I resisted calling this a homily. It’s more of a book review. Like our summer homily series it’s about where God showed up, for me, in the fiction Starbridge Series by Susan Howatch … so maybe it’s sort of homiletic. The series is 6 novels set from 1935 – 1980 – each one narrated in first person by imaginary Church of England male priests, except for one, Scandalous Risks, which is narrated by a woman. She’s not a priest, it was the mid 1900s after all, but she is in love with a married one. Howatch has some strong female characters but focusses primarily on men, as did the Church of England, then and now. Each novel is probably over 100,000 words so there are lots of words discussing theology and how to deal with family dysfunction AND lots of words about sex, alcohol and societal issues along with the power trips and sexual blunders of church leaders.

I believe Howatch has a deep love, trust and hope for the Church, as do I. The Church has made many mistakes over the years evidenced by the failures of so many male leaders. Hopefully the first female Archbishop of Canterbury will help the present day Anglicans. Despite all its failures, the Church is the Body of Christ and can be a force for Love, light and healing in this crazy, wonderful world. That is one theme that I believe Howatch is trying to get across.

According to her publisher, Howatch was never comfortable with publishing popular fiction. In 2004 she walked away from being a best-selling novelist, leaving him because “he had sold too many copies of her books.” Howatch used some of her profits to found an academic post ‘Starbridge Lecturer in Natural Science and Theology’ in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, devoted to linking the fields of science and religion.

For this series, she invented Starbridge, an imaginary diocese in England. It’s an often sordid depiction of bishops and priests and their marriages and families and all the problems that the 60s conjures up. These books aren’t for everyone. I think there are way too many words about sex and family dysfunction. There’s nothing that explicit, and everyone seems to be obsessed by sex, having affairs or fighting temptation. As well I feel there’s too much mention of the devil and need for exorcisms, which will make some readers uncomfortable.

And she does a wonderful job of creating parallel commentaries between the psychological  damage of guilt, pride, parental disappointments – real or imagined and religious sin and spiritual darkness. She makes it clear that only prayer, sacraments and the light of Christ can cast out or heal that darkness. Along those lines Howatch quotes a real Archbishop of Canterbury from the mid 1900s, Micheal Ramsey, “It may be that stories of demonic possession are explicable rather as stories of psychological disorder.” p268 Mystical Paths

Howatch uses real people to base her characters on, something I’m sure many novelists do. I found it fascinating to hear the writings / words of real theologians used in the conversations between fictitious characters. Truth is truth even in fiction. In researching where Howatch is nowadays, I found an article written in April this year, where the 85 year old author spoke of after 22 years of not publishing, she’s re-worked Glamorous Powers, the 2nd novel.

It just happens that Glamorous Powers is my favorite in the series; primarily because it involves spiritual direction, monasteries and healing. It’s narrated by Jon Darrow, a priest who he calls himself a physic. From an early age he and his mother often communicated without words, angering his father. As he matured he found he could stop clocks and heal folk using his glamorous powers. He became an Anglican priest and after his wife dies and kids are old enough, he joins an Anglican monastic order Howatch made up, the Fordites. It gives him the rigid spiritual disciplines to combat his arrogance with his glamorous powers. Eventually he becomes an Abbot. The conversation with his Abbott-General, as he discerns leaving the order, is a fascinating confession / spiritual direction session. Then he gets into trouble with dark forces of evil or his pride and guilt, when he tries to start a healing ministry without sufficient spiritual resources. He eventually deals with issues from his past – mom / wife – woman issues and his dad – vocational issues, with the help of another spiritual director, and finds his way to be true to who God made him to be, using his glamorous powers the right way … for the most part. His character shows up throughout the series.

One of the things Darrow says, which I appreciated, is “A mystic, who dispenses with a religious framework, lays himself open to corruption. But on the other hand, a religious who tries to discard mysticism lays a dead hand on his spiritual life. Mysticism is the material of religion, without raw materials building is impossible, and without a structure designed by architects raw materials remain raw materials. The raw materials of mysticism can be found worldwide as they permeate, all great religions and the architecture which brings from them is as varied as the human race itself.” p404 An interesting comment on spiritual gifts and the Church.

Howatch concludes each novel by sharing the real historical people she bases her main characters on. In Glamorous Powers, Jon Darrow was based on thoughts of William Ralph Inge an Anglican intellect and priest from early 1900s. She writes “The character of John Darrow was fictitious. His thought is derived from the writings of William Ralph Inge. Inge was brought up in the High Church tradition, but detached himself not only from the Anglo-Catholic but from the Evangelicals, powerful opposing wings of the church of England. He wrote “besides the combative Catholic and Protestant elements in the Churches, there has always been a third element which traditions reach back to the Greek fathers to Saint Paul and St. John… — a spiritual religion based on the firm belief and absolute and eternal values as the most real things in the universe — a confidence that these vaules are knowable by man — a belief that they can be only known by wholehearted consecration of the intellect, will and affections and open mind towards the discoveries of science and a reverent, receptive attitude to the beauty, sublimity, and wisdom of creation as a revelation of the mind and character of the Creator, a complete indifference to the current valuations of the worldling.” p408ff An interesting perspective on faith and science … hopeful and challenging.

Let me conclude with another God idea I got from the series. In the last novel Absolute Truths, the narrator is Charles Ashworth, the Bishop of Starbridge. He often quotes Romans 8:28 “all things work together for good to them that love God” to help him cope with the many challenges he faces, including the sudden death of his wife. His spiritual director, Jon Darrow, translates that scripture “All things intermingle for good to those that love God” Darrow says, “when you say “all things intermingle for good” you imply that the good and the bad remain distinct, the bad is really terrible and the good may seem powerless … but when the good and the bad intermingle – not merge, but intermingle, the dark doesn’t become less dark, but the pattern that the light makes upon it contains the meaning which makes the darkness endurable.” p594 Reminded me of Victor Frankl’s – Man’s Search for Meaning. Ashworth applies this to the death of his wife and finds comfort. Of course there are bad things we need to change AND the light of Love shining on darkness can change how we see suffering in our lives. This is one more way how God’s truth showed up me in these novels.

SO…these books have many interesting theological statements and for some readers the way Howatch writes would be hard to read. I’m grateful for the absolute truths that Howatch puts in the minds and mouths of her characters. It makes these novels worth re-reading, for me at least.

Happy summer reading.