Next for REFORM: 'time to feel the FORCE'

As the Yom Kippur war showed, the holiday period is always a good time to launch an attack on your enemy if you are prepared and he is not. So the 7/7 vote by the General Synod on women bishops is meeting with a sluggish response in some circles, particularly from Conservative Evangelicals, partly because so many (including myself) are (or are meant to be) on holiday.

Phoning around during the week, I was told that the Reform Council has a scheduled meeting in September, but beyond a press release expressing disappointment and promising to look at the Code of Practice proposals in February next year, it is not clear what more immediate action will be forthcoming. Thus although the same press release states that Synod’s action, “will no doubt further rouse the ‘sleeping giant’ of orthodox and evangelical Anglicanism,” it is by no means clear what time the ‘giant’ has set his alarm clock for.

And when the giant does finally stumble out of bed, what is he to do?

There is some talk going around about quota capping or cutting. But then there is always talk about quota capping or cutting. It is the standard Conservative Evangelical response to every such crisis, and it is completely the wrong answer. Apart from the fact that it almost never happens (and see here for an alternative that also never got off the ground), the problem is that in this case it is particularly hard to see the connection with the presenting issue.

The problem is not money. And depriving the Church of England of a chunk of its income isn’t going to address what has happened. In any case, does anyone seriously think that even if every Reform parish (and there aren’t that many) withheld all its money tomorrow, the General Synod would be persuaded to change its mind?

Others have mentioned GAFCON in a slightly vague ‘mightn’t this be grounds for an appeal?’ way. But what form could an appeal take? As is well-known, GAFCON includes those (some of them evangelicals) who do ordain women as well as those who don’t. One can hardly appeal to GAFCON on the grounds that the Church of England has decided to do what some of them find unexceptionable.

Nor can it be argued that Traditionalists are being ‘excluded’ from the Church of England. First, we don’t know what form the Code of Practice will take, so it might be argued that we would all have to ‘wait and see’. Secondly, there is no absolute certainty that Synod will vote through the required legislation. I note that in the Church Times poll on the Synod vote, it currently (11/07, 2.30pm) shows 92% of respondents think Synod took the wrong decision — and that in a ‘Liberal establishment’ journal! (Go here to vote.) A new Synod might well make life difficult for the legislation currently proposed.

So another problem with the ‘appeal to GAFCON’ approach’ is that it means waiting to see the outcome of the Synodical process, when what is needed is action now.

Whatever Reform proposes to do, therefore, it must take account of the true nature of the problem facing us, which is not that we will have women bishops but that we will have no adequate structural provision for those who cannot accept their ministry. As a result, the whole Church will be affected by the marginalizing of Conservative and Traditionalist views. What is needed, then, is something which will address the structures effectively, keeping us firmly in, instead of pushing us further out.

And here (as I have been arguing for some time) there is only one obvious contender, which is the legislation already in place, and which will remain in place unless or until it is repealed. I refer, of course, to Resolutions A and B from the Priest (Ordination of Women) Measure and the so-called ‘Resolution C’ of the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993.

Unfortunately, it is precisely here that the sleeping giant’s slumber has been deepest, for despite making the issue of gender and leadership in the Church a priority in the Reform Covenant, only a tiny handful of Reform parishes have passed Resolution C. On the contrary, many in Reform have strenuously resisted the suggestion that Resolution C provides any sort of solution for the problems facing them and the wider Church.

It is a direct result of that policy that Conservative Evangelicals find themselves today without any ecclessiologically coherent strategy. Reform has patterned itself on the voluntary organizations of old, such as CPAS or Eclectics. It is a pastoral club, when what is needed is an ecclesial structure, comparable to the other structures of the Church as a whole.

As of last Monday, the Church of England is set on a course which will inevitably take is in the same direction as TEC and the Anglican Church in Canada — to say nothing of the Church in Wales and Scotland.

Distancing ourselves from the Church, by quota cuts or appeals overseas, will only make things worse for the Church as a whole. Resolution C is there begging. The Reform leadership needs to see this and to seize the opportunity it represents.

There has been much talk in the press since GAFCON about FOCA — a fellowship of confessing Anglicans. Within these shores, it is time for FORCE —a Fellowship of Resolution C Evangelicals. Reform’s policy of indifference and hostility towards Resolution C has been a mistake. There is time to correct it, but the time is now.

John Richardson
11 July 2008

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England bypassed. Global Communion isolated.

In the wake of Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem and the post-GAFCON meeting at All Souls Church on Monday two things are becoming clear about the situation as it affects us here in England.

The first is that there is no clear way ahead for GAFCON supporters and sympathizers within England itself.

The second is that in the long term it probably doesn’t matter.

