A Strategy that Changes the Denomination

New from 'The Ugley Vicar'

Drawing on the 1945 report, ‘Towards the Conversion of England’, and the work of the Bishop of Taita Taveta in Kenya, Dr Samson Mwaluda, John Richardson argues in this book that nothing less than a radical revision of the Church of England’s agenda is sufficient for the task of evangelizing a nation.

Anglican evangelicals are called upon to set aside their divisions and their focus on their own position within the Church, and instead to develop a strategy that changes the whole denomination into an instrument for evangelism.

Aimed at laypeople as well as clergy, his book is a plea for the transformation of the Church for the proclamation of the gospel.

A Strategy that Changes the Denomination is available from Lulu.com. Price £3.25, plus £2.99 post and packing for single copies. (Discounts for multiple orders.)

Browse the preview at Lulu.com.

What they've said about A Strategy that Changes the Denomination:

“If the recommendations in this book had been acted upon twenty years ago, we would be living in a very different, and perhaps more united and effective, Church today.” Darren Moore, Vicar of St Catherine’s Tranmere, Merseyside.

“This book provides a thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of the Church of England. The desire to learn from the past and contend for the future lays down a significant challenge to all who long to see Christ proclaimed in England.” Susie Leafe, Women's Worker and General Synod Member.

“Thanks for giving us a vision which puts evangelism into the diocesan bloodstream.” Will Strange, Archeacon of Cardigan

A Strategy that Changes the Denomination, ISBN 978-1-4478-5667-2, 99 pages paperback, including bibliography and index. 

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Whatever happened to EFAC?

Yesterday I posted a link to an article by Dr Michael Poon published on the Fulcrum website, which sought to look at the present state of play in the Anglican Communion.

Dr Poon is one of the voices of the so-called ‘Global South’ grouping, which actually finds its centre of gravity in the far East and adopts something of a middle position between the ‘revisionist’ North and the GAFCON movement, whose focus is more in sub-Saharan Africa.

From the perspective of an outsider like myself, the Global South seems to be still undecided on the best approach to the theological conflicts which have deeply affected the Anglican churches of North America and now threaten in the UK. In their own eyes, they are the ‘evangelical moderates’ in a dispute which typically recreates the historical pattern of such conflicts (see James Whisenant, A Fragile Unity: Anti-ritualism and the Division of Anglican Evangelicalism inthe Nineteenth Century [Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press] 2004).

Thus Poon is critical of GAFCON almost as much as he is of the initiators of the conflict. In a telling paragraph, he asks,

Is GAFCON the only valid expression of Anglican evangelicalism, especially the only way to keep faith to John Stott’s legacy in today’s world? Arguably, John Stott created evangelical structures and helped to shape most of the present leadership in the southern continents. The formation of many top Anglican leaders worldwide can be traced to EFAC, Langham Trust and related networks. GAFCON organisers Chris Sugden, Michael Nazir-Ali and Vinay Samuel merely inherited the infrastructures that John Stott left behind. At the same time, does not John Stott offer a more generous ecclesial vision, and a more charitable way to speak the truth in love, than what GAFCON offers?

In short, EFAC, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion, is the ‘John Stott’ way of addressing the problems in the Communion — the way of Anglican moderation and unity.

Today, however, I received an e-mail which basically asks what has happened to EFAC. “If EFAC had been doing its job,” my correspondent suggests, “[we] might never have needed a GAFCON.” And they add,

The question is properly, in the light of GAFCON, is there a need for EFAC? What could it achieve that is not already being done?

Naturally, the place to look these days is the internet. But try as I might, I can find very little about EFAC. It is alive and well in Australia, where its president is a certain Peter Jensen. However, the last time it seems to have been in action on these shores regarding the Communion’s crisis is in 2008, when it issued a statement which “heartily” endorsed* the GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration (ironic, in the light of Poon’s remarks):

We heartily endorse the fourteen points of the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and, like those at GAFCON, are fully committed to remaining within the Anglican Communion, and to bearing joyful witness to evangelical distinctives.

Beyond that, and the Australian presence, however, there seems to be very little information available. According to the 2008 statement, EFAC meets “every five years” and it issued a statement (.pdf file) after its previous gathering at Limuru in 2003, so it will be due to gather in 2013.

