the country was still reeling from the fact that an Anglican bishop would say in print the things Robinson said in Honest to God, Vidler edited another book entitled Objections to Christian Belief,⁵ which was composed of lectures given by him, D. M. MacKinnon, H. A. Williams, and J. S. Bezzant to some fifteen hundred undergraduates at Cambridge during the Lent term of 1963. Although all of these lectures were apologetic in thrust, the fact that the authors took seriously moral, psychological, historical, and intellectual objections was an indication of the theological reassessments going on at Cambridge; and for many who never read the book but were struck by the title, this was another bit of evidence that the foundations were shaking at Cambridge. It was David L. Edwards (then editor of the SCM Press, now Vidler's successor as Dean of King's College, Cambridge), in his

³ 20th Century Defenders of the Faith (London: SCM Press, 1965), p. 104.
⁴ London: SCM Press, 1963. Latest reports from SCM indicate that this book has sold well over a million copies and is still selling well, particularly in the United States.
⁵ London: Constable and Co., 1963.

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introduction to The Honest to God Debate,⁶ who coined the term "Christian radicals" to describe this new theological unrest in England.

Edwards' term has stuck as an apt way to describe the mood of Cambridge theology, and in spite of Vidler's retirement and the deaths, retirement, and professional moves of most of the original Soundings contributors,⁷ Cambridge still appears to be associated with "radical Christianity"-an assessment facilitated by John A. T. Robinson's return to the University as Dean of Trinity College in the fall of 1969, and the willingness of Robinson and others to accept the "radical" designation.⁸

It must be emphasized initially, however, that what one calls radical" in the British context is quite different from what would pass for theological radicalism in America. America on the whole has been more influenced by continental modes of thought and by diverse conceptual frameworks for theology (Tillich, Whitehead); England, by contrast, has remained closely yoked to the biblical, historical, and textual traditions of theological inquiry, and also has had the added problem of Anglicanism as an established church. It is only in terms of this British context, so traditional in language and methodology, that we can understand why the recent endeavors of Cambridge theologians have been termed "radical." John Robinson, who in this sense would certainly be a spokesman for the Cambridge group, has defined a radical as one who goes to the roots of his own tradition;⁹ as such, the radical is to be differentiated from the "reformists" (who want to keep present structures but gradually change them) and "revolutionaries" (who want to destroy the structures). The radical wants to press to the fundamentals of his traditions. He does this with a passion because he loves the tradition; he does not fear to question its shibboleths, re-examine its ortho-

⁶ David L. Edwards, ed., The Honest to God Debate (London: SCM Press, 1963). There is no doubt that this book helped to clarify the issues raised by the newer trends in British theology and underscored the specific role that Cambridge theologians had played.
⁷ Of the original Soundings group, Howard Root has since gone to the University of Southhampton; George F. Woods and Joseph N. Sanders have died; Harry Williams left the Trinity College deanship to enter a monastery at Mirfield; and John Burnaby has retired. Mary's Church, and G. W. H. Lampe now remain appointed Bishop-designate of Kingston.
⁸ See Robinson's "On Being a Radical" in Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society (London: SCM Press, 1970), pp. 1-6; and Hugh Montefiore's "The Necessity of Being a Radical" in Truth to Tell: A Radical Restatement of the Christian Faith (London: Fontana Books, 1966), pp. 11-17.
⁹ "On Being a Radical" in Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society, pp. 2-3. This article was originally published in The Listener, February 21, 1963.

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doxies, and press the meaning of love, all in the conviction that persons are more important than principles.¹⁰ Radicals of this persuasion, therefore, see themselves as "insiders" and not as "outsiders" in the Christian tradition; they are convinced of the ultimate truth in Christianity and want to make that truth vital today.

