Patient Compassion but Delayed Justice?

By Tom Anthony

Radical Compassion : The Life and Times of Archbishop Ted Scott by Hugh McCullum

ABC Publishing, Toronto, 2004

I have known Ted Scott and his biographer Hugh McCullum for more than three decades. During the first ten years of Scott's term as the first full-time Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (1971-1986), I was the director of the church's National and World Program. Radical Compassion is a captivating historical description of some of the major involvements of this remarkably humble, patient and caring human being whose compassion almost invariably exceeded his parallel commitment to justice.   

Ted Scott works out of a core conviction that personal and social change only occurs when people are informed and have opportunity to change their understandings and beliefs. . . his gentle leadership style and people-centered commitment to consensus-building transformed the functioning of the Anglican Church of Canada at all levels.

His life and work are all the more inspiring for the enigmatic nature of his personality. Ted Scott works out of a core conviction that personal and social change only occurs when people are informed and have opportunity to change their understandings and beliefs. While Ted may “have led from behind” (as one episcopal colleague put it), nonetheless his gentle leadership style and people-centered commitment to consensus-building transformed the functioning of the Anglican Church of Canada at all levels. His modus vivendi also influenced the ecumenical relations and international actions of the Canadian churches in which he became the central figure for at least 15 years.

The decade (1960s) before Scott's election as Primate was a peak time for awareness of social justice in the Canadian public and churches. It was the era of the Cuban missile crisis and of the Vietnam War with its influx of young American war resisters. It was Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. It was wake-up time for the women's movement and for Aboriginal political awareness. It was Trudeau in Ottawa, it was the FLQ crisis in Quebec, and it was a heyday for some forms of Canadian nationalism. Within the churches, debates raged about capital punishment, family planning and abortion, poverty in Canada, and the abysmal plight of Canadian Aboriginal peoples and the churches' complicity therein.

Into this environment Ted Scott stepped reluctantly, at 51, to become the central figure in the Anglican Church and the de facto ecumenical leader in Canada. He had five years of experience as a bishop, and had been involved with some domestic issues; but had little international experience, and tended to approach issues from a social service perspective, like the “Depression baby” he was, remedial rather than reformist.

Early in his tenure the Canadian churches were developing a remarkably wide range of joint efforts which came to be known at “coalitions for justice.” The inter-church coalitions were small, specialized advocacy groups. Working closely with church-connected colleagues in the global South, the coalitions lobbied hard and passionately for changes in governmental and corporate policies and actions. These activities sometimes sparked backlash from church networks and more particularly from the business community. Scott was inevitably drawn into the backlash, not by his outspoken radical leadership, but because of his compassionate response to social discord.

Because of this unique combination of events and because of the Primate's personality, Scott and those who staffed and supported his primacy exercised considerable influence on inter-Anglican and ecumenical relations around the world. During eight tumultuous Cold War years (1975 to 1983), while liberation struggles raged in Africa and Central America, Ted Scott held the highly politicized office of Moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which sponsored (among other things) the controversial Programme to Combat Racism . The term as WCC Moderator was the high-water mark of Scott's international influence.

But herein lies the dilemma of Ted Scott. As McCullum affirms in the first chapter, “What he didn't like, and has rejected all his life, were doctrinaire ideologies or theologies, which denied a person the opportunity to think or choose diverse positions.” As a young priest, Scott upheld the old aphorism about hating the sin while loving the sinner; but, writes McCullum, “it would be a long time before he saw the sinful aspects of economic and political (and I would add ecclesiastical) systems that manipulated people into dehumanizing actions and reactions.” Scott tended to take people at face value, somewhat naively, and to analyze society from the personal rather than the collective point of view, the author asserts.

It was this aspect of Scott's worldview that frustrated many of his social justice-oriented colleagues. Scott's “personalism” and small “c” conservative nature often appeared to compromise carefully articulated positions that had been developed in the inter-church networks for social advocacy. He wanted change, but did not believe in confrontation, and he often appeared to agree with his attackers, never refusing to meet with them or treat them in a conciliatory way. If there is a dimension of the gospel for which there seemed to be no room in this Primate's theology, it is the mood echoed repeatedly in Luke 12. I offer two examples: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division”(v.51); and “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearances of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” (v.56-57).

Hugh McCullum sums it up this way: “Scott was a process person, a change agent, not a radical. He believed firmly that he and like-minded people working in community could effect change from within the structures of the church (and one might add “of society”). Social justice did not necessarily entail fundamental social change.” Thirty years later, Scott reflects (and McCullum quotes), “Personally I think we were too confrontational; we didn't dialogue as much as we should have. Our coalitions were very edgy and very committed to the social gospel, to the theology of liberation, to Christ's clear bias for the poor. I agree totally with that gospel. But some of the methods used then worried me, much more than they do today. . . I believe that compassion can flow from respectful dialogue, conciliation, and personal contact. That can also be an excuse to avoid action, and like justice, action on behalf of the poor and dispossessed cannot be forever delayed.”

. . .Scott as Primate failed to provide effective leadership on three major issues that arose during his tenure: church union (with the United Church of Canada and the Disciples of Christ), the ordination of women, and sexual orientation. . . the latter with dire consequences to the present debate on homosexual unions.

