‘On this episode of the Stand Firm podcast, Matt, Jady, and Nick talk about some current events in the church: Bishop Todd Hunter (C4SO) announces his retirement, news breaks about the possibility of “full communion” with Rome, and Archbishop Wood preaches at Provincial Assembly.’

Listen to it all.

(Via email–KSH).

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Last week, lay and ordained leaders from around our province and throughout the world gathered in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, at St. Vincent’s College for the ACNA’s Provincial Council and Assembly meetings. The event began with the Conclave of the College of Bishops which resulted in the Right Reverend Steve Wood, bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas, being unanimously elected as the next Archbishop and Primate of the ACNA. Thank you for your faithful prayers over the past months!

Next followed a week filled with teaching, worship, fellowship, prayer, and business meetings. Each day we were led in a study of 2 Timothy by the Right Reverend Rennis Ponniah (Retired Bishop, Singapore). I was so grateful for the large turnout of leaders from our Diocese with more than 50 participating.

Here are several highlights from the week:

• On Wednesday, we had a beautiful Eucharistic service in the Basilica, with a processional of almost 200 vested clergy including deacons, priests, bishops and archbishops!
• We approved a new Provincial Misconduct Policy for Children and Adults that will soon be available to our Dioceses and will serve as a minimum template for diocesan policy. Of note, it puts the onus on the bishops to ensure the policies are enacted. Thankfully DOMA already has a strong foundation in the protection of her people. 
• A Spanish-language Book of Common Prayer will soon be available.
• Our ACNA Catechism is being adopted by Anglican churches throughout the world and will soon be available as a downloadable app. 
• Attendance at ACNA churches has rebounded to pre-Covid levels. About 85,000 are now attending Sunday services with a total ACNA membership of more than 128,000. We’ve added 36 new congregations in 2023.
• ACNA now has 265 military chaplains serving our U.S. military.
• At the closing Eucharistic service, Bishop Wood received the Provincial Cross and the transfer of spiritual authority to take up his office. +Steve will be installed at a provincial service later this fall. 

You may also enjoy this video interview from Provincial Assembly of Archbishop Steve and his wife, Jacqui (interview at 1:41:00). Please continue to pray for Archbishop Steve and his family during this time of transition into his new role as archbishop.

Blessings,

(The Rt. Rev) Chris Warner is Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic

A wonderful end to a great week of @The_ACNA Provincial Council and Assembly! Praying for God's continued guidance for Abp Wood and the province moving forward. pic.twitter.com/LNQQF5u5ot

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 28, 2024

It is a mistake to think that new wineskins must necessarily look like old ones. Sometimes, a design benefits from a little tweaking and it seems that the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans have done just that at their meeting in Egypt.

Having reaffirmed their view that the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury have forfeited their leadership role of the global Communion, the Assembly elected new leaders from among themselves.

In accordance with the Cairo Covenant, they have set up their own Primates Council, Council of Bishops and Assembly, reflecting three of the traditional Instruments of Communion.   Yet, interestingly they have chosen not to elect a new Archbishop of Canterbury, nor identify a new Seat of Augustine, nor appoint one of their own as ‘first among equals’.

As the Chairman of the GSFA, Rt Revd Justin Badi, explained in his opening address:

“All those who are committed to preserving the historic Anglican doctrine and teachings are the true Anglicans. We respect and relate to the seat of St Augustine. It is always our prayer that the person who sits on that seat will always be faithful to the faith we once received from the Saints and faithfully transmitted.

At first glance, the decision not to replace the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to be a mark of respect and a way of leaving the door open for repentance and reconciliation. Some have even seen it as a mark of weakness.

Yet placed in context, this decision appears to be at the heart of the GSFA redesign.

Read it all.

Is it possible that the GSFA have, in fact, replaced the Archbishop of Canterbury – not with a person – but with a covenant? @JustinBadiArama https://t.co/ks44sjk148

— Anglican Futures (@AnglicanFutures) June 20, 2024

An Anglican Church which says that it is acceptable to depart from this God given pattern of behaviour (or any elements of it), either in teaching, or in practice, is too broad.

Someone might object at this point ‘but surely no one would reject the basic pattern of Christian conduct outlined in the catechism?’ Sadly, however, such as rejection has taken place, and is taking place, in those Anglican churches which are supportive of same-sex sexual relationships and the adoption of transgender identities.

This is because to keep our bodies in ‘temperance, soberness and chastity, ‘ as the catechism glosses the seventh commandment, involves accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God and using them only in ways that are in accordance with God’s will (see Romans 13:13-14 and Colossians 3:5-8).

Adopting a transgender identity is incompatible with accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God, because the bodies we have are either male or female[20] and thus give us a male or female sexual identity. To adopt a transgender identity is to reject this sexual identity, given  to us in our bodies, as a gift from God. This is not to deny the reality of the distress caused by gender dysphoria, but it is to say that adopting a transgender identity is not a legitimate way to deal with this distress.

