Shadow Gospel: Revelation in the Theology of Rowan Williams

 

Introduction

If the reformation set in motion by the GAFCON movement is to be genuinely global and sustained, the question of whether or not Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is to be counted as orthodox cannot be avoided. It is now obvious that two different forms of religion are taking shape within the Anglican Communion as they giving rise to new structures. This is most clearly seen in the United States where The Episcopal Church of the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada are developing what is effectively a new syncretistic religion behind a traditional façade while the emergent province of the Anglican Church in North America gives expression to the GAFCON movement’s reaffirmation of the historic Anglican faith. As Canon Vinay Samuel wrote in preparation for GAFCON in Jerusalem last year ‘We see a parallel between contemporary events and events in England in the 16th century… now, after five centuries, a new fork in the road is appearing. Though this fork in the road may present itself publicly as a choice in relation to aberrant sexuality, the core issues are about whether or not there is one Word, accessible to all, and whether or not there is one Christ, accessible to all.’ [1]

This process is not limited to North America. The same cultural forces are at work in the Western world as a whole and Dr Michael Nazir Ali’s recent resignation as Bishop of Rochester is a symptom of how far advanced this process is within the mother church of the Communion itself. Commenting on his decision he writes ‘I have resigned as Bishop of Rochester after nearly 15 years. During that time, I have watched the nation drift further and further away from its Christian moorings’ and this has ‘occurred while the Church has either looked on impotently or, sometimes, been complicit in bringing about the change it has subsequently regretted.’ [2]

Powerful opposing forces therefore bear in upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As Primate of All England, he is expected to articulate the residual spirituality of an England which is increasingly secularised and expects  its Church, in the words of Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor to be ‘in tune with some of the times here’ rather than being ‘more and more hemmed in by foreign Anglican churches’[3]. And of course this expectation can be backed up with the threat of disestablishment.

As titular head of the Anglican Communion, a role which if anything he has sought to enhance as shown by his highly personalized leadership of last year’s Lambeth Conference,  the majority of global Anglicans have very different expectations  (as Lord Falconer recognised), wanting the Anglican Communion to return to its confessional roots, to that biblical and apostolic faithfulness as articulated by GAFCON which happens to be so very much against the grain of the UK’s ambient secular relativism.

It is therefore vital for the GAFCON movement to have a clear understanding of the Archbishop’s theological commitments. His refusal to exercise effective discipline in the aftermath of Gene Robinson’s consecration as the first actively and openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican Communion led directly to the formation of GAFCON. Was this simply weakness, or did it stem from theological convictions? Could it possibly still be right for the GAFCON Primates to seek to work with Rowan Williams and the Windsor Covenant process, encouraging him to use his powers through the instruments of unity for the reform of the Communion? Or is that hope now futile, in which case the GAFCON Primates and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans have a gospel mandate to focus on the radical realignment of the Anglican Communion under new Conciliar leadership?

 

Shadow and Substance

So clarity about Rowan Williams’ theology is essential, but it is also notoriously difficult and no consensus has yet emerged amongst orthodox Anglicans.

While serious concerns were expressed about Williams’ appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury Church Society, REFORM, Latimer House and the leaders of some of England’s largest Anglican congregations, some even concluding that in New Testament terms he was a false teacher, other evangelicals welcomed the appointment and have been happy to receive his ministry.  He was warmly welcomed at the fourth National Evangelical Anglican Congress in 2003 and when letters from 2000 came to light in the press shortly after last year’s Lambeth Conference in which Williams repeated his view that same sex relationships could have the same quality as heterosexual marriage, nineteen diocesan bishops wrote to the Times, saying that, although not necessarily agreeing  with his views on the matter, nonetheless ‘He has our full and unqualified support in his magnificent leadership both of the Church of England and of the Anglican Communion’. [4] Williams also has a growing profile within the worldwide Alpha movement centred on Holy Trinity Brompton, London.

This diversity of response serves as a warning against simplistic criticism which would see the Archbishop as essentially a more sophisticated proponent of North American revisionism. My proposal is that a more accurate way of understanding Williams’ position – including its dangers – is to recognise that we are dealing with a shadow theology, a body of thought which has the shape of orthodoxy, but lacks solidity because his understanding of the doctrine of revelation persistently mutes and even distorts the voice of Scripture. And in current  circumstances, that is a fatal flaw.

In this way, it is possible to affirm and not downplay those elements of Williams’ theology which are in continuity with received Christian faith. He is a decided theological realist and was uncharacteristically blunt in his criticisms of John Spong’s ’12 Theses’ published in 1998, a sweeping denial of all the key elements of creedal belief, including the virgin birth, the empty tomb and the ascension.   ’I believe’, he responded, ‘that these theses represent a level of confusion and misinterpretation that I find astonishing.’ [5]

For Williams, belief in the incarnation and trinity is fundamental, not as a triumph of heroic human intellectual achievement but through the recognition of our radical dependence upon a God revealed in Jesus Christ who holds us in disarming acceptance. In the course of his largely positive assessment, Mike Higton explains that Williams understands the basis for knowledge about God to be not the autonomous human intellect, but God himself as ‘the only one who can tell us who we are. Among all the competing claims which others make on us, seeking to dictate to us who we shall be, we discover our proper identities not by struggling for an illusory independence, but by turning to our purest, deepest dependence – the undistorting dependence of creatures upon their Creator.’ [6]

This God-centredness means that Williams has a basis for resisting the pressures of a godless culture. Criticising Spong for smuggling back into his ‘demythologised’ theology a commitment to humanity as made in the image of God, Williams says that this is ‘bland because ungrounded and therefore desperately vulnerable to corruption, or defeat at the hands of a more robust ideology. It is impossible to think too often of the collapse of liberalism in 1930s Germany.’ Here he clearly has in mind Karl Barth and the other signatories of the Barmen Declaration of 1933, those very few  who protested against Nazi anti-Semitism.

In a similar vein, Williams is a strong opponent of abortion and nuclear weapons, yet on the key issues which are threatening the fabric of the Communion he leads – homosexuality and, to some extent connected, the Christian response to radical Islam, he has been notably reluctant to swim against the tide of liberal opinion, in fact in the case of the former he has done much to reinforce it and his recent encouragement of Sharia law in England has caused widespread dismay.

To understand this anomaly, we need now to focus on how Williams’ understanding of revelation actually works, because this question of how we know truth about God is fundamental to all theology. Part of his appeal, despite the rather agonized tone of much of his writing, seems to be a sense of relief that it is possible to hold on to what appears to be orthodox Christianity without the more embarrassing and awkward bits.  And this alerts us to a problem.

For instance, in ‘Tokens of Trust’, while the reality of heaven and the bodily resurrection is winsomely affirmed, an uncertain note is sounded on hell. It is difficult to see any biblical support for the claim that ‘The most truthful image we can have of hell is of God eternally knocking on a closed door that we are struggling to hold shut.’ It seems that ‘What matters is that we are as aware as we can be of all those things that might bring us to such a state of terror and deception’[7]. The purpose of the language of hell is not so much to point to something which actually exists, but to keep us repentant and aware of our capacity for self deception.

 

The Word of God – possibly…

We are beginning to move into the shadows and the reason becomes clearer when Williams discusses the nature of the Bible; ‘It is, we often say, the Word of God: but it is the Word of God not because it is the primary and central witness in history to God – Jesus Christ is that – but because it is the primary witness to Jesus Christ’[8] Commenting on this passage, his sympathetic biographer Rupert Shortt writes ‘The Bible is not a Christian Koran. It does not itself purport to be divine revelation – Jesus Christ is that – but the revelation’s primary witness. The inspiration of Scripture resides in ‘its capacity to be the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, making Jesus vividly present  to our hearts and minds…’[9] The reference  to the Koran is mischievous with its implication of fundamentalism; unlike the Koran, the Bible is of course the work of many different human authors, but traditionally the Bible has nonetheless been held to be primary and authoritative divine revelation as ‘God’s Word written’ [10]. This is how Jesus himself understood the Old Testament and it was this quality which the Church came to recognise in the books which comprise the New Testament.

