Paul Helm on The Future of Justification

Paul Helm“John Piper’s book The Future of Justification (Crossway, 2007) is a great thing. If you have not read it, then you must. …

In this Analysis I shall try to do two things.

The first is to draw attention to what I believe is one of the most significant methodological points that Piper makes, but one which may, in the flurry of interest about justification, and the dust raised by it, get overlooked. The second thing is to underline what Piper says about the ambiguity of some of Bishop Wright’s language about imputation and justification. What both of these have in common is that Piper shows us the need to observe theological distinctions. …”

– from Paul Helm, the J.I. Packer Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Regent College, Vancouver. (See also the earlier commendation of the book, by Mike Ovey.)

Anglican Communion ‘in first stages of divorce’

ANiC national conference 2008The Archbishop of the Southern Cone says the Anglican Communion is in the first stages of divorce.

“I believe that the time comes when a marriage is no longer a marriage and you have to recognise it. With reference to the two positions in Anglicanism at present we are incompatible doctrinally and ethically and quite different in our presuppositions…” said Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone. …

Speaking at a press conference of the Anglican Network in Canada, a conference of 400 orthodox Anglicans meeting near Vancouver, BC, Venables said liberal Christianity does not have a doctrine of salvation or believe that Jesus is uniquely the Son of God. Liberal Christianity is not true Christianity. There is no eternal hope or salvation. …

from David Virtue at VirtueOnline. (Photo: Anglican Network in Canada. L–R: Bishop Don Harvey, Archbishop Greg Venables, Dr J I Packer.)

Canadian Anglican Clergy deny charges

Short and PackerAnglican Network in Canada – 21 April 2008

“We have therefore determined that in order to uphold our ordination vows, we must leave your jurisdiction, and by this letter, we hereby relinquish the licences we hold from the Bishop of New Westminster.”

Clergy in six Lower Mainland Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) churches today denied charges they have abandoned their ministry.

In February, Bishop Michael Ingham of the Anglican Church of Canada Diocese of New Westminster issued a “Notice of Presumption of Abandonment of the Exercise of the Ministry” to nine Anglican priests and two ordained deacons. These priests and deacons – including world renowned theologian, the Rev Dr J I Packer – all serve in churches where parishioners had voted to join the Anglican Network in Canada. Read more

Anglican Church of Canada chooses litigation over negotiation

News Release from the Anglican Network in Canada

Bishop Donald HarveyThe Anglican Church of Canada’s House of Bishops has rejected an overture from the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) to seek negotiated settlements of property disputes rather than pursue litigation.

Bishop Donald Harvey, moderator of ANiC, expressed his disappointment, and said that, while he was fully aware of the sensitivities of “diocesan autonomy” and wasn’t surprised at this response, “I had hoped the Primate would have attempted to facilitate negotiations between the dioceses and the Anglican Network parishes.” Read more

St. John’s Shaughnessy stays focussed

David ShortDavid Short, the Rector of St. John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver, writes –

A number of people have asked me what has happened since our Vestry vote of February 13th to join the Anglican Network in Canada and receive the Episcopal oversight of Bishop Don Harvey under the jurisdiction of the Southern Cone. Across the country, 14 other congregations have voted to join the Network and the response of the different dioceses has been varied. …   Read more

A Christian celebrity?

Dr J I Packer“A few years back I attended a conference celebrating the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Edwards. J. I. Packer was one of the keynote speakers and I was eager to get a book autographed by him. I purchased a hardcover 20th anniversary edition of Knowing God, and made a beeline for Packer after the conclusion of his presentation.

For 30 minutes after his speech he was swarmed by scores of young men, some asking questions, others seeking advice, most simply listening, all seeking to have him autograph something. Two things happened during that time that I will never forget. The first is something Packer wrote, the second is something he refused to. …”

– Josh Gelatt writes on J. I. Packer’s legacy of leading with humility.

The Anglican Debacle: Roots and Patterns

– by Dr. Mark Thompson

No Golden Age

Dr. Mark ThompsonThe first thing to note about the crisis the Anglican Communion is facing today is that it has been coming for a very long time.

I remember almost twenty years ago reading an article by Robert Doyle in The Briefing entitled ‘No Golden Age’.1 (It’s shocking that it is actually so long ago!) The gist of the article was that the idea of a golden age of Anglicanism, in which biblical patterns of doctrine and practice were accepted by the majority, is nothing but an illusion. Biblical Christianity has always struggled under the Anglican umbrella. At some times it did better than at others, but there was never a time when evangelical Anglicanism, even of the more formal prayer book kind, was uniformly accepted or endorsed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were, after all, burnt at the stake with the consent of most of the rest of the bishops in Mary’s church.

The Puritans who stayed within the Church of England suffered at the hands of Elizabeth I, and William Laud and others made life increasingly difficult for them after Elizabeth’s death. The re-establishment of the Church of England following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was never a determined return to the Reformed evangelical version of Archbishop Cranmer, but a compromise designed to exclude anything that resembled Puritanism. Wesley was hunted out of the established church. Whitfield had to preach in the open air when pulpits were closed to him.

However, the real seeds of the problem we now face lie in the nineteenth century. John Henry Newman’s infamous Tract 90, published in 1841, encouraged Anglicans to read the Thirty-nine Articles as a Catholic document.2 In this way he opened the door to the possibility that you might publicly assent to the Articles while reinterpreting them to say what you wanted them to say. What he did in the interests of a more Catholic version of Anglicanism others would do in the interests of a more liberal version before very long. As one scholar put it, ‘whether he intended to or not, he taught us to lie’.