Being in a same-sex sexual relationship or a same-sex marriage is incompatible with using our bodies in accordance with the will of God, for the reasons helpfully summarised in the following quotation from J I Packer:

‘The Bible shows us that God created two genders for heterosexual attraction, with delight, leading to lifelong monogamous marriage for, among other things, the raising of stable and mature families; and he created sex for procreation with pleasure, and for reinforced bonding of the marriage relationship thereby. This is part of the God-given and God taught order of creation, an order that same sex unions directly contravene. So, however high- minded the participants and however faithful to each other they intend to be, same-sex bodily unions may not be viewed as a form of holiness (the Canadian Anglican General Synod of 2004 was wrong to speak of their ‘sanctity’), any more than sex with an animal (bestiality) can be so viewed. God sets limits, and obedience to him includes observing them. Sex is for marriage, and marriage is a heterosexual partnership, whatever modern society may say.’ [21]

Read it all.

Martin Davie–Why the Church of England Bishops Cannot Do what they are doing with Prayers for Same Sex couples https://t.co/ZiZJOWkIHC #anglican #theology #analysis #marriage #anthropology #ethics #holyscripture #BCP #anglican #religion #parishministry #UK 'The bishops argument… pic.twitter.com/FUM7TZSatW

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 27, 2023

The Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) achieved their third objective of Assembly 2024: the election of godly leaders among the Primates Council, the Council of Bishops, and the Assembly. The Assembly must have a standing committee, or board (Section 3.3). Like most dioceses and provinces, the Global South Assembly meets at a regular time every three to four years, but between its meetings it must have a group of people elected by them to carry on its work. If you go to the Cairo Covenant, you can see all the things the board must do in Section 3.3.3. Last night the lay delegates, clergy delegates, and bishop delegates of the Assembly elected representatives: three bishops, seven clergy, and seven laity. From North America, Bishop Alex Farmer was one of the three bishops elected to the board; from the clergy, myself and Venerable Daryl Critch; from the laity, Ms. Rachel Thebeau was elected and was unanimously voted Secretary of the Board. The board then met at noon today and received the GSFA marching orders on how we will carry the work of this Assembly moving forward. Please keep the Board in your prayers.

Secondly, the Council of Bishops had to elect a Faith and Order Commission (FOC) as explained in Section 3.4.4. As I have written elsewhere, the FOC is a critical component of the GSFA covenantal structures. The FOC is the operational means for guarding the faith and order of the GSFA. It can be called at any time to meet with the Primates Council. It may also be directed by the primates to meet separately to address matters of faith, order, and discipline. Normally the FOC is the first body that receives a question or proposed innovation with regards to the faith and order of the whole body. It is the FOC which makes recommendations to the bishops council and to the primates on what to do. It also has the authority to enlist the help of proficient members, lay and clergy, to assist it in the subject under study. In the election for the FOC, the bishops chose from North America, the Rt. Rev. Alex Farmer, and from Uganda, the Rt. Rev. Alfred Olwa.

The highest body within the GSFA is the Primates Council. Once the board and the bishops were elected, the primates gathered alone to pray and discuss among themselves who would be the Chair, the Deputy Chair, the Treasurer, and the Secretary. It should be noted that the Secretary will be the member of the Primates Council to whom the Secretariat or Administration will report. Last night, after praying and discussing, the primates elected Abp. Justin Badi of S. Sudan as Chair, Abp Samy Shahata of Alexandria as Deputy Chair, Abp Stephen Kaziimba of Uganda as Treasurer, and Abp Titus Chung of SE Asia as the Secretary. In addition, the primates elected three other primates for a Steering Committee: Abp Titre Ande, of Congo; Abp Miguel Uchoa, of Brazil; and Abp. Stephen Than, of Myanmar.

Read it all.

Canon Phil shares about what happened to start building the structures of the GSFA Council and Assembly: How does it work and what's the plan? https://t.co/x6uUCVk7Vd

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 15, 2024

Then, as now, the majority of global Anglicans believed that apostolic teaching calls for those engaging in sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage to be loved by the church and called to repent. Without repentance, such a person cannot be considered a “true shepherd” and therefore should be precluded from ordination or consecration. It was, therefore, TEC’s willingness to consecrate a man in a same-sex relationship which tore “the fabric of [the] communion at its deepest level.”

Returning to the events of Saturday 11th May 2024, Bishop Jill Duff told Anglican Futures that she was asked to attend the consecration of Bishop David Morris as a representative of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York…. She was very clear that it was in that capacity, rather than as an honorary assistant bishop in the Church in Wales, that she did so .

This raises a number of issues of national and international significance:

First, this means a bishop of the Church of England was involved in the consecration of a man whose conduct would prevent him from being consecrated as a bishop in the Church of England.

Read it all.

When @AnglicanFutures publishes a piece like this it quickly becomes obvious that the only real sin for @churchofengland bishops is to dissent from the idea that truth is best regarded as being plural. Nearly 3,000 reads shows how wrong that is. https://t.co/Z5hLAuYA8D

— Dan Leafe (@DanLeafe1) May 19, 2024

Some, who mistakenly view the Church of England as a unified, coherent body – may therefore delight in the shrinking congregations and generally low morale that defines it nowadays. I delight in none of these things, because I love the CofE.