The current chair of EFAC is George Kovoor, the Principal of Trinity Theological College, Bristol, who has also recently endorsed GAFCON. However, I am unable to find any website for EFAC as an international body, or very much indication of what it is doing (nor anything about a 2013 gathering).

And this highlights a constant problem in Anglican Evangelicalism — one which, as I’ve indicated, is an endemic issue. As Whisenant describes, and as I have said in my new book on AStrategy that Changes the Denomination, faced with conflict in the denomination, Anglican Evangelicals have typically dissipated their energies by dividing amongst themselves over the best approach. The ‘moderates’ want moderation, the ‘stalwarts’ want confrontation. The outcome is division and the beneficiary is the opposition!

Poon is right in this: there are faults on both sides, but not perhaps the ones he identifies. The error of the stalwarts, specifically here in England is, as Dr Jensen pointed out just this week, a decade-long lack of any coherent action which might have addressed the issues. Sabres have been repeatedly rattled, but opportunities for institutional change have been almost entirely ignored.

Meanwhile, the moderates cry, “Peace, peace,” where there is not only no peace, but no institutional commitment to the conversion of the nation — the only proper goal, surely, of a national church?

All this is not helped, however, by the mutual lack of trust. Yet trust must be earned, and it is earned by actions. We may not be exactly sure ‘who is on the Lord’s side’, but it is human nature to want to be sure who is on our own when push comes to shove.

John Richardson
29 October 2011

* However, the extent of this endorsement, and indeed the membership of the EFAC gathering that produced it, has been questioned by Fulcrum Theological Secretary and now bishop, Graham Kings.

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How ethics went west in Big Bang ...

Travelling home on the train on Thursday, I happened to pick up a copy of the Evening Standard. In it was this article (link below) on business ethics, which I think is worth reading in its entirety. One segment in particular, however, stood out.

Before Big Bang the City was a place where occasionally there was a problem when honest firms employed dishonest people. Today that is reversed.

The chronic problem in the City is institutionalised dishonesty, people behaving with as much integrity as is possible but having to live in an environment which puts the firms' interests before those of the customer, and seeks on a daily basis to separate the customer from as much of his money as it can get away with. Today's problem is honest people in dishonest firms.

Read the whole here.

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Undercurrents in the Anglican Communion

Fulcrum have published an important essay by Revd Dr Michael Nai Chiu Poon, Director and Asian Christianity Coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Christianty in Asia (CSCA) at Trinity Theological College (TTC) in Singapore.

[...] The instruments [of the Anglican Communion] emerged in haphazard ways amid the devolution of metropolitan authorities from Canterbury and New York to churches in the southern continents. To be sure, they were useful to connect churches with one another in years surrounding the independence of the southern churches. They have now become part of the problem, and have lost their legitimacy in the new conditions in the new century. For one, international conferences are expensive exercises, which are hardly sustainable in present-day economic conditions. More important, there is a worrying disconnect between what happens at Communion-levels and takes place at local levels. The faithful in their parishes are expected to remain loyal Anglicans week in and week out. To them, the Anglican disputes are irrelevant. Many of them perhaps have not even heard about the Anglican Communion Covenant. Churches of weaker numerical strengths and in more fragile conditions are sidelined as well in a high-stake and wasting religious war. Read more

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Another misleading headline ...

This one from the front page of today's online Daily Telegraph:

Factories pay more for power than Germans 

I can remember when you could get a German and still have change from a tenner.


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More deacons, please!

“It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”

So says the preface to the Ordinal affixed to the Prayer Book. But it is also evident to anyone diligently, or even cursorily, reading holy Scripture that the order of deacons in the Church of England, in common with other mainstream denominations, is nothing like what we find there.

In the Bible, deacons and elders are quite separate (and as the Reformers well knew, elders and ‘overseers’, ie priests and bishops, were virtually indistinguishable, but that is another story). Deacons were not ‘probationary presbyters’ but, as their name suggests, a ‘servant’ order in the churches. Only later did the current ‘career development structure’ of deacon to priest to bishop evolve.

I mention this because I was listening to someone the other day describe how a woman in his congregation who felt called to be a deacon was knocked back for full-time training by her diocesan director of ordinands because she would lack the “added value” that comes from being a priest.

Now if deacons lack “added value”, a number of questions spring to mind, not least what the Church of England today thinks of the ministry of its deaconesses which once used to be open to women. Were they really ‘value-minus’? Maybe that really is how some people thought then and regard them now.