The contrast with Clause 2 of the Jerusalem Declaration is instructive; ‘We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.’ To describe the Bible as ‘God’s Word written’, would therefore not seem to be a description Williams could assent to in any straightforward sense.

So whereas historic Anglican teaching sees a direct correspondence between God as revealer, supremely in Jesus Christ, and the witness of Scripture as authoritative inspired revelation, now the relationship is indirect and uncertain. The wedge between revealer and revelation was quite explicit in Rowan Williams’ recent Hulsean Sermon. [11]  In answer to the question ‘What might a defence of the significance  and authority of revelation look like today…?’  Williams reveals his debt to Karl Barth who ‘insisted…that the claim about revelation was initially and decisively a claim about the nature of the revealer rather than about the content of revelation’.[12]

But can the content of revelation – which is of course Scripture itself – be given a subsidiary role? While it is obviously the case that biblical revelation is not comprehensive in telling us all that we could possibly want to know, the historic Anglican understanding has been that God’s Word written is real revelation containing  ‘all things necessary for salvation’.[13] It is also true that biblical revelation comes to us as personal knowledge of a God who knows us far more truly than we know ourselves and reconciles us through Jesus Christ, but revealed in this sermon is the potentially lethal error of downgrading the content of revelation while maintaining the concept of revelation.  Thus revelation is ‘the drawing of the mind into a place where it is overwhelmingly aware of being acted upon and thus of its own secondary and vulnerable character’. In fact, revelation has more to do with asking questions than having secure knowledge and so,  ‘We are stuck with the difficult task of negotiating how to say “This is true”, sensing the accumulated weight and tracing its imprint on other believing lives, without saying, “This is a truth that needs no more questioning.”’

Although the language is Christ-centred this distancing of Christ from Scripture actually serves to place Christ in shadow.  Williams does believe that Scripture is ‘the unique touchstone of truth about God’[14] because at its heart is the apostolic witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus which we could not know in any other way, but the human authors of Scripture were as prone to error as we are. Williams writes ‘The revelation of God comes to us in the middle of weakness and fallibility… We read with a sense of our own benighted savagery in receiving God’s gift, and our solidarity with those writers of scripture caught up in the blazing fire of God’s gift who yet struggle with it, misapprehend it, and misread it.’[15] So at issue is not just our fallibility, but that of the writers in apprehending the revelation they were given. The danger is that we will appropriate the Bible as a means of establishing power over others through our systems of thought. So not just our thinking, but the Bible itself needs to be ‘brought to the cross’ of continual questioning.

This shadowing of revelation makes it possible to venture, without adopting a liberal reductionist reading of Scripture, that we may have a better understanding than the biblical writers themselves. For instance, Williams claims that the parable of the unjust steward is `a story which St Luke does not seem to have understood particularly well’.[16]

The classic example is of course the case Williams made for same sex relationships as an expression of grace in his essay ‘The Body’s Grace’ of 1989 which gave the Lesbian Gay Christian Movement theological respectability. Mike Higton helpfully comments ‘The heart of Williams’ argument about homosexuality… is an attempt to look at sex in the light of the gospel, and to understand how sexual relationships might be part of lives caught up by the Spirit into God’s life.  That provides him with a biblical and theological basis on which to begin asking what kind of sexual practices are in line with the Gospel and what kind of sexual practices are wrong.’[17] The wedge between revealer and revelation has allowed ‘the Gospel’ to be set in opposition to Scripture and so ‘The weight of his argument does not fall on his analysis of Romans 1 or of texts like it; he undertakes that analysis only in the wake of his attempt to bring the core of the biblical witness – the Gospel of God’s disarming acceptance – to bear on his understanding of sex’[18]

If the Bible is fallible and we are to insist on questioning what we think we know in the light of some abstracted ‘gospel’, there is a real risk that that the clear teaching of the Bible will be overwhelmed by the force of our own context.

A more recent  example of precisely this problem is Williams’ Canadian  lecture of 16 April 2007 ‘The Bible Today; Reading and hearing’[19] in which he sought to establish that the context for Paul’s negative assessment of same sex relationships in Romans 1 is the subsequent warning not to judge in Romans 2:1-3, so even if Paul is right, the overall point – directed against Global South leaders’ response to developments in North America – is that they should not break communion with Churches which accept homosexual practice. In a careful analysis of the speech, Robert Gagnon[20] points out that Williams has mistakenly substituted his own context for the context of Paul’s teaching in Romans  ‘There is a big difference between, on the one hand, Paul chastising a non-believing Jew for using his sense of moral superiority to consign unbelieving Gentiles to hell while exempting himself from the need to receive Jesus as Savior (Rom 2:12-29) and, on the other hand, Williams chastising some in the church today for regarding the institutional affirmation of sexual immorality … [as] a problem for ongoing institutional affiliation.’

More radically, this downgrading of Scripture even opens the door to the possibility that it can be rewritten and the Canon modified.  So when John C. Henson’s ‘Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures’ was published in 2004 it carried an enthusiastic foreword in which Williams, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed the hope that it would spread in ‘epidemic profusion’, notwithstanding that this so-called ‘Bible’ includes the gnostic ‘Gospel of Thomas;’ omits Revelation and seven other books of the New Testament, eliminates the masculinity of God the Father and God the Son, makes the Holy Spirit feminine, removes reference to same gender sexual relationships as sin and refuses to acknowledge the existence of demons.

So it is not unreasonable to ask where this process of dissolution would end. What in Rowan Williams’ theology prevents it from following the same road to new age religiosity which is being pursued in North America? The emerging tension in Williams theology is between theoretical objectivity on the one hand and its practical subjectivity on the other. Because of its fallible human component, Scripture cannot hold the two together propositionally, but it does teach us an underlying theological grammar, a way of thinking and living, which can enable us to encounter Christ and of which Holy Communion is a sign and reminder.

Even this language has to be exposed to the silence of God, God beyond words, as a check upon the human tendency to make idols out of our systems of thought. This awareness of the apophatic tradition has its place, but in Williams’ hands it tends to deepen the shadow in which Scripture lies. He has notoriously written of ‘the solitude of truth, the solitude, finally, of God; God as a spastic child who can communicate nothing but his presence and his inarticulate wanting’.[21]  In context, this is an observation about the experience of loneliness and seems to have  as much to do with our inability to understand as God’s to speak, but it reveals something of the caste of Williams’ mind that he is willing to use a metaphor which so easily gets out of hand and reinforces a sense that Scripture is opaque.

 The instinct to be suspicious of the human tendency to build systems is good,  but  where is the coherence necessary for a common life to be found? Without the anchor of authoritative Scriptures, the hope for unity in the Church begins to look more like sentimentality than faith. Williams’ proposal is that the Church’s unity should be found more in the type of questions it asks than the answers it gives: ‘If we had to choose between a Church tolerably confident of what it has to say and seeking only for effective means of saying it and a Church constantly engaged in internal dialogue and critique of itself, an exploration to discover what is central to its being, I should say that it is the latter which is more authentic.’[22]

So on this view, what prevents the Church from dissolving into an amorphous religious debating society is the discipline of asking the right questions and persevering in the internal conversation as an act of trust that God is at work in a continuing process of revelation through the ecclesial community as a whole. While it is of course true that Christian faith will develop varied forms through time, this tentative process is a very long way from the world of the New Testament with its confidence in the gospel and dynamic missionary vision and we might add, from the world of many Global South Anglicans to whom the New Testament world is much more immediate. So it is not surprising that for all its theological sophistication, Williams’ doctrine of revelation begins to look rather naïve when applied to the Church, and reduces down to a gloss for ad hoc institutional politics. No doubt this is the very opposite of what he wants, but the last few years have been a kind of road test for this theology and it is increasingly found wanting.

