Sunday 8 August 2010

We are not chickens, and the sky is not falling in

Is it me, or is some of the reaction in traditionalist quarters of the Church of England in the last few weeks regarding the introduction of women bishops rather reminiscent of Chicken Little — she of the sky is falling in fame?
OK, there are reasons to be upset. Existing and workable (if not ideal) compromises are to be dismantled, trust has been betrayed whilst calls are being made to trust those doing the betraying, and looming in the background for those with ‘ears to hear’ are the next items on the agenda, to do with theology and sexuality.
But the world is not coming to an end, and the sky is not falling in, for in the Church it was ever thus. Read the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation, and you’ll find false teaching and teachers, syncretism, immorality and compromise aplenty.
Yet always the call to repentance is addressed to the church: ‘He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ And always there is also the promise to the faithful hearer in those same churches, however corrupted they may be: ‘To him who overcomes, I will ...’
Certainly things are looking bad, but they have never been very good. This would not be the first time the Church of England has deliberately opted against compromise at the expense of losing members and ministers (remember the Great Ejection?). As to embracing theological error, this is the Church of England we’re talking about, right? And yet, as a famous evangelical speaker once famously remarked, this is the church to which we choose to belong, so what must we think of the rest?
No, the disappointment in the past few months has not been from the revisionists, who stand in a long tradition of their own, but from those who regard themselves as the faithful remnant.
Let me start with the Anglo-Catholics, even though in many respects I disagree with their version of what the truth is.
The Anglo-Catholic movement as we know it began (correct me if I am wrong) with a protest at the state’s involvement in spiritual matters and a recall to a ‘primitive’ ecclesiology in the face of institutional compromise.
There was no expectation that the law-makers would come to the rescue of the faith delivered to the saints. On the contrary, there was a willingness to challenge, and even break, the law in the interests of upholding the faith. As to expecting the bishops to deliver the Church in its hour of peril, even whilst upholding the essential nature of the historic episcopate the early Anglo-Catholics were rather notorious for treating their own bishops with something close to contempt.
But where is that spirit today? Actually I have no doubt that the offer of the Anglican Ordinariate has done much to enfeeble, rather than strengthen, Anglo-Catholicism. But where are the men like Keble, to say nothing of those who were later imprisoned for their actions? We hear much from Anglo-Catholics about the Church not wanting them. Did Keble and his successors think the Church of England wanted them?
The Catholic movement did not get where it did by waiting for the Church to enact legislation to provide what it wanted. Yet today it has four dedicated bishops and a dozen or so sympathizers, hundreds of clergy, a multitude of buildings and a host of people. Why, then, is it so much on the back foot?
Now for the Evangelicals. Our problem is simply this: many of us don’t really want to be Church of England, and it shows. As a result, we’ve never organized ourselves to be an effective force within the institution. Instead, we’ve laughed at bishops and ploughed our own individual parish furrows. We’ve never had a vision for the Church of England, because we’ve never really had heart for it. Indeed, for some of us, the prospect of ‘ejection’ is greeted not with gloom but elation, confirming as it does all our prejudices.
Yet there are many things we could do, if only we would act together to do them. Here are just a few suggestions, old and new:
1. Passing Resolutions A and B and petitioning under the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993. Well, of course it’s a bit late now — but we could at least repent for the fact that we didn’t do it.
2. Giving As Partners. I’ve explained in a paper how it is entirely possible, and legal, to channel diocesan quota to parishes and ministries of your own choice without protest ‘quota capping’, thereby making the present system work in our favour. This was proposed years ago, yet outside our own diocese, where it worked quite well for a time, nothing was done.
3. Pulpit exchanges. Most of our congregation members have very little awareness of the ‘constituency’, which is largely an ‘old boy’ network of clergy. An exchange of preachers amongst ourselves would break down some of the barriers and create a sense of mutual belonging and awareness. Where are the invitations, though?
4. Re-emphasising the Thirty-nine Articles. I have just been reading J C Ryle’s Warnings to the Churches, and was impressed by how often he appealed to clergy not only to be aware of the Articles themselves (which in those days most of them were), but to urge them on their people. Today, however, even many so-called Conservative Evangelicals have little, if any, knowledge of the Articles.
5. Increasing our familiarity with the Prayer Book. The BCP is not perfect. It is, nevertheless, better than much of what is on offer today, and remains the liturgical ‘gold standard’ of the Church of England. We ought to know it, and make sure our people know it, and we should be aware of its doctrinal standpoints and the modern departures from them.
6. Re-affirming the Declaration of Assent. People accuse Evangelicals of compromising on the Declaration of Assent when it comes to the liturgy, and there is some truth in that. But even worse is the far more widespread compromise on doctrine that seems to be accepted as the Anglican norm. The Declaration of Assent is on our side.
More than all this, perhaps, every evangelical group in every place should be asking itself, ‘How can we strengthen evangelicalism in this diocese and how can we make our diocese more evangelical?’ The answer will always come down to money, ministry and doctrine. We just need to work out how to use them better.
We are not chickens, and the sky is not falling in. Let us then, by contrast, ‘quit ourselves like men’, stop flapping and start doing.
John P Richardson
8 August 2010
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13 comments:

  1. An interesting address was given by Dr M L Jones in 1963 to the Westminster Fellowship of Ministers based on Haggai ch 1 v 4,5,6,7. which is prophetic to what John writes here. He did not in his normal way give directives but encourages those who are similarly motivated to get together and do something! 'Consider you ways' The outline of a new strategy `Knowing the Times. Banner 1989. Well worth reading
    S Bazlinton

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  2. Rev David Pickering8 August 2010 at 23:31

    Thank you, Ugly friend; the same can be said for the situation in New Zealand where the church is not established as in England, and where evangelicals have by default commonly let it (the church) go where others wish. Then we complain, and move further away from the church! You have said it so well.

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  3. Evangelicals need to read the Bible at a deeper level. Doing so, they will discover that Holy Tradition is a Person, not an ideology to be spurned, feared or dismissed as "catholic".

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  4. Of course, there is a model for evangelicals who act as an effective force within the institution, and one that has ties with the state. That's Sydney.

    So perhaps the problem is one of personality, perhaps evangelicals consider themselves a little too gentlemanly to fight in the way the Sydney Anglicans have to create a space for themselves within the Church.

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  5. Hi Chris E,

    One disadvantage of the Sydney Anglican model (speaking as one) is that we can easily become inward looking. (This is a cultural trait we share with our secular neighbours.) Most clergy come from within Diocesan boundaries, and then stay within Diocesan boundaries. This means that we really don't know too many non-Sydney Anglicans (or they us), so our influence at General Synod level sometimes isn't as good as it could be.

    Roger Gallagher

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  6. OK, maybe I'm being really, really stupid here, but if the Roman Church can create a "personal ordinariate" in order to create a space that allows for divergences from normal RC rules such as married priests and a distinctive liturgy, why can we not do something similar in the Church of England?

    We do something pretty much like this already with arrangements for alternative episcopal oversight, so why not formalise the practice? This ordinariate (or maybe it would need two - one Traditionalist Catholic, one Conservative Evangelical) could have its own archbishop and dioceses, each with its own churches set in (normally, I'd guess) larger parishes. Within that ordinariate, specific, distinctive rules, such as forbidding female clergy, can be established, without forcing those rules on the overwhelming majority of Anglicans who have no problem whatsoever with such things as female bishops or gay priests.

    I'm sure some would denounce the plan, claiming it would spell the end of the Church of England, but I really don't think there would be a massive exodus from the main body of the Church. My personal experience as a Catholic within the Church of England is how amazingly accommodating Church members in other parishes are, regardless of their own particular tradition. And within my own Catholic-leaning parish, we are constantly reminded of the inclusive and generous nature of the Gospel of Jesus, so we'd most definitely stay within the main body of the Church.

    If Rome can do it, why can't we?