The rub, of course, is that they have portrayed that ultimate truth in a different way than has traditionally been done in British churchmanship. Yet it does seem that the theologians at Cambridge have attracted such publicity in England not so much because of their iconclastic attitudes as because of the more rigid theological and ecclesiastical context (as compared with America) in which they are working. Some Cambridge men have become radicals not by virtue of their natural temperaments but by discerning the signs of the times; the waning of religious interest in England, with all its concomitant causes, has convinced them that if Christianity is to survive as a faith option, it must seek fresher and more meaningful forms.¹¹ The term "radical" at Cambridge, therefore, has come to stand for a more drastic appraisal of the present-day situation in the church and in theology; for an honesty in acknowledging dead forms and words; for an attempt more imaginatively to understand the sources of theological thinking; and for a willingness to express these opinions openly, both verbally and in print. Now, then, we come to our main concern: Who are these Cambridge radicals?

I

The Cambridge radicals, as one would expect, have not been a static group. While there has been a continuity of concern since the early sixties, the emphases have shifted as some members of the early group left the University and were replaced by others. Since the space limitations of this essay prohibit us from considering all of the Cambridge men in the detail that they deserve, we can perhaps best capture the spirit of the Cambridge radicals if we concentrate on several key persons and divide these into two categories: (1) those who were active initially but have since left the University (A. R. Vidler, H. E. Root, and H. A. Williams); and (2) those who are pres-

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 4-6.
¹¹ This is the thrust of such works as Alec Vidler, ed., Objections to Christian Belief (containing chapters on "Moral Objections" by D. M. MacKinnon; "Psychological Objections" by H. A. Williams; "Historical Objections" by Vidler; and "Intellectual Objections" by J. S. Bezzant); D. M. MacKinnon, ed., Making Moral Decisions (London: S.P.C.K., 1969); Hugh Montefiore, Truth to Tell: A Radical Restatement of the Christian Faith; as well as the better known volumes by John Robinson such as The New Reformation (London: SCM Press, 1965) and But That I Can't Believe! (London: Fontana Books, 1967).

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ently at Cambridge, some of whom have been a part of the radical group from the beginning (D. M. MacKinnon and H. Montefiore) and some of whom have been more recent additions (J. A. T. Robinson and D. L. Edwards).¹² Our interest in the first group is more than a matter of historical respect, for in a deep sense they broke the ground and raised the issues that have been the continuing concerns of the men now at Cambridge.

Any consideration of the Cambridge radicals must begin with Alec Vidler, the former Dean of King's College and University Lecturer in Divinity. A prolific writer and a historian by training, editor of Theology (probably England's most influential Protestant journal) from 1938 to 1964, Vidler was one of the country's best known scholars and Christian spokesmen. He was a leading liberal when it was unfashionable to be liberal, and yet he was among the first men in England who recognized that somehow theology had to go beyond liberalism. It was Vidler who convened the faculty discussion group that eventually produced Soundings. His radicalism was expressed through his assessment of the theological situation, his persistent historical honesty, and his well-known stands against parochialism and privilege in the Church of England.

In his own Soundings essay, Vidler criticized the structure and style of the Church of England (a delicate issue in these islands) in the light of Bonhoeffer's call for a "religionless Christianity." He acknowledged that much of its tradition is archaic and only tolerable because of its ill-defined standards of doctrine; yet he also maintained that if the Church of England could develop a broader vision for the welfare of all the people of the land, it would still have a rich future as an established church.¹³ In his essay in Objections to Christian Belief, Vidler considered the importance of the histori-

¹² The notable omissions in the ensuing treatment are (from the initial group) J. S. Bezzant, former Dean of St. John's College, who signed the intercommunion open letter in 1961 and contributed to Objections to Christian Belief; and (from the current group) G. W. H. Lampe, Ely Professor of Divinity, who, although signing the intercommunion letter and contributing to Soundings, and siding with the radicals in spirit, works professionally in the history of early Christian doctrine and is not a frequent contributor to the contemporary theological scene. Although they cannot be treated in detail in this article, I should also mention the work by members of the current group such as Peter Baelz, Dean of Jesus College, whose book Christian Theology and Metaphysics (London: Epworth Press, 1968) is an attempt to deal with the "God problem" of modem theology as well as with some of the objections that British philosophers have raised about metaphysics; and Don Cupitt, Dean of Emmanuel College and the University Stanton Lecturer in 1970. Both Baelz and Cupitt are interested in the epistemological problems raised in theology, and co-chair the university seminar on Christian ethics. They are perhaps better known internally than externally at Cambridge, but are important men on the present theological faculty.
¹³ "Religion and the National Church," op. cit., pp. 241-263. See also Vidler's note on "'Authority' and 'Liberty' in the Church," ibid., pp. 142-145.