But if that is the case then the next obvious question is this: why do we bother with deacons at all?

Virtually anyone who has been accepted as a deacon these days is in that position because they are going to become a priest. And that priesthood will be conferred on them as sure as night follows day twelve months down the track. So as the aforementioned DDO has clearly worked out, being a deacon is currently pretty pointless in the scheme of things.

And please don’t say it’s a ‘training period’. What’s to learn that in twelve months everyone has picked up so that they can make the ‘quantum leap’ to the priesthood — no earlier, but no later? If it was really about probation and learning, being priested should probably come no sooner than the end of one’s title post (ie the first curacy).

However, there is an obvious alternative, namely to reinstate the diaconate as a proper order in itself — the so-called ‘permanent diaconate’. Already there are some women who are in this position. Why not broaden it to include men?

In our benefice, for example, we have a several men who preach locally under a scheme established by a former Bishop of Chelmsford. Would not they be candidates for the diaconate, especially given that they provide very considerable support to the vicar through this ministry.

And what about those women who play a leading rôle in leading Bible studies or visiting — in fact just those things which used to be done by some deaconesses in the past?

One of the problems that we know confronts the Church of England is that people outside the Church (and sometimes those inside) don’t really count ‘lay’ ministry as a ‘proper’ ministry of the Church. We have all come across those situations where people have complained that ‘no one ever visits from the Church’, when what they mean is ‘no one visits me from the Church wearing a dog-collar’. One of the advantages of building up the ministry of deacon would be to have far more ‘collars’ in the local parish church, thereby increasing its visible public ministry.

I can imagine that there will be objections about selection and training: is the strength and significance of vocation the same, will the preparation be the equivalent to that given for priests? But most of these will step from our tendency to think of the diaconate as in some sense still the vestibule for the priesthood. Once we can draw a clearer distinction between the two, then these questions can be seen for what they are — a confusion of issues.

Meanwhile, there is absolutely no reason why parishes should not start putting forward people for the permanent diaconate, since although it is not something the Church of England exactly encourages, it is something it nevertheless allows.

I would love to see several members of our congregations do this (mind you, I’m not sure they’d be so keen themselves to begin with). For evangelicals especially this might be a good move. We have tended to sit very light to the Church’s orders, recognizing that a great deal of ministry can be done by the laity. But this does have its drawbacks. Encouraging people to become deacons could be a very good way of bridging the gap between what we are doing unofficially and what the institution, and the surrounding culture, can cope with.

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On the training of clergy in personal evangelism

An official Church of England report states the following: 

"In view of the immense opportunities open to parochial evangelism, it is alarming to discover how few of the clergy have been given any training in the work of an evangelist, such as in the art of preaching or of personal dealing with enquirers; how few, again, have been used of God to bring a soul to new birth; and how many are embarrassed and tongue-tied when the occasion offers of speaking to individuals about the deepest matters of their eternal welfare."

Of course, it was written sixty-six years ago. How things have changed since then. Or should that be, "How have things changed since then"? I'm honestly not sure.

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Women Bishops Legislation: Unjust and ill-conceived?

Below is the text of a letter published in this week's Church of England Newspaper, replying to a correspondent who commented on a previous letter I wrote regarding this piece (*.pdf file) from a member of the Group for Rescinding the Act of Synod.

In it I have made some points which are, I think, relevant to the current debate.

*************************************

Sir

I am sorry not to have been able to reply earlier to April Alexander’s comments two weeks ago regarding my previous letter in which I was responding to the claims by a leading member of the Group for Rescinding the Act of Synod that ‘no promises have been broken’ regarding the ordination of women and, as a corollary, that the proposed legislation regarding women bishops will actually be better than what is currently in place because it is stronger.

My essential point was that no one who accepts these arguments can really have understood the position of those against whom they are arrayed. To have someone who has campaigned against the Act of Synod, which a former Archbishop told a member of parliament was intended to be permanent, now tell me that ‘no promises have been broken’ takes the biscuit, to put it mildly. To be told that the new proposals are a better version of what the present legislation actually intends and provides is simply untrue.

One of the difficulties is that we have now gone past the stage of listening and the mood is one of simply wanting to ‘get it over’. My bet would be that very few people voting in diocesan synods have much idea of what the Act of Synod said or how it has worked, and not much better idea of what the new legislation will mean and why it is unacceptable. But neither, in all honest, do they much care.