 

The Confessional Deficit

The central problem is what we might call the ‘confessional deficit’, the difficulty of talking clearly and truthfully about the gospel.  Rowan Williams is not the most liberal occupant of the See of Canterbury, but he has come into office at a time when the Church in the UK and North America is being scoured by fierce currents of secularism. Doctrinal and ethical issues which had formerly been debated in the  abstract now have to be confronted practically and the reality of the confessional deficit has been painfully revealed.

And so the Archbishop himself is forced to maintain a kind of public pretence on the presenting issue dividing the Communion by trying to maintain a distinction between his personal and unrepented views on homosexuality and his commitment to maintaining the opposite in his official capacity. Ironically this seems to be importing a public –private distinction from the secular world in a way which is entirely alien to the New Testament’s understanding of the integrity of conviction required for a Christian leader.

Rowan Williams’ doctrine of revelation is simply not substantial enough to do the job. Lambeth Anglicanism has increasingly taken on a ‘shadow’ quality and is therefore going to have to get used to living in the shadow of the GAFCON movement which has stepped in to make good that deficit.

Indeed, the rise of the GAFCON movement can be attributed  to the way the Archbishop’s understanding of the doctrine of revelation as it works out in the Church shaped his responses. The Jerusalem Conference of June 2008 was a direct consequence of Williams’ decision to pre-empt the Primates meeting of February 2007 in Dar es Salaam by inviting those bishops of  the Episcopal Church of the USA who had supported the consecration of Gene Robinson ahead of the 30^th September deadline for it to clarify its position on homosexuality. It was already becoming clear that the Lambeth Conference would be structured around ‘indaba ‘ groups without provision for clear decision making and his Advent letter seemed make boundary crossings by Global South Primates in North America equivalent breaches of discipline to the breaches of biblical teaching on sexuality which had occasioned the interventions, so it is hardly surprising that this unwillingness to deal with doctrinal substance led to the formation of GAFCON as a self styled ‘rescue mission’ to provide the leadership and order which had been lacking from the traditional centre.

Williams is still doggedly pursuing the Windsor Covenant as a means of holding the Anglican Communion together, but this too shows the deficiency of his theology. During the course of debate at February’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said “The main purpose of the Covenant is inclusion rather than exclusion”, but added “ We cannot forget, nevertheless, that these questions have arisen for us because of the need for adequate discipline in the Communion on matters which affect everyone.” Not surprisingly,  the Archbishop of Canterbury disagreed, responding “We mustn’t have excessive expectations of the Covenant” and “It’s part of an ongoing inquiry of what a global Communion might look like. At every stage it is something which churches voluntarily are invited to enter into.”

So here are two very different understandings of a Covenant and the Church – one which sees unity as based on apostolic and biblical truth, the other hoping for truth to emerge from a given institutional unity. It is very difficult to see how a Covenant acceptable to Williams could ever in practice move beyond the ‘empty tolerance and endless conversation’ so roundly criticised in Archbishop Peter Akinola’s recent reflection on the Primates meeting in Alexandria  [23] The ‘deeper communion’ envisaged by the Primates in Alexandra cannot happen without deeper agreement and the continued determination of TEC and the Anglican church of Canada to push forward with heretical innovations renders  the pursuit of a Covenant without discipline not only futile, but actually dangerous because the revisionist agenda is restless and know that time is on its side.

Some see a hidden agenda behind this determination to keep talking. Paul Edie, a commentator well disposed to Williams, writes ‘Rowan Williams … seems to be asking God, or the forces of history and culture, to make straight the paths for gay people in the Anglican Communion—but not yet.’ Whether or not this is in his mind, it will certainly be the effect. A shadow theology may be ineffective for orthodoxy, but it can provide cover, intentionally or not, for revisionism. Paul Edie questioned the Archbishop, ‘Did he think there would be openly gay bishops in the Church of England in 10 years? Was it just a matter of time?  “I highly doubt it,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have progressed that far in our discernment process.”’  Edie reflects ‘It was not a no, just a not yet. Even as he declined to endorse the ordination of gay bishops, with that roundabout phrase about progress he left the possibility open—the possibility that it would come to pass eventually, and that he would think it a good thing, too.’ [24]

 

Conclusion

The increasing pace of secularisation in the West has pressed the question of orthodoxy on the Church of England and the Anglican Communion with much more urgency in recent years.  Rowan Williams’’ theology does mark a step forward from the reductionist liberalism which was popular in academic circles in the 1970’s and 80’s, but it is clearly not ‘fit for purpose’ in the current crisis. It has the shape of orthodox faith and to that extent does bear witness to something which is real and true, but only as a shadow does to the real object – and in the shadows, teachings which are actually in opposition to the biblical gospel can take root. In William’s theology there is little sense of confidence that the Scriptures do give us reliable propositional knowledge of God. The coherence of the church relies instead on discovering gospel patterns in dialogue  with Scripture, discerning unfolding truth as a community.

When we turn to recent experience, we find something deeply paradoxical – despite a very strong commitment to dialogue, the Lambeth Communion headed by Williams is still very far from coming to agreement and as noted above, Williams still expects to be talking about the gay issue in ten years time. Yet over a short period of time in Jerusalem, the GAFCON movement did experience a genuine coming together of discernment in community among over 1,000 delegates, drawn from very different cultures but united in their conviction that the Scriptures are indeed God’s Word written.

 In a further paradox, Williams, who warned John Spong that ungrounded Christianity is ‘desperately vulnerable to corruption, or defeat at the hands of a more robust ideology’ finds himself leading a Church which, as Dr Michael Nazir Ali has warned, is facing precisely that fate and his unwillingness to accept the reliability of as revealed truth  prevents him from taking the radical action necessary, whereas the GAFCON movement has found that ground on which to stand because  it stands on the clear convictions about Scripture of the Anglican formularies.

Just as the sixteenth century indulgences controversy marked a fork in the road, but was essentially a question of the authority of Scripture, so also the current controversy over sexuality is a defining moment as to our loyalty to Scripture as God’s Word written. As long as Rowan Williams remains as Archbishop of Canterbury, GAFCON and Lambeth will be travelling on very different roads.

 

 Charles Raven

8th April 2009

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

 

 

If we didn’t leave, what did we accomplish at GAFCON?

 Introduction
 
 It is important, when considering what was accomplished at GAFCON, to keep in mind its singular focus. That focus was to identify the Anglican grasp of the apostolic faith, to claim that identity for the whole Anglican Communion and to provide a firm oversight and standing from which to confess the apostolic faith as we Anglicans have received it. This singular focus meant that many very important matters were not directly addressed at GAFCON, in the Statement or in the Jerusalem Declaration. This by no means relegates matters such as the status of 5th, 6th and 7th Councils, the ordination of women, the form of the Anglican Communion, abortion, the nature of and conflict with militant Islam, our relation to the persecuted Church etc. to secondary issues. There are serious issues and differences among the fellowship of confessing Anglicans that must and will be faced. It will not be easy, nor will solutions be sudden, nor can we be absolutely certain that some will not, in the end, decide they must walk apart. The difference is that they will be faced in the context of the authority of Holy Scriptures and the apostolic faith as Anglicans have historically received it. The Conference said, echoing Canon A5 of the Church of England: “The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teaching of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it.”
 
With that in mind, let me state I believe to be the most important things that we did accomplish:
 
1.      We are the Communion. “We are not breaking away from the Anglican Communion.”
In essence the fellowship of confessing Anglicans took things in hand and declared that we are the true and faithful Anglicans, upholding the historic Anglican grasp of the apostolic faith, and as such we are the true representatives of the Anglican Communion. Let those who are departing from historic Anglican convictions about the authority and content of the Scriptures come back to what Anglicans have confessed all along. If they are unwilling to do so, it is they, not we, who should leave. I suspect that there are differing expectations among those who have placed themselves under the Jerusalem Declaration as to the future of the structures and membership of the Anglican Communion as it is presently constituted. I myself do not see how we can long abide together structurally, but I could be wrong, my friends do remind me of the parting of the Red Sea and God still does miracles. However, of a faithful confessing Anglican Communion, all at the Conference expressed a confidence in a fruitful and “bright future”.
 
