It's official - not 'five marks of mission', but one

No time for 'proper blogging' this afternoon. During the week, however, I read yet another document which referred uncritically to the 'Five Marks of Mission' as if they were the gold-standard of Anglican missional doctrine. The problem is, this overlooks the fact that these 'marks' have already been critiqued by the body which produced them, which decided they weren't quite right.

Following a review process begun in 1996, this body stated, "we have come to believe that, as our Communion travels further along the road towards being mission-centred, the Five Marks need to be revisited."

I do wish someone would tell the Church of England this.

Meanwhile, rather than rehash the material, I have simply cut and pasted from my book the relevant section (the footnotes are in the actual text). I hope this might give you some ideas ...

Reasserting Evangelism

 We referred earlier to the ‘Five Marks of Mission’, which have come to function as an unofficial, but highly popular, summary of the Church’s raison d’être. The adoption of these ‘Marks of Mission’, however, has had serious consequences for the Church.

Thus, Martin Davie, in his A Guide to the Church of England, asserts on this basis that, “the Church of England ... sees mission as something that involves more than simply evangelism.”²⁹

Indeed Davie explicitly critiques the definition of evangelism used in Towards the Conversion of England, quoting with approval the words of Paul Avis:

... mission is bigger than evangelization. Evangelization is a part of which mission is the whole. As Moltmann puts it, ‘[...] Evangelization is mission, but mission is not merely evangelization.’³⁰

The problem with this analysis is that it has been rejected by a subsequent Anglican body set up to continue the study of mission: the ‘Standing Commission for Mission of the Anglican Communion’, also known as MISSIO. According to its report on the Anglican Communion official website,

At its second meeting (Ely 1996), MISSIO began reviewing the 'Five Marks of Mission' as developed by the Anglican Consultative Council between 1984 and 1990. We recognise with gratitude that the Five Marks have won wide acceptance among Anglicans, and have given parishes and dioceses around the world a practical and memorable "checklist" for mission activities.

However, we have come to believe that, as our Communion travels further along the road towards being mission-centred, the Five Marks need to be revisited.³¹

Crucially, and contra the assertions of Davie, Avis and indeed Jurgen Moltmann, the report goes on to say,

The first mark of mission, identified at ACC-6 with personal evangelism, is really a summary of what all mission is about, because it is based on Jesus’ own summary of his mission (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:14-15, Luke 4:18, Luke 7:22; cf. John 3:14-17). Instead of being just one (albeit the first) of five distinct activities, this should be the key statement about everything we do in mission. (Emphasis added)³²

In other words, far from personal evangelism being a part of mission, it is (properly understood) the very heart of mission.

The reason for this will hopefully become clear if we look carefully at the definition of evangelism used in Towards the Conversion of England.

This states carefully and explicitly that to evangelize is “so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Saviour, and serve Him as their King”. The last point, however, is often missed, even by those doing the evangelism.

Personally I find some difficulties (not to say confusion) in the ideas about justification being put forward by the former Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, and in some of the applications he suggests of the significance of the resurrection. However, I believe he is spot-on when he says that evangelism ought to be the announcement of the lordship of Christ:

... ‘the gospel’, in the New Testament, is the good news [...] that Jesus, whom ... God raised from the dead, is the world’s true Lord.³³

Our problem has been with the extent of Christ’s lordship. Undoubtedly this is in part because of our own sinfulness and the pervasiveness of sin in the world, which makes us unable to see what his lordship requires and unwilling to be obedient when we finally understand. In the former nations of Western Christendom it may also have been because the government and the laws did some of the work for us. Today, however, the challenge is perhaps greater than ever, and pastors must work harder to show what it means.

Crucially, we must see that evangelism does not consist simply of calling people to ‘get right with God’, but, through a right relationship with God, to ‘get right with our neighbour’.

Moreover, to serve Christ as King is not just a matter of tweaking our personal morality (mostly in the area of family life and sexuality), but in bringing every aspect of our lives under his rule and in extending his rule as far as possible into every area of life over which we have any influence.