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cal research (i.e., the tendency to find facts to support preconceived opinions). Without reflecting on the integrity of his Cambridge colleagues, he observed: "I should be happier if those who are appointed to give teaching about Christian origins in the university were less apparently tarred with a bias."¹⁴

Vidler was modest about his own contributions to the theological reappraisals going on at Cambridge; he acknowledged that his own approach was more historical than philosophical or theological, and that he was only an amateur in theology. He seemed a bit embarrassed that amid much theological controversy he was more of a spectator than a participant.¹⁵ Yet this capacity for distance facilitated Vidler's ability to evaluate the changing theological climate, and those who know the Cambridge scene will agree that both in his writing and through the force of his personality, he was the catalytic agent in the Cambridge awakening.

Closely related to Vidler in the original group was Howard E. Root, the Dean of Emmanuel College and University Lecturer in Divinity, surely one of the most underestimated figures on the English theological scene. It was Root who wrote the tone-setting introductory essay in Soundings, "Beginning All Over Again." He maintained that the most serious theological problem of our time is that of the secular, post-religious imagination for which natural or metaphysical theology is no longer alive. Any theology that will be vital in the future will have to incorporate the insights of poets, artists, film makers, and dramatists, each of whom shapes the contours of our imagination. Root acknowledged that there are many contemporary human problems for which theology has given no answers, and that old patterns of morality are no longer sufficient. What we need theologically is not more argument but sharpened awareness.¹⁶

Root contributed important essays to the philosophical and ethical sides of the emerging theological discussions,¹⁷ but perhaps his most helpful contribution to the early stages of Cambridge radicalism was an article which examined two basically different ways in which modern theologians attempt to understand the gospel.¹⁸ There are

¹⁴ "Historical Objections" in Objections in Christian Belief, pp. 71-72.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Beginning All Over Again," Soundings, pp. 3-19; cf. especially pp. 18-19.
¹⁷ "Metaphysics and Religious Belief," in Ian Ramsey, ed., Prospect for Metaphysics, op. cit., pp. 64-79, and "Ethical Problems of Sex" in D. M. MacKinnon, ed., God, Sex and War, pp. 31-60.
¹⁸ What is the Gospel?", Theology, Vol. LXVI, No. 516, June, 1963, pp. 221-224.

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those who hold to an "objectivist" view, namely that a transcendent God acted decisively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to make his way and will known in history. The essence of the gospel, according to this view, is therefore that "God was in Christ -reconciling the world to himself," and as long as this essence remains at the heart of theology, one can reinterpret, demythologize, or remythologize as much as desired. There is a distinct world-view and metaphysic implied by those who hold this position, and obvious points of contact and controversy with philosophers and skeptics occur as the message is proclaimed to the modern world.

There is, however, an alternate way of perceiving the task of modern theology, a way which denies that the truth of the faith is yoked to any particular world view or even to the notion of a transcendent God. The truth of Christianity from this perspective is a revealed truth about one's own life, and the vitality of Christianity is the subsequent insight and courage which men gain to deal with life's ambiguities and absurdities. This type of theology does not deny the reality of God, but it places more emphasis on man's experience of God. It is a theology based on a heightened "existential" awareness. This new "subjectivism" can afford to be much less tied to the tradition, and bolder in the search for new symbols, structures, and life styles. Root acknowledges that there are problems created by this radical recasting of the Christian faith, but adds:

"One sometimes feels that these new voices are in touch with deeper feelings widespread in Christendom, with a deep and articulate longing for liberation from all the religious and intellectual paraphernalia which have encased the gospel for centuries."¹⁹

Although this new "subjectivism" has not exactly swept across England in the way which Root predicted, he was surely correct in detecting the widespread uneasiness about traditional theologies. His article both clarified some confusing issues about religious language and underscored alternative ways of conceiving and stating the faith than those traditionally found in England.

Harry A. Williams, the former Dean of Trinity College, deserves to be mentioned because of his influential role in introducing the concerns of the "new morality" into the Cambridge discussions. Williams was tremendously popular with the Cambridge undergraduates, in no small part due to his assertion (when he first assumed

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 224.