A key point of contention, for example, is that according to proponents of the new legislation the authority of a diocesan bishop must be maintained absolutely. To breach this, we are told, would be to create a new kind of bishop. Yet what seems to be forgotten is that the 1993 Act of Synod allowed either Archbishop to ordain, license and institute female clergy in another diocese not by ‘delegated’ authority but “in pursuance of his metropolitical jurisdiction”(sections 11.1,2). The only proviso was that the bishop of the diocese did not object and had not made a declaration preventing this under section 2 of the Measure.

Why would it be so impossible to have such a similar provision carried over into the new legislation for those who cannot accept women bishops? If it was not in principle a breach of episcopal authority then, why would it be now?

Not only do the arguments about the new legislation seem to be flawed and ad hoc, the legislation is manifestly uneven and ill-conceived in what it requires from church members.

Under the proposals, for example, a PCC in a multi-parish benefice will be able to overturn existing Resolutions A and B taken by another PCC in the same benefice (see Schedule 1). To make matters worse, the proposed legislation does not cover what happens in multi-parish benefices where opinion continues to be divided after the introduction of the new legislation. What if one parish does want a woman priest and the other does not? In answer to a question on this, I was told, "It will presumably be covered in the Code of Practice." But what kind of law favours one church member’s honoured convictions against another?

Or again, parishes who opt for a male bishop will have to review their decision every five years (section 3:13). But if we are genuinely still in a ‘period of reception’ (which as our own diocesan bishop in Chelmsford reminded us recently means admitting any of us may be wrong), should not parishes who have not so petitioned have to review their position every five years?

The proposed legislation will introduce two classes of Anglican — the central and the legally marginalized. That may be what the Synods want, but please do not tell me it is what I should cheerfully accept.

John Richardson


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CABC: What's attracting the men?

Today we had our de-briefing meeting following the latest, and 11th, Chelmsford Anglican Bible Conference.

Our administrator, Carolan Casey, had continued the good work she does in organizing the Conference by bringing along a set of statistics. Amongst these, the most fascinating as far as I was concerned was the changing ratio of men to women attending the conference. Year on year, these are as follows:

                    Male            Female
2007            37%             63%
2008            39%             61%
2009            41%             59%
2010            42%             58%
2011            45%             55%

Now I'm not sure of the current exact figures - the best example I could find online suggests a ratio in the Church of England of 65% women to 35% men, but several things are clear:

1. The ratio of male to female attendance at CABC has changed dramatically over five years.
2. The ratio has changed steadily over those five years.
3. The initial ratio was probably much more typical of that in normal Anglican congregations.
4. The current ratio is certainly atypical of that found in normal Anglican congregations.
5. The current ratio is almost the same as that found in the general population.

It is the steadiness of the trend, more than anything else, which I find really striking. Statistics are slippery things, but it would seem to suggest either that more men are being attracted or that more men are being retained (ie come back year on year) than women. Certainly, given the imbalance in the general church population, there seems to be a disproportionate appeal to men - but others may wish to comment.

Just for the record, our booking figures look like this:

2007           201
2008           176
2009           245
2010           296
2011           392

As a PS, I am very pleased to say that in the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by people from four different dioceses talking about organizing their own Anglican Bible Conferences! (See my earlier post bewailing the lack of similar events.)



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Blogging is so much easier ...

Now that I've discovered an online Lorem Ipsum Generator. Anyone who knows what that means will understand the rest of this post.

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More Jupiter

Bit washed out by the nearby full moon tonight.

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What (do) Anglican clergy believe ...

I spent much of yesterday at a conference for Colchester Area clergy and readers, listening to DrPaula Gooder, a freelance writer and theologian and an associate lecturer at St Mellitus College.

Dr Gooder was speaking on the subject of her latest book, titled Heaven. What she had to say was perfectly OK. What I found myself wondering was why it had to be said to this particular audience.

I would have hoped that clergy would be familiar with the notion of sheol as the abode of the dead, rather than the equivalent of later notions of ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’. I would equally hope we’d thought a bit about what exactly is the nature of the afterlife. And I would agree with her (and, even more so, Tom Wright) that our hymnody preserves some pretty unhelpful notions: “Where like stars His children crowned, All in white shall wait around.”