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  7. "OK, maybe I'm being really, really stupid here, but if the Roman Church can create a "personal ordinariate" in order to create a space that allows for divergences from normal RC rules such as married priests and a distinctive liturgy, why can we not do something similar in the Church of England?
    "

    Because in one case the changes in the Church of England can't be localised in this way (the Anglo-Catholic problem), and in the other case the group affected isn't really interested at a group level in requesting anything like this (the evangelicals).

    It's also dubious whether anything like this would be voted through.

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  8. While it's true that, as you say in point 6, "People accuse Evangelicals of compromising on the Declaration of Assent when it comes to the liturgy", we can and should be more proactive in altering the liturgy to better edify our congregations, and we don't need to be embarrassed about doing so.

    From Mark Ashton's 'Reforming the Parish Church' paper at

    http://www.reform.org.uk/pages/bb/reforming.php

    "There is, as we know, an increasing flexibility allowed, and a growing concern that liturgy should be immediately accessible to the person from outside a church culture.

    Canon B5:1 says
    "The minister may in his discretion make and use variations which are not of substantial importance in any form of service authorised by Canon B1 according to particular circumstances".

    Canon B5:3 says
    "All variations in forms of service and all forms of service used under this Canon shall be reverent and seemly and shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter".
    In that context it is clear that what constitutes a variation "of substantial importance" is a variation that effects doctrine. It does not indicate that variations are excluded because they are not culturally Anglican, only because they are not doctrinally Anglican.

    I would suggest that allows us the freedom to create services that are best for the congregations they are intended for, that will teach that group of people Anglican doctrine most effectively and edify them in their faith.
    "

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  9. Jonny Kingsman, according to my e-mail you've posted a comment here, but I can't see it. Would you like to try again, or would you like me to paste it in a post for you?

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  10. John I like some of what you say but you provide no meaningful model on which AngloCatholics could remain and fight. It is true that Fr. Tooth et al suffered for the faith amidst persecution...but they did so within a church that retained its Catholic ecclesiology.

    How can we remain without sacramental assurance?

    James 67 the simple answer is becuase they do not want to! Liberals now run the show and they have little desire to afford space to those they despise

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  11. James67 - it sounds almost too simple doesn't it?

    Gerald Bray wrote a great little editorial in the recent edition of "Churchman" suggesting something like that, but there just won't be the will.

    Darren Moore
    Tranmere

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  12. With regard to point 6, "People accuse Evangelicals of compromising on the Declaration of Assent when it comes to the liturgy, and there is some truth in that" I think we should be proactive in altering the liturgy for the better edification of our congregations, and we won't be uncanconical if we do. From Mark Ashton's 'Reforming the parish church' paper at

    http://www.reform.org.uk/pages/bb/reforming.php

    "There is, as we know, an increasing flexibility allowed, and a growing concern that liturgy should be immediately accessible to the person from outside a church culture. Canon B5:1 says

    "The minister may in his discretion make and use variations which are not of substantial importance in any form of service authorised by Canon B1 according to particular circumstances".
    Canon B5:3 says

    "All variations in forms of service and all forms of service used under this Canon shall be reverent and seemly and shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter".
    In that context it is clear that what constitutes a variation "of substantial importance" is a variation that effects doctrine. It does not indicate that variations are excluded because they are not culturally Anglican, only because they are not doctrinally Anglican.

    I would suggest that allows us the freedom to create services that are best for the congregations they are intended for, that will teach that group of people Anglican doctrine most effectively and edify them in their faith."

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  13. Jonny, I basically agree with your point, but I think the key issue is the allowance of "variations which are not of substantial importance". The key thing, then, is that there should be some recognizable connection between what we are offering and what is already on offer. It isn't permission for a free for all.

    So, eg, with Communion, I see no reason why we shouldn't stick pretty close to the modern language BCP version on offer, even if we edit bits out for, say, brevity.

    My plea is that we should be aware of our own commitment to our heritage of liturgy, just as we want others to be committed to our heritage of doctrine.

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