Newsletter December 2007

1. It may have been a year of turmoil for the Anglican Communion, but 2007 has also provided us with encouragements, which we should not overlook:

  • Gospel Growth

The network of Gospel Partnerships continues to grow; new churches have been planted; the ‘Fresh Expressions’ agenda has helped to foster a climate of acceptance for new forms of gospel ministry; missions and Bible festivals have gone ahead; and within our own congregations people have found Christ and believers have grown in spiritual maturity.

  • Evangelical Distinctiveness

The ‘Covenant for the Church of England’ has provided a statement of belief and intention around which evangelicals are increasingly cohering. Those who cannot accept it realise they are at odds with the evangelical mainstream. The possibility of ‘principled irregular action’ is now being openly considered by a number of evangelicals who previously would not have wanted to line up alongside Reform.

  • General Synod Developments

Last February’s debates on sexuality were pretty grim, but they did at least alert many members to a prevailing indiscipline on these matters. One result was that ‘orthodox’ members of Synod from right across the spectrum realised how they were being overtaken by a USA-style agenda and started discussions on how this might be prevented.

In July, the Pilling Report on Senior Church Appointments, despite being somewhat overtaken by the Prime Minister’s announcement that the Government would no longer be involved in church appointments, nevertheless explicitly recognised that there appeared to be discrimination against conservative evangelicals when it came to senior appointments. This will provide us with an important piece of evidence on which to build in our on-going talks with the Archbishop’s Appointments Secretary.

2. More generally within the Anglican Communion, although our present divisions are a matter of real sorrow, there are still encouragements to be identified:

  • Growing Clarity

Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney, has helped us to see that there are two gospels being proclaimed within the Anglican Communion. One is the ‘gospel of inclusion’ championed by the USA’s Episcopal Church (TEC) and the other is the ‘gospel of salvation’ on which the Primates of the Global south are taking their stand. We know, of course, that inclusion in God’s family is available to anyone who will accept God’s offer of salvation, but the idea of inclusion without repentance and trust in Christ’s atoning sacrifice, is just universalism.

  • An End To Waiting

The Primates gave TEC a deadline of 30th September to turn its back on same-sex consecrations and blessings. In the meantime, TEC bishops were invited to Lambeth 2008. When the deadline arrived, the leaders of TEC responded with an ambiguous statement. Despite this, the Archbishop of Canterbury still wanted to keep everything under discussion: he said in effect that there wasn’t really a deadline and that Lambeth only amounted to a discussion forum. One of the reasons the Archbishop remains unwilling to accept that relationships have finally broken down is that, together with the English House of Bishops, he is hoping to secure agreement on an Anglican Covenant that will provide a process for resolving doctrinal differences between provinces. However, other Primates believe that further consultation may simply be used by TEC to delay matters until a point is reached where others give in to them. Meanwhile orthodox parishes in the USA continue to face legal threats from TEC and have not been provided with the type of oversight that the Primates agreed they needed. Elsewhere the Bishop of Recife and members of his diocese have also not been provided with any official Anglican solution to their dispossession by the Archbishop of Brazil. In the light of this, the orthodox Primates of the Global South have made clear they will now take further action. This has most recently resulted in Greg Venables, the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, taking Recife under his wing, providing oversight for two bishops in Canada ( where the diocese of Niagara has recently sanctioned same-sex blessings and where an orthodox Anglican Network in Canada has recently been launched) and offering a home to the Diocese of Pittsburgh if it is able to see through its initial decision to leave TEC.

  • Examples of Courage

Individuals, parishes and dioceses have shown extraordinary courage in the face of an onslaught of litigation initiated by TEC. When the Presiding Bishop of TEC, Katherine Jefferts Schori, threatened Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh with legal proceedings for ‘abandonment of communion’ (presumably with the aim of replacing him before his diocese can confirm their decision to leave TEC in a year’s time), the Bishop replied by restating Luther’s words: ‘Here I stand. I can do no other.’ Three other Bishops are also facing legal proceedings for having left TEC for other provinces. Wonderfully, four English Bishops (Chester, Chichester, Exeter and Rochester) sent a message of support to Bob Duncan following the threats from TEC.

3. Sometimes news about what is going on in the Anglican Communion can seem a world away from our day to day parish concerns. We are, rightly, primarily concerned with the building up of our congregational life. Jim Packer made this point with characteristic clarity at the launch of the Anglican Network in Canada:

‘What is the church? I state what I believe to be the Bible’s teaching. In its visible aspect - that is, as we see it in this world - the church is the entire community of those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This church is gathered in local assemblies, each of which, in the words of Anglican Article 19, is “a congregation” (that is, an association) of faithful men (that is, believing people). In its spiritual aspect, that is, in terms of its relationship to God, the church as a whole is three things together, corresponding to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. It is the family of the Father’s adopted children; it is the body of the ascended, glorified and enthroned Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord; and it is the community, or fellowship of mutual love and service that is created and sustained by the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit draws us close to each other by drawing each of us close to Christ, and by so doing transforms God’s children in character, animates Christ’s body in ministry, and builds up each fellowship in love. Every congregation is called to live as an outcrop, microcosm, sample and specimen of the one holy universal fellowship.’