Listening to the questions from the floor, however, I began to think perhaps we do need a rehearsal of basic doctrine and biblical background. The trouble with having a hundred plus Anglican ministers under the same roof is that you’re probably housing ninety or more theologies, most of them beginning with the phrase, “What I believe is ...”.

It also chimed in rather nicely with the issues I posted earlier about liberalism. One of things I said I wanted to know is what Christian liberal theology has to say about “The future fate of the universe in general and humans in particular.” Judging from yesterday, that question is worth asking.

There was a nice irony to the day, which was held at the church of St Peter ad Vincula,Coggeshall. On the way in, I picked up a leaflet titled, What do Christians Believe? Always worth checking, as I said to myself!

This certainly had about it a feel of ‘liberalism’: “Christians use the Jewish scriptures ... We accept some of the writings of the early christians [sic] also as scriptural ...”.

Rather amusingly in the context, however, it concluded, “We hope that beyond this life ... we shall be in the presence of God and be united with our loved ones, and that we shall find our fulfilment as human beings in the heavenly life of Eternity.”

I think Dr Gooder would have choked on her coffee at that one, seeing as how she spent most of the day telling us that was precisely not the biblical understanding of our hope.

The lunch, incidentally, was excellent.

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My favourite Jupiter picture to date

Further Update: This is what it looks like before you do the magic:

UPDATE: A bit more tweaking

The earlier version of the same file image:

I've been out in the back garden recently getting some images of the planet Jupiter - that shiny thing in the eastern skies around 9pm. Last night I was out a bit later so it had got above the heat haze from the neighbour's roof. That's one reason, I think, why this is the best picture to date (if you look back to numbers 1 and 2 you'll see what I mean.)

It really is quite remarkable what a rank amateur can do these days, thanks to computer technology. Mind you, on the last 'Sky at Night' programme there was a chap whose terrestrial pictures taken from Barbados showed detail on Jupiter's moons. You can't even see them in my shot above.

For those who are interested, the pictures are taken using £50 webcam to produce about 3 minutes of video. The rest is down to an ingenious free-online programme called Registax and a copy of Photoshop Elements (also free, as it happens, when I got it).

As a PS, the first pictures were taken a week ago in shirt-sleeves. Last night it was flipping cold!

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If the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton ...

... was the rugby World Cup lost by England in the pubs and clubs of New Zealand?

I ask, because the first sentiment suggests that achievement in sport can be linked to achievement in other areas, and that lessons learned 'on the field of play' can be transferred to life in general.

That is clearly a matter for debate, but if it is true, can it not work the other way round? Cannot a persistent exercise of the lack of character in a sportman's life begin to manifest itself on the field?

The English campaign in New Zealand has been dogged by controversial behaviour off the field. Perhaps their struggles throughout the competition, and their exit at the hands of France, have something to do with this.

Two words come to mind: Tiger Woods.

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What's good about Liberal Christian theology?

I'm serious! Reading around the blogosphere, the old 'liberal vs conservative' battles are clearly alive and kicking amongst Christians - usually each other rather than the forces of evil. (Well, I suppose insofar as each thinks the other represents the forces of evil they are, in their own terms, 'getting on with the job', but that's not what I mean.)

I suddenly had the thought this morning, however, that I really don't have a contemporary handle on Liberal Christianity apart from keeping up with the trading of insults, and so I wondered if readers might recommend some resources.

There are three areas on which I'd really like to focus:

• Human nature and our place in the universe.
• The person of Christ and the nature of the gospel.
• The future fate of the universe in general and humans in particular.

What I'm trying to get a grip on is the core of Liberal theological thinking in these areas today - what are the big ideas and who are the big thinkers?

What I don't want are:

• Blogs and blog articles.
• Opinions about other people's opinions.
• Things which are basically just attacks on religious conservatism.

If I can illustrate what I mean, I was once invited to take part in a public debate on Christianity and Islam when I was a university chaplain. I agreed, but stipulated that each speaker (myself and the other guy) must first present a summary of his own belief and a plea for why people should follow it. In other words, the initial 'pitch' had to rely on the content and merits of the belief itself, not the perceived weaknesses in one alternative system. That's kind of what I'm trying to get at in this case.