Historically, we can find radical examples of English Christians doing just this in business life and in the political arena— unfortunately they are not usually the Anglicans! Nevertheless, there are surely lessons to be learned from how, for example, the Quakers who set up Boots the Chemists treated their workers.

Some may ask how this differs from the way that evangelicals in the 1970s and ’80s moved into areas like politics and social action. The answer is that we must see and show that our actions in this regard flow directly and explicitly from our obedience to the Christ who calls everyone to acknowledge him as Lord. We must ensure that, in the words of the Sermon on the Mount, people see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. Our actions must be the natural basis for proclamation because they are themselves the fruits of obedience to the gospel.

Regarding the Church, therefore, we must not allow evangelism to be reduced to a ‘part’ of mission. It is sad to see as distinguished a theologian as Moltmann quoted saying that mission is “not merely evangelization” — as if there were anything ‘mere’ about the proclamation that Christ is Lord and the calling on people to obey his kingship. In the Church of England today as whole, however, that is often how evangelism is seen, and it is not long before it is reduced from being a part of mission to being an optional extra in mission.

But equally, we must not allow evangelism to be reduced to a personal call to change our views as to whether or not we believe in God and what we believe about ourselves and about Jesus dying for our sins. We cannot have Christ as Saviour if we will not have Christ as Lord. And his lordship must extend into every area of the lives of those whom he saves. There is a challenge here for the more conservative evangelical. But the conservative evangelical is also entitled to ask what has happened, institutionally, to the call to personal conversion.

Once again, nothing less than an institutional transformation is required, which needs a deliberate and conscious strategy. And therein lies our problem. Evangelicals will generally go on evangelizing, whatever happens in the wider institution. But this will not lead to a programme suitable to the conversion of England. That needs a bolder and more ambitious approach, yet at present there is no sign of that coming from the official, hierarchical, leadership. Given where we are today, then, how can we address the need for the transformation of the Church?

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TV Soaps: Garbage in - garbage out?

My revelatory moment came with the words, "Coronation Street's on, they're having a row."

Back came the question, "Who's having a row?" and suddenly I realized: I didn't know who, but there's always someone having a row, or having a go at someone else, or cheating on their partner, or plotting something.

Wherever you go in soapland, there's always sour looks and mean deeds.

Now there's an acronym in the world of computer programming: GIGO, which means 'garbage in, garbage out'.

If you input erroneous data your results won't suddenly become Nobel Prizewinning stuff. If your programme is corrupted, don't expect it to run.

And it is often assumed that the same applies in the world of home entertainment. If someone constantly watches violent horror films, it is hardly likely to have an edifying effect. If they are addicted to violent pornography, not only is there something suspect about their inner workings, but they are likely to be exacerbating, rather than helping, the problem.

So why do we assume TV soaps are any different?

Of course there is the excuse, they're not real life. They just exaggerate the kind of things that go on in real life for entertainment.

True, but there are other things that go on in real life, that don't get exaggerated for entertainment in the soaps. There's heroism, there's self-sacrifice, there's kindness and helpfulness.

According  to a report in the Daily Mail, Pam St Clement, who used to pay Pat Butcher in East Enders, voiced something of the same concern: I'm not too sure that one little area of London has quite so much violence and adultery as ours does," she is quoted as saying, adding, "Maybe in the search to be over [sic] more interesting we are always pinning stories on things that are ever more 'out there', rather than remembering that good stories are about what happens in people's hearts and in their relationships."

But as we know, in their efforts to be 'out there', soap writers have aimed to be opinion shapers on the subjects of death, sexuality and so on, as well as entertainers. Yet if they believe they can shape opinions, would they deny they can shape a 'mood'?

When I was a schoolboy, our deputy head always seemed to end the last assembly of every academic year with a reading from St Paul's letter to the Philippians, ending with these words: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

It was meant as a moral exhortation, and by constant repetition it must have got through even my schoolboy skull. And there's a double lesson in itself.