Look more closely though, and you’ll realise that there is not one Church of England – but two. There’s the Reverend Dr Jekyll, the one who performs invaluable work on the ground; burying the dead, visiting the sick, educating more than a quarter of our nation’s schoolchildren to a much higher standard than the state normally achieves.

This Church manages the food banks, playgroups, dementia cafés and loneliness workshops. It does its best to protect some of the most valuable parts of our nation’s physical and cultural heritage. Its parish priests do this for little money; its thousands of volunteers do it for none at all.

Then there is the other Church of England – the Reverend Mr Hyde. This is a church of unaccountable committees and upward failure, resulting in perhaps the least impressive bench of bishops since Pope Gregory first observed “non angli, sed angeli”. Members of this caste speak in identikit managerial jargon, which from an institution that has provided some of the most beautiful cadences and turns of phrase in the English language is depressing.

Read it all.

Several points expressed well. And they won’t stop. It’s like the control room at Chernobyl – total meltdown.

The Church leadership is destroying the CoE I love https://t.co/VUVRNZ06Te

— Tom Sander 🚴 (@RevThomasSander) March 6, 2024

Permit me one final point: the pandemic. As has previously been noted on this blog, the hierarchy of the church could not have handled it worse if they’d tried. Really, really disappointing to say the least. The panic and overreach—never marks of good leadership at the best of times—were appalling. The subsequent gaslighting was disgusting, if I’m being honest. Gaslighting? Yes. The infamous ad clerum of 24th March which locked clergy out of our churches was later claimed, mendaciously and unconvincingly, to be “guidance, not instruction”. But there is simply no way in the world that anyone could have read it as as such (it used the word “must” seven times). Claiming it was anything other than a three-line whip was an insult to the intelligence of the clergy and a self-inflicted injury to the integrity of the bishops. Well, we all make mistakes. And when you mess up, fess up. But “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.

The result is that a lot of respect, trust and goodwill was unnecessarily forfeited by the bishops in 2020. And locally? On the whole clergy rose to the challenge and did a superb job. But since the pandemic my church has lost about a third of the congregation, and most of those missing are the young adults, families and children. We’ve lost perhaps two thirds or three quarters of that crucial demographic. They simply haven’t come back, despite repeated (exhaustive and exhausting) efforts. My church has long covid: we are weaker, smaller and older—much, much older—than we were in 2018/19. We’re demoralised and discouraged but “having done all, we stand”, holding out the offer of faith, hope and love in a dark and disordered world.

I feel like I’m pedalling a bicycle up a hill. The hill (context) has become steeper and the weather (culture, climate) worse. The bike (church) is heavy and rusty; the tyres are leaking air and the gears slip. It’s hard work. And the rider (me) is older, aching, and tired. Few people are cheering me on; the cars and lorries pass too close; I’m cold and wet and it’s getting dark. Ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago it felt different: easier in every way; still a lot of effort but with results to show for it. Now, not so much. Meanwhile, we carry on as best as we can—offering the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, to as many as will hear and receive it.

Read it all.

What is the state of clergy morale? How have changes in structures, regulations, and culture affected this? Are the structures of the Church of England fit for purpose? What should we do about them? @MadsDavies @WalkerMarcus @simonsarmiento https://t.co/UxDGEQ6tPs

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) October 11, 2023

It’s been half mockingly but half seriously remarked that the last surviving U.S. Episcopalian is likely now among us. In the 1960s The Episcopal Church’s membership peaked at 3.6 million. It’s now down to a mostly ageing 1.6 million, declining fast. Like the Unitarian Church, it’ll likely endure as an institution almost indefinitely thanks to considerable financial assets, even without many people. But its demise, with other Mainline Protestant denominations, has been dramatic. Although never huge in numbers, the Episcopal Church across centuries served as America’s religious finishing school, educating our leaders, and providing liturgies for our national life.

The Episcopal Church is part of the global Anglican Communion, a spiritual fraternity of many national churches that descend from the Church of England, which itself is fast shrinking. A recent poll of Church of England clergy found most saying Britain is no longer a Christian nation. While their church remains the official state church, fewer than half of the British now identify as Christian. The Church of England’s average worship number on a typical Sunday is only about half a million. Its pageantry shines during British public rites, such as funerals, weddings, and coronations. But its direct impact on most British people is sadly minimal.

Anglicanism is vibrant in Africa, where most of Anglicanism’s 70-80 million adherents now live, especially in Nigeria. But everywhere in the white majority Anglosphere, Anglicanism is in steep decline, from North America and Britain to Australia and New Zealand. This decline, absent direct divine intervention, is likely irreversible in majority European societies.

Read it all.

Protestantism is a constant churn & we needn't grieve for the demise of some denominations as other movements rise. God presides over all His churches. https://t.co/slnp1RPCgN via @theird

— @markdtooley (@markdtooley) September 6, 2023

Read it all.

…there is one development I wish to comment on: the announcement of a GAFCON Bishops Conference June 8-14, 2020 in Kigali Rwanda (prior to the July 2020 Lambeth Conference).