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the post at Trinity) that he would never preach anything that he didn't believe himself. Whereas Vidler worked in the historical tradition and Root wa's grounded in philosophy and ethics, Williams was deeply interested in psychology and was persuaded that Freud's insights were crucial for Christian theology. Williams' essay in Soundings was probably the most controversial contribution to the volume. He argued that the gospel of Jesus should bring personal health and wholeness to men, and maintained that conventional Christian morality, steeped as it has been in absolutes, is little more than a modern Pharisaism. He asserted that man is a more complex creature than conventional Christian morality has grasped, and that sexual standards in particular need to be interpreted with a greater personal sensitivity. Williams cited the self-giving of the prostitute in the Greek film Never on Sunday, and the willingness of the woman in the film The Mark to sleep with the man who was troubled by homosexual tendencies, as acts of charity which proclaim the glory of God. "Where there is healing, there is Christ, whatever the church may say about fornication. "²⁰ Williams also contributed to Objections to Christian Belief, stressing that Christian attempts at righteousness and humility often do great damage to themselves and to others. For Williams, the fruits of the gospel are not righteousness and purity but rather grace, self-awareness, and personal wholeness. Williams is a good example of how a radical (in Robinson's terms) is more interested in persons than in principles; it is significant that those who were alarmed by the whole mood of the early Cambridge radicals viewed Williams as the most dangerous of the lot.²¹

II

Of the present group of Cambridge theologians, the most influential on the theological climate of the University is Donald M. MacKinnon, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity. A lay Scottish Anglican by heritage and a philosopher by training, MacKinnon was

²⁰ "Theology and Self-Awareness," Soundings, p. 82.
²¹ See, for example, the particularly sharp critique by E. L. Mascall (an Anglo-Catholic) in Up and Down in Adria (London: Faith Press, 1963), where Mascall accuses Williams of assuming that "the treatment of the mentally sick provides guiding principles for the understanding and conduct of life of normal Christian people." The subsequent debate between Williams and Mascall in Theology, November and December, 1963 (pp. 460-461; 508) shows that Mascall finds it easier than Williams to tell just who is a "normal Christian person." Note also the sharp criticism of Williams by Stuart Hall in Alan Richardson, ed., Four Anchors from the Stern (London: SCM Press, 1963). This volume, containing essays by four men then at the University of Nottingham, was billed as a reaction to "recent Cambridge essays."

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Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen before joining the Cambridge faculty in 1960. A noted Anglo-Catholic in his earlier days at Oxford and Aberdeen, MacKinnon's signing of the intercommunion open letter in 1961 added considerable weight to that document, and, we might add, brought a great deal of criticism upon him from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican Church. His contribution to Objections to Christian Belief was a biting criticism of the legalism, "unself-critical attachment to the shibboleths of another world," and theological poverty of Christian morality, as well as of the triumphalism that is dominant in certain forms of the church.²² At Cambridge, MacKinnon has been a major link between the philosophy and theology faculties, and has been a close friend and admirer of the philosopher John Wisdom, to whom he publicly acknowledges his debt. He was impressed (but not overawed) by the criticisms offered by British linguistic analysts of theological assertions, and was among the first to be engaged in a creative dialogue with them.²³

Because of MacKinnon's eminence in the University, our consideration of the present group of radicals must examine his theological interests in more detail. He has had continued interests in philosophical ethics, classical philosophy, and political theory over the years, and indeed first attracted national attention in England with his book on ethical theory in 1957.²⁴ His current lectures on Plato's Theory of Forms, Kant, Evil and Atonement, and Christianity and Marxism are an indication of his philosophical bent and political interests. MacKinnon presides over the fortnightly meetings of the "D" Society (an advanced philosophy-theology discussion group, usually attended by faculty and doctoral candidates), and in his own penetrating, inimitable way is regarded as the senior statesman of the Cambridge theological circle.