Later in the century liberal approaches to the Bible and Christian doctrine were introduced into Anglican thought through men like Samuel Taylor Coleridge (whose Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit was published in 1840 though it had most likely been circulating privately before then) and two collections of essays: Essays and Reviews published in 1860 and Lux Mundi published in 1889. By the end of the nineteenth century, liberal Anglo-Catholicism was the dominant form of Anglicanism in Britain and elsewhere (with one or two significant exceptions).

So it is not simply that a couple of rash actions in the past five years or even the last fifty years have undermined what was a pretty well-functioning institution prior to that. Evangelical Anglicans have struggled in a hostile environment within the denomination for a very long time. Sometimes their ministry has flourished, despite the hostility of the hierarchy. Whitfield, Simeon, Ryle, Stott, Packer, Lucas — God has raised up many Anglican evangelical leaders in England and elsewhere.3 But their faithful ministry has always involved struggle within the denomination.

That background might lead you to ask, ‘So what’s changed now?’ If the denomination has long been compromised in these ways, and evangelicals have always struggled within it, why are we arguing that we have now reached a moment of crisis where decisive action needs to be taken? What is different about what’s happening at the moment?

The Five New Elements

I want to suggest that there are five features of what has been happening in the last fifty years or so that have brought this current crisis to a head.

1. The first is an increasing number of public challenges to orthodox doctrine grounded in plain biblical teaching by serving bishops and other leaders in the Anglican Communion. It really is simply a matter of historical record that the last fifty years or so have witnessed an increasingly virulent attack upon biblical truth and biblical morality led by those who should have been guarding both. There had, of course, been a long history of such an attack from within the universities and colleges. Academic liberal theology had been flexing its muscles for over a century. Yet in the nineteenth and early twentieth century serving bishops within the Anglican communion had mostly been rather guarded in their public comments and made no attempt to change the teaching of the denomination in any official way.

Although it might not have been the first instance of this, we might start with the publication, in 1963 of John A. T. Robinson’s book Honest to God.4 At the time he was the Bishop of Woolwich. In that book he questioned the doctrine of God and many other elements of classic Anglican teaching. And this was the new thing: that a serving bishop should mount a challenge to the doctrine of the articles and the teaching of the Bible in such a public and unashamed way.

Even before his consecration as Bishop of Newark in 1976, John Shelby Spong, an admirer of J. A. T. Robinson, had been writing controversial books. In fact his controversial views would eventually lead to charges of heresy, which were dismissed in 1987. In 1986 he published Beyond Moralism: A Contemporary View of the Ten Commandments. Two years later he wrote Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality. A year later he openly and knowingly ordained a practicing homosexual man. He has denied the uniqueness of Christ as the only saviour of the world, and the authority of the Scriptures to determine Christian doctrine and Christian practice. In 2001 he published his autobiography: Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality.5 In it he appended ‘Twelve Theses for Christianity in the Twenty-first century’ which begin with the breathtaking statement, ‘Theism as a way of defining God, is dead’.

In 1984, the then bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, gained notoriety by commenting in a BBC interview that the belief that Jesus was raised bodily from the grave was ridiculous, an infantile preoccupation with ‘a conjuring trick with bones’. His comments were regarded as controversial and he has argued they were taken out of context, but on any account is hard to reconcile them with the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 — ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve’ (vv. 3–5).

In 1995 the then bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, defended his cathedral’s invitation to a practicing Muslim to preach the university sermon on the BBC’s ‘Thought for the Day’. He quoted Jesus’ words ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God’ and then went on to deduce that since the Muslim concerned was working for peace in his own country he not only came under the blessing of Jesus, but shared the title Son of God with him. When challenged about the uniqueness of Jesus on the basis of John 14:6 he wrote ‘to suggest that Jesus actually said those words is to deny 150 years of scholarship in the Gospel of John.6

Michael Ingham, the present day Bishop of New Westminster in the Church of Canada was interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen in September 1997. In that interview he insisted, ‘It’s time for Christians to drop the idea that Christ is the one sure way to salvation’.7 He developed these ideas in his book of the same year, Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multifaith World.8

Outlandish statements by bishops of the Anglican Communion, undermining the teaching of Scripture and the doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion are only barely newsworthy these days. They seem to come with such regularity and disdain for anyone who disagrees with them that only rarely do they provoke controversy. Instead, it’s the orthodox who are the source of scandal as far as the secular press is concerned. Statements of orthodox Anglican doctrine are often ridiculed and then dismissed.

2. The second feature we should mention is the redefinition of the gospel that has occurred in some parts of the Anglican Communion. It is increasingly clear that the gospel of salvation by the cross and resurrection of Jesus, with its call to faith and repentance has been replaced in some quarters by a liberal gospel of universal reconciliation, what some call ‘the gospel of inclusion’.9 It is vitally important to recognise that this is what has happened. It explains why the hierarchy in the American and Canadian churches won’t let go of their advocacy of homosexuality, for instance. The full inclusion of practicing homosexuals into the life and ministry of the churches is a gospel issue as far as they are concerned. As one website put it last year, under the heading ‘Drenched in Grace: Anglicans, Inclusion and the Gospel’ —

More than at any time in the recent past, those who seek to offer an open, inclusive and welcoming Gospel within the Anglican Communion are facing great challenges. Now more than ever we need to be equipped with the theological and ecclesiastical resources which mean that we can with confidence affirm that the Gospel of justice, inclusion and peace we try to communicate is scriptural, rational and central to Anglican tradition.10

No one must be excluded from the Christian table, these people insist, no matter what they believe or what life choices they have made. Love must triumph over all so that no one is any longer considered ‘unclean’ (with obvious allusions to Acts 10). Exclusion from fellowship or responsibility with the churches on any grounds is interpreted as an act of discrimination, an issue of social injustice which must be overthrown.