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Real Easter Eggs

In the usual spirit of responsible journalism, I haven't had time to check all the details on this one, but apparently there are 'Real Easter Eggs' out there that some supermarkets aren't interested in stocking.

They seem like a pretty good idea. Easter eggs are an extortionate way to buy chocolate generally. If it's chocolate you want, just buy a big, cheap slab of the stuff. Cadbury's Dairy Milk in the mega-size usually does me for a while.

But if you're going to spend money on Easter Eggs, surely you might as well do it wisely. So here's a direct link to the Real Easter Egg site, where you can order them. They're Traidcraft and all that, so the guilt of expensive chocolate is somewhat assuaged.

Apparently the Bishop of Chelmsford also thinks this is a good idea - another reason at the moment for appreciating his ministry.

Chocolate and a chance to 'stick it to the man'. What's not to like (as they say)?

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Now on Amazon: "A Strategy that Changes the Denomination"

I just checked, and A Strategy that Changes the Denomination is now available on Amazon. They are charging the full 'list price' (£6.50), but it is eligible for free delivery. This is comparable with the combined £3.52 cover price and £2.99 postage if you order from Lulu (£6.51), but bear in mind that Lulu often offer discounts.

BTW I was amused to note that someone on Amazon is offering it 'used' for £18.50.

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Buying a telescope? A couple of tips

I see from the Daily Mail that there has apparently been a surge in people buying telescopes as a result of the recent ‘Stargazing Live’ programme on BBC2.

As a bit of a ‘dabbler’ myself (I actually have a minor qualification in astronomy from my university days), I think this is basically a good thing.

However, when it comes to buying a telescope, there’s a couple of tips I’d like to share — and I’d invite others to contribute their own.

First, forget magnification. It’s complicated to explain, but magnification figures can be very misleading when it comes to what you’re going to see down the telescope when you finally get it set up.

Instead, go for ‘width’ — the bigger the aperture, generally the better.

Think of light like water. Imagine its raining and you put a tea cup and a washing-up bowl out in the garden. After twenty minutes, which one’s going to contain the most water? It’s going to be the bowl. Because it covers a bigger area than the teacup, it will have been able to catch more of the rain.

The same with light coming from the sky. A 4" wide telescope will capture not just twice as much light, but four times as much light as a 2" telescope. This means you will see much fainter objects.

But don’t expect to see views like the pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. With a decent 4" telescope, the Andromeda galaxy — one of the biggest and brightest ‘deep sky objects’ — is still only going to look like a faint fuzzy patch.

On the other hand, the moon and the planets can be quite stunning. But here another rule applies regarding telescopes.

Basically, telescopes come in two kinds: refractors and reflectors. Refractors, you look straight through the tube — think Lord Nelson. Reflectors, you look into it sideways. (There are complicated variations on reflectors, but hey, you’re a beginner, right?)

Due to the way they’re made, reflectors are shorter and they tend to allow big apertures at lower costs. Refractors are longer, and you pay much more, proportionately, for large apertures. BUT refractors give sharper planetary viewing at smaller sizes than do reflectors. So if you want to view the planets — and there’s a lot to see right now — a smaller, quality, refractor might be better than a larger (but not quite large enough!) reflector.

Even so, the rule above still applies — magnification is not the first concern.

The other thing to bear in mind is what you’re going to put the telescope on. If this is your first venture, you’ll probably be OK with a package of telescope and mount, and don’t worry too much about fancy things like motor drives and ‘Go-to’ mounts. Just whack the thing on a tripod, have a look round and if you enjoy it, upgrade when you get bored.

But if you’re reasonably serious about this, look carefully at the mount you’re going to buy. Bear in mind, you can always stick a better telescope on a good mount, whereas a flimsy mount, or an unreliable tracking motor, means even you best viewing efforts will be frustrated.

And another thing — don’t neglect simple binoculars. In fact, for the complete beginner these may be a much better starting point than a telescope.