MacKinnon has delineated his major philosophical and theological concerns in the introduction to a volume of his collected essays.²⁵ In the area of philosophy he has wrestled with the experimental significance of factual concepts: how the a priori knowledge of certain elements of our world which give us coherence and order are to be

²² "Moral Objections," pp. 11-34; cf. especially pp. 28, 33.
²³ See, for example, his dialogues with Antony Flew on "Creation" and "Death" in Flew and MacIntyre, eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology, pp. 170-186, 261-272.
²⁴ A Study in Ethical Theory (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1957).
²⁵ D. M. MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology and Other Essays, edited by G. W. Roberts and D. E. Smucker (London: Lutterworth Press, 1968).

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related to the empirical particulars with which we have to deal in our lives. It is in this vein that he has been interested in Kant who pioneered "a kind of empiricism that was not in bondage to the illusion of supposing the complexities of the actual public world to be constructible out of the short-lived, fragmentary, private simplicities of individual sense-experience."²⁶ It is Kant's work, MacKinnon maintains, that still alerts us to the importance of being able to prove or disprove what we claim to be the case. Because he takes seriously this insight of Kant as well as the valid objections to much religious language by contemporary analytic philosophers, MacKinnon works continually to sharpen the clarity of Christian theological claims.

In his theological interests, MacKinnon has focused on Christology and primarily on the philosophical implications of christological assertions. He asks what it means metaphysically to assert that "Jesus and the Father are one." How can Jesus both reveal the truth and be the truth? How do we reconcile the historical kernel behind Christian faith assertions with our own philosophical assumptions about faith and knowledge? MacKinnon's endeavors here are analytic; he is determined not to gloss over the philosophical problems intrinsic to christological claims. As a believer himself, MacKinnon stands on the factuality of the resurrection: "In one sense belief that Jesus was raised from the dead, that the Father pronounced a final Amen to his work, is a prius of my whole argument."²⁷

In the areas of ethics and politics, MacKinnon has recently concentrated on the problems related to the use of nuclear weapons. He rejects an unmitigated pacificism because he feels that it does not assess adequately the problem of power; but he is also convinced that the contemporary situation involving nuclear armaments makes all the traditional appeals to "just wars" untenable.²⁸ In pressing the questions of moral responsibility, MacKinnon seems determined to help create a climate of opinion which will serve as a brake to the development of a mentality which accepts all-out war. For those Christians who have grave reservations about the use of nuclear weapons, he feels the key issue is how to make protests effective.

Although MacKinnon did not contribute to Soundings, he made other contributions in the early stages of the Cambridge awakening

²⁶ Ibid., p. 24.
²⁷ "Our Contemporary Christ," p. 95.
²⁸ "Reflections on the Hydrogen Bomb," ibid., p. 187.

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and has continued to be at the center of the more technical and philosophical aspects of Cambridge theology. He is a radical in that he wants to probe the frequently ignored issues of philosophical theology, feeling that in this domain there are important issues and implications for Christian claims. He shares the criticisms that Root and Williams raised about legalistic ethics, and his broad churchmanship has undoubtedly helped to break down some of the barriers of Anglican provincialism. His forthcoming Gifford Lectures on The Prospect of Metaphysics are expected to be his magnum opus on this important area of philosophical theology.

A second member of the current Cambridge group who, like MacKinnon, has been active in the radical movement since the beginning is Hugh Montefiore, the colorful Vicar of Great St. Mary's parish, the Cambridge church. Prior to his becoming Vicar of Great St. Mary's in October, 1963, he was Dean of Gonville and Caius College and University Lecturer in Divinity; through his writing, preaching, and public outspokenness, he has been one of the best known and most controversial men on the Cambridge scene. His appointment as Bishop-designate of Kingston, announced in January, 1970, aroused such ire among conservative and Anglo-Catholic Anglicans that he made a special appearance at a diocesan conference to explain some of his well-publicized controversial statements. Montefiore is a convert from Judaism and is a cousin of the distinguished Rabbinic scholar, C. G. Montefiore.