Ashley Null, commenting on the consecration of Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual man, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 put it this way:

The legislative leadership of the Episcopal Church, including a majority of the House of Bishops, believes that they have been called and therefore, inspired by the Holy Spirit to establish the guidelines by which the Bible is to be interpreted. And in keeping with their commitment to religious truth as an experience of the inherent oneness of all things, they have selected those biblical texts which talk about the inclusion of outcasts as the true definition of the Gospel of Christ. All other parts of Scripture are either interpreted so as to support this explanation of Christianity or rejected as no longer being applicable in our day.11

There have, of course, been alternative explanations of the gospel before. However, this redefinition has become a rallying point for a redefinition of Christianity which aggressively seeks to eliminate all other understandings. Its adherents are crusaders, and the battle for the acceptance of homosexual practice is simply the next battle in one long war to overcome prejudice and discrimination.12 The civil rights vigilantes of the 1960s have a new cause and a new justification.

3. The third feature that has made this a moment of crisis is the way attempts have been made to officially endorse teaching which is in direct conflict with the teaching of Scripture. This could be illustrated in a number of areas. We might focus on the defeat of a motion affirming the authority of Scripture on the floor of the General Synod of ECUSA in August 2003. Or we could think again about the refusal of the Australian General Synod even to allow a vote on a motion rejoicing in what God has done for us in the cross of Jesus just last year. However, because it is the catalyst for our immediate decisions, I will simply trace the official shift of position on homosexuality in the American and Canadian churches. Perhaps a time-line might be helpful.

The roots of this shift in thinking can be seen way back in the 1940s. However, in the last ten or eleven years the pace of the push to officially revise the church’s teaching on this issue has sped up. Now it is not just a matter of an individual bishop’s heretical opinion, either expressed in private or published for general consumption. This is the institution changing its official position.

4. The fourth feature we should mention is the way these developments have taken place in full knowledge and in open defiance of the objections of the rest of the Anglican Communion, most commonly on biblical grounds. Those involved were asked not to proceed. Carefully reasoned arguments explaining the teaching of Scripture were presented again and again. Letters were sent between bishops and primates. Phone calls were made. But so committed to the cause were the bishops of ECUSA and the bishop of New Westminster that they refused to listen and rejected all calls to turn back.

The repeated nature of the calls to turn back is very easily demonstrated.

In 1997, three years after Bishop Spong’s Koinonia Statement began to circulate throughout the Episcopal Church, the Second Anglican Encounter produced the Kuala Lumpur Statement, upholding the biblical teaching on human sexuality. A year later at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, after extensive discussion, Resolution 1.10 was passed, again affirming the biblical teaching on the subject. That same year ECUSA rejected the Kuala Lumpur Statement and the New Westminster synod voted to bless same sex unions.

In March 2001 the Primates of the Anglican Communion met in Kanuga, in North Carolina and called upon churches to avoid actions which might damage the credibility of mission, after identifying the theology and practice regarding human sexuality as a flash point. Within months the synod of New Westminster voted for the third time to bless same sex unions. A Global South Steering Committee visited New Westminster to investigate and in the end advised orthodox parishes to seek alternative episcopal oversight.

The Anglican Consultative Council got in on the act in September 2002, approving a motion urging dioceses and bishops to refrain from unilateral actions that would strain communion.

A month after the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in June 2003, a group of over sixty worldwide Anglican leaders warned the General Convention of ECUSA that a confirmation of Gene Robinson’s election would result in ECUSA having placed itself outside the boundaries of the Anglican Communion.14 Indignant at the interference, the General Convention confirmed Gene Robinson a month later (August 2003).

In October 2003 the Primates of the Anglican Communion released a statement following an emergency meeting in Lambeth Palace which included the observation that the consecration of Gene Robinson and the blessing of same-sex unions in Canada, if they should proceed, would ‘tear the fabric of our communion at the deepest level’.15 This meeting called for the protection of dissenting parishes and set up the Lambeth Commission to propose a way forward. Within a month Gene Robinson was consecrated in defiance of the rest of the Communion.

5. The fifth and final feature I want to highlight is for many people one of the most disturbing of all. It is the open persecution by the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church and the Bishop and Diocese of New Westminster (and indeed others) of all who dissent from their program of doctrinal and moral revision. In early 2003, as the situation in New Westminster was deteriorating, and following the encouragement of the Global South for parishes in dispute with the bishop to seek alternative episcopal oversight, Bishop Buckle of the Yukon offered to provide just that to the beleaguered parishes. In response, Bishop Ingham of New Westminster instigated charges against Bishop Buckle and the parishes seeking his oversight and before long the offer was withdrawn.16

Just over a week ago the same Bishop of New Westminster wrote to Professor Jim Packer, author of numerous books including the classic Knowing God, and David Short, the Rector of St Johns Shaughnessy following their vote (along with their church) to stay within the Anglican Communion yet seek the oversight of a faithful bishop, the Bishop of the Southern Cone. The letter charged them with a relatively new ecclesiastical offence, ‘Presumption of abandonment of Communion’ and threatened to remove their ‘spiritual authority as a minister of Word and Sacraments conferred in ordination’.17 The bishop’s supporters have protested that this action is entirely legal and in accord with the constitution of the denomination. However, these measures are devices which the liberal establishment has created with this one purpose in mind: to punish anyone who object to their practice and who seeks a way of remaining true to biblical teaching and Anglican doctrine when the denomination itself has abandoned it.