So what I do want are:

• Books and authors of substance.
• Resources which, if I were coming at this as a naive outsider (which to some extent I am), would explain to me the 'fundamentals' of Liberal Christianity and the outcomes in terms of an 'agenda' for life. How would living as a Liberal Christian be special and, especially, why would it be right to call it Christian (see my point above about the person of Christ and the nature of the gospel)?
• Anything which addresses what I call the 'Ecclesiastes' mindset - we're here, but we're not where we hoped we'd be, living our lives in the midst of apparently inevitable injustice and certain death.

As the saying goes, "All contributions gratefully received." But NO BLOGS!

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Update on the Diocese of South Carolina

As posted yesterday, it seems as if the hierarchy of The Episcopal Church is moving against one of its conservative diocesan bishops, in South Carolina. This involves lawyers and technicalities. However, the Anglican Curmudgeon blog seems to have a pretty good grasp of things which those with the stomach for it can read here.
 
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More horrors from The Episcopal Church

Since the last Lambeth semi-Conference, the Anglican Communion seems to have ‘moved on’ regarding the Episcopal Church in America. As I suspect may have been the hope, people have grown used to TEC’s ‘presence’. Moreover, the divisions that have already taken place there may have done much to lower the level of noise coming from our neighbours across the Atlantic.

Yesterday, however, came news of yet another round of strife in what now seems to be a ‘mopping up’ operation designed to winkle out the last pockets of formal ‘resistance’ in TEC.

You can read all about it at Kendall Harmon’s website here, which has links to the other relevant websites, and if you’ve got the stomach for it, you can read comments from this side of the water at Thinking Anglicans here.

To be honest, I’ve not waded through it all. Life is tough enough already and the whole thing is deeply depressing. What seems to have happened is that the Bishop of South Carolina is being accused of ‘abandoning the Communion of the Episcopal Church’, which is formally defined as any or all of the following:

... by an open renunciation of the doctrine, discipline or worship of the church; by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the church; or by exercising episcopal acts in and for a religious body other than the church or another church in communion with the church.

Now I would have thought that under the first section a great number of priests and bishops in the Western churches would have technically been guilty of abandoning the Anglican Communion a long time ago. Are not the virgin birth or the physical resurrection part of the ‘doctrine’ of the Church?

That notwithstanding, this accusation seems to have become an almost McCarthyite way in which TEC has been able to accuse its enemies — McCarthyite, because it is both selective (the ‘enemies of the state’ being just one section of the community, ‘them’, not ‘us’) and because the enemy is truly reviled in the process. It is also, of course, conveniently selective.

In fact the whole thing is utterly contradictory in tone and nature to what we are simultaneously assured is the real ‘character’ of TEC, and quite contrary to the kind of sentiments at the heart of Rowan Williams’ declared views on the nature of Church, of judgement and of salvation.

In this respect, it is worth reading through the speech given by BishopMary Gray-Reeves of El Camino Real in California to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s conference on women’s ministry in the Church of England, held at Lambeth Palace on Monday 19 September 2011. Gray-Reeves’ presence is, of course, an example of how TEC is rehabilitated at Lambeth, despite its ongoing transgressions.

To judge from the speech, mild-mannered bishop Mary will sit down and get along with anyone, including a fellow bishop at Lambeth with whom, she said, she was ‘miles apart on our views and our theology’.

That is the smiling face of TEC’s episcopate. You do not want to meet the other one.

Is that coffee I can smell, or faggots of wood going on the fire?

John Richardson
6 October 2011

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There is only one astronomy joke ...

And here it is.

The seventh planet from the Sun is the rather-unfortunately named Uranus. Some pronounce it You're-ranus. Others say Oor-anus, which is technically correct, but schoolboys (or those with a schoolboy sense of humour) delight in the question, "Can you see Uranus through a telescope?"


The answer, oddly enough, is yes - it is the blue dot above, taken through my telescope in the back garden the other night. Indeed, on a good night you can see it with the naked eye, though it was not identified as anything other than a star until 1781, when William Herschel first claimed it as a comet.

There is something awe-inspiring about knowing that this blue dot is orbiting the Sun at an average distance of 1,790,000,000 miles and takes 84 years to go once round its orbit.

There's a good close-up picture of Uranus here. Uranus has a thick atmosphere and a small rocky and icy interior. Oddly enough, it rotates sideways on to the Sun, like a ball going round a roulette wheel. It has a system of rings, visible in the fly-by photos of Voyager 2, and 27 known moons.