2.      We are under the Jerusalem Declaration.
 
If we are a confessing fellowship of Anglicans, then we have to be clear as to what we are confessing.  In essence we are simply confessing what the Scriptures confess, the apostolic confession. The 16th Century Reformation was not a new faith but a correction of teachings and practices where the Western Church had contradicted Scripture. It was a return to the apostles teaching, particularly with regard to the depth of sin in fallen humanity and the application of God’s grace to the sinner. The specific value of the Declaration is not that it is new, for it is not; it is really ancient in content. The value is that it is clear and concise and we can all be held accountable to teach and act in accord with its statements. One need only to be familiar with much that is being said and taught and done in significant portions of the Anglican Communion today to see what a difference adherence to the Declaration would make, were all to comply with its teaching. We mean to set a caring, welcoming example of obedience.
 
3.   We are under the oversight of Primates who themselves are under the Jerusalem Declaration.
 
The establishment of a Council of Primates who can and will give recognition, oversight and direction to the various expressions of the fellowship of confessing Anglicans constitutes a new form of authority among Anglicans. It is an effective form of authority. It is conciliar, that is, we are governed by a council. It has authority to act. And it is new and distinct from the all other authorities previously existent in the Anglican Communion. It is hoped and expected that other Primates will be added to this Council. There is a freeing aspect to the formation of the Primates Council as well. Being under the Primates Council, we can ignore erroneous and oppressive structures and leaders. In the Jerusalem Declaration we have said that we reject the authority of leaders, structures and churches that operate in contradiction of the apostolic faith as Anglicans have received it. For example, it is noteworthy that this Council of Primates will give recognition to the new orthodox province in North America. The Anglican Consultative Council, which is the official body in the Anglican Communion which recognizes provinces, will be by-passed and not be asked to recognize the new province. Surely this is an application of the rejection of an authority which at present is not seen to be in agreement with the apostolic faith. Couple that claim to and exercise of authority with the assertion that being Anglican is not necessarily attached to recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury and one sees a very serious demarcation and hedge of protection for the fellowship of confessing Anglicans and for the call to all Anglicans to return to the apostolic faith.
 
Two thoughts come to mind. First, I wonder if those quickly reading the Statement and Declaration have realized just how serious this action is.  One could hold that this action is actually more searching and radical than just leaving would have been.
 
Second, we can only hope that this initial conciliar form of governance under the Primates Council will one day be the form of the entire Anglican Communion. At present, with our autonomous provincial structure, we Anglicans lack an authority to effectively discipline errant provinces. The Conciliar form of oversight is biblical, apostolic, patristic, catholic, and ecumenical in nature. Our present structure in the Anglican Communion has existed only after Henry the VIIIth absorbed conciliar authority to Himself and as the Anglican Communion grew outside of the Great Britain. Our loose federation resembles an international annual family picnic more than a global Communion. The early Church held a council not a picnic. Unlike some in fellowship of confessing Anglicans, I do believe the Communion is a visible expression of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as are congregations, dioceses and provinces, each in their own sphere, and hence is best governed by a council and is to be in conformity to Articles 19, 20 and 21 of the 39 Articles. This too is a difference among us needing to be addressed in the days ahead.
 
Conclusion: On Mission: Free to Serve
 
We do not know what the future holds, given this bold claim and action by the fellowship of confessing Anglicans, but we do know that we have been delivered from the oversight and from limitation by those oppressive structures and leaders in the Communion (not all of structures and leaders in the Communion by any means) that have been moving in an increasingly unbiblical consensus and direction. Such compromise, error and time-consuming delay has hindered us in our mission. Now we have been freed to serve without hindrance or delay. May we in the days ahead, by God’s mercy, take full advantage of the freedom to serve Him that He has given to us. And may the entire Communion return to its apostolic foundation and calling. So help us God!

Bishop John Rodgers

July 2008

There is no via media between incompatible Convictions

A brief comment about Lambeth 2008
By Bp. John Rodgers

In the present, there seem to be three distinct groups in the Anglican Communion, each
thinks out of a key presupposition, and believes that it is the true bearer of the Anglican
Vision or Spirit. There are the Revisionists who interpret Scripture, tradition and
institutional authority in the light of culturally dominated reason. There are the so called
moderates or corporatists who accommodate their view of and interpretation of Scripture,
tradition and reason to secure their supreme value of institutional unity, by seeking a
middle ground and moderate change. And there are the historic Anglicans who view
things in the light of the Apostolic Faith as set forth in Scripture, read in the light of the
Catholic Creeds and the Anglican Formularies. Given these key assumptions, most of the
actions of the groups are rather predictable, as is also the result of a gathering of all three
i.e. the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

The truth of the matter is that these three positions are incompatible and the sooner that
we in the Anglican Communion face that fact and take the responsible action to negotiate
a godly and charitable separation, the better off all of us will be. To continue to be
formally bound together, while struggling for dominance while calling it unity, fools no
one, hinders each group from expressing its vision and from carrying out its mission, with
whatever effectiveness the Lord of history will allow. It also kills serious ecumenical
discussion with the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and faithful Reformation Churches. In
addition, it spends a great deal of money, time and effort, which could be put to far more
productive use.

As one reads the lengthy Lambeth 2008 Statement, with its stating the obvious,
vagueness in key terms, additional commissions, utterly unrealistic demands (moratoria),
and the lengthy approval process, one can only wonder and sigh at the slowness with
which we Anglicans face the inevitable. Consider the protracted pain which the delay will
cause, the loss of membership it will produce and the damage to mission that will ensue.
To value unity above the revealed Truth of Christianity is, of course, utterly wrong, and
aiming for unity between incompatible visions is entirely futile. There is no unifying via
media between incompatible key convictions, even as there is no escaping our Lord’s
clear teaching that “a house divided cannot stand”.

Surely the GAFCON Statement is correct. It is the historic Anglicans who bear the
faithful Anglican Vision and who call all in the Communion to return to faithful
Anglicanism. While it is a hard saying, I concur with the senior British Bishops who
called for such charitable separations from the Anglican Communion as will save the
Communion. Such an action would allow those corporatists and revisionists who have no
interest in repenting to find their distinct place outside of the Communion. The problem
is to envision how that could be done, and to find the willingness in all groups to face the
inevitable, instead of trying to make compatible the incompatible. It may be that
Primates at their next meeting will have wisdom from above for us. Let us pray that they
do.

The Truth That Sets Free – Understanding the GAFCON 2008 Jerusalem Statement and Declaration

Introduction

During the course of the conference, a familiar phrase on the daily bulletins was that we pilgrims were part of ‘a movement not a moment’. The priority given to prayer, faithful bible teaching and worship created a context of openness to the mind of Christ and, despite the marked contrasts in national and church cultures among nearly 1,200 participants, the outpouring of joy and thanksgiving which greeted the reading of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, both in draft and then again in final form, can have left very few doubting that they had participated in a sovereign move of God, well beyond the powers of human contrivance. So it is entirely appropriate that the Jerusalem Statement should begin with a ringing call to worship (Psalm 147:1-2) and that the introduction should describe GAFCON as ‘not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit’. 

But what does this ‘movement of the Spirit’ amount to? Intuitively, everyone knows that something of historic significance has happened, but what has actually emerged? Interpretations vary widely. Some see the GAFCON movement as ‘a church within a church’, others describe it as a ‘breakaway faction’ and yet another body of opinion is inclined to see it as a ‘coup d’état’ against the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth establishment. In this analysis, I shall seek to let the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration speak for itself by drawing out its inner logic, not simply as a coldly analytical exercise, but from the perspective of one who was present during that momentous week in Jerusalem as human agendas were overtaken by divine initiative, as both the sternness and kindness of God were made manifest in the midst of the Anglican Communion’s deepening crisis and confusion.

The question of how the GAFCON movement relates to England is especially significant. If it has no structural implications for the Church of England, it could be seen as ultimately capable of assimilation into the status quo, essentially a kind of sodality, perhaps not unlike the Jesuits or other movements for reform and renewal within a wider church. But if the GAFCON movement intends to set up a Conciliar leadership as an alternative jurisdiction to the historic See of Canterbury, yet still within the Anglican Communion, then more radical possibilities begin to emerge. The analysis below follows the headings of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration which can be accessed at http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=29.
First we turn to a stern verdict.