There are many other horror stories. The new presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, began suing those who opposed this program almost as soon as she was elected to the position. To date the dioceses of Fort Worth and Quincy and more recently the bishop and diocese of San Joaquin have had legal action taken against them.18 The denomination is suing these churches for their property, seeking to depose those who speak out. The legal action may well be protracted. Some have resigned because they do not have the financial resources to resist the revisionists in the courts. Yet the opposition is not going away.

Individual parishes are being targeted by bishops with the revisionist agenda. ‘The Connecticut Six’ are a group of six clergy and parishes who have opposed the diocesan bishop on the issue of support for Gene Robinson the acceptance of homosexuality more generally. Ministers have been unceremonially deposed, church vestry meetings declared illegal, church officers sacked, and in some extreme cases a diocese has moved in at night to change the locks and so prevent the dissenting ministers and congregations from having use of their church buildings.19

Despite repeated calls from many quarters to respect those who disagree with them and to seek ways to provide alternative oversight where this is requested, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and others in the house of bishops have pursued a program of retaliation and persecution of the orthodox in their dioceses. It is not too much to say that ecclesiastical bullying of the orthodox has reached epidemic proportions in The Episcopal Church, in Canada, and in other places as well.

Those of you who follow the websites will no doubt know of many more instances. Friends of mine in the UK have been called in and threatened by their bishop in response to votes of no confidence following the appointment of Jeffrey John and Dean of St Albans. Jeffrey John has since publicly ridiculed the idea of penal substitutionary atonement.

It is true that in the recent round of invitations to the Lambeth Conference this July, the bishop of New Hampshire was not included. This has been greeted with protest from the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. But the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is still invited, although she supports Gene Robinson and has acted in this unconscionable way towards orthodox bishops, dioceses, clergy and parishes in the USA. Those who took part in the consecration of Gene Robinson are still invited. Those who engineered Jeffrey John’s appointment as Dean of St Albans are still invited. Bishops within the Canadian church are still invited.

The parishes and Christian ministers who are under attack have been left out to dry by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He appointed Peter Carnley, the retired Archbishop of Perth who is no friend of evangelical Anglicans, to chair the panel of reference established to consider their cases. As was to be expected, nothing has happened. The legal cases are still proceeding. The confiscated property remains in the hands of the heretical institution.

Conclusion

The crisis we face at the moment has a different character to the background struggle that evangelical Anglicans have long endured. These five factors have taken us further down the road of denominational apostasy than we have ever been before. The embrace of teaching and practice which is directly opposed to the teaching of Scripture is now being institutionalised in a new way. And it is being done in the face of careful, godly, biblical calls to stop. What’s more, those who are making that call are being recast as the villains and every effort is being made to disenfranchise them and remove them from the Communion.

That’s what’s different now. That’s why we need to act.

___________________

Footnotes:

  1. R. C. Doyle, ‘No Golden Age’, The Briefing 22 (April 1989), pp. 1–6.
  2. ‘It is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church and to our own, to take our reformed confessions in the most Catholic sense they will admit: We have no duties towards their framers.’ See John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua (repr. London, 1965), p. 197.
  3. In Sydney we can rejoice in the inheritance we have received from men like Frederick Barker, Nathaniel Jones, Howard Mowll, Broughton Knox, Marcus Loane and Donald Robinson.
  4. J. A. T. Robinson, Honest to God (London: SCM, 1963).
  5. J. S. Spong, Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality (San Francisco: Harper, 2000).
  6. Private correspondence to the speaker, 4 June 1995.
  7. Ottawa Citizen, 26 September 1997.
  8. M. Ingham, Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multifaith World (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1997).
  9. C. Pearson, The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God (Azusa Press, 2007).
  10. www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002141.html accessed 13/3/08. An interesting article by Philip Turner critiquing this redefinition of the gospel can be found at www.goodnewsmag.org/JulyAugust/ja06turner.htm Arguably these are simply catching up with the observation of Ashley Null in a lecture entitled ‘From Thomas Cranmer to Gene Robinson: Repentance and Inclusion in Anglican Theology’ delivered on 16 July 2004 in Grace Anglican Chapel, Rochester in which he argued that the centrality of repentance within Anglican faith and practice was being replaced by the theology of inclusion
  11. A. Null, ‘Understanding the Contemporary Episcopal Church’, posted at http://listserv.episcopalian.org/wa.exe?A2=ind0312b&L=virtuosity&H=1&P=1493.
  12. John Spong’s autobiography makes this identification explicit.
  13. The interview was published in the UK Telegraph on 2 June 2002.
  14. the statement has since been removed from the Anglican Communion website – its url was anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/35/00/acns3522.html.
  15. The communiqué can be found at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2003/10/16/ACNS3633
  16. Details can be found at listserv.episcopalian.org/wa.exe?A2=ind0311b&L=virtuosity&H=1&P=1397
  17. See www.anglicanessentials.ca/wordpress/index.php/2008/02/29/ji-packer-threatened-with-suspension
  18. Details can be found on the diocesan websites: www.fwepiscopal.org/index1.php www.dioceseofquincy.org http://sanjoaquin.anglican.org.
  19. Statement from the Connecticut Six can be found at www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1412016/posts

________________

This paper was presented by ACL President, The Rev. Dr. Mark Thompson, at the Sydney ‘Lambeth Decision Briefing’, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, Friday 14th March 2008.