In his Soundings essay, Montefiore examined contemporary Christologies and concluded that however the mysteries of Christ's divinity are presented today, we need to redefine creatively the Chalcedonian terms of "nature" and "person." Montefiore maintained (with D. M. Baillie) that the paradox of grace is the best analogy by which the union of the human and the divine in Jesus can be understood today. The ancient notion of "natures" bristles with difficulties for modern man; the concept of grace, although not unambiguous, is at least a more familiar way of speaking of both God's presence and activity. To say, therefore, that God's grace was present in Jesus of Nazareth is to refer to the presence of the divine in a way discernible yet still opaque to human comprehension.²⁹ More recently Montefiore has suggested the simpler statement, "Jesus revealed the fullness of divine activity in human personality. In Jesus Christ the pattern

²⁹ "Towards a Christology for Today," Soundings, pp. 149-172.

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of divine activity was revealed in a single historical life of a fully human person."³⁰ Montefiore would be the first to admit, of course, that the mysteries of Christology cannot be compressed into a neat capsule for the modern age. His christological concerns are cited here merely as an example of his search for theological language which struggles with the issues of faith in words and idioms that make sense to modern man. Within the Anglican context, he has been unusually blunt about the symbolic nature of creedal affirmations, and because of the prominence of his pulpit this has added to the attacks made on him by conservatives.

Of Montefiore's many interests and contributions to Cambridge radicalism, only two major areas need to be mentioned here. He has dealt with the areas of love, sex, and marriage, certainly more cautiously than Harry Williams did in Soundings, but still obviously aware that the changing medical and cultural scene has rendered much traditional Christian reasoning about sex obsolete.³¹ His own approach has been to stress the respect of personhood and the uniqueness of the marital relationship for the full expression of love, but he avoids any hard-line attitudes on the subject. His work in this area has involved him in the current controversy in the Church of England over modification of ecclesiastical divorce laws; he has argued for a covenantal and personal theology of marriage, as opposed to the more traditional Anglican view of an indissoluble metaphysical bond. His stance in this argument has been the radical one that persons are more important than principles.

The second area of Montefiore's work that needs to be mentioned is his recent interest in ecology. In his latest book,³² he has offered a theological analysis of man's abuse of the good earth, looking specifically at such problems as water and air pollution, conservation, land exploitation, and food planning for the population explosion. The question is whether man can develop an adequate sensitivity to nature in time to preserve the fruits of the earth for those who follow us. The distinctive contribution of Christian theology in this struggle is its emphasis on man as "God's vice-regent over nature." Although those people who are engaged in this fight in England contend against the same types of vested interests that we see in America, this issue is not a controversial theological dispute at the

³⁰ Truth to Tell: A Radical Restatement of the Christian Faith, p. 31.
³¹ Hugh Montefiore, "Personal Relations Before Marriage" in D. M. MacKinnon, ed., God, Sex and War, pp. 63-98.
³² The Question Mark (London: Collins, 1969).

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present time. Montefiore is simply among the first in England to put it in theological perspective. I cite his work in this area only to illustrate his forward-looking approach to the changing cluster of theological problems.

By all odds the best known person among the current Cambridge radicals is John A. T. Robinson, who returned to his alma mater and former theological faculty as Dean of Trinity College in the fall of 1969. Although, as we have indicated, the uproar about Honest to God was initially linked to Soundings, Vidler has reported that Robinson was deliberately not invited to join the Soundings group because it was assumed at that time that he was "an inveterate apostle of biblical theology and the liturgical"; Vidler further commented that he did not see or hear of Honest to God until it was in print.³³ Yet Cambridge has been an intellectual home for Robinson, and his theoretical interests overlap those of many of the men at Cambridge whom we have already mentioned.

It is hardly necessary for this essay to re-hash the Honest to God controversy; we can perhaps do more justice to Robinson if we note the progression in his thought after the publication of Honest to God. He examined the implications of the radical theology for the meaning of church life and the place of the layman in The New Reformation, where he broadened his scope to consider what implications the secular society and the "new theology" might have for the future of the church. Robinson is convinced that the traditional structures of parishes and institutions will have to give way to a Christian presence that is a sign of a "new humanity."³⁴ It might be observed that Robinson's theology as it has developed in the sixties has essentially been a church theology, and it is significant that the most systematic treatment of his thought to date has focused on his idea of the church as his key concept.³⁵

