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The policing of signs: Sacramentalism and authority in Rowan Williams' theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

Theo Hobson
Theo Hobson*
Affiliation:
72 Leghorn Road, London NW10 4PG, UKtheohobson@hotmail.com
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Abstract

This article reflects on Rowan Williams' postmodern approach to sacramentalism and ecclesiology, tracing it through various books and articles. Partly under the influence of the Roman Catholic reception of Wittgenstein, he expounds the centrality of the Eucharist in cultural-linguistic and semiotic terms. Through this central ritual the church signifies the Kingdom of God in a uniquely strong sense of ‘signifies’. He foregrounds a dramatic model: the worshipping community performs the new humanity, it is remade through this unique form of ‘community theatre’. Its guardianship of the ultimate form of Christian sign-making is what authorises the church, Williams teaches, and necessitates hierarchical control. The postmodern idiom therefore serves a very conservative ecclesiology. Williams balances this high ecclesiology with a recurrent apophatic theme: the church must remember that its performance of the Kingdom of God is provisional, ironic. Yet the article questions whether this is sufficient: Williams does not fully confront the danger of such an ecclesiology becoming the ideological justification of a form of social power. This danger is raised with especial pertinence by the issue of homosexuality: it shows that the ecclesial policing of sacramentalism is potentially erroneous. This issue therefore threatens to unravel his ecclesiology, or at least to expose its innate violence. The article concludes that Williams is only half-willing to confront the negative dimension to his sacramental ecclesiology: its ideological character, its potentially violent policing of all Christian culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , November 2008 , pp. 381 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2008

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References

1 Williams, Rowan, The Wound of Knowledge (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1979), p. 2Google Scholar.

2 Rowan, Williams, ‘Word and Spirit’, in Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell 2000), p. 124Google Scholar.

3 Williams, Rowan, ‘Authority and the Bishop in the Church’, in Santer, Mark (ed.), Their Lord and Ours: Approaches to Authority, Community and the Unity of the Church (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 95Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 94.

5 Williams, Rowan, Resurrection (London: Darton, Longman & Todd 1982), p. 3Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 49.

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8 Ibid., p. 28.

9 Ibid., p. 30.

10 Ibid.

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18 Ibid., p. 203.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., p. 205.

22 Ibid.

23 Rowan Williams, ‘The Judgement of the World’, in Williams, On Christian Theology, pp. 30–31.

24 Rowan Williams, ‘The Finality of Christ’, On Christian Theology, p. 99.

25 Ibid., p. 100.

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31 Ibid., pp. 92–3.

32 Ibid., p. 93.

33 Ibid., p. 94.

34 Ibid., p. 95.

35 Ibid., pp. 97–8.

36 Ibid., p. 99.

37 Ibid., p. 102.

38 Rowan Williams, ‘Sacraments of the New Society’, On Christian Theology, p. 209.

39 Ibid., p. 220.

40 Rowan Williams, ‘The Authority of the Church’, lecture delivered in 2003, in Modern Believing (March 2003), 16.

41 Ibid., p. 17.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid., p. 21.

44 Williams, Rowan, Why Study the Past? The Quest for the Historical Church (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005), p. 58Google Scholar.