And the relationship of the congregation to the rest of the Communion? Jim Packer again:

‘Anglicanism is not hierarchical nor maintenance-motivated, though it has sometimes appeared to be both; but in fact it is service-oriented. Dioceses exist to resource and help parishes, and provinces exist to coordinate both diocesan and local church ministry; Anglicanism is service-oriented at every level, and it is in loving practical service, shaped by the divine Word and empowered by the divine Spirit, that Anglican unity is finally expressed.’

4. I take it that one of the reasons why we are members of Reform is because while we want to keep our focus on the local church, we nevertheless acknowledge that if gospel ministry is to be preserved in our local churches, we need to take action when dioceses become dysfunctional - and support each other in so doing. It would, however, be a great mistake to imagine that somewhere within the Council of Reform somebody is taking all the necessary action on our behalf. Reform cannot take over things that rightly belong within each congregation.

5. So as we approach the New Year, may I offer some possible areas of activity on which you may wish to draw in considering what action should be taken within your own congregation?

  • Write Letters

We can overlook the influence we can have just by writing to Bishops, MPs, newspapers and para-Church organisations.

  • Identify Candidates for General Synod

Although there are opportunities to achieve beneficial changes through General Synod, those who are clearly evangelical are unlikely to be able to have a radical effect on the agenda in the foreseeable future. However, the advantage of having well-taught and tough-minded evangelicals on General Synod is their ability to prevent measures which might undermine Gospel ministry. All that is needed to stop unhelpful legislation is a third of the membership of one of the Houses. At the moment, it is estimated that such evangelicals make up almost a third of the House of Laity. The Synod that is elected in 2010 will have to deal with issues such as the consecration of women bishops. We need to be preparing for these elections at our 2008 APCMs by asking high-calibre candidates to go on the Deanery Synods and then stand for election to General Synod thereafter.

  • Put the Gospel Before Regularity

In his address to this year’s National Conference, Richard Coekin (the senior pastor at the Commission Initiative – a co-operative partnership of 12 churches) said that if we invest in gospel growth we can ‘win everything we properly long for on the ground.’ However, this may on occasion mean having to step outside diocesan processes. ‘I know evangelical churches,’ said Richard, ‘who realise they need more staff to grow gospel ministry but refrain from appointing them simply because the bishop has refused them a curate, for reasons of theological balance to his quota. But the gospel demands we appoint staff and, where necessary, delay ordinations or arrange for alternative ordinations, or appoint free church staff, but not let a bishop’s quota obstruct the salvation of others from hell.’ It is always right to consult and to seek to win agreement on initiatives we are planning – particularly if they impinge on others – but at the end of the day the gospel must take priority.

  • Review our Support for Mission and Church Agencies

One of the features of the break-up of the Anglican Communion is that various church and mission agencies are tending to align with either the ‘inclusive’ gospel or the gospel of ‘salvation’. We need to be aware of how the money given by our congregations for mission and church support is being applied. Furthermore, as dioceses from the Global South refuse donations from TEC, the need for us to help with compensating funding increases.

  • Convene Groups

One of our aims is to encourage the growth of gospel ministry through the local church. This means working out how to encourage more people to become Bible teachers as well as protecting the distinctiveness, and encouraging the growth of, evangelical parishes. It may be that the opportunity to discuss these matters with like-minded evangelicals already exists within a DEF or Regional Gospel Partnership. However, if this is not the case, why not convene an informal meeting to examine what more can be done?

  • Raise Issues with PCCs

Many incumbents find themselves in full agreement with Reform’s aims, but know that members of their congregations aren’t entirely with them. In these circumstances, while steady Bible teaching is key, the process is often helped by particular issues being explained to PCCs. Reform aims to produce briefing papers over the next year for members to use with their PCCs (or to suggest that their incumbents present to their PCCs) on issues such as:

  • Elections to General Synod
  • Women Bishops
  • What is our future within the Anglican Communion?
  • Time for a ‘Fresh Expression?’

6. There’s a lot to do and none of us knows within what climate we may be called to minister in the future. However, as Christ builds His church and calls us all to growing holiness, we can have confidence in the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:24 (quoted by Bob Duncan in his address to his diocese):

‘The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.’