Personally, I would recommend getting a pair of ‘specialist’ astronomical binoculars. I have a pair of these ‘Revelation’ binoculars from Telescope House. On a limited budget, you would be hard-pressed to do better. They cost me more than the current £55, and they will give you that ‘wow’ factor if you point them at the right part of the sky.

Notice they are 15x70. That is to say, they ‘only’ magnify 15 times (though that’s a pretty big seagull at 100 yards). But they have a 70mm aperture. That’s 2.75 inches — as big as some telescopes. They’re heavy — you’ll get best viewing by putting them on a stand, so don’t forget to buy the tripod adapter as well. But a camera tripod, or even a tall ‘monopod’ will do (it needs to be tall if you’re over 6ft, like me).

Get your kids a pair of these and they will have something that really will last them years, even if they graduate later to a telescope. It is much easier to pack the ‘bins’ and whip them out when needed than to do the same with a 105mm Meade, believe me! (And if you have the money, look at the next size up, though bear in mind that these ‘astronomical’ binoculars are less suitable for daylight work, like birdwatching.)

Finally, much as I appreciate Amazon, this really is a case where I would recommend going to and buying from a specialist suppliers. Telescope House in Tunbridge Wells give a good service in my experience, as do Green Witch (I think it’s a word play on Greenwich, where the Royal Observatory was once located), though they have now moved from their Cambridge location. (Please don’t get their advice then buy from Amazon — that is just wrong.)

Enjoy. But bear in mind, its blooming cold out there.

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Holy Communion: Jesus Christ Inc.

Battling to prepare a Lent course on ‘the local church’, I have drawn on the definition given in the Thirty-nine Articles:

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. (Article XXIX)

In preparing a unit on ‘the sacraments’, however, I have been struck by how Paul’s theology of the Lord’s supper dovetails with his concept of the church itself.

In 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 he asks rhetorically,

Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. (NIV)

However, their behaviour at the Lord’s supper is a contradiction of this principle: “you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing” (11:22). In saying this, he famously warns against those who eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner (11:27) who are therefore “guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord” because they fail to recognize the body of the Lord (11:29).

It is very clear, though, that whereas the body and blood in v 27 is that of Jesus himself, the ‘body’ in v29 is the church. Paul has switched references, just as he does earlier in the chapter when he talks about the ‘head’ with (at least) three different references.

So by the time he gets to chapter 12, his ‘body’ language is focussed entirely on Christ’s body as identified with the church:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. (12:12)

Notice, he does not say, “So it is with the church,” which is how we often preach this passage. We tend to reduce the statement to a simile: “the church is like a body with many parts” — which is true, but not the truth Paul is conveying. For Paul at this point, church and Christ are interchangeable, and his sacramental theology is fundamental to this understanding:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. (12:13)

The diversity of the church is not that of a group who bring diverse skills to a task, but of a single body which has different organs and limbs:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. (12:14)

And therefore the behaviour criticized earlier at the Lord’s supper is not merely ‘impolite’ but a contradiction of a fundamental theological reality:

But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ... Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (12:24b-25, 27)

So when the ‘one bread’ of the Lord’s supper is broken and distributed, it is not eaten by individuals. Rather, like food going into our mouths, it feeds the organs and limbs of one body.

The message of holy communion is therefore not just that Christ died for us individually (though of course it is that) but that Christ thereby ‘incorporates’ us into himself and thus joins us to one another.

I cannot therefore make ‘my’ communion. I can only join with making ‘our’ communion where the one Body feeds through the Head on the healing fruit of the true ‘Tree of Life’.

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Why evangelicals should go to their diocesan fellowships

I have posted earlier a comment about how evangelicals (I mean clergy especially) treat diocesan evangelical fellowships the way we don't want people to treat church on Sunday, and I believe it is worth highlighting.

Most of us get pretty frustrated if people habitually only turn up for Sunday church when it suits them - when they aren't visiting relatives or shopping or taking the kids to football, and so on.

