Category: Parish and People

Two Sorts of Christian?

(A challenge facing the Anglican Communion)

Imagine the scene: John is the last of the Apostles. Second generation Christians say to him: “It’s all very well for you, John. You saw Jesus. You touched him. You have the evidence of your senses to support your faith. We haven’t. How are we to know that what you say is true?”

So John writes down the story of how Jesus met the need of Thomas, the Patron Saint of Certainty (not of Doubt), to see and even to touch, but then Jesus also says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

There seem to be two sorts of Christian in the churches today. For the one faith is the need for certainty provided by the infallibility of scripture, or the assurance of grace in the eucharist; for the other faith is trust – the ability as a Roman Catholic priest put it “to live with doubt as a constant companion.”

The challenge facing the Anglican Communion today is trying to cater for both sorts of Christian, neither meeting the needs of the one for certainty in such a way as to deny to the other the liberty to trust, nor allowing the one to discover new truth in such a way as to undermine the certainty of the other.

The two sorts of Christian are like two subterranean tectonic plates rubbing against each other and causing tremors threatening the structure of the church.

One tectonic plate believes that to have women bishops or to accept homosexuals undermines the authority of scripture, or casts doubt on the validity of the sacraments.

The other plate hears the Spirit of Love saying women are not second-class and homosexuals no more choose to be what they are than people choose to be lefthanded.

Have you ever asked yourself which kind of faith you have?

How about finding someone whose faith is the different sort from yours, and pray together and listen to each other?

Download the pdf: (download)

Women Bishops?

On 10 July 2010 the General Synod in York reaffirmed, without debate, that women can and should be made bishops in the Church of England [as they are already elsewhere in the Anglican Communion].

The next six hours that day were spent discussing how those, who believe women cannot and should not be bishops, and who therefore would not accept the authority of a woman bishop, can remain members of the Church of England.

For High Church traditionalists the issue is ‘sacramental assurance’ : “I can only be sure that I receive God’s grace in the Eucharist if the priest is not only not a woman, but also not a male priest who has been ordained by a woman.”
St Paul wrote that no woman can have ‘headship’ over a man. So for Conservative Evangelicals to allow that to happen is to undermine the literal authority of the Bible.
The debate is therefore: ‘In what way can the Church meet a parish’s request to have the oversight not just of a male bishop, but also one who has not ordained a woman, and also has not been consecrated by a bishop who has ordained women, let alone been consecrated by a woman?’

The solution proposed is that a woman bishop is to be trusted to delegate her authority to a nominated bishop, who fulfils that restrictive definition. In the end that proposal was passed by 373 votes to 14. All the other three options debated (including a last-minute, narrowly defeated, amendment by the Archbishops) would have reduced her authority by requiring her to do so.

The traditionalists insist on such a requirement. The Bishop of Oxford has written that this would have ‘entrenched two sorts of bishop in the Church’s life’. Such a ‘transfer of jurisdiction’ away from a woman bishop begs the question, ‘When is a bishop not a bishop?’

The traditionalists are not content with the outcome. Any proposal which would satisfy them could only mean that a woman bishop is treated as second-class. A Code of Practice is being drawn up by the House of Bishops which will provide guidance as to how to meet the needs of those parishes which request alternative oversight by a male bishop who is acceptable to them.

Dioceses – and deaneries – have been asked to discuss the proposals. Diocesan Synods must vote on them by November 2011. If more than half of the 44 dioceses vote for them, the General Synod will be asked to give them Final Approval : that will need a two-thirds majority of Bishops, Clergy and Laity voting separately.

Discuss what should be done!

Download the pdf: (download)

Communion or Covenant?

‘See how these Christians love one another!’ is a two-edged comment. Is it a sign of love when fellow believers set limits to what God may reveal of his truth to their sisters and brothers?

How much freedom of belief should Anglicans allow one another if they are still to retain Table Fellowship with each other, and with Christ who is our common Host?

In the Upper Room Jesus said “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” John 16:12,13

The story of the Church has been the Spirit’s endless uncovering of deeper truth about the God of Love – from the day Peter unilaterally baptised an ‘unclean’ Gentile.

In New Testament times slaves were seen as sub-human even by church people, but in 1833 in the British Empire they were recognised as having equal value in the sight of God with their so-called ‘owners’.

Professor F.D.Maurice was sacked from his King’s College London chair in the 1850s for questioning the dogma of everlasting torment; now in Common Worship he is listed as a ‘Teacher of the Faith’.

In 1944 the Bishop of Hong Kong was branded by the Church Times as ‘Bishop in Insurrection’ for ordaining Florence Li Tim-Oi a Priest in the Church of God; now more than 5000 women have been ordained priests in the Church of England and 29 as bishops in the Anglican Communion.

In 1854, eight years after becoming a Roman Catholic, Father Frederick Faber wrote: For the love of God is broader Than the measure of our mind; And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind… But we make His love too narrow By false limits of our own; And we magnify His strictness With a zeal He will not own.

The complex Anglican Covenant proposal is claimed to be the only way to keep the Anglican Communion together, and yet many of those who have stayed away from the Anglican Primates’ meetings, or refused to receive Communion with their sister Primate from the United States, say it is not restrictive enough to satisfy them.

Meanwhile several dioceses have already voted that it is too restrictive, and do not want it to exclude their sisters and brothers, or to be themselves excluded.

Is Anglican ‘apartheid’ the will of God for this branch of his Church?

Those who build walls fence themselves in just as they fence others out.

Is our Communion in future to be a convoy, progressing only at the speed of its slowest vessels, or will it continue to allow some to be driven ahead by the unpredictable wind of the Spirit?

Download the pdf: (download)

“I am a Churchgoer … Get me out of here!!”

by John Cole – first published Spring 2011: This light-hearted quiz for church groups prompts deeper questions about the journey local churches and church people must take as they are renewed as servants of God’s mission.

Download the text as pdf: (download)

Download the associated PowerPoint presentation: (download)

Before using the presentation, be sure to print off the notes pages and rehearse the presentation with the notes.