More Canon XIX Charges in Canada

St. Alban the Martyr OttawaThe Rev George Sinclair, despite relinquishing his licence for ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC), has been issued a Notice of Presumption of Abandonment of the Exercise of the Ministry according to ACoC Canon XIX by the Bishop of Ottawa.

He joins good company with Dr J I Packer and the rest of the Vancouver-area ANiC clergy who received the same notice earlier from the Diocese of New Westminster. …

– from the Anglican Network in Canada newsletter. George is on the leadership team of the Anglican Network of Canada. (Images courtesy St. Alban the Martyr.)

TEC to ‘depose’ Bishop Schofield of San Joaquin

Bishop John-David Schofield‘It is a privilege to know that I am standing along side of one of the outstanding theologians of our time, J. I. Packer, who is under similar discipline…’

The meeting of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops has decided to consent to depose Bishop John-David Schofield, bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin, even though he has resigned from the TEC.

As well, the House of Bishops voted to depose retired Maryland Bishop William Cox (now 87), who conducted ordinations on behalf of the Primate of Uganda, and who resigned from the Episcopal Church to join the Southern Cone a year ago –

Calling on the reconciling love of our Lord Jesus Christ and mindful of our call to be servants of one another and of the mission and ministry of the whole church, we have taken the action of consenting to the deposition of our two brother bishops, John-David Schofield and William Cox. … this action is… necessary for the ongoing integrity of The Episcopal Church. …

Full text from the Episcopal Church.

The Diocese of San Joaquin has published this press release with the response from Bishop Schofield –

Bishop Schofield responds to the HOB decision

The Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin, a member diocese of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of South America, was disappointed by today’s decision of the Episcopal House of Bishops but he was not surprised by it.
Read more

Man the lifeboats!

Dr J I PackerWe are currently witnessing a dramatic ‘rescue operation’ in North America to save those drowning in a ‘disaster’ caused by a pagan heresy. …

Jeremy Halcrow has a good summary of recent events at SydneyAnglicans.net.

(Picture of Dr. J I Packer from the St. John’s Shaughnessy video.)

‘Time to get our heads above the parapet’

Prof Glynn HarrisonAnglican Mainstream is reporting a letter to the Editor of the Church of England Newspaper from a senior layman, Professor Glynn Harrison of the University of Bristol –

“Sir,

The news that Dr Jim Packer has been served with a ‘notice of presumption of Abandonment of the Exercise of Ministry’ by the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada is a significant moment for ‘ordinary’ evangelicals in the Church of England. Read more

Five Books to Read Before Easter

Pierced for our TransgressionsTim Challies, widely respected Christian blogger from Toronto, is suggesting five books to read before Easter. That doesn’t leave much time! Perhaps starting one book would be more realistic.

One of Challies’ recommendations, Pierced for Our Transgressions by Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey and Andrew Sach, has been described by J. I. Packer as ‘an epoch-making tour de force’.

Dr. Peter O’Brien writes – ‘This is a very significant book… Every major objection to penal substitution has been considered, and courteously but firmly answered.’

Dr. Mark Thompson writes – ‘Pierced for our Transgressions is carefully argued and richly edifying.’

What better time than Easter to turn your thoughts to the saving work of Christ on the Cross. (For Challies’ five suggested books, see Challies.com.)

St. John’s Shaughnessy video on YouTube

YouTubeAn ~80 minute video from St. John’s Shaughnessy, produced in 2007 to help members think through the reasons for and implications of Anglican Realignment, has been placed on YouTube.

It features interviews with St. John’s Rector, David Short, and with theologian Dr J I Packer and is very helpful. Recommended.

Watch the video (in 10 segments) here. (Start at the bottom right video.)

Bishop Ingham sends ‘notice of presumption of abandonment’ to St. John’s Shaughnessy

Bishop Michael InghamBishop Michael Ingham has asked eight of his clergy to formally declare whether they’re in or out of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The priests have been involved in a series of meetings in which congregations in two Parishes in the diocese have voted to join a foreign Church. Read more

A Crisis in Koinonia: Biblical Perspectives for Anglicans

by David Short, Rector of St. John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver.
(First published in May 2004.)

___________________

Dear Friends,

I am writing as a priest in the diocese of New Westminster which has been in crisis for more than two years. I have worked in this diocese in Vancouver for more than 10 years, after being ordained in Australia, and am rector of one of the protesting parishes of the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW).

David ShortThe crisis is, of course, much wider than our diocese, and much deeper than many are willing to admit. We have been very grateful for your prayers and support, often risking your own reputation for the gospel.

This critical time has very complex implications for the future and few seem able to agree on a way forward.

One of the most deeply troubling aspects of the present difficulties is that Scripture seems to have been marginalized. Much of the discussion at local and national levels has muted and even silenced the voice of God.

Yet God’s word has much to say on the vital issue of ‘communion.’