Of the Lambeth 2020 Conference of Bishops, the GAFCON Primates wrote:

“We were reminded of the words of Jeremiah 6:14, “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” Last year in Jerusalem our delegates urged us not to attend Lambeth 2020 if godly order in the Communion had not been restored. They respectfully called upon the Archbishop of Canterbury to effect the necessary changes that fell within his power and responsibility.

We have not yet received a response from the Archbishop of Canterbury. We note that, as it currently stands, the conference is to include provinces who continue to violate Lambeth Resolution I.10 thereby putting the conference itself in violation of its own resolution: failing to uphold faithfulness in marriage and legitimising practices incompatible with Scripture. This incoherence further tears the fabric of the Anglican Communion and undermines the foundations for reconciliation.”

Let’s not forget the context. The 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops passed Resolution I.10 upholding faithfulness in marriage between one man and one woman for life, abstinence in all other cases, and rejected as incompatible with the Bible homosexual “practice,” the legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions and the ordination to Holy Orders of those in same-gender unions. This Resolution was passed by a vote of the overwhelming majority of bishops of the Anglican Communion (526-70).

Ten years later at the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury decided to suspend the practice of Anglican bishops declaring the official teaching of the Church through resolutions. For the first time, the Lambeth Conference engaged in small group Indaba discussions that resolved nothing. The 2002 institution of rites for the blessing of same sex unions in the Diocese of New Westminster (Canada) and the 2003 consecration of a Bishop in a same gender union in New Hampshire USA (TEC), in defiance of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (1998) were allowed to stand unchallenged by the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Over 300 bishops….[declined to compromise the gospel and declined the invitation to attend] in protest of that advance decision by Canterbury, published the Jerusalem Declaration and formed Gafcon instead.

Read it all.

At the January, 2016 meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the Primates said The Episcopal Church (TEC) would not be permitted to participate in ecumenical conversations or any decisions on the doctrine or polity of the Anglican Communion. This consequence was declared by the Primates because TEC had made decisions that unilaterally violate the teaching of the Anglican Communion. Therefore, the Primates reasoned, TEC shouldn’t be allowed to represent Anglicans anywhere.

Less than four months later the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-16) met in Zambia on April 8-19, and “received” the report of the Primates. In fact, they ignored it. The Episcopal Church participated in every vote on every resolution that came before ACC-16, including every matter relating to the doctrine and polity of the Anglican Communion. You can read the facts in detail here. A spokesperson on behalf of Episcopal Church Communications reported that the ACC deliberately refused to implement the recommendations of the Primates. Even the delegates from TEC to ACC-16 publicly refuted Archbishop Welby’s claim that ACC-16 had honored the decision of the January 2016 Primates meeting and admitted to doing whatever they pleased during the meeting!

The refusal by the Anglican Consultative Council to implement the recommendations of the January 2016 Primates meeting is prima facie evidence that the Instruments of Communion are at odds with each other – broken systemically, and unable to reach the “conciliar consensus” that has characterized Anglican decision making at every other level of Anglican Churches other than this global, Communion level of governance. In fact, the Anglican Consultative Council is a major part of the problem, and not the solution.

The Anglican way of decision making is conciliar, and finds it roots all the way back to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Yes, in conciliar decision making every voice in the church must be heard – not only Bishops and clergy, but laity, male and female, theologians and more. But the place for this to happen is in a Synod where all voices come together in the decision making, and where Bishops exercise a unique role in guarding the faith and order, doctrine and discipline of the Church.

The Anglican Consultative Council is NOT such a Synod. According to its own Constitution[1], the Anglican Consultative Council has power only to assist Primates and the Lambeth Conference of Bishops “as and when required to do so.” (Art. 5.12) That is not the language of a Synod. It is the language of a subordinate and advisory body that serves the bishops rather than contradicting and usurping their authority. This becomes even clearer in the language of Article 5 where the ACC is referred to multiple times as an “advisory body” only: with power “to advise on inter-Anglican, Provincial and Diocesan relationships” (Art. 5.3 at page 4), power “to advise on matters arising out of national or regional Church union negotiations,” (Art. 5.8, at page 5) and power “to advise on problems of inter-Anglican communication.” (Art. 5.9, at page 5). The powers enumerated to the ACC in the rest of Article 5 are what we would expect for the Board of Trustees of a charitable organization—in language that facilitates the exercise of their fiduciary duties.

But here’s the rub: The Anglican Communion is more than a charitable organization under the UK Charities Act. It is a Church – led by Bishops who have an ancient, conciliar responsibility to guard the doctrine, discipline and order of the Churches they lead, and Primates to guard the faith and Godly order in the relationships among those Churches. This authority is recognized not only in the Resolutions of the Lambeth Conference but also in The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion. One hardly knows how to characterize the repudiation of the Primates gathering by the ACC – arrogance, rebellion or legal fiction, it’s all the same.

As I contend in Anglican Conciliarism, this is the heart of the “ecclesial deficit,” the inability of the existing global structures of the Anglican Communion to say “no” to false teaching or any other violation of faith and order. There was some hope that the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant would provide a means for addressing this deficit. But those hopes were dashed at the 2009 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Kingston, Jamaica.

Read it all.