The absence of a clear way ahead is due to there being no post-GAFCON follow up group in England itself. Nor does there appear to be any coordinated strategy for the future. Some have seen the online petitions (posted in my name) as part of such a strategy. In fact, the idea of posting them came about during Tuesday’s gathering, and the basic wording was devised during a coffee break. (My involvement was having the experience and a GoPetition account to do it quickly).

They are there to encourage people to show their commitment, individually and as organizations, to GAFCON principles. And this itself may send important signals, both to supporters and the wider institution. There is, however, no ‘next step’. There is no commitment to further action, nor is there, as yet, any intention to follow up signatories with requests or suggestions.

All this will, no doubt, come as a surprise to some. Prior to, and even following, Tuesday’s meeting in London there was much talk of ‘breakaway groups’, ‘takeover bids’ and the like. Conspiracy seemed to be in the air.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The earliest it seems that any post-GAFCON collective action is scheduled is a meeting being organized by the Church of England Evangelical Council, titled Shaping the Future: Anglican evangelicalism post Lambeth and Gafcon. This, however, will not happen until mid-November, some four and a half months away.

The Reform Council is meeting in September, and may also be making proposals. But then it may not. Nothing is clear on that front.

Meanwhile, Monday’s vote in General Synod about the way ahead on women bishops hangs over the entire English picture. Whatever is decided, it is that which is likely to focus English minds for the next few months, not how to continue what GAFCON has started.

In the meeting at All Souls, Archbishop Peter Jensen challenged the attendees about the need to find ‘English solutions to English problems’. But in reality part of the English problem is precisely that we cannot find solutions to our problems. The content of Liberal theology is diminished, the impact of Liberal churches is less than it once was. But, as is shown by the paranoid reactions of commentators to a possible shift in the balance of power, the Church of England is not in the hands of Evangelicals, let alone Conservatives and ‘fundamentalists’.

On the contrary, its ethos is resolutely ‘middle of the road’ Liberal-Catholic. It is Open, not Conservative, Evangelicals who provide the recruiting ground for diocesan advisors and helpers. It is Liberal, not Conservative, theology which dominates the part-time and post-ordination training courses. It is centrist, not ‘extremist’ clergy who are given preferment as suffragan and diocesan bishops, cathedral deans and archdeacons.

The sheer fact that approval is almost certain to be given in the next twenty-fours hours for women to be consecrated as bishops shows that the Church of England is not what opponents of GAFCON fear it may become. The equal fact that there is nothing in the pipeline that will truly threaten this hegemony means it is likely to stay this way for some while to come.

And yet the security of the current English establishment, and the lack of any apparent threat to this security, does not really matter.

Many years ago a Dutch friend of mine told me about a cartoon which expressed what they thought about the English attitude: an English newspaper headline read, “Fog in the Channel. Continent cut off.”

In the same way, we have seen English bishops, and indeed Archbishops, complaining that GAFCON has not shown due regard for Anglo-centric structures and personalities — that they, and not ‘self-appointed’ individuals and bodies, have the right to define the terms by which Anglicanism is constituted and operates.

Yet that is clearly now no longer the case. Significant sections of the Anglican Communion, representing hundreds of dioceses and millions of members have acted as they have chosen to act — just as, of course, in the past the North American branches of Anglicanism have acted according to their own agenda and in general disregard for the rest of the Communion.

The one does not justify the other. It is simply that just as England was previously powerless to undo what happened in the USA and Canada (but showed due deference), so now (although it is unwilling to defer to them) it cannot undo, or prevent further, actions by other parts of the Communion.

In a sense, Theo Hobson is right when he complains in an article in The Spectator that by emphasising the Anglican Communion, ABp Rowan Williams has made the Church of England in this country hostage to other influences than those which have hitherto dominated the English scene. He is wrong only in his pessimistic assumption that things will necessarily change very quickly here.

In fact, it seems very unlikely that the Church of England in England will do much more than muddle along as it has done since the winds of change began to blow through our society after World War Two. We still have enough ‘family silver’ to be able to fund decline for decades. We still have bishops in the House of Lords and a place in the formal functions of the nation. We still bury our parishioners, though we baptize few and marry even fewer.

The Liberal establishment is likely to remain just that. The Evangelicals will continue to fight amongst themselves and achieve nothing politically, although they will remain committed to the gospel and effective ministry at a local level. In fact, the only real ‘threat’ to the Church of England continuing the same way is whatever injuries it manages to inflict on itself over women bishops tomorrow.

The Global Anglican Communion will thus continue to be ‘cut off’ from the Church of England. It may be decades before we come to see that whilst we retain the affection of some of our erstwhile children, and the clamour for attention from others, it is we who are now powerless and isolated.

John Richardson
6 July 2008

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