Those who have read or heard Williams before may well expect that he will proceed to redefine the expressions 'the uniqueness of Christ' and 'the finality of Christ' in the light of these objections. They may also expect that these redefinitions will involve a significant departure from the way these terms have been used by reformed and evangelical thinkers since at least the time of the Reformation. Both of these expectations are, unfortunately, realised again in the Archbishop's lecture.

Following one of his well-established patterns of engaging the biblical text, he writes:

What the New Testament does not say is, 'unless you hold the following propositions to be true there is no life for you'. What it does say is, 'without a vital relationship with Jesus Christ who is the word of God made flesh, you will not become what you were made to be. You will not live into the fullness of your human destiny.' And it's this claim - not so much about unique truth in a form of words but about unique relationship with Jesus - which I want to explore a little with you. (p. 2)

The tired antithesis between propositional revelation ('unique truth in a form of words') and personal revelation ('a unique relationship with Jesus') is brought into service once again. Why should we accept that a vital relationship excludes a knowledge of the truth that could be expressed in propositional form? Of course there is more to the knowledge of God than acknowledgement of a set of propositions about him. Of course the uniqueness of Jesus extends beyond unique affirmations about him. Of course walking Jesus' way means 'not just having the right ideas about him, not even just repeating what he says, but following him'. However, a unique relationship with Jesus involves some apprehension of the unique truth about him and the stark 'it does not say ... but it does say' method Rowan Williams employs at this point creates a false dichotomy - to follow Jesus includes, but is not simply reducible to, confessing the truth about him.

The universalistic strand to Williams' thinking that was so evident in the Larkin-Stuart lecture is present again here.

... both those biblical texts with which I began take for granted something like this: we are in fact deprived of the knowledge that could lead to life as human beings, and we are in fact locked in patterns of destructive behaviour. We need as a matter of fact, rescue. We need to be set free to be what we were created to be - and we were created to be something in particular. We were created to be sons and daughters of the heavenly Father. So part of the New Testament claim is actually that there's something about human beings which is true universally; an orientation, a magnetic 'drawing-towards' the source of all things, and a capacity to relate to the source of all things, not simply as someone who obeys or thinks, but as someone who is related intimately and intensely; like a child to a father. That's what human beings are made for. (p. 3)

There is much here that is entirely right and true. And yet again unnecessary lines are drawn between aspects of biblical teaching that need to be held together. Why, for instance, is intimate, intense relationship separated out from obedience and right thinking? Isn't this obedient submission to the will of our heavenly father more closely tied to the reality of our relationship with him than that? Didn't the same Jesus who spoke of being intimately united to him and his Father through the Spirit also say 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love' (Jn 15:9–10).

More concerning is the universalist direction of what Williams goes on to say.

And if we emphasize the work of the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit in this, rather than human effort alone, we may well understand that what we see of people's relationship to Jesus and the Father isn't necessarily all that's going on. There is a truth about human beings. God has revealed it in Jesus Christ and revealed himself in that action. That's what we know. And how those who don't encounter that mystery explicitly and directly, are related to Jesus and the Father, we can't know and we'd better not pretend that we do. (p. 4)

In this context it is all the more important to recognise what Rowan Williams actually does say about the uniqueness and finality of Christ:

So, 'uniqueness' and 'finality': we believe as Christians that because of Jesus Christ a new phase in human history - not just the history of the Middle East or of Europe - has opened. There is now a community representing on earth the new creation, a restored humanity. There is now on earth a community which proclaims God's will for universal reconciliation and God's presence in and among us leading us towards full humanity. That is something which happens as a result of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Uniqueness, yes, in the sense that this 'turning of a historical epoch', this induction of a new historical moment, can only happen because of the one event and the narratives around it. And finality? Christians have claimed and will still claim that when you have realized that God calls you simply as human being, into that relationship of intimacy which is enjoyed by Jesus and which in Jesus reflects the eternal intimacy of the different moments and persons in the being of God, then you understand something about God which cannot be replaced or supplemented. The finality lies in the recognition that now there is something you cannot forget about God and humanity, and that you cannot correct as if it were simply an interesting theory about God and humanity. (p. 5)