Officially, the chief focus of the week is evangelism. But, as ever, there are other, unofficial currents flowing through the week, and so the other prominent thread will be human sexuality – both the work under the title ‘Living in Love and Faith‘ (long-term, official) and the ongoing rows about liturgy to be used with people who have undergone a gender change (current campaigning, unofficial).

We’ll get to the transgender row in a minute. But first of all, note the time being given to evangelism-related debates this week:

1. On Wednesday, three contributions from Anglican leaders from elsewhere – North India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya.
2. Thursday is an evangelism-free day. But on Friday we have three major items – Evangelism and Discipleship, evangelism on estates, and the Growing Faith debate on ministry among children and young people.
3. On Friday we return to the subject with a Private Members Motion from Church Army’s Mark Russell about encouraging youth evangelism.

Read it all (and follow the links). Also, there is a good link to the General Synod papers there. As ever, the main General Synod page is there.

This frightening agenda, inviting us to march boldly into the lions’ den, is exemplified almost at once as Jesus stands before Pilate, and argues with him about kingdom, truth and power. Our world is just as confused as Pilate was on all three counts. Different forms of kingdom have been tried and found wanting; truth has collapsed again and again into fake news; the only constant – as with Pilate – is the power of violence. The Farewell discourses and the trial before Pilate, ending with Jesus’ own death, constitute for me the centre of the New Testament’s political theology: Jesus gathers his followers and charges them to a life of unity and holiness, not so they can forget the world but so that they can hold the world to account, even as they are living out in themselves the new creation, the new way of being human, which will carry its own conviction.

I could give many examples of communities that are doing this, though as I said they don’t normally make the news headlines, so the church can easily be portrayed as stuck in its own ever-shrinking mud. I think of food banks, educations projects, drug rehab centres, marriage counselling, peace-making and so on. A high proportion of volunteers in our country, in these and other areas, are Christians. But I want to finish with this. The vision of new creation, and of Jesus’ followers as the new humanity called to model, announce and implement that new creation already in the power of the Spirit, will flow out of and flow back into worship.

I am deeply concerned about the unthinking slide, in the last evangelical generation, into a free-floating, disordered non-liturgical worship in which the Psalms are seldom if ever used, in which scripture is not read extensively in public, in which the sacraments are often perfunctory and apologetic, in which most of the sung lyrics, and the music which carries them, are essentially postmodern, with deconstructed fragments of dogma and devotion matched by the deconstructed fragments of tunes. This postmodern format, though perhaps a necessary protest against an over-formal earlier style, cannot be the right place to stay. Non-liturgical or even anti-liturgical worship is the liturgical equivalent of Brexit: it may be making a protest against the formality of an earlier modernism, but it cannot express or point the way into that post-postmodernism which our culture, our politics, desperately needs. Good liturgy isn’t everything, but bad liturgy isn’t anything.

You see, our culture is stuck because we have the wrong story in our heads. Non-liturgical worship allows that wrong story to go unchallenged. Good liturgy acts out the right story, that world history reached its climax in Jesus. Our culture is stuck in an Epicurean mode, the split-level world in which heaven and earth are held apart. Much evangelical and charismatic worship allows that to go unchallenged, merely relying on Plato to get the soul in good shape and on its way out of here. Good liturgy holds heaven and earth together, relishing the points at which, in physical beauty and movement, the life of heaven is portrayed here on earth (yes, with all the attendant dangers). Our culture imagines that ‘progress’ – social, cultural, even moral! – is automatic. Good liturgy challenges that with the drama of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the ever-fresh outpouring of the Spirit.

To put it starkly: if you never sing Psalm 72, how will you be reminded that Israel’s Messiah is already ruling from one sea to the other, from the River to the ends of the earth, and that his reign is what the world needs because he, and he alone, will deliver the poor when they cry, and rescue the widow and the orphan? The EU won’t do that, and neither will the Brexiteers. The Arab Spring didn’t do this, and neither will Trump or Putin. If you never live through the eucharist as the enacted drama of salvation, how will you be able to challenge the dominant narratives of our culture?

Read it all.

Trocmé fascinates me because I see aspects of our time and church in his witness. Debate and anxiety is now bubbling up, especially among more traditional Episcopalians, in the face of this summer’s General Convention, as it proposes to alter the definition of marriage and perhaps even change of the Book of Common Prayer to reflect this new understanding. Older priests — and I am still a priest of the Episcopal Church — wonder where this will leave us. Younger priests wonder what will become of the church they have committed themselves by oath to serve. And those who have felt the call to ordination now wonder if there is a viable future for them in a church that may not only reject their understanding of deep Christian truth, but will in any case lurch further onto a path of conflict and promised decline.

For me, the issue of marriage is not adiaphora; it is bound to the central claims of the Christian gospel. This is not the place to rehearse the arguments. But the simple axis of Genesis 1-2, Mark 10, and Ephesians 5, which speak to the creation of man and woman, their union, and the nature of the body of Christ, seems to form a scriptural scaffolding of divine purpose and destiny that any redefinition of marriage must intrinsically deny. Trocmé liked to speak of “absolutes” — and in the case of nonviolence, he considered this to be an “absolute.” I do not like the term, for various reasons. But if I were to use it, I would certainly apply it to the reality of marriage between a man and a woman: this is an “ontological absolute.”

