Evangelicals and the Transformation of the Episcopal Church IV

One of the recommendations of Towards the Conversion of England was the appointment of Diocesan Missioners or Directors of Evangelistic Work (p 156). Whether as a result of the influence of the book, or of the influence of the growth of Evangelicalism in the Church of England since the book, Diocesan Missioners appear to be a standard feature of many dioceses of the Church of England. The Diocese of Gloucester seems to have the most active, to judge by the amount of stuff on its website here and the number of times its different pages come up in internet searches. I also found Diocesan Missioners in Bath and Wells, Exeter, Oxford, and Canterbury before I got tired of looking, not to mention depressed that the Church of England was so far in advance of us on this. There was reference to a Diocesan Missioners‘ conference in 2011, but only in passing, and I couldn’t find information about one in 2012. There was reference to Fresh Expressions on almost all the sites, although these seem more like non-traditional church plants than evangelistic endeavors—but might be all the more appealing to Episcopalians for that reason. Anyway, lots of ideas on these sites that might spark ideas that would work here. If you get a brainwave, please advise!

Evangelicals and the Transformation of the Episcopal Church III

The book Towards the Conversion of England suggests that a parish can put on an evangelistic mission to its own community. Apparently several of these were held in the first few years after the book was published, although I can’t find any record of how successful they were. Here are the basics:

First, plan both the preparation for the event and the follow-up to it. ‘It is worse than useless… unless the “follow-up” has been carefully planned and the promoters have answered the question, “What do you plan to do with those whose hearts are touched?”‘

The first preparation event is what we would call an every-member canvass, but for the purpose of explaining the need for an evangelistic mission rather than the need for money. ‘Every house in the parish should be visited twice, and the visitor should make personal contact with the household.’

The main preparation event is what the book calls a teaching convention, to which parishioners are invited in order to prepare them to participate in ther mission itself. Parishioners must be able to summarise and explain, in ordinary language, the main outlines of the Christian faith. The teaching convention will be spread over several sessions, and should continue until those attending feel that they can make such an explanation. ‘The convention must be prepared for and followed up both in the pulpit and in the parish.’ To the extent possible, lay people should do the teaching.

The preparation should also build up the sense of fellowship in the church. ‘It would be of little use to to hold a mission unless those who are converted by it and, perhaps, brought to church for the first time, find within the Body of Christ a warmth of welcome that breaks down the natural barriers between man and man… This intensification of fellowship will develop from the sense of responsibility in the common task.’

The mission itself should bring in someone with experience of or at least a perceived call to evangelistic preaching, and should last long enough to reach everyone in the parish. There might be five or six talks over two or three days, in different places in the neighborhood where a different audience might be found. ‘The missioner must be able to build men up in the faith and fellowship of the Church; for a Parochial Mission which ignores the intellect and relies on emotion is not likely to have lasting results.’

Towards the Conversion of England does not say more about follow-up than the above remarks about fellowship and welcome in the church. Follow-up was apparently the subject of a pamphlet published later. The book also recognises that small-group campaigns may be the wave of the future, ‘as the age of big public meetings seems to have passed, at any rate for a time’, but it seems to me that the need now is something unmistakeably associated with a local Church. Unless local churches really don’t have a future.

Evangelicals and the Transformation of the Episcopal Church II

John Richardson’s A Strategy that Changes the Denomination (reviewed below), and the book which inspired it, Towards the Conversion of England, both contain a number of suggestions that are worth considering. God willing, they will appear on this blog over the next month or two. Richardson’s point that we need to start where the church is now is one we need to take to heart, and the Episcopal Church has its own equivalent of the C of E’s Commission on Evangelism, which produced Towards the Conversion of England: the Standing Commission on the Mission and Evangelism of The Episcopal Church (details here).

On the Commission’s web-page are links to the minutes of all meetings since the last General Convention, and some earlier reports, although there’s no detailed information about their work. But it’s one place where Evangelicals could put their energy, and perhaps a place where that might be appreciated. The minutes are detailed but not always clear, and until I’ve read them all I’m not going to say much. But its most obvious difficulty is the fact that evangelism is only half of the work assigned to it, and since the word ‘mission’ is often used to refer to all the work the church does—educational, social, political etc—it is very easy for that half of its work to consume 90% of the commission’s time, and a cursory glance at the minutes of a couple of meetings suggests that this has been the case.