The Global Anglican Context
In a refreshing contrast to the contrived optimism characteristic of statements issued by the Lambeth leadership, the GAFCON Declaration is clear minded and radical as it lays bare the roots of the current crisis. Whereas the Windsor Report carefully skirted around the underlying theological issues which drive the current crisis, precipitated by the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, here the fact of false teaching and spiritual decline in the West is faced without equivocation. As a confessional movement, GAFCON has the ability to penetrate beyond matters of procedure and process, to allow the voice of Scripture to be heard in a way which the established leadership of the Anglican Communion cannot articulate because it has no agreement about the authority of Scripture and must therefore fall back on its own self – referencing institutional authority.
The stresses thus created in the Anglican Communion have now reached breaking point. The revisionist programme is restless. The Apostle Paul reminds us that ‘false teaching spreads like gangrene’ (2 Timothy 2:17) and left unchecked it will grow. Thus the first of three ‘undeniable facts’ identified by the Jerusalem Statement is  ‘the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8)’ and it is implied from the reference in this section to ‘the most economically developed nations’, a term familiar from development economics, that the provinces in view are not only those of North America, but also include England and the British Isles together with other provinces which are economically and culturally ‘Western’.

It was inevitable that the Anglican revisionist programme would face a major challenge because of those fundamental global shifts analysed by Philip Jenkins in his book ‘The Next Christendom’.   As secularised Western Churches decline, the vibrant orthodox Churches of the Global South, especially in Africa, are experiencing unprecedented growth and this reality is reflected in the second ‘undeniable fact’ which notes that certain Global South provinces have broken communion with those promoting a false gospel and have been willing to cross institutional boundaries to protect and support those who have been forced to break with ungodly oversight.  Significantly it is stated that a ‘major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold’. This implies that there is no realistic expectation that the Western Churches will be able to reform themselves, an impression confirmed by the third ‘undeniable fact’ which is ‘the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy’. Here is summarised the mounting frustration of Global South Primates with the existing ‘instruments of unity’ after ten years of fruitless debate, the experience memorably described by Archbishop Peter Akinola as ‘The Most Agonising Journey’    Rather than working to enable a godly unity, the Communion Instruments have been exposed as instruments of control and manipulation to reinforce neo-colonial assumptions of cultural and spiritual superiority. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation to Lambeth of the TEC bishops who supported Gene Robinson’s consecration, pre-empting the disciplinary procedures thought to have been agreed by the Primates at Dar es Salaam in February 2007, was clearly a turning point. In his opening address at GAFCON Peter Akinola stated:
 At this point, it dawned upon us, regrettably, that the Archbishop of Canterbury was not interested in what matters to us, in what we think or in what we say. 

And so the Statement comes to ’the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global communion with a colonial structure’.’ and that the tear in the fabric of the Communion is so severe ‘that it cannot simply be patched back together’. The time when strategies for reform through the existing Anglican Communion institutions, such as those proposed in ‘To Mend the Net’  and the Windsor report is now well and truly past.

Does an inner tension now arise in the Jerusalem Statement? On the one hand, the formation of a new Communion is explicitly ruled out in the introduction with the affirmation that ‘We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it.’ On the other hand the Communion is seen to have fallen under the control of leadership which is effectively apostate, having let go of the gospel while holding on to the Church. The division being revealed in the Communion is so fundamental and deep seated that, as the past decade has demonstrated, it is beyond the capacity of the existing Communion instruments to repair.

The only way this tension can be resolved is to conclude that the GAFCON movement is doing nothing less than laying claim to be the rightful leadership of the Anglican Communion. Some voices at GAFCON, notably SPREAD  and Bishop John Rodgers in his conference address ‘Where do we go from here?’ were urging that the Anglican Communion had become so dysfunctional that the only consistent and stable way forward would be to declare the formation of a new Global Anglican Communion, while others, especially those nervous about the financial and legal implications of such a step in the doctrinally mixed provinces, were urging the more cautious approach of emphasising doctrinal definition while staying firmly within the Communion.  In the providence of God, both these views converged, not as a compromise, but as a commitment to deep change from within. As Bishop John Rodgers himself observed in his reflection on the conference, GAFCON has taken the bold step of claiming ‘We are the Communion’ and this has resulted in action which is ‘actually more searching and radical than just leaving would have been’ 

A Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
GAFCON is of course a fellowship and a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has been set up, but it is also clear that the movement is intended to lead to more than the formation of a fellowship which is content to represent one ‘flavour’ of Anglicanism amongst others. As has been demonstrated, the logic of the Statement thus far implies that GAFCON represents the legitimate expression of the Anglican Communion and the next step in the statement is to ground the GAFCON movement in the recovery of the Anglican Communion’s historic confessional identity in a definition which follows the wording of Canon A5, still the legally recognised basis of the doctrine of the Church of England, namely: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.

The Jerusalem Declaration

 The fourteen points of the Jerusalem Declaration embedded in the Statement expand on this core definition and include (point 4) an unambiguous affirmation of the Thirty-nine articles as containing ‘ the true doctrine of the Church’ and ‘as authoritative for Anglicans today’.

The Declaration is an affirmation of confessional identity. It is not a suggestion, but is intended to be ‘a contemporary rule’ and effectively rewrites the basis of belonging to the Anglican Communion. The provinces of Nigeria and Rwanda have already established this principle in their constitutions by removing references to being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury as a defining feature of being Anglican. Similarly, the Statement recognises the historical significance of the See of Canterbury but is clear that Anglican identity is not ‘determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury’. Two points within the Declaration show the logic implicit in the Statement taking shape:

a) Positively, it promotes biblical and apostolic unity on the basis of a bold assertion of spiritual authority. Hence point 11 of the Declaration states ‘We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration’.   In this way, GAFCON paves the way for the acceptance of those currently not counted as being in communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury such as the Church of England in South Africa, which is not recognised by Canterbury for historical reasons although its orders are valid, as well as the new jurisdictions in North America and others that may arise in the future.

b) The integrity of this positive commitment to biblical and apostolic Anglicanism is underscored by the explicit rejection of false unity. Point 13 of the Declaration declares that ‘We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed’. Recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury is therefore rendered ultimately irrelevant to the question of Anglican identity. As Dr J I Packer commented, speaking at the post GAFCON Day Conference at All Souls Langham Place ‘There is something dispensable about the Archbishop of Canterbury and it is not of the essence of Anglicanism to be in communion with him when he becomes part of the doctrinal problem.’ Whereas in the past institutional unity as defined by reference to Canterbury took precedence over confessional integrity, now any recognition by Canterbury – or any other Archbishop – should only be counted valid if consistent with Anglican doctrine as set out in the Jerusalem Declaration.
The Road Ahead and the Primates’ Council
We have already noted that GAFCON is a spiritual movement; it is also missionary in motivation, seeking to ensure that the Anglican Communion can become a safe place for the gospel with a clear and undiluted witness to the apostolic faith.  This requires practical steps to embody what it means to be an Anglican Communion restored to its biblical and reformed roots. A confessional church is committed to living under the authority of Scripture and this is given definition through the Jerusalem Declaration. In turn this calls for a form of leadership in the Anglican Communion which can exercise effective authority and the vehicle for this is the Primates Council, comprised initially of the GAFCON participating Primates who are called upon to ‘authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.’ This Conciliar structure embodies the logic of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. It is the natural outworking of what it means to be a confessionally defined Communion at a time when the existing instruments of unity, including the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, have been subverted by those who promote a false gospel to the extent that there is no real restraint on the Communion’s accelerating confusion and disorder.