The question for me, then, is how we shall properly witness to this absolute in the face of our church’s rejection of its meaning. This is where Trocmé’s example is such a challenge to me. When one of his deepest theological convictions was not only challenged but rejected by his church, and as he watched his friends led away to prison with questionable support from their ecclesial authorities, he chose to carry on his pastoral work where he was.

Read it all.

I heard a strange argument recently. When the question of sexual ethics and the teaching of the Bible was raised with a senior leader, the reply was – well look how bad your church is. There followed a long list of sins and offences, some of them very serious: corruption, adultery, strife, false teaching. This is all very tragic. But it is not equivalent to changing the doctrine of the church and actually blessing what God condemns.

I am sorry to say, having been Bishop now for many years that nothing would surprise me. Indeed, knowing my own heart, nothing would surprise me. Indeed knowing the Bible, nothing would surprise me. Our own doctrine tells us how bad we are, even though the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. Our own Prayer Book majors on the confession of sins and with very weighty words indeed. And I hope our practice assumes the possibility of sin and even crime in our midst – it is always wise for two people to count the offertory for example.

Of course this is not the whole story. Christian people, blessed by the Holy Spirit of God are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. The Christian church so often shines in the darkness and Christians live for God sacrificially and lovingly. But this side of eternity we are far from perfect.

But that is what puzzled and worried me about this argument. It was as though the person did not know how bad the church can be and is in his own culture. You can find tribalism, sexual immorality and false teaching in all the churches. You may even find the leadership turning a blind eye to it. But–it is one thing to point to the sins of the church. It is another thing altogether to justify an official change in doctrine and practice to incorporate them! After all, no-one is pretending that greed is good or that corruption is Christian. But many are actually officially changing the teaching and practice of the church in a way which denies scripture. That is the problem.

Read it all (emphasis mine).

Believing the Bible to be the Word of God and actually interpreting it are two important but distinct activities. Confessing the primary authority of the Bible puts us, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, on the right road, but we still have a long and dangerous journey ahead and we need an interpreter to help us along. The way of interpretation which historically and theologically corresponds to the doctrine of verbal inspiration of the Bible is the literal sense. “Literalism” is a badge of pride or abuse nowadays, like the word “fundamentalism.” Just as those who would take their stand on the fundamentals are not necessarily fundamentalists, so reading the Bible literally does not necessarily make one a literalist. Since no hermeneutical label is without its difficulties, I prefer to stick to the classic use of literal sense.[2]

“Literal sense” is the linking together of God’s written Word, our hearts and minds made and restored in his image, and the Truth to which the Bible points (Ps 19:1, 7,14; John 15:26). The literal sense depends on a complex but real intentionality: God as the final author inspired the receiving, inscribing, editing, and collecting of his revelation so that it would convey true meaning. Although the greatest thinkers can mine Scripture and never exhaust its ore, the plain truth of God’s salvation is publicly declared (2 Cor 4:1-4; John 18:10) and available to those (and only those) who approach it as little children (Matt 11:25-26). Finally, literal interpretation does not imply worship of the Bible because language, while it is a complex symbol system, refers not to itself but to something or Someone else. Having said that, literal interpretation guards against spiritual bypasses around the text as a vehicle of meaning, for the Spirit inspires and illumines with and under the written Word.

Unfortunately, many conservatives and liberals have an atrophied understanding of the literal sense. They approach the text like Sergeant Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am!” Or “Did it really happen that way?” (Conservatives answer Yes, liberals No). If Scripture is more textured than a flat reading would allow, it is because its component strands are tightly spun into a three-fold cord of literal meaning. To distinguish the strands of each thread, I would ask three kinds of questions of any biblical text…

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There is much Anglican dynamism outside of Africa. But as we look towards Lambeth 2020, Anglicans (especially in the Global North) need to recognise that African Anglicans make up the majority of the Communion. And African Anglicanism is incredibly dynamic, as a recent paper by the Kenyan Professor Joseph Galgalo showed.

In addition, observers in the Global North need urgently to take account of the dramatic changes that have happened within African Anglicanism. South African Anglicanism has markedly shrunk as a proportion of African Anglicanism whilst other centres have grown, sometimes in highly surprising places.

To say this does not mean that African Anglicans should dictate to the rest of the Communion what Anglicanism is. But it does mean we should be profoundly concerned to ensure that African Anglicans are heard. Will Lambeth 2020 be a rerun of Lambeth 2008, which large numbers of African bishops did not attend, and where indaba rhetoric was a well-intentioned but ultimately flawed appropriation of the least vigorous part of contemporary African Anglicanism?

If Lambeth 2020 is to be different from Lambeth 2008, the Global North needs to guard vigilantly against the Spong reflex, of looking down upon whatever is disliked theologically. Especially in the Global North, we need to remove the plank of our colonial mindset from our eyes.