Take a look at what the commission has been doing, and let’s talk about how we can encourage it to give equal time to evangelism. The report of the commission (known at that time as the Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism) to the last General Convention can be read in the Blue Book, downloadable from here. Don’t expect much in the way of anything Evangelicals would understand as evangelism, but do ask yourself, how could I help the commission do better?

 

Evangelicals and the Transformation of the Episcopal Church

A Strategy that Changes the Denomination
John Richardson

John Richardson was inspired to write this book when he read a book published by the Church of England in 1945, Towards the Conversion of England. He was rightly impressed that the Church could consider a national evangelistic strategy of such scope as that book contained, and in his book he examines why such a strategy was not pursued, and urges a renewal of that strategy today.

The strategy was not pursued in 1945, he argues, because of the trajectory that has characterised evangelical movements in the Anglican Church ‘for over a century’: expansion, confrontation, division, recrimination, dissipation and regeneration. Regeneration, he says, typically comes after ‘the old battles are forgotten and the old warriors retire’, but this book is an attempt to begin regeneration without waiting for that, since he assigns 2011 to the period of dissipation. I hope and pray that his book achieves this result in the Church of England, for whom he wrote it, and the purpose of this review is to commend the same strategy to Evangelicals in the Episcopal Church, dissipated to an extent Richardson can scarcely imagine.

The key to the evangelical failures of the past is that what follows expansion has been confrontation, which leads to division not only between Evangelicals and the rest of the Church, but among Evangelicals, not all of whom are ready to confront to the same extent or at the same time. If there is to be a different future, Richardson suggests, Evangelicals must try participation rather than confrontation, and he suggests two principles which Evangelicals need to absorb if participation is to be possible. The first is to accept that the starting point is the way the Church is now, even if it violates every evangelical principle that ever was. ‘We can choose either to detach ourselves from, or involve ourselves in… denominational life. Involvement certainly risks compromise. But detachment simply abandons the institution and society and accepts the creation of our own ghettos. To affirm the denomination is not at all to approve everything for which it stands, or everything it does now or has done in the past. It is a “warts and all” willingness to recognize, despite its imperfections, that the Anglican way of doing things has a place and that we have a place in it. Only with this attitude, however, do we have the possibility, and the right, to seek deep change in the institution’ (p 44). Richardson gives several examples of ways in which Evangelicals in the C of E can engage the wider Church positively, all of which have their counterparts in the Episcopal Church, even the Patron and the Crown Nominations Commission and the Vacancy in See Committee. Confrontation is sometimes necessary in such bodies, but Richardson says rightly that it is more likely to be effective when done by a participant than someone criticising from outside (p 33).

The second principle Evangelicals must absorb is that their ecclesiology has worked against them. People from other traditions in the Church have been saying this for generations, but what they usually mean is that Evangelicals don’t see the institutional Church as essential for salvation in the way that the more Catholic among us do. The heart of Richardson’s case is that Evangelicals have been content to be a party within the Church with evangelism as their specialty, when in fact evangelism is the purpose for which the whole Church exists. Mission societies, the means by which Evangelicals have pursued the goal of evangelism for generations, actually undermine the evangelistic enterprise, because they don’t involve the whole Church, which was founded by Christ as a mission society: ‘God’s mission work to the world flows from Christ through the Church… the Church is the missionary organisation seeking people’s conversion’ (88f). Evangelism is not part of but the heart of all the Church’s mission (pp 30, 90).

Many argue that participation was tried in the C of E in the 1970s and 1980s, when many Evangelicals began to engage it positively, serving on its committees and commissions and getting appointed to the episcopate, and since this policy hasn’t led to an evangelistic Church, it should be abandoned. Richardson admits that the efforts of Evangelicals have not had the results hoped for, but argues that this is because Evangelicals had defined their goal as creating place for evangelicalism rather than recalling the whole Church to its evangelistic task. Their strategy assumed that evangelism would be done by the Evangelicals rather than the whole Church. A new approach to participation, therefore, must be tried, one which has as its goal not creating a place for Evangelicals but restoring evangelism to its proper place in the life of the Church.

The Episcopal Church had a revival of Evangelicalism beginning in the 1960s and 70s, and what has followed has been a confrontation far worse that anything yet seen in the Church of England, although the story there isn’t finished yet. It’s time for us to try participation, too, not in order to create a safe place for ourselves, but in order to set the Episcopal Church to the task Christ gave it, that of bringing those who do not know Christ to the knowledge and love of Him. An impossible task for anyone except God, but since it is what God wants, we’d better make ourselves available for it.