 In taking this step, it becomes absolutely clear that the GAFCON movement is not simply a fellowship or even a ‘church within a church’. It is the Church; the movement lays claim to the Anglican Communion as a whole.  After years of frustration and confusion, the emergence of the Primates Council is liberation from the neo-colonial Lambeth establishment. The old compromised sources of authority have had their grip weakened. They no longer enjoy a monopoly on the validation of Anglican ministry and mission and as time passes will no doubt see their authority erode as the spiritual life and vigour of the Global South increasingly moves behind the GAFCON movement which already has a good claim to represent some 75% of global Anglicans. Archbishop Peter Akinola’s keynote opening address to the pilgrims in Jerusalem was entitled ‘GAFCON – A Rescue Mission’ and this sense of responsibility is reflected in the Statements’ vision for the work of the Primates Council.  The first step will be the formation and recognition of new province in North America based on the Common Cause Partnership, but the Primates are encouraged to offer ’help around the world’ and should consider themselves free to intervene where ‘churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread.’

Does England Need GAFCON?
As the historic Mother Church of the Communion, what happens in England has a particular significance for the whole Anglican Communion. If the GAFCON ‘rescue mission’ is needed here, then it is absolutely clear that the focus of spiritual authority has shifted to the Global South and that the Anglican Communion is being reconstituted around the Jerusalem Primates.  At the GAFCON follow up meeting on July 1st at All Souls, Langham Place, alongside the Archbishops of Uganda, The Southern Cone and Sydney, Dr J I Packer called for the Jerusalem Declaration to be the agreed basis for orthodoxy and missionary action in England, that PCC’s and Diocesan Synods should adopt it as their ‘guiding star’ and that all new and existing bishops should be required to subscribe to it. He sat down to a standing ovation.

This call evoked a vigorous response from N T Wright, the Bishop of Durham, who claimed that ‘the English situation is NOT like America.  Of course there is something you can call ‘liberalism’, which has affected many parts of the church, but life is much more complicated and interesting, and actually hopeful, than the old, tired rhetoric of ‘creeping liberalism’ would allow for’ and ‘the present structures are neither powerless nor spineless. The General Synod of the Church of England has not voted to allow same-sex blessings or the ordination of practicing homosexuals’.  Reassuring though it may sound, there are two major flaws in this rejection of GAFCON:

a) Tom Wright is over-optimistic about the ‘present structures’ of the Church of England. General Synod is certainly not spineless as he subsequently found to his dismay just one day after releasing his statement on the All Souls meeting.  When the hierarchy realised that the Synod were about to do away with the safeguards for conscience essential to keep conservatives, especially the Anglo- Catholics, within the Church of England he attempted to get an adjournment of the debate, but lost. The reality is that General Synod is using its powers to trespass into areas of fundamental doctrine on the basis of ‘rights’ derived from wider secular society. The fact that no provision was made for those opposed to women bishops was based on the understanding that to do so would amount to the approval of sex discrimination and on this basis it is easy to foresee  the Synod  going on to justify the admission of those in same gender sexual relationships to holy orders and the episcopate. Anyone doubting that this vote is a part of a continuing process should ponder the remarks of Giles Goddard, Chair of Inclusive Church as he celebrates the Synod’s vote:  ‘It is a time for rejoicing.  We have reached another milestone in the long process of removing the barriers to inclusion in the Church of England.’     A clearer example of ‘creeping liberalism’ would be difficult to find.

b) He under-estimates the similarities between England and the USA. While it may lag behind, the English Church, along with its sister Churches in the British Isles, is clearly on the same trajectory as TEC. While it is true that the general Synod has not yet given official sanction to same sex blessings or the ordination of practicing homosexuals, he fails to recognize that such legislation is simply the final stage of a process which is already well advanced. Archbishop Greg Venables has commented that “The central question of the attitude to gay partnerships is just as big and pressing a matter in England as in North America and the division of opinion runs as deep in North America and so all the factors that could bring internal division and a blow up are there” .  The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has never repented of his theological writings which helped to give intellectual respectability to the gay/lesbian movement and GAFCON was largely precipitated by his wholly predictable failure to exercise any effective discipline on this issue within the Anglican Communion. What little discipline has been exercised in England has been on the grounds of procedure rather than the sinfulness or otherwise of same sex partnerships. And lying behind this specific controversy is the fact of widespread unbelief amongst the clergy.  So there is little ground for optimism that the Church of England will be able to resist the inexorable pressure of the prevailing culture.

In short, the Bishop of Durham’s dismissal of GAFCON is representative of a mindset which comes dangerously close to that sin which so grieved Jeremiah in the final years before the exile, of spiritual leaders ‘healing the wound of my people lightly’ (Jeremiah 6;14,8:11). GAFCON, as a consistently confessional movement, is able to bring a much more penetrating diagnosis. Point 13 of the Jerusalem Declaration recognises that denial of the faith can occur through either ‘word or deed’ ; we should not wait until leaders or churches actually act on false teaching, but should reject their authority when it is clear that their teaching is a denial of the faith. The New Testament does not make a distinction between ‘word ‘ and ‘deed’ and warns against continuing in fellowship with those who promote false teaching.  In fact if the teaching of heresy is tolerated, the recent history of American Anglicanism suggests that it becomes impossible to effectively resist the practice of heresy.  If Anglican Evangelicals were able to recognise that heretical words are as serious as heretical deeds and act on that basis in England, GAFCON and the Primates Council would be as necessary and vital to their continued existence as Anglicans as the various African jurisdictions were in North America before the formation of the Anglican Church of North America.

It should be clear from the analysis above that the GAFCON movement is not simply a response to the problems in North America. It is a radical initiative to liberate the Anglican Communion from revisionist hegemony. As the GAFCON leaders state in the conclusion of the Jerusalem Statement ‘The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ. The leadership of the Church of England, especially the present Archbishop of Canterbury, has been deeply and demonstrably complicit in the doctrinal confusion to whch GAFCON is responding. The Church of England cannot avoid that fork in the road to which the Anglican Communion as a whole has come and faces perhaps its last chance to acknowledge the seriousness of its wounds and its need for outside help. It is now over a quarter of a century since what we now call the Global South spoke prophetically to the Church of England through the Partners in Mission report ‘To a Rebellious House’ (1981). While the sternness of God is evident in the verdict of GAFCON on the mother church, this movement also embodies the kindness of God; it has not abandoned the Church of England by forming a new Communion but offers itself as a ‘rescue mission’ if we have the humility to embrace it.

Charles Raven

The Church of England’s Global Anglican Future

Introductory note – this article was written in January 2008 for Virtue Online.

Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, was ‘Anglican of the Year’ according to the Church of England Newspaper’s end of year survey of some one hundred members of General Synod, the Archbishop of Canterbury coming in second place. It may have helped that Dr Sentamu is not averse to the occasional dramatic flourish.

Earlier last month he removed and cut up his dog collar while live on BBC 1′s Andrew Marr show, saying he would not replace it until Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe had left office. He said that Mugabe had “taken people’s identity” and “cut it to pieces”, and so in protest he would cut up the symbol of his own Anglican identity.

Much as we should welcome any protest against Mugabe’s appalling regime, it is difficult to escape a certain sense of unease about this gesture. Condemning that which everyone else is also opposed to and for which you have no responsibility earns you effortless approval, but would it not have been much more genuinely prophetic if Dr. Sentamu had used the occasion to acknowledge the historic crisis engulfing the Anglican Communion? Making the same gesture as a promise of his personal commitment to restore the defaced identity of the Church of England in accordance with its classic formularies would have cost him popularity at home, but would have done much to restore his credibility with the Global South.

So while Anglican Evangelicals may be inclined to see Dr Sentamu’s popularity as a sign of success, in fact the reverse is true. Like many of his fellow evangelicals, he is unwilling to face the uncomfortable realities bearing in upon the Church of England and I believe that much of the apparent progress made by evangelicals in the Church of England will soon be revealed as more apparent than real. Without help from the Primates of the Global South, the Church of England is going to end up on the wrong side of the fault line which is opening ever wider through the Communion as we enter 2008.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago what was to become a persistent weakness of the evangelical movement in the Church of England was revealed – an unwillingness to take action and break fellowship with ungodly leaders. Shortly after becoming Bishop of Durham in 1984, David Jenkins notoriously denied the physical resurrection and the Virgin Birth, yet continued to be accepted by most evangelicals as a bishop in good standing.

