The Cathedral Close

Austin Farrer, a name probably unfamiliar to most Americans, was  once described by Bp. Richard Harries (Oxford) as the greatest mind produced by the Church of England in the twentieth century. Farrer+ was renowned as a philosophical theologian. He was also a scholar of the New Testament and a great preacher.

It was at Oxford where Farrer made the most important decision of his life. Although raised in a staunchly Baptist family, when he matriculated at Oxford Farrer was not yet a member of any church.  Farrer found himself inexorably drawn into the Church of England. In May of 1924, Farrer was baptized and confirmed in the Latin Chapel of Oxford’s Christ Church Cathedral.

Unlike his near-contemporary C. S. Lewis, Farrer did not experience a dramatic conversion from atheism to theism to Christianity; the choice for him seems never to have been belief or disbelief in God. Rather, Farrer had to decide in which church he could best serve God. Although he never wrote of his decision to join the Church of England, years later his sermon, “On Being an Anglican,” does illuminate the decision of his college days.  It is something to keep in mind as we rebuild an Anglican-Catholic expression here in America:

We are Anglicans not because of the psalms or the poetry of George Herbert or the cathedral, but because we can obey God here. The Church mediates Christ. To be a loyal churchman is hobbyism or prejudice unless it is the way to be a loyal Christian — to see through the Church to Christ as a man sees through the telescope to the stars.

As we approach Advent, we do well to consider the following from a great scholar and preacher:

… God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts and He prepares for man such good things as pass man’s understanding. … It becomes painfully obvious that our crosses will never deserve our crowns. If you want to see a wreath and a cross to match it, you must go as far as the empty sepulcher outside Jerusalem…. Look closely at this cross and there you shall see, like a little jewel laid over the intersection of its arms, whatever cross you have faithfully borne for God’s sake. Alone, it would not be measurable against the glorious cross, but the great arms of Christ’s cross extend the spread of yours and fit it to the heavenly scale.