Richardson says that Towards the Conversion of England did not achieve its goal, but it may have helped more than he thinks. It’s true that the national program for which it called was never adopted by the Church of England, but the book itself sold like hot cakes. According to one history of the post-war Church of England, the first edition sold out overnight, and altogether it went through seven editions in its first year of publication, and at least two more the year after that. It may not have been read in the corridors of power in Church House, but it was certainly read elsewhere. It ‘prompted diocesan, deanery and parochial missions in many parts of the country’, and one of the diocesan missions, the Mission to London, attracted three quarters of a million people to the various events held in the city, and paved the way for the first visit to London by Billy Graham in 1954 ( Paul Welsby, A History of the Church of England 1945–1980 [OUP 1984] pp44 –50).

Richardson’s book may not attract much interest at the highest level of the Church of England, or even of the power structures of contemporary evangelicalism, but I pray that it will be read by others, especially in the Episcopal Church, and will one day be looked back on with the same respect with which Richardson describes Towards the Conversion of England. It’s not expensive. Order one for yourself here, and one for someone you know in the Episcopal Church.

John Richardson is the Vicar of Elsenham and Ugley in Essex, England, and there is a link to his blog on the list to the right

Evangelical Celebration of Communion III: Outside the Box

The last two posts on this subject have explored ways in which Evangelicals can celebrate Holy Communion according to the rubrics and still avoid implying that Communion in any sense re-enacts Christ’s sacrifice. For those willing to be thoughtful in their encounter with the rubrics, here’s something I’ve done pretty consistently over the last fifteen years or so: use the eucharistic prayer on p 402 of the Prayer Book. This prayer is designed for use when using the Order for Communion on p 400, but there’s no rubric that prohibits its use in a regular service. The rubric concerning the eucharistic prayer in Rite II says ‘Alternative forms will be found on page 367 and following’ and this prayer follows p 367, even if at a distance.

The prayer has several features that commend it to Evangelicals. First, it uses the word ‘bring’ instead of ‘offer’ when indicating the elements. To say that the elements are brought can hardly mislead anyone. It’s true that they are described as ‘gifts’, but since the prayer immediately preceding these words is left to the discretion of the celebrant, they can easily be referred to in that prayer as God’s gifts, which will remove any ambiguity. The celebrant could pray something like ‘Heavenly Father, You sent Your only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who, before He died for us, took bread and wine and gave them to us as a sign of His infinite love.’ Then continue, ‘And so, Father, we bring you these gifts’.

Second, it refers to I Corinthians 11.26 in saying that in doing this ‘we show forth the sacrifice of His death’. Third, the language of sacrifice is firmly linked to our offering of ourselves rather than our observing the rite: ‘Make us a living sacrifice of praise’.

My own experience in using the opportunity to pray parts of the eucharistic prayer in my own words suggests that it is better to write them out and read them than to invent them on the spot. The prescribed petitions in the prayer are all very short, none of them longer than two sentences, and I find that when I pray spontaneously I tend to ramble a bit, and in the comparison between my ramblings and the crisp points of the prescribed prayer, it’s not me that comes off best. Better to write it out, edit out everything that isn’t absolutely necessary, and then put it in your Prayer Book so you can read it out. Even when I insert one of the Prayer Book prefaces, I shorten them to match the style of the printed prayer.

Congregational reaction to this has usually been non-existent, especially if printed in a full-text service leaflet, although occasionally someone will say ‘I had no idea that was in the prayer book’. And the relief of knowing that no one is likely to have read anything into the service that isn’t justified has made it worth the extra trouble.

Evangelical lectionary-based preaching resource

A lot of Evangelical clergy resist following the lectionary, because it makes it so hard to preach through an entire book of the Bible, which is so necessary at least from time to time if a congregation is to become biblically literate. But the lectionary has its good points, too, in that it forcces the preacher to address, or at least listen to, passages he’d just as soon not bother with. Here‘s a good resource for evangelical lectionary preaching, based on the Revised Common Lectionary which is now the Prayer Book lectionary in PECUSA.

There’s other interesting material on the site, too, including an analysis of how Anglican Evangelicals have floundered in recent decades: ‘What has happened to Evangelical Anglican ministry? In the face of declining church attendance, we have come to doubt the worth of Anglican ritual and order and of the power of God’s word proclaimed. Our loyalty to the Prayer Book, commitment to parish ministry, open approach to occasional services, support of unviable congregations, all seem a faded memory. As for the ministry of the Word, we seem more reliant on the new technology, psychology and management techniques of our age, than on the power of the Word proclaimed.’ For some reason there’s no link to this on the home page, but you can find it here.