As an ordinand at an evangelical theological college in Durham during this period, I expected peers and tutors to respond with dismay, but instead the typical reaction of was one of weary tolerance. Subsequently much of the evangelical movement in the Church of England adjusted to living with an ever-increasing level of compromise. Creedal statements became in practice optional and little of substance was done to counter the loss of doctrinal integrity – a survey conducted by Cost of Conscience in 2002 revealed, for instance, that a third of the Church’s clergy doubted or disbelieved in the physical Resurrection and only half were convinced of the truth of the Virgin Birth. And once the creeds have been emptied of shared meaning, biblical morality shares a similar fate.

Despite attempts by some stronger minded Evangelicals – and Anglo-Catholics – to reverse the revisionist programme, there is a structural bias which continually hinders. The price of the undoubted privileges of being the Established Church is subordination to a pervasive libertarian political culture. This has long been recognised as a factor in senior appointments and it is widely acknowledged that the House of Bishops supported the Government’s landmark Civil Partnership Legislation in 2005, which gave homosexual couples the same legal recognition as marriage, through fear that otherwise they might loose their place in the House of Lords. Of course, a church that has spiritual power and conviction should be able to transform the culture rather than be overwhelmed by it, but the Church of England has lost its grip on the common doctrinal identity which could alone be the source of such strength.

Such compromise leads inevitably to confusion. This principle is clear in Proverbs 25:26: ‘Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked’. In an increasingly hostile cultural climate, doctrinal compromise leaves the Church very vulnerable. In ‘Anglican Difficulties: A New Syllabus of Errors’ (2004) Edward Norman, former Chancellor of York Minster and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge observes ‘Institutions need to protect themselves from their ideological adversaries or they will be taken over by them or swept aside. Truth has no built in device by which it is always recognised as truth: it requires institutional embodiment’ (p14). The sad irony of the Church of England’s Evangelicals is that a movement which set out to restore the Church’s biblical and Reformed identity is itself becoming an ideological shambles. Despite growth in numbers, the movement is severely weakened by division, inconsistency and lack of overall vision.

A few recent examples serve to illustrate the point. Anglican Mainstream UK, an orthodox network of networks, was formed in 2003, precipitated by the proposal to make Canon Jeffrey John, a leading proponent of same sex relationships, Bishop of Reading. After a successful campaign the appointment was withdrawn, but later that same year the Archbishop of Canterbury was invited to open the 4th National Evangelical Anglican Congress in Blackpool and was warmly applauded, despite sharing the same theological convictions about same sex relationships as Canon John. While a growing number are now recognising that the Archbishop of Canterbury is incapable of providing sound leadership only Reform and Church Society have managed to sustain a consistency and clarity. Both groups opposed the appointment of Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury.

More recently, the Alpha Course movement based at Holy Trinity Brompton has partnered with a new theological college, St Mellitus which is described as a personal initiative of the Bishops of London and Chelmsford. While the Alpha material teaches a biblical view of homosexuality, the current Bishop of Chelmsford is a Patron of Changing Attitude, a campaigning gay/lesbian group and there are a growing number of clergy in Chelmsford Diocese who are therefore not prepared to receive his ministry. Participants on the Alpha Course could therefore feel some understandable confusion.

Coming right up to date, Elaine Storkey, a leading member of the liberal leaning evangelical group ‘Fulcrum’, having already having won a £20,000 award for unfair dismissal against Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, is now seeking to extend the scope of religious discrimination law by arguing that it can be applied within a religion, in her case alleging discrimination by the ‘conservative evangelical’ management at Wycliffe Hall against her own ‘open evangelical’ position – a grievous example of how evangelical compromise leads to the hardening of division, not to mention the irony that someone who has sought to champion Christian values in the public sphere is opening the way for the secular ‘rights’ culture to trump Christian conviction by suing a bishop (James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool and chairman of the college council).

Despite this disarray in England, the wider picture of the Anglican Communion is becoming clearer as the Lambeth Conference approaches and will force on the Church of England the very choices its leadership has been trying so hard to avoid. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s determination to invite the TEC bishops who approved Gene Robinson’s election as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 and his failure to exercise any form of meaningful discipline has precipitated the GAFCON gathering in Jerusalem just weeks before the Lambeth Conference. The extent of the alienation from Canterbury felt by many in the Global South was reflected in the Rwandan Bishop’s communiqué of 19th June 2007 announcing their decision not to attend Lambeth 2008 in which they stated that the Archbishop of Canterbury had issued invitations ‘in complete disregard of our conscientious commitment to the apostolic faith once delivered.’

The existence of these two conferences and their timing exposes the reality that the Anglican Communion as presently constituted attempts to hold together an unstable amalgam of the genuine, Reformed Western
Catholic Christianity, and a pseudo-Christianity which owes far more to secular humanism than Jesus Christ. Despite the misgivings of some within the Global South, GAFCON clearly has momentum and credibility as a genuinely global movement already representing most African Anglicans, Sydney Diocese and the Province of the Southern Cone. It is therefore inevitable that there will be a battle for the Anglican ‘franchise’ and it will greatly strengthen the claim of the revisionists if they can claim the Mother Church of the Communion as one of their own.

So the status quo, the kind of balancing act that the Archbishop of Canterbury has attempted at home and abroad, will be increasingly untenable, and it is equally clear that left to itself the Church of England’s default position will be in the revisionist camp. It is in no position to reform itself – it’s own Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury is by any sensible reading of his publications a false teacher, its bishops, with a few honourable exceptions, are in thrall to the prevailing culture and the orthodox, including the evangelicals, are too fragmented and in the main too  compromised to sustain reform and renewal on the scale now required.

The urgent need of the Church of England, therefore, must then be for overseas intervention by orthodox Primates who are willing unambiguously to break fellowship with the current Archbishop of Canterbury and act jointly to initiate a new Global Anglican missionary movement in England.

The GAFCON Primates would be the obvious point of reference so that overseas intervention in England would be genuinely global rather than somewhat piecemeal as has happened with the emergence of various parallel jurisdictions in the Untied States. Such an initiative would have credibility because it would be genuinely Anglican, yet free from the Erastian undertow which has now become a liability to the Church of England, and it would not be identified with any one ‘party’ or Province, but represent a common mind of growing Anglican Provinces
around the globe.

Such a movement in England would therefore be a formidable challenge to revisionist bishops as they could not question the Anglican credentials of its members nor convincingly represent them as belonging to some sectarian tendency. The aim should not, of course, be to destroy the Church of England as an institution, but to come alongside and stimulate evangelism, spiritual awakening in the power of the Holy Spirit and faithfulness to the classic Anglican formularies, setting up parallel structures where necessary, but building strong relationships with those still within and always having in view the long term restoration of the Church’s unity and identity.

So how could this to happen? Much of the groundwork for such intervention has already been accepted by the signatories to the Covenant for the Church of England published in December 2006 which encompassed evangelical and orthodox Anglicans of various persuasions. There are also signs of encouragement emerging; Reform and Church Society are no longer alone in recognising that the Archbishop of Canterbury is in the revisionist camp and the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali, has indicated that he and up to a quarter of English Diocesan bishops are not willing to attend the Lambeth Conference. Nonetheless, so far few steps have been taken to put the covenant into practice – there is a strong impression that leaders at national level are waiting for grassroots initiatives and those at the grassroots are waiting for national level initiatives!

To break the logjam, I believe that we now need to look outside the Church of England and issue an urgent ‘Macedonian call’ to the GAFCON Primates to ‘come over and help us’ (Acts 16:9). Surely this would be fruit in keeping with repentance, an expression of humility and an admission of spiritual poverty on behalf of a Church which was once a hub of missionary enterprise, but is now so signally failing to fulfil God’s purposes.
The Rev. Charles Raven is Senior Minister of Christ Church Wyre Forest
which is an independent Anglican congregation but located within
Worcester Diocese.

