Over the past few weeks Anglican Futures has received a number of blogs from people wishing to share their thoughts about the way forward. This is the first of them, others will be published over the next week.
Jesus said, “Be as canny as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
St. Matthew 10:16.
The phoney War is finally over. General Synod have made their decision. There can no longer be any doubt about the direction of travel. By a large majority in the House of Bishops and by the slimmest of majorities in the Houses of Clergy and Laity, the Church of England has voted to continue its journey away from Scripture – and therefore, by implication, away from our heavenly King and the establishment of His Kingdom.
The institution is therefore likely to find itself spiritually moribund. This has been proved time and again in recent years by the miserable statistics of continuing decline in congregational numbers, especially among the young, and by the growing numbers of dioceses on the verge of financial collapse.
The crucial question is what the orthodox should do now. They are by no means in a weak position.
Many of them have large congregations and healthy finances. They already operate largely independently of their dioceses and could well afford to pay stipends and insurances out of their own resources. The stumbling block is always buildings, upon which many of them, like St. Helen’s Bishopsgate and St. Ebbe’s Oxford, have already spent vast sums of money to adapt them for outreach and teaching. The assumption is being made, perhaps wrongly, that these buildings would be confiscated by the central Church authorities if the orthodox were to organise themselves with their own bishops and their own confirmations and ordinations and in full communion with GAFCON and the GSFA - in effect a Third Province.
Legally this might appear to be so at first sight, but would it be much less so if the churches concerned were to use the Book of Common Prayer and be clearly seen to be Anglican? The way many look now – no liturgy, no holy table, no robes – certainly does not portray them to the public as characteristically Anglican. If they returned to the worship pattern that the orthodox followed 60 years ago, they might be able to argue convincingly in a court of law that as the Church of England’s legal base is founded upon that Prayer Book and its annexed Ordinal and Articles of Faith, they are and will continue to be loyal and law-abiding members of the Church of England. As it happens, for practical everyday use there are now two faithful modern language translations of 1662, the English Prayer Book and of course, BCP2020.
It should also be remembered that there is another factor to be considered, the court of public opinion. We have a national instinct to see fair play for minorities in difficult situations and might this be no different to others? If the public were to see a lively, loving, community-serving, numerically strong body of people evicted from their parish church building and its associated plant, would they be up in arms? Would the media be only too eager to take up their cause? The orthodox could be all too easily portrayed as the persecuted and hard-done-by, treated inconsiderately by an ecclesiastical bureaucracy the media already perceive as primarily interested in money and property.
Many orthodox will find such an approach confrontational – and indeed, so it is, even if it is well seasoned with Christian love for those with whom we are forced by conscience to disagree. However, the alternative is to see orthodox Evangelicals and Catholics progressively replaced by liberals, who do not preach the significance of Christ crucified, do not believe that faith requires repentance and treat much of Holy Scripture with a superior contempt. That Church is going nowhere – we know it is going nowhere - and it is totally incapable of converting England. The English public may have abandoned the Church, but they instinctively know what is true and what is counterfeit Christianity when they see it.
Now has to be the time to accelerate serious planning to create the nuts and bolts of a Third Province. The Church of England Evangelical Council and The Alliance have made considerable strides already, but there is much still to be done to translate these aspirations into a clear programme. Since the Synod, CEEC have issued a communique. There they outline their plans to use their influence towards swaying the bishops to provide a proper provincial status for the orthodox. That certainly needs doing, but it is meaningless to merely “hope” that they will get a positive response. They should instead demand to receive such a response well before the time of the next session of Synod so that we may all know precisely where we stand.
We would be wise to remember the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, “Trust in the Lord and keep your tinder dry.”
Anglican Futures offers practical and pastoral support to faithful Anglicans
If you would like to hear more:
subscribe to our regular emails
We do need to look back at our history to see how God has moved in the past. The Cranmer, Lloyd-Jones mentions are good hints. Is it right to say that it is often a bit messy? As with the Israelites asking for a King, or the adventure of Acts, or the inability of the Puritans to agree on government so we had the Restoration – and lots more. That does not diminish the pursuit of truth and grace, that is still vital, and there are still red-lines, and God has often had to start again outside the establishment, but it does suggest the possibility of a place where more people can cohabit and a chance to work things out…
"There can no longer be any doubt about the direction of travel." Sadly this has been the case for at least ten years. For example the Pilling Report of 2013, warmly welcomed by the bishops, recommended blessings for same sex couples as part of a plan to make orthodoxy optional (the orthodox position was relegated to a 'minority report' appendix). One could list several other examples over the years showing how the direction of travel has been obvious but the orthodox now represented by The Alliance have continued to assure the evangelical constituencies that action would not be required. If The Alliance's current analysis and suggested plans had been brought together in 2014 perhaps there would have been greater chanc…
No. We are not going to be replaced by Liberal-Progressives. A Reformation is coming and the heterodox elements in the House of Bishops are going to find out how Revolutionary it really is and what mass line mobilisation really looks like and what happens when fellowship completely breaks down - we are not going to accept any form of direction from the heterodox and other elements who have fallen under the sway of the Powers (Ephesians 6: 12) .
Insane priorities here, telling evangelicals to robe up and use BCP to avoid schism?