A bit more Wesleyan than I am (which surprised me in a Moore College grad), but well within the Anglican Evangelical tradition, and well worth using when preaching or running a lectionary Bible study.

Evangelical Celebration of Communion II: Offertory and Offering

Another important consideration when trying to avoid any implication that Holy Communion somehow re-enacts Christ’s sacrifice is the way we treat the bread and wine before the consecration. Lifting them up in a gesture suggestive of offering is clearly misleading, but so is bringing them to the priest along with the congregation’s alms in triumphant procession. The elements should not be treated as something that either the congregation or the priest offers. Colin Buchanan wrote a Grove booklet on this some years ago, The End of the Offertory: an Anglican Study, in which he argued that the preparation of the elements is not part of Christ’s institution, and it does not matter when or how they are put on the table. ‘They do not need to be carried about by lay people, as there is no theological mileage in this. If the “specialised wafer” and vino sacro are being used, then it is actually misleading to pretend that they have been contributed by the congregation in the way that alms have.’ In a large part of Anglican history the elements were on the table before the service started, and the bread was uncovered, and the wine poured into the cup, without ceremony immediately before the consecration began.

Unfortunately, many congregations have been taught that a procession with alms and elements symbolises lay participation in the liturgy, or gives them their proper role in the liturgy. Buchanan has particularly strong words about this: ‘Fancy a dud procession with two, four or even six silent laymen carrying materials which do not need to be carried, and fancy it all being over in 45 seconds, and our calling that the ‘layman’s liturgy’! How could we have ever been so blind?’ It will take a great deal of patient and persistent teaching to get such a congregation to understand the need for this to change, but this is the work that faces Evangelicals in today’s Episcopal Church.

The use of special prayers or gestures relating to the elements at the preparation, such as the Roman ‘through your goodness we have this bread to offer’ etc is especially unfortunate liturgically, Buchanan argues, since they amount to a thanksgiving over the elements, which is all that the prayer of consecration actually is. The use of such prayers renders the ‘great thanksgiving’ superfluous.

Concerning re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice, Bishop Hoadley’s words are worth remembering: ‘the Lord’s Supper was not instituted as a Stage-Play, to act over our Saviour’s death (which is an unworthy thought), but as a Rite, for the remembrance of his death once past and not to be repeated’ (A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper [1735] p 55).

Bible Man for Central Florida

I don’t know if he would describe himself as an Evangelical—it’s not the sort of thing one puts in one’s candidate biography—but Greg Brewer, who says he ‘
stand
[s] strongly 
within 
a 
tradition 
that 
“God’s
 word 
written”
 is 
a 
“God‐breathed”
 and
 reliable 
guide 
for 
“instruction, 
reproof, 
correction
 and 
training 
in 
righteousness”
’, was elected bishop of Central Florida yesterday. We who do describe ourselves as Evangelicals rejoice, and pray that he rightly applies the guidance of God’s word in his new ministry.

Also very encouraging to read the following, in his answer to a question about the
 Diocese 
of 
Central 
Florida 
opting 
out 
of 
the 
Episcopal 
Church: ‘
We 
remain 
in 
the 
Episcopal 
Church 
because
 we 
believe
 that 
God 
has 
put 
us 
here. 


That 
is 
where 
we 
must 
begin. 


For 
if 
we 
know 
that 
we 
are 
where 
we 
are 
by 
Divine 
appointment, 
then 
we 
also 
can 
trust 
that 
God 
will 
guide 
us, provide 
for 
us,
 grant 
His 
wisdom 
and 
give 
us 
all 
we 
need 
to 
remain 
faithful 
to 
Him 
in
 the 
midst 
of 
a 
profoundly 
conflicted 
church.’

Evangelical Celebration of Communion

An Episcopal seminarian at Duke Divinity School recently asked whether there was a published guide that Evangelicals could use when presiding at Communion, concerned that no one ‘think something is happening that I don’t think is happening’. I’m not aware of anything short and simple, and this blog might be a good place where the traditional evangelical approach to Communion could be set out and discussed.

The place to start is with principles rather than practices, because there’s usually more than one way to put a principle into practice. For Evangelicals, the guidelines in Scripture are primary, of course, but it’s generally accepted that the explicit references to Communion in Scripture are so few that they have to be supplemented by the application of broader Scriptural principles, especially since Communion became separated from the kind of meal described in I Corinthians 11.20ff.

