Hugh McCullum. Toronto: ABC Publishing, 2004, 544 pages. Reviewed by Ron Dart.
“Liberalism was, in origin, criticism of the old established
order. Today, it is the voice of the establishment.”
—George Grant
The time has come, gratefully so, when the rich and varied
life of Archbishop Ted Scott has been told in all its fullness, complexity,
allure and limitations. The telling of this compelling tale has been artfully
told by Hugh McCullum in Radical Compassion:
The Life and Times of Archbishop Ted Scott.
The biography of Scott is not only a narrative and story of
the life, thoughts and many activities of Scott, but it is also a well told
drama of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada in the post-WW II ethos and
setting. Archbishop Ted Scott was an important actor on the stage of Canadian,
Anglican and international issues in the last half of the 20th
century, and McCullum recounts how this was the case and why it was so in Radical Compassion.
Radical Compassion
avoids the two extremes, when unraveling the life of a front stage person, of
hagiography and excessive criticism. McCallum is quite willing to ask the hard
questions about the limitations of Scott’s life, thinking and activities, but
he is just as quick and keen to see the good in Scott. There is a careful
weighing of the oral and written evidence, and in the final act of the drama we
see a man who did the best he could with who he was.
Radical Compassion is
neatly divided into four distinct yet overlapping chronological periods in
Scott’s life: 1) The Formation of a Primate (1919-1971), 2) Restless Times: The
Tenth Primate (1971-1986), 3) A Man for the World and, 4) Retirement (1986–).
“The Formation of a Primate” unpacks and uncovers the early
years of Scott’s life. We learn much about Scott’s life and the times that
shaped him between WW I and WW II. The great depression and the tragedies of
the wars did much to forge and form a tender and delicate social conscience.
Scott’s work with the Student Christian Movement and his role as the bishop of
the experimental Kootenay diocese (1966-1971) is told in graphic and telling
detail. Comments and reflections about Scott are abundant, and each and all are
told in a personal and poignant manner.
“Restless Times” bring us front and centre into the main and
major issues that none could avoid in the 1960s-70s-80s. The Anglican Church of
Canada was being challenged to the core, centre and foundation. There was
hardly an issue that did not come to the fore at this period of time. Christian
education, an increased role for the laity, revised liturgy, First Nations
concerns, feminism, global justice, ecumenism and the fate of the earth and
world politics pressed in from all sides. Scott tried, as best he could, in the
spirit of compassion, consensus, tolerance, collegiality, ecumenism and a grass
roots approach to deal with a church in transition. A changing of the guards
was occurring, but most were not clear or sure about what things would look
like when the new guards and guardians arrived at the palace. There were those who were with Scott,
and there were those who opposed him. Scott tried to befriend one and all. His
deep seated personalism and pastoral touch attempted to settle and resolve
profound and serious differences, but this approach did have its limitations.
There were those who thought Scott was too political. There were others who
thought he was not political enough.
“A Man for the World” focuses on the harvest bearing years
of Scott’s active life. This third part of the biography deals with, in some
depth and detail, Scott’s role as moderator of the World Council of Churches
and his struggle for South Africa. This phase and season of Scott’s life was
thick with controversy and a hectic and busy life. McCullum, throughout Radical Compassion, returns, again and
again, to the way the Scott family and the Anglican Church handled such a
frenetic, unpredictable yet ever compassionate life.
“Retirement” brings the circle full round. The waning and twilight
years of Scott’s life were still busy, but with the death of his wife and the
more weighty demands of a Primate off his shoulders, a certain loneliness,
predictably so, set in. Each moment and second, day and week could and would
not be filled with some meeting or demand for some action. There was much
disorientation, but Scott did the best he could with the changes that must and
do come with aging and being marginalized from all the hurly burly of being on
front stage in life’s drama.
Radical Compassion
is a sound, solid and substantive telling of the life of Ted Scott. There are a
few questions, though, as I finished the read, I would like to have seen dealt
with in more depth and detail.
First, there is no doubt Scott was a social liberal. He was
part of the liberal guardian class. His interpretation, read and reflections on
the struggles of the times were fed through the grid of a social liberal
perspective. This is why, of course, Scott was offered such a good forum before
the liberal establishment in both society and the church. Scott said all the
right things, and took all the predictable positions. Scott’s social liberal
allies like Gregory Baum, Remi De Roo, Lois Wilson, Desmond Tutu, Nelson
Mandela and Robert Smith did much define and shape the Christian social vision
in a language and activist way that pleased the liberal family compact and
guardian class. There was a problem with this, though, on a variety of levels.