Over the past years we have been compelled to go back to the Scriptures because of the unprecedented nature of the crisis. I have been encouraged to write something of what we are learning. I am convinced that the best way for us to move forward is to go back to what God has revealed in his word.

I know you have many things to read. I ask your patience with this essay and offer it, praying that it might move our thinking back to God’s word for the good of the gospel and the glory of Christ.

With all joy and peace in believing,

David Short.

_______________

A CRISIS IN KOINONIA: BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES FOR ANGLICANS

Newspaper articles, prophecies of doom, and synod resolutions aside, Jesus is still building his church.

For Anglicans, in a denomination that now sanctions same sex unions, this now means changes in the shape of our relationships so they might help rather than hinder the mission of Christ. The new oppressive liberal orthodoxy in North America must choose between using the current denominational structures as instruments of coercion, or through an act of love, allow a realignment of relationships within different structural patterns. If those in power choose the first course of action, biblically orthodox Anglicans will be forced to choose between the gospel and Anglican structures. Either way the Anglican communion as we know it will cease to exist. And all this in a denomination supposedly known for its tolerance of diversity, its generosity of spirit, its comprehensiveness.

Tolerance of diversity and comprehensiveness without boundaries are not virtues, however. They are vices. Jesus prayed for unity, but a unity apart from, or in opposition to, or founded on anything but the truth is at best meaningless and at worst wicked.

The term highly favored by Anglicans since 1851 to describe our mutual relationships as being more than merely structural is communion (from the New Testament Greek word koinonia). It is an enormously hard working horse, harnessed to several weighty theological wagons: employed in the apostles’ creed (‘I believe in… the communion of saints’); and to describe the Lord’s supper (holy communion); and, as well as the inner reality, fabric and superstructure of the world wide association of Anglican congregations (the global communion). The concept of communion has been pressed into heavier service over the last 20 years to describe the levels of disunity created by the ordination of women to the priesthood. The first resolution of the 1988 Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops recognized that differences of opinion on the consecration of women to the episcopate will result in ‘impaired’ communion. Its first resolution affirmed that the archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the primates, should create a commission to examine the issue under the rubric of ‘maintaining the highest possible degree of communion’ between provinces that differ. Resolution 18 on ‘The Anglican Communion: Identity and Authority’ refined this global consultation process. This new Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, would ‘undertake as a matter of urgency a further exploration of the meaning and nature of communion; with particular reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, the unity and order of the Church, and the unity and community of humanity.’

The ensuing commission, called the Eames commission (named after the Most Revd Robert Eames, archbishop of Armagh) met five times and released its report in 1994. The work continued with a second commission which met at the Virginia Theological seminary and published its report in 1997: the Virginia report. There is now a third commission studying the meaning and maintenance of communion named the Sykes commission (after the Right Revd Professor Sykes). Both the Eames and the Virginia reports give considerable space to koinonia and its implications. Eames asserts that ‘The basis of the Christian Church is that spiritual reality of koinonia,’ 1 and the preface of the Virginia report affirms this: ‘At the heart and center of the Anglican pilgrimage lies the concept of communion.’ 2

Since 2002 the unilateral decisions and actions of one Canadian diocese and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) to proceed with the blessing of same sex unions and to consecrate as bishop an openly practicing homosexual, have deeply wounded unity within Anglicanism and elevated the importance of understanding koinonia. The biblically orthodox primates of the global south, appalled by the arrogant disregard for the instruments of Anglican unity, 3 have sought to indicate the extremity of injury to their relationship with the offending bodies by variously declaring communion ‘impaired’ or ‘suspended’ or ‘broken’ or even ‘severed.’ This reveals the unprecedented damage to unity the blessing of same sex unions has inflicted — damage which is of such a different order than the ordination of women that the former archbishop of Canterbury Dr. George Carey, described the decision of the diocese of New Westminster in Canada as ‘schismatic’ a ‘clear undermining of the sanctity of marriage’ and ‘an ecumenical embarrassment’ as well. Archbishop Eames has been prevailed upon for a second time to chair an international commission of Anglican luminaries to cobble together a compromise structural solution. Others less sanguine are working for a global realignment based on what they discern to be the irreconcilable movement of two theological tectonic plates. My question concerns koinonia: can this horse do all the work we want it to, can it draw the various carts we assign to it? Are we in danger of crippling it? Do we have the right horse or is the horse a mule?

We need to turn to the New Testament to understand ‘communion’.

1. The New Testament Shape of Koinonia

The New Testament (NT) word for communion, koinonia and its cognates are translated in a variety of ways: ‘participation, fellowship, sharing, partakers, communion, partnership.’ Koinonia describes a particular kind of relationship between people created by their mutual fellowship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. There are three primary uses of koinonia in the NT, like a triangle which requires three sides, the three uses of koinonia must all be held together or you end up with something different: the horse becomes a mule.

a. Koinonia as fellowship with God

The first use of koinonia describes the living bond which unites Christians in the new life of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although koinonia is used in a secular sense in the gospels, 4 it is a post-Easter reality. Both the Eames and Virginia reports are incorrect in suggesting that koinonia with God is an OT reality. 5 They also go further than the Scriptures in describing the inner relationships within the Trinity in terms of koinonia. What the writers of the epistles do assert is that through faith in the Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel, Christian believers have koinonia with God. Indeed, we are explicitly told that we have fellowship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The apostle John, writing in his first letter tells the readers that his purpose for writing is ‘so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’ 6 (The italics are mine indicating where the koino– word appears in the original.) Peter uses the same term in 2 Peter 1:4 where those who have the promises of God ‘escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.’ When greeting the Corinthians the Apostle Paul states: ‘God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.’ 7 At the end of 2 Corinthians he prays: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’ 8