Foremost among these principles, I was taught, is this: Holy Communion essentially represents something that God gives us or does for us, rather than that we give God, or do for God. Christ’s linking of the bread and wine with his sacrifice of Himself on the cross provides the context in which everything at Communion takes place, and that sacrifice was God’s act not ours, and cannot be remembered appropriately by anything that stresses what we do rather than what God did.

So for centuries this has meant for Anglican Evangelicals avoiding any suggestion that in Communion the church somehow offers Christ’s sacrifice again. For the English Reformers, it was not a sacrifice but a thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice. The wording of the service, and the ceremonial of the service, was changed in order to reflect that. Some of that change has been undone in the American Prayer Books (all of them, not just the 1979 book), and one of the basic skills evangelical clergy have had to acquire is that of celebrating Communion in such a way as to prevent those present from buying into the ‘sacrifical’ idea.

The most obvious step in this direction is to omit the ‘fraction acclamation’, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast. The words are scriptural, of course, but their context in Scripture is holiness of life, not Holy Communion, and they are almost bound to mislead when repeated right after the breaking of the bread. The rubric is very clear that the words are optional, and the Evangelicals I know avoid them like the plague.

Our reformers also made it clear that Communion should be celebrated in the context of a meal, as the last supper was, even if what we commemorate is the sacrifice of Himself that Christ made the following day and which the bread and the wine represent. ‘Do this’ could only mean eat and drink, and the context is therefore a meal which is at least representative of the meal at which He gave this commandment. Hence the evangelical preference for the term ‘table’ rather than ‘altar’, and, when practicable, the replacement of a solid object reminiscent of an altar with an actual table.

There are plenty of other things that can be done or not done, and other words and phrases that can be used and avoided by the celebrant in order to avoid the implication of Communion as sacrifice, and there will be other posts in this series that will explore them.

Evangelicals and Pelagius

Travellers from the regions south of this Blog tell tales of an interesting development in an Episcopal diocese, where a resolution was recently introduced asking the diocese to consider ‘reclaiming’ Pelagius, a British monk who taught in Rome early in the 5th century. The interest lies in the fact that his teachings were condemned by the Council of Carthage in 411, and have been a no-go area in the church ever since.

The resolution, which can be read here, says that Pelagius ‘represents to some the struggle for theological exploration that is our birthright as Anglicans’ and that a re-visiting of his teachings might ‘encourage a deeper understanding of sin, grace, free will, and the goodness of God’s creation’. According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Pelagius emphasised man’s ‘freedom to choose good by virtue of his God-given nature’.

Pelagius’s teachings have been revisited many times since 411, although the result has usually been a deeper understanding that the Council was correct to repudiate his ideas. Apparently the diocese in question felt the same way, because they first amended the motion so as to remove anything that suggested Pelagius’s teachings might in fact be compatible with Christianity, then refused to pass it.

Pelagius is often thought of as denying the doctrine of original sin, but apparently this was a refinement added by those won over by his teaching rather than Pelagius’s own. Ideas of this sort have arisen frequently in the church, and, as the stories confirm, are still doing so. Evangelicals will probably not be disturbed at the suggestion that we look at Pelagius’s teaching again, since the decisions of Councils only have authority if they are supported by Scripture (Article XXI, Book of Common Prayer p 872), and it never hurts to take a second look, just to be sure. But most of us will be pretty sure that those who turned the proposal down did the right thing. The Biblical teaching that human nature since Adam’s disobedience is such that we cannot choose good without God’s help has always been confirmed for me by observation: in every case I have ever seen, by the time someone is old enought to know right from wrong, they have already done wrong.

The sad part is the idea that as Anglicans our birthright is ‘the struggle for theological exploration’. As Christians, the inheritance we look forward to is that of the saints in light, deliverance from the dominion of darkness and a place in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, and the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 5.5, Colossians 1.12f). I’ll take that over theological exploration any day.

Evangelical Philosopher has Dawkins on the Run

Richard Dawkins, outspoken atheist and critic of religion, may be losing his nerve. He has just refused four British invitations to publicly debate with eminent philosopher William Lane Craig when he visits the UK this October. The requests came from The British Humanist Association, The Cambridge Debating Union, the Oxford Christian Union and Premier Radio.

Dawkin’s refusal to debate Craig has led Oxford University philosopher Dr Daniel Came to write to Dawkins urging him to reconsider, saying his refusal to do so is “apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part.”