Social liberals can be either moderate or radical. Much hinges on how the
problem of structural injustice is interpreted and analyzed, and, equally
important, how such injustices are to be opposed and challenged. Scott was a
moderate social liberal, and his more radical social liberal comrades found him
wanting many times. Scott would just not go too far down the radical path. This
does raise some interesting questions for social liberals. There is a point
where the moderates and radicals part company, and this parting of the ways
cannot be bridged by either a pastoral or relational approach. It would have
been helpful if Hugh McCullum had probed this dilemma much more than he did.
Second, Scott was a social liberal, and he dipped his
theological and political bucket deep into the waters of the liberal creed and
dogma for much of his social vision. It might have been helpful if McCullum had
probed this area. It is one thing to argue that Scott was really not a
theologian or intellectual. He was a pastoral activist the argument often goes.
But, this approach does not really deal with the problem.
The Anglican Church of Canada, in the last fifty years, has bought uncritically
into the liberal agenda. Much good has come from this, but there are problems
at the very heart and core of liberalism. It is too bad that Scott could and did
not rise above such tribalism. It is most illiberal of liberals not to be able
to see the flaws, shadow side and dark places of liberalism. Scott tended to
ride the liberal horse well without asking about how this aging horse might
have a limited life expectancy.
Third, there is a sense that Scott, in some ways, prepared
the way for the culture wars in the Anglican Church of Canada today. Scott was
so much the dutiful and predictable liberal that he lacked the ability to see
the limitations of ideological liberalism. The conservative response to
liberalism in society and the church has much good to it, but liberals often
only see the negative side of conservatism while idealizing liberalism. Much of
Radical Compassion accepts the
dominance and victory of the liberal way without asking serious questions about
the limitations of liberalism. Evangelicals and conservatives tend to be seen in a reactionary and negative
way rather than taken with much seriousness. It is this approach that is
neither deeply ecumenical nor fully Anglican.
We might ask this simple question: how would Scott deal with
the Essentials Movement in the ACC today? McCullum never really deals with this
nagging dilemma in much depth or detail. Would Scott have been able to deal
with it given his liberal prejudices and presuppositions? The liberal family
compact and Sanhedrin do have great difficulties seeing the limitations of
liberalism, and Scott and McCullum tend to share this nagging weakness.
Fourth, Scott’s role as Primate in the Anglican Church of
Canada was at the same time as another prominent Canadian Anglican. George
Grant is now seen as an important Anglican intellectual and political theorist/activist.
William Christian’s biography of Grant is now a classic. Grant was a prolific letter
writer, and in George Grant: Selected
Letters (1996), he has this to say about Scott. ‘Archbishop Scott said some
very foolish words in Toronto yesterday about pornography. It is very very hard
for me to take these untheologically trained bishops’ authority seriously’ (February
16 1973). It would have helped if McCullum had dealt, in some way, with the
much deeper clash between Scott’s liberalism (and those who uncritically
genuflect before such an agenda) and the deeper and more thoughtful conservatism
of a George Grant. Both Grant and Scott dared to ask many of the hard questions
of the time, but there is a depth to Grant that is lacking in Scott, and this,
in the long haul, might be the flaw in Scott’s radical compassion.
Fifth, there is no doubt Scott was a driven activist, and
this was his appeal and limitation. The activist might accomplish much, but there are often
depths in the human soul and spirit that political activists shy away from
facing. There is, in short, a lack of contemplative depth in Scott, and in an
age that has a pronounced interest in the contemplative and mystical depths
within religious traditions, Scott offers little leadership or guidance.
In sum, I think it might be legitimate to suggest that Scott
was compassionate but not necessarily radical. The radical social liberals
found him too tame and moderate and the more substantive conservatives like
George Grant found him paper thin. Radical means cutting to the roots at a
theological, mystical, intellectual and political level. Scott did none of
these. There was no doubt Scott was a compassionate man, but each and all must
ask serious questions about the nature of compassion when it is disconnected
from something deeper and more grounded. The language of compassion, like the
language of mercy, pluralism and inclusiveness can pander to narcissism and sentimentality
if there is lacking a deeper transformative and moral vision. Compassion, like
faithfulness, can become playthings of a trendy and fashionable liberal agenda
if not thought through at a more demanding level both in the soul and society.
It would have been helpful if McCullum had taken some of these issues to a
deeper and more probing level. The biography would have been stronger for it.
Radical Compassion
is a finely written book that tells much about the fascinating life of
Archbishop Ted Scott. It is a must read for those who want to understand where
the Anglican Church of Canada today is and why. Some of the harder questions
that face the ACC today are not dealt with (or they are but from within the
prejudices of liberalism). This is a worrisome flaw in an otherwise well-written and
engaging book.
rsd