This first use of koinonia is reflected in the remarkable way the NT writers speak of ‘having’ God. We are told that we ‘have’ the Father, 9 we ‘have’ the Son, 10 and that we ‘have’ the Holy Spirit. 11 This must not be taken to mean that we own God, but rather, that we participate in the real life of God through faith in the gospel. Koinonia is a basic NT description of the common relation Christians share with God, based on the irreducible content and shape of the common gospel—a common faith (Titus 1:4), a common salvation based on the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). It is in the first place a spiritual not a structural reality; one which is both smaller and larger than both congregations and denominations.

b. Koinonia as fellowship with others in God’s work

If the first use of koinonia in the NT is about participation in the person of God, the second is about participation in the activity of God in the world. Koinonia is not for the private enjoyment of Christians, but draws us into a common fellowship with God, a common faith, a common gospel, a common salvation, and this is inexorably expressed through the whole structure and pattern of life lived in obedience to Christ. The fundamental dynamic of having our lives conformed to the shape of Jesus Christ through suffering and glory is an expression of koinonia. The Apostle Paul writes that he wants to know Christ ‘and the power of his resurrection,’ and to ‘share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.’ 12 To the Corinthians he states ‘as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.’ 13 It is the privilege of every believer to ‘have communion in Christ’s sufferings’ that we ‘may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.’ 14

Paul reveals how koinonia operates through the active engagement in Christian care and mutual gospel ministry. The Philippians had sent Epaphroditus to Paul in Rome with financial gifts and assurances of their prayers. In his subsequent letter, Paul told them that he was ‘thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now . . . for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.’ (Phil. 1:5, 7). Having communion in the gospel is more than just sharing the same ‘faith outlook,’ or approving the same gospel. It means actively collaborating for the proclamation and spread of the gospel. Koinonia is therefore not geographically confined. Paul was hundreds of miles away from the Christian community at Philippi, and yet the mutual effect of his suffering and their generosity, prayers and striving for the gospel is described in terms of koinonia. The koinonia which begins in our fellowship with God through Christ extends and multiplies with other believers as we seek the progress of the gospel. Even the financial support sent by the Philippians is called entering into ‘partnership with me in giving and receiving.’ (Phil. 4:15).

This second use of koinonia speaks of the mutual unity between believers expressed through Christian living and Christian mission. It binds us together in the gospel enterprise. Based on biblically revealed doctrine, faith and witness, the manifestation of koinonia is inclusionary, embracing and collaborating with other believers with diverse styles, gifts, contributions and backgrounds. It creates generosity of heart and hand to others in one’s fellowship and impels us to see beyond geographic, cultural, social, and tribal barriers. Gentiles now have communion in the riches of the gospel. 15 Paul refers to Titus as ‘my partner and fellow worker in your service,’ 16 and appeals to Philemon to receive Onesimus on the basis of koinonia. 17 Among the distinctive marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian community in Acts is the attendant devotion to koinonia, 18 which functions both as a source and result of mission.

c. The boundaries of Koinonia

Recent Anglican statements have a fair grasp of the first two ways koinonia is used in the NT. However, there is a third use of the term which has been entirely ignored. The NT writers place definite boundaries and limitations on koinonia. Without them ‘communion’ is deformed, reduced to little more than a vague positive sentiment toward those who use the same words we do. Paul, for example, writing about the Lord’s Supper, makes it clear that there are certain actions and relations that are incompatible with communion. ‘The cup of blessing which we bless,’ he asks:

is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake (metecho) of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake (metecho) of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (1 Cor. 10:16-21).

In this short passage, Paul uses koinonia four times along with the word ‘partake.’19 His point is plain. We can have communion with Christ, expressed in partaking of the bread and wine, and we can have communion with demons, but we cannot have both at the same time. It is not that it is merely against the apostle’s desire, it is something which ‘cannot’ take place.

In Ephesians 5 Paul uses the images of light and darkness to refer to life lived in submission to or in disobedience to the revelation of God. In the context of articulating the implications of the gospel for Christian sexual morality the apostle writes: ‘Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.’ 20 It is a double imperative: negatively to ‘not have communion’ with the works of darkness, and positively, to expose them. Similarly, when giving instructions regarding the implications of the gospel for church order in 1Timothy Paul says ‘Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor participate in another man’s sins; keep yourself pure.’ 21

Having koinonia in another’s sins, or in the unfruitful works of darkness, is the exact opposite of having communion in the gospel. It is as though there are two competing missions: one which promotes the spread of the gospel and one which promotes the spread of sin and the works of darkness. There is no room for spiritual neutrality since the warnings about koinonia indicate that there is something deeper than just engaging in certain behaviors. To have koinonia, either in the gospel or in sin involves the reciprocity of relations, recognition and approval.