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“To banish all strange and erroneous doctrine” is a phrase that comes directly from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and its ordinal service for ordaining deacons and priests and consecrating Bishops. It is part of the charge given one who is consecrated to serve as a bishop in those Churches in the Anglican Communion who subscribe to the 1662 BCP and its ordinal (among other doctrinal statements) as “fundamental declarations.” The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) also uses this language when it consecrates a Bishop. The weighty phrase reminds us of the universal and ancient responsibility of Bishops to guard the faith, worship, order and discipline of Christ’s Church.

For the last two days I have been in Kenya as part of a teaching team for the third GAFCON Bishops Training Institute. One of the first talks I heard here was a brilliant exposition of Galatians 1:1-9 by the new Bishop of Lango Diocese (Church of Uganda), the Right Rev. Dr. Alfred Olwa. I have known +Alfred as a friend and brother in Christ, a gifted preacher and Biblical theologian—and I was not disappointed by his sermon!  In this wonderful passage that many believe Paul penned on his way to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Paul makes an unequivocal defense of the Gospel of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.  As +Alfred noted:

1. The good news of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone needs no addition;
2. The good news must NOT be distorted (Gal. 1:7);
3. Only this gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone saves people from eternal separation from God (Hell); and
4. Any distortion of this Gospel is, in reality, dangerous, leads people away from God and therefore stands under God’s curse (Gal. 1:9)

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The decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court in the matter of the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina vs. the TEC Diocese of South Carolina (Heard September 23, 2015 and filed August 2, 2017) appears to be such a case. The net effect of this case seems to be the transfer of the property of 29 congregations from the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina to TEC. Ultimately this could mean the displacement of thousands of families from the place where they have worshiped for generations. It could mean the loss of all the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina offices, the bishops residence and more.

The legal effect is to overturn the South Carolina Supreme Court decision in All Saints Parish, Waccamaw v Diocese 385 S.C. 428 (2009) that neither the then Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina nor the national church (by the Dennis Canon) can create a trust in favor of themselves in any church in South Carolina unless they already have an express property interest in that church. This 2009 decision was based on long settled common law principles of trusts in South Carolina law. The legal effect of the Court’s August 2 decision is to reinterpret the facts of this case de novo, and by bare majority of 3-2 to reinstate the validity of the Dennis Canon by turning the “neutral principles” approach to church property disputes (see Jones v. Wolf , 443 U.S. 595 (1979)) into a “deference to internal hierarchical church law,” approach—turning “neutral principles on its head.” As Justice Kittredge concluded in his opinion (dissenting in part and concurring in part): “The message is clear for churches in South Carolina that are affiliated in any manner with a national organization and have never lifted a finger to transfer control or ownership of their property—if you think your property ownership is secure, think again….”

I am reminded constantly of the example of The Falls Church Anglican in Virginia. Under years of costly litigation and appeals, they planted three churches in the DC Beltway (Arlington, Alexandria and Vienna) and one on the outskirts of Northern VA, in Winchester. All are thriving. TFC lost their buildings, but their congregation grew even as they gave away hundreds to these church plants! Now they have a location and a building that exceeds what they had before, as they are growing in mission and evangelism where God has planted them.

How tragic it would be if litigation and appeals took our eyes off God and the things that delight him—especially reaching those who do not yet know the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

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At the heart of the divisions which have beset the Anglican Communion since 2002 is a profound disagreement over sexual ethics, in particular whether same sex unions can be blessed by God in the light of the teaching of the Bible. The teaching of GAFCON is that the Bible is clear on three vital points.

First, that sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage is forbidden by God and not in the best interests of humans.

Second, that persistent behaviour of this sort puts those who engage in it outside the kingdom of God and therefore at risk of losing salvation.

Third, acceptance of this behaviour in the church means that the full gospel cannot be preached, since the full gospel requires repentance from sexual sin.

But there is more to it than that. The Bible tells us that in a society in which the truth about God is supressed, the consequence is godless sexual licence. This is a sign of an unhealthy community in deep trouble.

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Within the next 3-7 years I anticipate three tumultuous and tragic events:

1-There will be a major split in the Church of England over sexuality issues. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury is, apparently, willing and ready to accept that.
2-There will be deep division between the orthodox who choose to remain in the Church of England and those who choose to leave (whilst remaining Anglican within the Anglican Communion or leaving the denomination entirely)
3-There will be a more formalised split in the global Anglican Communion, along with the continuing re-alignment between the orthodox across all Christian denominations.
It is time for deep reflection and prayer and we need to prepare for the evil days ahead. But for the faithful, whatever the tribulations, we can confidently trust in the God who is ‘from everlasting to everlasting.’

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In the space of four days, the General Synod of the Church of England have, in effect, rejected the doctrines of creation, the fall, the incarnation, and our need for conversion and sanctification Instead we have said that we are ‘perfect’ as we are, or as we see ourselves, and that the Church should affirm us and call on God to validate our choices. No wonder we do not want to proclaim Christ’s unique identity and significance for all people.

We have chosen to understand the world through secular reports, unconscious bias training, the teaching of other religions and the results of polls and media headlines, rather than the unchanging word of God.

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Last July my wife and I went to the UK for my graduation from Cardiff. While we were there I couldn’t resist visiting the Imperial War Museum (Julie graciously came along and humored me!) I have always been fascinated by the history of World War II, the great moral and political issues that were at stake, and the incredible valor of “the great generation” in saving democracy in the west from totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan. The Imperial War Museum did not disappoint me. But there was one exhibit in particular that caught my eye—the smallest boat that evacuated beleaguered troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, the Tamzine.