If you want to see another awe-inspiring pale blue dot, try this one, which is the Earth seen from beyond Uranus, taken by Voyager 1.

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Where are all the diocesan Bible conferences?

Saturday saw the eleventh Chelmsford Anglican Bible Conference, with over three hundred people from churches across the Diocese of Chelmsford gathered at the Central Baptist Church for a day of studying the Bible. (If you’re asking, “Why the Baptist church?” it’s in the centre of our cathedral town and is an excellent conference venue — if a bit hot on that particular day in this particular October.)

This venture started as an initiative suggested at the Chelmsford Diocesan EvangelicalAssociation, to put Bible teaching at the heart of our diocesan life. It has been a long, and at times up-hill, road, but given that we had about 1% of the ‘Usual Sunday Attendance’ for the diocese in attendance on Saturday, I do believe we are beginning to get somewhere. Roll on the 2% level!

During the day, I bumped into an old Chelmsford clerical colleague who has now moved to another diocese. He came especially for the day and told me he wouldn’t miss it! He also told me that he was thinking about organizing a similar event in his own diocese, which was great news.

However, this raises the question that often occurs to me as to why there are not similar conferences in dioceses the length and breadth of the country. They are not really that difficult to organize in principle, although our administrator, Carolan Casey, will tell you there is a huge amount of detailed work that has to go on behind the scenes.

Ultimately, however, all you need is a venue and a speaker — that and, as we have discovered, a good administrator. So why aren’t evangelicals everywhere running such conferences? After all, we’re supposed to believe in the power of God’s word and its importance to the church, and we all know that the standard of Bible-teaching and the attitude to the Bible in the Church of England could do with considerable improvement. So where are the conferences?

Talking to my friend, I said there are four essentials he must stick to.

First, keep the organizing committee small and select. We started off with an enormous and broad organizing committee and it became quite difficult both to hold meetings that everyone could attend and to come to agreement when they did. The aim here is not to allow everyone a voice but to get something done. At the moment, we have six people on our committee and that is the biggest it has been for years.

Secondly, do not aim for breadth in the speakers. When we started out, I received an e-mail from a colleague saying that they hoped we would aim to have the different ‘wings’ of evangelicalism represented on the platform. That is a piece of advice I ignored and we paid a price for it in the early years. But the point is, once again, this is not about hearing different opinions. It is about teaching the Bible faithfully and effectively — and actually to a largely lay-audience, most of whom have no idea what the different wings of evangelicalism stand for. The crucial question about the speakers is their competence.

However, thirdly, arising from the above, all the speakers must be theologically conservative and pastorally evangelical. Please note, this is not the same as being a conservative evangelical! Maintaining the quality of the product is essential. This is about feeding Christ’s sheep who belong to the Church of England, not airing personal ideas. Moreover, it is about applying the Bible to life — bringing the word of God, which ultimately is the gospel of Christ, to bear on our daily circumstances in the church and in the secular world. This is why I say speakers have to be ‘evangelistic’. They must be practical, gospel-minded, people.

Fourthly, be patient and faithful. We started big and then for five years got smaller, to the extent that at one stage we were debating whether to shut down entirely. Organizing a Bible conference like this, as something for a diocese, but not run by the usual diocesan bodies, is bound to be controversial. It may even be seen as an aggressive action, especially when one takes into account the policy on selecting speakers and that can cost in terms of friends and support.

In short, it can — and probably will — be tough because of the ‘internal politics’ of the Church of England generally and evangelicalism in particular. But it is worth it!

The principle to bear in mind is Mark 6:34: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

To teach is to pastor God’s people. To teach the Bible is to make God’s voice heard. Yet this is so lacking in many of our dioceses. If you can organize for this to happen where you are, then surely you already know what you ought to do.

John Richardson
3 October 2011

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Now that's what I call Jupiter

Having learned the lesson about over-exposure on Friday night, I was out with the telescope again last night (Sunday) and got this shot of Jupiter. The moons were startlingly bright, but I've almost lost them on the final image. Taken with a Meade ETX-105 using a Philips SPC900 webcam and wxAstroCapture to record the image. The exposure was about 1500 frames of avi video processed with Registax and final contrast adjusted using Photoshop Elements.

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