Dawkins did not reconsider, but according to the English publication Private Eye, said he would not share a platform with anyone who defended God’s command to kill the Canaanites as recounted in Deuteronomy, which Craig has done. When it was pointed out that Dawkins had shared a platform with Craig as part of a panel discussion in 2010, Dawkins replied that at that time he had not known of Craig’s ‘defence’ of the Deuteronomy passage. But, the Eye points out, Dawkins did know, having written an article discussing Craig’s position in 2008. Craig is a graduate of Wheaton College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, both in Illinois. More here.

Protesters being evicted from Evangelical blog

The protesters who occupied this blog last night have been told they must leave. After working all night, blog technicians have shut off their oxygen supply by making it impossible for others to add to their ill-judged outburst, but efforts to remove their camp have so far been unsuccessful. A reporter who visited the scene in the middle of the night claimed that all the tents were empty, and that the group organising the protest is smaller than claimed. Among those who signed their statement, Buffaloon and Jensen (no relation) are well known to Evangelical authorities as trouble-makers, but authors suspect that Ratholder and Bagwash are not members of the Evangelical community, if they even exist.

All responsible Evangelicals, of course, must deplore any attempt to sow dissension among Evangelicals by suggesting that Scripture should govern worship as well as doctrine and life. The reference to denominationalism is incomprehensible, and clearly indicates a mind more fallen than most.

We are confident that we will have the situation under complete control shortly.

OCCUPY ANGLICAN EVANGELICALISM!

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN OCCUPIED! We call upon all true Protestants to resist the compromisers who sell out the Word of God Written, the fellow-travellers with so-called orthodoxy and catholicism who put Church above Scripture! Especially Anglican so-called Evangelicals—you who beheaded the morsel LAUD for forcing you to kneel before a piece of bread, do you now embrace this and the like superstitions with all your so-called hearts?! What happened to your brains?!? HOW WOULD JESUS WORSHIP? John Howe you’ve got mail! NO ANGLICAN COVENANT NO DENOMINATIONALISM

Signed Nicholas Buffaloon, R. C. Ratholder, Moira Bagwash (Mrs), Phillip Jensen (no relation)

John Stott’s Evangelical Heritage

GAFCON organisers Chris Sugden, Michael Nazir-Ali and Vinay Samuel merely inherited the infrastructures that John Stott left behind. At the same time, does not John Stott offer a more generous ecclesial vision, and a more charitable way to speak the truth in love, than what GAFCON offers? The deeply-divided evangelical Anglican fraternity worldwide –across the GAFCON and Global South networks – needs to come together to sort out their internal wars. They owe this to their fellow Anglicans – and to John Stott.

Full story and discussion here.

Evangelicals Right or Left II

Last week I attended a debate at Union Theological Seminary in New York on ‘evangelical faith and politics’. Two Evangelical writers, one left-leaning and one right-leaning politically, have recently collaborated on a book, Left, Right and Christ, which the publisher (Russell Media, Boise Idaho) hopes will open up a ‘new way’ of discussing politics, in which people, or Evangelicals, at least, will not dismiss ‘the other side’ because they did not understand them. The debate was a way of launching the book.

Unfortunately, the book fails in its purpose, and whether the two writers understand each other not, they fail to engage each other because they still operate in two different worlds. The left-leaning contributor is Lisa Sharon Harper, and she names the two worlds in her introduction to her position, pointing out that ‘for some, [politics] is a high-level battle of ideas… for others, politics is about public policies that shape the flow of life on the ground’. Some have their politics formed by their thinking, others have their politics formed by their experience, or the experience of those they love. And the trouble with the book is that the right-leaning contributor, D. C. Innes, is in the first camp, while Harper is in the second. And since the publisher (presumably) decided not to let them respond to each other, but have each make their case on half a dozen controversial issues, they never engage each other at all. Innes describes the ideas that lead him to the right, and Harper describes the experiences that lead her to the left. Neither is any use to the other, and the reader is led first one way by the compelling ideas, then back to where he started by the equally compelling experiences. In a post-script, the publisher urges us to continue the conversation in our homes, churches and communities. Unfortunately, though, there hasn’t been a conversation to continue.

I suppose there really need to be three conversations if Evangelicals or any others are to make progress in this project. There needs to be a conversation between people from the left and the right both of whom got there in the world of ideas, another between people from the left and the right both of whom got there in the world of experience, and a third between whoever could talk about how ideas and experience can be prevented from pushing people in opposite directions, or what to do when that can’t be prevented. It would be a thick book, but might start a conversation that could lead somewhere. This one is worth reading, but won’t do the business.