In his volume Exploration Into God, Robinson attempted to probe further the "God question" which many felt had been shrouded in ambiguity after Honest to God. Robinson considers this book his most mature theological work;³⁶ I in it he incorporates many of Paul

³³ 20th Century Defenders of the Faith, pp. 106, 111.
³⁴ The New Reformation (London: SCM Press, 1965), pp. 101-105.
³⁵ Cf. Richard McBrien, The Church in the Thought of Bishop John Robinson (London: SCM Press, 1966). Robinson has called this work "the best attempt to see my theology as a whole" (Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society, p. 236). I am indebted to Dr. Robinson for calling my attention to the McBrien book.
³⁶ See his article "Not Radical Enough?" in The Christian Century series on "How My Mind Has Changed," November 12, 1969. This article is reprinted in Christian Freedom in A Permissive Society, pp. 232-240. See especially p. 234.

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Van Buren's concerns about God-language as discussed in The Secular Meaning of the Gospel. Robinson maintains that the Christian belief in God is not a statement about how things are "out there," but rather "statements about our experience of each other and of things in depth, as these relationships are shot through with an unconditional graciousness and demand for which men have found themselves driven to that brief and pregnant word 'God'."³⁷ In last analysis, Robinson can do little better than to point again to Bonhoeffer's "the beyond in the midst," but he clearly shows how his own efforts at re-centering God language are related to other attempts in Europe and America, both Protestant and Catholic.

In the British context, Robinson is considered a radical on the God question, but he appears to be one of the few British theologians who has addressed himself to what may well be the crucial question for the entire theological enterprise: In what sense can modern man speak of God at all? Yet the "radical" Robinson is still committed to the roots of the Christian tradition and is convinced that underlying our linguistic and conceptual problems is ultimate reality:

"The man who finds himself compelled to acknowledge the reality of God, whatever he may call him or however he may imagine him, is the man who, through the mathematical regularities and through functional values, is met by the same grace and the same claim that he recognizes in the I-Thou relation with another person. It may come to him through nature, through the claims of artistic integrity or scientific truth, through the engagements of social justice or of personal communion. Yet always it comes with an overmastering givenness and demand such as no other thing or person has the power to convey or the right to require . . . . He may not be able to tell what to make of it, he may find it profoundly disturbing, but he knows it in the end to be inescapable and unconditional."³⁸

In his most recent writing, Robinson reveals his involvement in the controversial areas of politics, abortion law reform, the Humanae Vitae discussion, and liturgical reform.³⁹ I shall not attempt in this space to comment on Robinson's insights into these problems, but it should be mentioned that Robinson finds himself becoming more radical politically (even to the point of acknowledging that in many

³⁷ Exploration into God (London: SCM Press, 1967), p. 71.
³⁸ The New Reformation, p. 117.
³⁹ Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society, passim.

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parts of the world the revolutionary answer seems to be the only adequate solution to problems of injustice), and that he expects Christology to be the next center of theological debate. Robinson's Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge in 1970 will deal with the issues of Christology.

The final member of the Cambridge theological circle whom we shall consider is David L. Edwards, Vidler's successor as Dean of King's College and University Assistant Lecturer in Divinity. Oxford-trained, Edwards came to this post after extensive experience as General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement and as Editor of the SCM Press. It was in this latter capacity that he edited The Death of God Debate in 1963, and made his own contribution to the new theology in his perceptive introduction to that volume. A historian by training, Edwards' involvement with the World Student Christian Federation and World Council of Churches exposed him to a broad ecumenical stream of theology and churchmanship, and among the current Cambridge group he is the most knowledgeable about the ecumenical movement. His lectures on "Religious Life and Thought in the Twentieth Century" represent the only formal attempt in the University to deal with the contemporary international theological scene in a detailed way.

