PASTORAL THEOLOGY A Reorientation an excerpt Martin Thornton Authorized Reissue Back to CONTENTS and PREFACE Chapter 5 THE REMNANT HYPOTHESIS It must be insisted that the “Remnant” is a highly technical term with roots embedded in Hebrew prophecy and—as will appear later in this book—branches spreading through the Christian tradition.[1] The principle is held and the term used successively by Elisha, Amos, Micah, First Isaiah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel, and Ezra; reaching its fullest consummation and clearest exposition in the Deutero-Isaiah. This insistence is needed because in plain English the word has an “exclusive” sound and a numerical import, both of which we have rejected. Furthermore, the term is a popular one in pastoral discussion, where it is apt to be used with many shades of meaning, none very clearly defined. But the most cursory glance at the Second Isaiah brings to light four connected points which should suffice for initial definition. (1) Monotheism is never more clearly set forth than by this prophet. Yahweh is majestically transcendent yet majestically personal; he is the Father-creator of all things whose ultimate concern can be limited to nothing less than all: all nations, ages, and even creeds. But (2) Israel is his chosen race, the peculiar people, the elect, the priestly caste; set over against the Gentile world. Yet through sin and apostasy, its mission and even salvation is delegated to, and depends upon, the faithful Remnant, and the faithful Remnant is typified by purity in worship and loyalty in faith: religious or ascetical, rather than directly ethical, qualities. Thus (3) the salvation of the world depends upon the faith of Israel the chosen instrument, which in turn revolves around the faithful Remnant. So we are faced with the tremendous implications of (4) the vicarious principle; epitomized in the Servant poems and prophetic of the Cross. The Remnant, far from being an amputated segment—the clique detached from the whole—is at the centre of the parochial organism and of power extending beyond it. It is the very heart which recapitulates and serves the whole; in fact the complete Body of Christ in microcosm, and its relation to the environment is the relation between Christ and the twelve, to their world. This palpitating heart pumps blood of life to all the body as leaven leavens the lump or salt savours the whole. Strange as this man seem in its context, it is pertinent to notice how reasonable it sounds in almost any other context. A “good cricket school” is not one wherein all pupils are good at cricket nor even one where all play cricket, but one whose first eleven wins most of its matches. A law-abiding country is not one in which all the citizens are lawyers, judges, or policemen, but one with efficient police and judicial systems pervading the whole. A football club with dwindling gates and lack of support is one with its first team at the bottom of the league. It will rectify matters far sooner by improving its team and winning some matches than by appeals for support, and issuing recruitment propaganda. Young men do not become doctors, architects, and engineers, nor do young women offer themselves as nurses, teachers, wives, and mothers as the result of appeals or lectures, or being told that it is the respectable thing to do. These choices imply vocation, gifts, interest, the desire to be trained and become proficient in the service of others. But we have stopped thinking of religion in terms of training and proficiency for the service of others. Multitudinism has reduced Christianity to a conventional mediocrity, in which the hard things, and consequently the inspiring things, have no place. Once religion is held really to mean something, once it is seen as specific activity with its relevant arts and sciences, then a Christian parish ceases to be the dream—or nightmare—of a hundred-per-cent nominal, conventional “church-people,” but rather becomes a virile organism pervaded by the power of the Remnant’s Prayer. It is a parochial organism with a good first eleven: coached, disciplined, trained, and bound together as a representative team. The school match is won or lost directly by its selected players, yet because a school is a unity there is a real sense in which it is won or lost simply by “the school.” After a game between twenty-two players, untold thousands declare that “we” have won and thousands more than “we” have lost. A parish of a thousand souls, under multitudinist policy, is not really a parish at all if only nine hundred and ninety-nine are present at the altar; yet a parish of ten thousand souls is truly before God, both organically and so individually, if the Remnant of three recite the Church’s Office. It is interesting that whereas Sunday services are thought of in terms of numbers, an element of the vicarious is often imputed to the weekday Office of the priest. Yet Anglican theology insists that the creative channel of Grace in the world is not the priesthood but the Church; thus there is a most vital distinction between priest alone and priest plus Remnant of one. There is no such particular distinction between priest plus one, and priest plus two, sixty, or six thousand. Those who are worried over lack of support might substitute ascetic for arithmetic. There is nothing so contagious as holiness, nothing more pervasive than Prayer. This is precisely what the traditional Church means by evangelism and what distinguishes it from recruitment. But it must be emphasized that in all these analogies, schools, nations, and football clubs generally are recognized as organic in a way that parishes are not. People do in fact train to play for the school or club, they do suffer discipline and hardship to fight for their country. Yet normally they do not worship for their parish. They may pray for others as simple intercession, a few may even intercede for the parish as a whole, but it is not the vicarious for—on behalf of, as representative of, or even bluntly instead of—which implies duty and responsibility. Clearly all this demands not only ascetical direction, discipline, and sacrifice, but corporate Rule [Regula], for only this can bind people, streets, fields, houses, and the whole social structure into organic unity. The Remnant concept is more than the “nice little nucleus” backed by a comfortable theory. True representation, real vicariousness, the whole process of Christ’s redemption of creation by the redeemed in him, is to be ascetically achieved. Dogmatically and ontologically the Church is one. A pastoral system is false when it fails to give practical expression to this fact. Similarly “It is not, however, merely the human part of the created order that receives redemption and makes its true self-offering to God by joining ‘with the angels and archangels’ in the heavenly worship. The whole material realm in involved, for man is ‘nature’s priest.’”[2] "Not only man, but the universe, will be transfigured and glorified, and in this transfiguration the great mystery of the Resurrection of the Body will be brought about.”[3] There is a further falsity in any pastoral system which fails to take due account of places and things. Our task is twofold. First we must examine the Remnant hypothesis in the light of theology and history, then we must seek to apply it in terms of creative ascetical Rule [Regula]. [1] In claiming Old Testament parentage and a general orthodoxy for the “remnant” concept, I do not of course feel tied to any particular expression of it in detailed practice—living religion involves change and adaptation from age to age. I do not suggest that the modern English parish should slavishly copy Isaiah! and I do not think this is inconsistent with normal theological development. [2] E. L. Mascall, Christ, the Christian, and the Church, p. 164. [3] Ibid., p. 148. Back to CONTENTS and PREFACE. © Akenside Press and Matthew C. Dallman, 2016. Reissued with permission of Monica Thornton. All rights reserved. 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