In the light of recent conversations on this blog (http://wp.me/pJQVs-fB, http://wp.me/pJQVs-fM) and on Anglican Yinzer , though, it’s good to be reminded that there are Evangelicals on both sides of all the controversial issues. Both writers added scripture references to their signatures for purchasers of their books; Innes cited Proverbs 3.5f, Harper Isaiah 61.1–5.

Richard Baxter’s Cure for Church Divisions IX

Another in our series of extracts from Richard Baxter’s Cure of Church Divisions, published in 1670, in the hope of persuading presbyterians and congregationalists not to leave the Church of England after the 1662 Act of Uniformity. As long as Christians are still dividing and being divided, Baxter’s examination of the attitudes that lead to division remains relevant.

Direction IX:

Distinguish between weakness of Gifts and of Grace, and remember that many that are weak in the understanding of other matters, may yet be stronger in grace than you.

HE is the strongest Christian and the most Godly man, who hath the greatest Love to God, and heavenliness of mind and life: And this may be the case of many a one, who by some error about discipline or worship, is a trouble to the Church. He that offendeth you by his mistake and unjustifiable adherence to his own opinion rather than the judgement of the Church, though he be weak in that point, and perhaps in many other controversies, may yet be a far stronger Christian, than I who see his error: He may have more Love to God and man, more humility and self-denial, more fear of sinning, more fitness to die, more heavenly desires, and more patience in tribulation. Let us therefore value men according to the Image of God upon them, and not despise them as weak in grace, because they are weak in some point of knowledge: Though still their errors are not to be overlooked.

Evangelicals and Ordination

As I read the latest outburst from AMiE (it seems more charitable to account for its incoherence by regarding it as an outburst of frustration rather than a carefully thought-out statement) in today’s Church Times, I was struck by how far removed from classical evangelicalism the AMiE spokesmen are. Read the whole thing here. At the end of a paragraph about the events that led to the ‘Arab Spring’ comes the statement ‘In the C of E, following years of similar problems, a bishop refused to say he would teach that homosexual practice was a sin and thus young men were unable to accept ordination from him.’ I am resisting the temptation to explore the similarities between the sufferings of people in Egypt under Mubarak with those of Evangelicals in the Church of England ‘under’ Rowan Williams, but cannot let pass the suggestion that because a bishop refuses to accept the biblical teaching on sexuality, he cannot ordain faithful biblical people for ministry in the church.

This suggestion can only be made by one who does not accept the classical evangelical position on ordination, which is that it is functional rather than ontological. A brief description of the difference, along with a commendation of the ontological position, can be found on Leander Harding‘s blog, here. Leander talks about the difference mostly in terms of the function to be exercised by the person ordained, but the important element in the case quoted by AMiE is the function of the bishop in ordaining. Surely no Evangelical could believe for a minute that the bishop is conveying to the ordinand anything but permission to function as a minister in the church. The classical evangelical understanding is that in ordination the bishop functions on behalf of the church, and that his own holiness, let alone his theological acumen, are beside the point. The bishop is an officer in the church with certain duties, and he can carry them out efficiently for Evangelicals even if he is an Anglo-Catholic or a Liberal.

Not only is this the classical evangelical view, which AMiE claims to uphold, but it is also the position of the Thirty Nine Articles, which AMiE also claims to uphold. ‘In the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry’—Article XXVI.

If faithful biblical people cannot be ordained by unfaithful or unbiblical bishops, there will soon be no faithful biblical ministry in the church. Evangelicals who undermine the functional view of ordination are undermining the ability of their own church to attract Evangelicals into ministry, and will end up in a church that promotes the ontological view. I wish they would reconsider their position.

Back to Square One

In 1945, the Church of England issued a call to its members to convert the whole nation to Christianity. John Richardson describes how the church got sidetracked from that work, and calls Evangelicals in the C of E to get the whole church back to that goal. Read it, and his suggested strategy for achieving it, here. Could Evangelicals in the Episcopal Church follow the same strategy in getting the Episcopal Church to take the conversion of America seriously? If not, what strategy would work?

Perhaps for Americans a look at the years before the issuing of that call would be instructive. Britain began the war convinced that it was a Christian nation fighting for Christian civilisation. One writer to the Times even suggested that to support the war effort was proof of Christian faith at some unconscious level. By 1943, when the discussions that led to the 1945 statement began, the church at least had realised that Britain was not so Christian as it had claimed to be, and needed to be brought into a deeper faith. What got them to see that need? What will open our eyes to the need here?