The reason for this, however, ought not to be that it makes our numbers look bad or makes us personally frustrated after all the work we put in. Rather, it should be the reason given in Hebrews 10:23-25:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (The Holy Bible : New International Version, electronic ed) 

We should be in church for one another's sake - not for our own sake alone. And we should be at the Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship for the same reason.

Goodness knows, we need —as much as the laity —encouragement to hold unswervingly to our hope (how often do clergy who drift from evangelical fellowship drift, a few years later, from evangelical doctrine?), to spur one another on to love and good deeds, and to recall the coming day of judgement when our own ministry will be revealed as building on gold and silver or hay and straw.

And if your DEF doesn't deliver that encouragement, then take action to make sure it does. But do not give up meeting!

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This week at the CEEC

I spent much of Thursday this week on a meeting of the Church of England Evangelical Council.

The train journey down (as my Facebook friends will know) was a delight, travelling in the new Stansted Express rolling stock and getting free WiFi in second class — plus an entire section to myself. It was far better than working from home. They even brought coffee round!

However, the CEEC, which meets at the All Souls Clubhouse, frankly struggles to meet its aims.

As I have said in my book, this is partly because we are expected to express the views of an evangelical community which cannot get on with — or in many cases even bother to meet up — with one another on the ground.

Twice in the past few months I have heard of diocesan evangelical groups which have voluntarily shut down, first in Manchester then in Rochester, and one has to ask how the late, lamented John Stott would have viewed this situation.

Stott did probably more than anyone, in his own lifetime, to hold evangelical Anglicans together and unfortunately, this has long been a necessity. Twice in the last century or so, evangelical Anglicanism has gone through a kind of ‘super-nova’ outburst, whereby internal divisions have been followed by the departure of an ‘outer shell’ into theological liberalism, leaving behind a diminished, though more conservative, core.

This happened once following the ritualist controversy of the nineteenth century and the second time in the era around and shortly after the Second World War. The book to read on the former is James Whisenant, A Fragile Unity: Anti-ritualism and the Division of Anglican Evangelicalism in the Nineteenth Century (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003). The book on the latter is probably Oliver Barclay, Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-1995: A Personal Sketch (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1997).

As was reported at the meeting, vacancies on the CEEC are being filled by default, without any contested elections (indeed I myself was re-elected in just this way). In recent years, the CEEC has been accused of being unrepresentative — a ‘rump parliament’ of conservatives — but the sad truth is that people do not step up at the local level to revitalize evangelical fellowships. Indeed a young evangelical of my acquaintance who tried to interest others in one of the now-defunct fellowships was told it wasn’t really worth it.

In recent weeks we have heard a lot about the ‘John Stott legacy’, which by common agreement is that he left evangelicalism generally, and evangelical Anglicanism specifically, much stronger. And regarding the intellectual calibre of some of the movement I am sure that is right. But ‘politically’ I am not convinced. In fact, I believe we are about two-thirds of the way through a third evangelical ‘super-nova’.

The trick is, though, how to avoid history simply repeating itself. This is one of the motivations behind my book: A Strategy that Changes the Denomination. I firmly believe that evangelicals have partly sown the seeds of their own division by consistently failing to have such a strategy and a proper vision for the church. This is a problem today for both ‘conservative’ and ‘open’ evangelicals.

Contrary to what someone told me at the CEEC, I do not believe I have all the answers. But I do believe that better answers are available than the approaches we have used so far. It is not sufficient for evangelicals to accept being either a ghetto (bounded by signs saying “Bishops Keep Out”) or an enclave (where we do our ‘evangelizing’ thing and let the rest of the Church of England get on with their respected tradition of not evangelizing).

I also firmly believe that God’s instrument of evangelism is the church, international, national and local — mission agencies are (as someone once called the cults) the ‘unpaid bills’ of the church. They are the evidence that God’s instrument of witness to the world, the Body of Christ made visible where the pure word is preached and the sacraments duly administered, is currently not up to the job.

And there is a job to do! I just doubt that we are yet getting down to it.

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