The boat is not much for the eye. It’s hard to imagine how it survived the constant strafing of British troops from the Luftwaffe as they faced almost certain annihilation on the beaches of Dunkirk. Bravely it forged through the surf, this little boat, carrying not many troops back to the bigger warships that lay offshore. But with every life it saved it gathered another soldier to fight on. Again and again it returned to those beaches and, miraculously, it survived. I can only imagine that its pilot drew courage from the flotilla of other ships, small and large, that braved those same beaches.

Dunkirk has been an enduring metaphor for our own formation as the Anglican Church in North America…

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On 31st October 1517, an obscure Catholic monk called Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints’, the Castle Church in Wittenberg, protesting at the sale of indulgences and other abuses – an event taken as marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. On 2nd May 2017, an obscure Anglican curate called Jonathan Pryke was consecrated bishop under the aegis of Jesmond Parish Church in Newcastle, by the extra-juridicial authority of the Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (formerly known as the Church of England in South Africa), protesting at the wishy-washy approach to issues of sex, gender, sexuality and marriage – an event taken as marking the beginning of the Great Anglican Schism in England.

Whether this is indeed the beginning of “a new timely reformation” or just an embarrassing ecclesial damp squib remains to be seen. It is worth surveying some useful background analysis (see Ian Paul here and Peter Carrell here), but it seems to this Anglican mind that a rebellious schismatic consecration in the Church of England which isn’t even contiguous with the rebellious schismatic movement in the Church of England is doomed to failure. It isn’t so much that Jonathan Pryke didn’t have the courtesy to inform the Bishop of Newcastle or the Archbishop of York of his intentions; he didn’t even inform GAFCON UK or the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE – on whose executive he sits). If a schism be schismatic against itself, that schism cannot stand.

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Peter Carrell’s comments [which are excerpted and which are posted at the start of Ian Paul’s blog post]…say almost everything that I would want to about the event itself. But there are some wider issues that it is also worth reflecting on.

First, I get the impression that those supportive of a GAFCON move to consecrate a bishop in England from within the Anglican Communion look on the events with a mixture of disdain, frustration and probably some anger. Whereas they had a considered plan which operated within the Communion as a whole, this move has jumped the gun without proper consideration or consultation. And I suspect that GAFCON supporters hope that everyone can see the difference between the two initiatives. But they won’t. Most of those within the Church of England will not be able to tell the difference, and the same will be true of all of those outside the Church. Both initiatives will appear to all but the best informed (and most highly motivated) to be petty, fracturing and unhelpful interference from people outside the Church of England. (I am not claiming that this view is correct—just that this will be the widespread perception.)

Secondly, it is becoming abundantly clear that this sort of approach to dealing with the perceived drift in the doctrine and teaching in the Church is singularly unhelpful.

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As we evaluate and critique the Secretary-General’s position on these matters it’s important to focus on the views themselves, representing those of the senior leadership of the Anglican Communion, rather than the person himself. In reverse order:

a) ”˜African antagonism to homosexuality has been taught by American conservatives’. This is simply endorsing the narrative of Western LGBT activists who themselves have been campaigning to introduce their views into Africa with the powerful support of Western governments and even the UN. When they find resistance they assume it to come from the other side in their home culture war, as they cannot conceive of African leaders being able to think for themselves.

b) The harsh, blanket criticism of African church leaders (“unChristlike, despotic, corrupt”) is generalizing and inaccurate.
While of course some Church leaders are like this in Africa as in other parts of the world, there are many godly men and women who lead sacrificially and wisely. To suggest that they focus on sexuality while neglecting issues of deprivation and suffering is, again, simply not true, and again appears to be repeating the views of liberal Westerners who have never seen the heroic work going on all over the continent by churches.

c) The comment that “GAFCON is not a movement of the Holy Spirit” needs to be measured against the gracious forbearance shown by GAFCON leaders towards those with whom they disagreed at Canterbury in January 2016, and the wonderful unity displayed in the Cairo meeting of early October. Such an erroneous and harsh judgement of GAFCON sadly shows a determination not to reconcile with the movement, but to discredit it completely in the eyes of a Western audience. But GAFCON is a movement to hold the Anglican Communion together around the word of God, in line with the classical position of Anglicanism. It has not created schism, but has actually enabled loyal Anglicans to stay in the Communion. Following the teaching of God’s word, it refuses to have fellowship with those who have compromised the faith on matters of salvation. They have abandoned Communion, not GAFCON. This is the true logic of being a ”˜conservative’.

d) The emphasis on reconciliation between people holding different views, so that institutional unity must be preserved at all costs is at odds with the New Testament. According to Ephesians 2 and 3, people from warring human religious and cultural backgrounds, alike estranged from God, are brought together by repentance, faith in Christ and obedience to God’s word. There is then one church and one faith. Serious disagreement over core doctrines is not good diversity which can be managed by institutional control and re-organization, but a sign of serious sickness in the body.

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