Richard Baxter’s Cure for Church Divisions V

Another in our series of extracts from Richard Baxter’s Cure of Church Divisions, published in 1670, in the hope of preventing presbyterians and congregationalists leaving the Church of England after the 1662 Act of Uniformity. As long as Christians are still dividing and being divided, Baxter’s examination of the attitudes that lead to division remains relevant.

Direction V:

Distinguish between those who separate from the Universal Church, or from all the Orthodox or purest and Reformed parts of it, and those who only forsake the Ministry of some one person, or sort of persons, without refusing Communion with the rest.

As many occasions may warrant a removal from a particular Church, but nothing can excuse a separation from the Universal Church, so he that separateth only from some particular Churches, and yet is a member of the Universal Church, may also be a member of Christ and be saved. He may be a Christian who is no member of your flock, or of any particular Church, but he is no Christian who is no member of the Universal Church. Paul and Barnabas may in the heat of a difference part from one another, and yet neither of them part from Christ or the Church-Universal.

I do not excuse the fault of those who sin against any one Church or Pastor: but I would not have the clergy sin too by making the fault of those separating greater than it is; nor to let their own interest lead them to call men schismatics or separatists, in a sense for which they have no ground. If they can learn more by another minister than by me, what reason have I to be offended at their edification, though perhaps some infirmity of judgement may appear in it. A true mother that knoweth her child is like to thrive better by a nurses milk than by her own, will be so far from hatred or envy either at the nurse or child, that she will consent, and be thankful, and pay the nurse. Solomon made it the sign of the false mother, that could bear the dividatur, the hurt of the child for her own commodity; and of the true mother, that she had rather lose her commodity than the child should suffer. And Paul giveth God thanks that Christ was preached, even though it was by them that did it in strife and envy. He is not worthy of the name of a physician, who had rather the patients health were deplorate, than that he should be healed by another who is preferred before him. If I knew that man by whom the salvation of my flock were like to be more happily promoted than by me (whatever infirmity of theirs might be the cause) I should think my self a servant of Satan the envious enemy of souls, if I were against it.

Evangelicals and Music

I was recently at Wheaton College in Illinois, where the Evangelical tradition is strong and has a great history. I attended a service on campus, and we sung a hymn whose simplicity and beauty got right in amongst me, so much so that at the end of the service I made a bee-line for the pianist to find out who wrote the tune (a setting of Havergal’s ‘Take my life and let it be’). Later, I reviewed the number of times I have made that same bee-line for the same purpose, and realised that in every case it was in a church or institution dedicated to preaching God’s word and only God’s word—I’ve done it at All Souls Langham Place, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, St Andrew the Great, Redeemer New York, and other places I can’t now remember.

Still later, I realised how foolish I was to be surprised at this—it’s not a coincidence. There is a real link between faithfulness to God’s Word written and good music. Does Scripture ever tell us to ‘speak’ God’s praise? No, we are told again and again to sing God’s praise, and to do so vigorously—shout is a word that often appears in the context of the praise of God by His people. We are also to use a variety of loud musical instruments: Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with timbrel and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!  Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! So of course any church that tries to live by God’s word and calls others to live by God’s word is going to end up singing great hymns well even if no one is consciously putting it on the agenda.

The evangelical tradition in music can be summed up in the word ‘rousing’. Evangelicals have always composed and sung tunes that arouse the congregation—but to action, not to the mere enjoyment of emotion. Whether it’s Sullivan’s Gertrude, Jarman’s Lyngham, Ellor’s Diadem, the traditional evangelical hymn makes you want to get out into the world and do something for Christ. There are modern tunes equally rousing: Michael Brierly’s Camberwell for instance, written in 1960. I don’t know whether the weakness of many evangelical churches today is the result of or the cause of their use of the awful soppy three-chord tunes, all indistinguishable from one another, that they use, but there’s a link there somewhere.

The evangelical tradition in lyric is to focus on God, and not on us. ‘I love you Jesus’ is, I hope, a true statement by those who sing songs of that sort, but it is not praise of God, and too often it is self-congratulation, and leads only to more self-centeredness. ‘All hail the power of Jesus’s name’ puts it biblically, and the regular singing of such hymns builds biblical Christians.

Not all evangelical tunes are rousing, of course; there are plenty for the introspective moments as well, from Bradbury’s Woodworth to the tune I sang with such pleasure at Wheaton, which was written by Wheaton’s organ teacher, Tony Payne, and is still unpublished.

The link between evangelical revival and music is not an accident. Those who are hoping for a revival of evangelicalism today should not ignore the biblical injunctions to sing!