The Way Forward or The Ways Forward

Presentation by Mike Ovey, Principal of Oak Hill College at NEAC 5 on November 15th 2008

There’s an old theological principle that says the nature of the disease determines the nature of the remedy. So, if you think your headache is just a hangover, you’re content with 2 neurofen. If you think your headache is the result of the bricks falling on your head, you take more drastic action.
The reason why I adopt this tried and trusted picture is that we as evangelicals are not looking at just one way ahead. There are at least two, and they arise from very different conceptions of the disease that the Anglican Communion, and the Church of England itself faces. Which should we choose and why? This will, I think, determine everything else.

On the one hand, there is the way ahead implied by Lambeth, with a reliance on old remedies, notably the instruments of communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the ACC and so on. There may be various forms and various twiddles. But the twiddles, even the idea of covenant, insofar as it works through the instruments of communion, do not fundamentally alter the ways of dealing with our questions. Such variations arise from and use the existing structures, and rest, it seems to me, ultimately on the notion that the instruments of communion can provide ways of solving our problems, even if they have not done so so far. My fundamental misgiving about the covenant process is that it relies on flawed or limited mechanisms. This way forward rests on a pre-supposition about the nature of the underlying problem – that it is in principle addressable through these means. That is one way forward.

The other way forward arises from the Jerusalem Declaration. It arises from a different conception. You see, the title ‘instruments of communion’ is intriguing, isn’t it? It almost sounds as though the instruments are the means by which or from which communion and fellowship arise. Almost. It can give that impression, and that is how people sometimes behave. But the Jerusalem Declaration also dealt with fellowship issues – it is a declaration of fellowship. And it states the basis of fellowship and communion among Anglicans in terms of Anglican identity. Anglican identity is shaped by this commitment:

‘The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal’

The GAFCONeers did not, of course, invent those words. They are the words of Canon A5, and something to which any loyal Church of England priest is bound. But note how differently this sounds to the idea of the instruments of communion. The ‘instruments of communion’ terminology unfortunately sounds as though communion arises institutionally, and that questions of communion are therefore dealt with through those instruments. Anglican identity comes to seem an institutional question.
But the Jerusalem Declaration reminds us that our own canons speak in different terms, so that fellowship arises out of common confession, out of one faith. After all, that’s the basis on which Ephesians 4:5 speaks of our unity. One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
Now that conception of Anglican identity brings some radical consequences. If you think Anglican fellowship arises from Scripture supremely, and in creedal and conciliar and BCP teaching which is consonant with scripture, then you weigh events very differently. You will weigh the departure from Scripture that we have seen in TEC and in Canada very differently from some-one who sees the bonds of fellowship as primarily institutional arising from, for instance, getting an invitation to Lambeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury. You will also weigh institutional irregularity such as action in another Province very differently. You may well, as the Jerusalem declaration did, value the geographical principle, but not see it as paramount, rather seeing it as something that is designed to serve the Gospel priorities the Scriptures set out and which will be displaced if it comes to contradict those scriptural imperatives of gospel witness.
If, however, you are committed to an institutional version of fellowship and identity as being paramount, institutional irregularity will be seen as correspondingly more serious. But if institutional propriety is preserved, and due deference offered to the instruments of communion, then confessional difference may seem, not unimportant, but less important.
Please note, I am not suggesting that the Jerusalem Declaration stands for Confessionalism and never institutional considerations. It does have a place for institutional matters, clearly. Nor that the instruments of communion pay no attention to confessional matters, but it is a question of priority, of which comes first, of which grounds the other. And the different set of priorities you see, frankly, from Lambeth and from Jerusalem tell you a lot about why there are such differing views of the disease afflicting the communion.
Which way forward should one take? To press for confessional or institutional fellowship? As one looks at that, you realise you are talking about very different conceptions of Anglican identity. This sounds like an abstract question. It is not. It is fundamental, because it will determine what one does and how one reacts to some of the things we see being done to our brothers and sisters in Christ in the United States and Canada. Do you see them as naughty people who should get in line institutionally or go? Or do you see them as victims for the Gospel’s sake? Or both? And if both, which matters more for you?
To my mind GAFCON has offered the correct account of Anglican identity, for three reasons, scripture, history and realism. Scripture, first. Any account of denominational identity, if it is to reflect a Christian identity, must be consistent with the Scriptures. Those Scriptures tell us how critical obedience to them is, how defecting from the Word of God is the primal sin of Genesis 3, and accordingly, an account of denominational identity that, however well-intentioned, does not in practice treat disobedience to Scripture as being as fundamental as Scripture itself does, must be rejected. For my money, an account of Anglican identity that runs through the instruments of communion has, I regret to say, been show to do just that.
History next: my understanding of the establishment of the Church of England, and the daughter or sibling churches around the world that relate to her, is precisely that which Canon A5 tries to express. This is the historical motherlode. As such, what would even an orthodox covenant add to that?
Lastly, realism: in the TEC we have a confessional grouping. It is obvious Katherine Jefferts-Schori is a person of strong and passionate conviction. She and her colleagues have a faith. She said over the summer with respect to the sexual ethical questions that beset us – ‘It’s what the Church is today. It is inclusive – even those who don’t agree with the message, it includes them too.’ Now that’s a faith statement. The thing is, as Bishop Michael Nazir Ali has said repeatedly and courageously, it’s not the same faith as the faith expressed in the Jerusalem Declaration. And this creates the absurdity that we see post-Lambeth. GAFCONeers have their faith, the TEC leaders have theirs, both groups are quite clear and sincere that the other’s position is wrong and fundamentally and seriously so – why else would Katherine Jefferts-Schori have taken the legal actions she has if this wasn’t so? And that means that TEC cannot as a matter of its own principles be committed to the institutional, instruments of communion, route to ground Anglican fellowship. If they did think in those terms, then they would have behaved differently, don’t you think? Nor do GAFCON leaders think the instruments of communion constitute the way forward, for the very simple reason they feel they have failed them for a period of more than a decade. Realistically, how could advocates of the instruments provide a way forward when the two other parties agree at least on this, that the instruments of communion do not diagnose the disease correctly? Is that not a plausible explanation for why treatment based on the instruments of communion has failed so clearly for so long? That it is mistaken about the depth and nature of the disease?
The nature of the disease determines the nature of the remedy. I think the first step on the way forward is to acknowledge what constitutes our Anglican identity. From that the rest follows.

Dr Michael Ovey is principal of Oak Hill Theological College

Rt Rev. John K Rucyahana Commends Spread

My country has experienced a powerful visitation of the Holy Spirit as the seat of the East African revival in the 1930’s, but some sixty years later it also experienced the visitation of the devil in the genocide of 1994. Anglicans in Rwanda have been at the forefront of rebuilding our nation as we draw deeply on the rich biblical resources of the Anglican Faith as enlivened by the legacy of revival. Out of this experience, I have a firm conviction that we must not remain silent as the contagious nature of the apostasy, heresy and denial of the Bible which has become so entrenched in parts of the current Anglican Communion becomes ever more evident.

During Rwanda’s catastrophe, others held back from intervention that could have saved thousands if not millions of lives. As we see spiritual catastrophe overtaking the Anglican Communion, I for my part feel we cannot hold back and I warmly commend the work of SPREAD. The documents available on this web site are a very valuable resource, not always comfortable reading, but carefully researched and based on an unswerving commitment to orthodox Christian faith as articulated in the Anglican formularies. Freed from the ambiguity and compromises found in many Lambeth inspired publications, this writing helps us to get to the heart of the matter, to be those who ‘understand the times’ (1 Chronicles 12:32) and so be clear about the action we need to take for the sake of the gospel.

The GAFCON movement has set out a bold vision of the historic Anglican faith as a vibrant global expression of biblical Christianity with the capacity to transform whole nations and cultures. I believe that the work of SPREAD will be increasingly recognised as a real asset in clarifying, and equipping us for, the task ahead.

The Rt Rev. John K Rucyahana
Shyira Diocese
Rwanda