...belief in the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ - for all the assaults made upon it in the modern age - remains for the Christian a way of speaking about hope for the entire human family. And because it's that, we are bound to say something about it. (p. 6)

The anthropocentricity of his reinterpretation of Christ's uniqueness and finality is staggering. Rather than understanding this in terms of Jesus' relation to the Father as the eternal Son incarnate and the promised Christ of Israel, his uniqueness revolves around the new range of possibilities he opens up for us, the new era which his life and death and resurrection inaugurated. Of course these things are important and they are an integral part of the New Testament but ultimately the Archbishop's interpretation is insufficiently theological. In the shorthand that I have used elsewhere: John 14:6 must be true and must be proclaimed because John 14:9–11 is true. Jesus' unique relationship to the Father, his identity as the Son who is one in being with the Father, marks him out as the one who cannot be avoided, cannot be sidestepped, and cannot be relativised as simply one possible route to life with God.

Williams' exploration of these verses contains much helpful material. It is possible for us to minimise the cosmic dimensions of God's purposes and the love of God 'for the world' which motivates the sending of the Son (ironically despite our love of John 3:16 as a summary of the gospel). He has helpfully challenged such reductionism. Yet in the end his redefinition actually evacuates the good news of its power, replacing it with a sophisticated yet still sentimental humanism. That, combined with a refusal to engage with the biblical teaching about idolatry, false religion and the necessity of repentance, leads to perhaps the most blatant case of caricature in the entire lecture:

We are very rightly suspicious of proselytism, of manipulative, bullying, insensitive approaches to people of other faith which treat them as if they knew nothing, as if we had nothing to learn and as if the tradition of their reflection and imagination were of no interest to us or God. God save us from that kind of approach. (p. 6)

It is hard to square the conclusion which Archbishop reaches with the teaching Deuteronomy 12 (you must not worship the true God in the way the nations worship the gods of their imaginations) and 1 Corinthians 10 (the so-called worship of other gods is nothing other than an engagement with demons).

There are some who are fascinated by the way Archbishop Williams' mind works. He often writes at a level of abstraction that presents a real challenge to the uninitiated. His deep familiarity with a wide range of literature (he is after all the author of a brilliant book on Dostoyevsky) is awe-inspiring.

Some have bent over backwards, or so it seems, to argue that he is simply presenting an intellectually sophisticated confession of the mainstream teaching of the Christian church over the past two thousand years. Others are in awe of his personal gifts, his capacity to generate respect even amongst those who disagree with him. I have listened to one prominent bishop from another part of the world, one who strongly disagrees with him, defend him as a man of impeccable godliness and faithful resolve.

And there are even some who are still willing to present him as one of the very few genuinely Christian leaders. I have been part of another conversation where one of the participants suggested that he was a rare Christ-like leader who served others at deep personal cost, not seeking to impose his opinion upon the churches he serves but rather waiting upon them with patience and gentleness and bearing the opprobrium this almost inevitably calls forth from other Christians who remain besotted with secular models of leadership.

However others of us grow impatient with his obfuscation, which, it must be said, too often seems designed to mask radical departures from the biblical teaching, Christian orthodoxy and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies. We remind ourselves that enormous intellect has never been a guarantee of theological orthodoxy and that reformed piety refuses to draw attention to itself. We ask how long will he prevaricate and avoid decisive action, apparently in the hope that a future Hegelian synthesis will break the current deadlock while keeping us all together.

Into such a mix of assessments comes the lecture I have been examining. It strikes at the heart of the Christian message, circumventing some of the most direct teaching on the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. It is undoubtedly a tour de force, but will it really do anything to encourage faithful men and women all over the globe who are being placed under enormous pressure to abandon any suggestion that outside of Christ men and women are lost and that our only hope is the incarnate Son who died for our sins and was raised for our justification?

----Mark Thompson teaches theology at Moore College, Sydney