Although Edwards has been a prolific writer and editor, and provoked some reaction in his incisive little volume Not Angels But Anglicans, his major theological work to date has been an encyclopedic survey of the contemporary religious situation entitled Religion and Change. In this work, Edwards analyzes the political, cultural, and intellectual developments that have been a part of the world's coming of age, and the explicit and implicit challenge that these developments have posed for Christian dogmatism. It is clear to Edwards that Western cultures are now "post-Christian" in any traditional sense of understanding Christianity; what is needed, he maintains, is a new humility and a new flexibility, a "renewal of the Christian imagination."⁴⁰ Theologically this means an openness to those thinkers (such as Heidegger, Tillich, and Bultmann) who have sensed the mystical and aesthetic dimensions of the Christian vision. Whitehead's process theology, with its capacity to see a beauty and goodness in the world, deserves to be taken seriously because it provides a philosophical link with modern science and (like the philoso-

⁴⁰ Religion and Change (London: 1969), pp. 318, 321.

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phy of Being) appeals to the new self-consciousness of twentieth century man.

The modern task, however, is not just to find a more adequate theological system. More fundamentally, Edwards argues, it is to recover the visions of hope and patience that have historically been so important in Christian witness. Edwards is sympathetic with Moltmann's emphasis on hope, but tempers this with a concern for patience:

"It matters that the "Lord of Heaven and Earth" calls man to share not only his continuing creativity, but also the suffering involved, in the cross which, as Pascal said, will remain until the end of the world."⁴¹

Edwards shares with Robinson the deep conviction that God's reality is still at the heart of existence, and he is likewise persuaded that the conventional British biblical and historical theologies must give way to more imaginative approaches to Christian sensibilities. He is a radical in the Cambridge context because of his ecumenicity and openness; to go to the roots may well produce something new in thought and structure, but such undertakings can go on in confidence under the One "who will make known his power and joy as King on earth as in heaven."⁴²

III

These, then, are the Cambridge radicals: the men who, individually and collectively, have done so much to shape the issues of British theology in the past eight years. In spite of some obvious differences in training and temperament, they all share the Anglican heritage and the concern that this tradition be more open ecclesiastically and theologically. They have shown their uneasiness with the biblical-historical-textual methodologies in theology and have creatively appropriated the new theological approaches of America and Europe (Robinson, Montefiore, Root, Edwards). They have made ethics a proper and vital area of theological inquiry (Williams, Montetiore, Robinson) and have been active participants in the recent controversies of censorship, divorce laws, intercommunion, abortion laws, and Britain's immigration policies (Montefiore, Williams, Robinson). They have demanded intellectual honesty in facing the historical and philosophical problems created by a chang-

⁴¹ Ibid., P. 365.
42 Ibid, p. 366.

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ing cultural context (Vidler, MacKinnon). They have entered into dialogue with linguistic philosophers (MacKinnon, Root) and with humanists (Robinson), and in so doing have proved to be effective apologists. There is a notable ecumenical strain in their endeavors (Edwards, Robinson) which has also been symbolized by the open pulpit of Great St. Mary's Church.

Anyone who knows the Cambridge situation, however, also realizes that there are other theological viewpoints represented there, perhaps most notably in the biblical scholarship of C. F. D. Moule. The long strain of British empiricism means that the men whom we have considered in this essay are still working against the grain. There are gaps, too, within the current Cambridge theological circle-most notably in Roman Catholic studies and in the area of religion and personality (which Harry Williams had earlier explored so effectively). Yet the fact remains that although there have been creative efforts elsewhere in England in the last few years (most notably in Durham, where under the Deanship of J. Heywood Thomas there has been a measure of integration with the Roman Catholic theological faculty at Ushaw, and at Lancaster in the new Department of Religious Studies under Ninian Smart), the work of the Cambridge theologians has been the most visible symbol of new directions in British theology.

In this essay I have attempted to show how the Cambridge radicals have been trying to break the insular tradition of British theology, partly out of desperation and partly out of a creative impulse. Howard Root, in his Soundings essay, probably spoke for this whole group when he wrote, "For decades, if not for generations, Christian faith has lived in a state of imaginative impoverishment . . . . Academic theology has lived on its own fat. The supply of fat is running out."⁴³ It has been that realization, I would maintain, that has been the driving pulse of the Cambridge radicals and has prompted them to reconsider the roots of the Christian tradition. Between the poles of a reductionist American theology of love (William Hamilton and Paul Van Buren) and a continental theology of hope (Jürgen Moltmann), the Cambridge radicals appear to be struggling with a theology of faith that can still be an option for men in a world come of age.

⁴³ Op. Cit, p. 19.