As McCullum documents it, Scott as Primate failed to provide effective leadership on three major issues that arose during his tenure: church union (with the United Church of Canada and the Disciples of Christ), the ordination of women, and sexual orientation. Despite his best efforts at nurturing collegiality and participation of the House of Bishops in the larger processes of the Anglican Church, the bishops blocked church union, and delayed the other two issues, the latter with dire consequences to the present debate on homosexual unions.

The book is slightly misleading in describing Ted Scott's role with regard to corporate social responsibility issues. He rarely attended shareholder meetings where management policies were to be challenged. At one important juncture when he was to speak for the first time to the Royal Bank's annual meeting, he abandoned the ecumenically-vetted prepared speech demanding that the banks commit to no further loans to apartheid South Africa, and opted instead for pleasantries. In 1976 he took it upon himself, without consultation, to join the right-wing Confederation of Church and Business People which had been formed to oppose the activities of the inter-church justice coalitions and to call for their dissolution. I vividly remember challenging Ted on this non-process behaviour and warning him “they will eat you up!” He listened, but did not agree. A brutal interview on CTV of Ted's involvement with the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism – which totally distorted the world churches' support for the liberation struggles in Southern Africa and northern Canada – resulted in Canadian church protests. “The worst piece of journalism I have seen in my life,” said Rev. Richard Berryman, the Anglican media relations man; but the damage had been done.

Ron Willoughby, a senior Imperial Oil (ESSO) PR executive deeply involved in the epic Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and Polar Gas debates before the Berger Commission and the National Energy Board, is quoted: “He knew we weren't evil men who had to justify our existence to those leftist priests. Those guys used very confrontative language, ‘immoral, unethical and sinful' when they talked about business. It was a good thing Ted came along with his quiet, pragmatic approach, which said making profits was alright.”

Perhaps the section of Radical Compassion most revealing of the ambivalence in Ted Scott's action for justice is the chapter on South Africa, which describes his role as the Canadian member of the Commonwealth-appointed Eminent Persons Group in the mid-1980s. Despite more than a decade of exposure to the realities of the apartheid holocaust, McCullum asserts that Scott, “like others, underestimated the complex venality of the minority white regime, which had thrived economically for years, despite its relative isolation. Most white Anglo liberals and right-wing Boers alike had a great life as a highly privileged minority,” while the majority black population languished in abject poverty. The Eminent Persons Group played a small international role in reducing Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan's opposition to sanctions, but in the end it was internal political pressure and external financial sanctions (including those imposed by Canada after many years of inaction) which forced the Botha regime to abandon its resistance to freeing Nelson Mandela and moving towards representative government.

There are several gaps in the book. Little mention is made of the innovative work the Anglican Church of Canada did in radically changing its mode of relating to the broader Anglican Communion and especially to churches in the global South which now represent the majority of Anglicans. Likewise, scant mention is made of the important role of critiquing and improving the Canadian government's policies in international development, emergency aid, and foreign policy, especially with regard to human rights.  

No mention is made of the silence of the national Anglican Church while the James Bay Hydro project was imposed by the Quebec government on the Cree and Inuit peoples – a silence born of fear of offending Quebec nationalist sensitivities, including those of Quebec's Roman Catholic Church. Nothing is said about the churches' silence on the illegal dirty tricks and other U.S.-style surveillance activities of social activists in Quebec and across Canada. Surprisingly, the author makes no mention of the important independent editorial role which the Canadian Churchman enjoyed and which Scott protected during his tenure.

Its penultimate chapter (12) reveals Ted Scott as the lover of people that he authentically is in several poignant instances of people in need of deep compassion. The stories speak volumes about the humble willingness of this unique individual to give himself to others in need.

The best parts of the book are saved for the last. Its penultimate chapter (12) reveals Ted Scott as the lover of people that he authentically is in several poignant instances of people in need of deep compassion. The stories speak volumes about the humble willingness of this unique individual to give himself to others in need.  

McCullum's “Afterword” (Chapter 13) deals with Scott's present approach to the issue of same-sex relationships. Scott strongly supports the “local option” policy, according to which each Anglican diocese would be free to take its own position on whether or not to bless committed same-sex relationships. “If we are to be the church in the world, then we cannot ignore the force of secular cultural pressures in decision-making, and it is at least as powerful as scripture and tradition. It is the channel – the spirit of the age – through which the Holy Spirit is trying to say something to the church. It cannot simply be dismissed, whether opponents like it or not,” Scott asserts. He feels there has been enough time and debate for the church to move forward.   The General Synod of June 2004 disagreed, postponing for three more years the debate on blessing same-sex unions. There will be more pain and suffering.

Herb O'Driscoll, the much-published Anglican muse, has described Ted Scott's life as “an outward and communal journey. We are no longer primarily in that kind of journey. Much contemporary Christian experience and self-understanding is inward and individual.” Far too much! One can heartily agree, and one hopes that the readers of Radical Compassion will appropriate not only what Ted would call new knowledge and awareness, but will take action for justice, not for peace where there is no peace. A luta continua.

The Rev. Tom Anthony, a Canadian Anglican priest, is the former chair of that church's national Anglican Human Rights Unit. He was also the founding chair of the Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility, and the first Canadian Anglican priest to participate in the ordination of women, in Philadelphia in 1974. Tom may be reached by email at tom_anthony@hotmail.com.