To put it another way, we cannot separate the horizontal and the vertical elements of koinonia. We either approve, recognize and promote the gospel or the works of darkness. Choosing the second makes the first impossible. This is why the apostle John warns that ‘if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 22 He may well be echoing the teaching of Jesus. When Peter said at the last supper, ‘you shall never wash my feet,’ Jesus replied, ‘if I do not wash you, you have no part in me.’ 23

Koinonia with God entirely shapes our koinonia with others, and the conduct of our relations with others affects our communion with God. So precious is communion that it must be preserved and protected, not just from partnership with sin but from the effects of false teaching. ‘Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God,’ warns the apostle John, adding that ‘he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son. If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting; for he who greets him shares his wicked work.’ 24

He specifically instructs us how we should relate towards those who depart from Christ’s teaching. We cannot offer hospitality or even a platform for ministry to them, even though they claim to represent Christ. To do so, is to participate in their mission.

2. Summary and Implications

There are therefore three vital aspects to koinonia in the NT: fellowship with God, active fellowship with other believers in the work of God, and the avoidance fellowship with the works of darkness. The NT does not speak of levels of communion or of ‘the highest possible communion’ but simply of having or not having communion. It is shocking that both the Eames and Virginia reports entirely disregard the third use of koinonia. This is a serious flaw that generates a deformed koinonia, losing its distinctive Christian NT shape, reduced to a mysterious magic wand automatically uniting all who are under its wave whether they know it or like it or not. What the reports seem to fear above all else is a declaration by some Anglicans of being ‘out of communion’ with others. Hence Eames states that, ‘to take the step of declaring that communion is broken, or to describe the position as no longer being ‘in communion’, would be to do less that justice to the concept of communion as we now understand and experience it.’ 25

This is not the NT view of koinonia.

For biblically orthodox Anglicans, the decision to sanction any behavior the bible reveals to be contrary to God’s will, be it idolatry, adultery, theft or homosexual conduct, is not only an impediment to communion but to inheriting the kingdom of heaven. 26 There can be no ‘reception period’ as there was for the ordination of women, because blessing same sex unions is a first order issue. It denies, disfigures and falsifies the biblically revealed structure of the gospel. Biblical revisionists preach a different gospel, engage in a different mission and promote a competing koinonia.

Officially constitutionalizing what the NT teaches as sinful creates a division and disunity of considerable complexity within Anglicanism. Anglican polity by design and inclination traditionally gives wide room for disagreement. The ‘comprehensiveness’ embraces different views on non-essentials reflecting a right humility and charity. Clergy and congregations could faithfully follow Christ even with bishops and other congregations with whom they disagreed because the basis for belonging to the denomination was not the theological convictions of any individual bishop or congregation but the biblical faith enshrined in the creeds and expressed in the Book of Common Prayer. 27 However, when an official body, such as a diocese intentionally constitutionalises what Scripture describes as sin, it creates a fork in the road. It is no longer possible for biblically orthodox Anglicans, lay, ordained or consecrated, to have communion with that body, since the platform for belonging and associating has changed from the historic revealed faith to something which officially approves, recognizes and promotes sin. To remain in structural fellowship with any body that formally promotes and recognizes what God’s word condemns as sin is to have communion with the unfruitful works of darkness. In biblical terms, any body that promotes or legitimizes same sex unions has effectively removed itself from the fellowship of the gospel, and the catholic and apostolic faith.

This explains why African and Asian primates have declared communion ‘severed’ and why they are calling for a realignment. This has profound implications for global Anglicanism. I wish to highlight three.

a. Structures

Koinonia is largely responsible for generating denominations. Local congregations are the primary vehicle for expressing true koinonia, yet as Anglican theologian John Woodhouse writes: ‘The denomination (an association between churches) arises out of the Spirit of fellowship between believers beyond their own congregation, and its purpose is to express and facilitate the fellowship of the Spirit beyond the local congregation.’ 28

It is wise, necessary and helpful for associations of congregations to develop structures to foster their collaboration in the ministry of the gospel. The benefits are obvious; establishing a platform for mutual recognition and ministry, combining resources to train gospel ministers, deploying and resourcing mission enterprises, administering nurture, accountability and support. At best, structures support local congregations by promoting gospel initiative and facilitating koinonia.

Sadly, denominational structures that may originally have been created to protect and promote gospel ministry and koinonia gradually become mistaken for koinonia itself. The unity created by true communion and expressed through structures becomes confused. Then the structures themselves are seen as the basis for unity. Symptoms showing that this disease has begun to take hold include: a creeping clericalism, a fussy fastidiousness for ritual, a fervor for externals, a readiness to hinder gospel initiatives for the sake of organizational tranquility, a centralization of control and power, an identification of ‘church’ with the denomination or diocese, an elevation of tradition to challenge the word of God, an insistence on the independence of dioceses but the dependence of parishes, a gradual drawing of denominational distinctives into what is considered essential, and an understanding that parishes exist for the good of the diocese rather than the opposite. This reversal is clearly evident in the Eames report which claims of structures that ‘all the various elements of visible communion are gifts of the risen Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Church.’ 29

However, we must ask what happens when structures are being used to support what they were created to oppose, and to oppose what they were created to support? What if, instead of expressing and facilitating koinonia, they become instruments to coerce compliance in the works of darkness? What do biblically orthodox Anglicans do when their diocese and bishop promote, vote and proceed with something contrary to the revealed will of God? The apostle Paul tells us:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. 30

Clearly, if revisionist bishops and dioceses continue calling themselves ‘Anglican’ it is a delusion to describe the global Anglican body a ‘communion.’ It will be something else. Without a structural realignment Anglicanism will become a federation of irreconcilable congregations, or two or more competing communions. This will require overlapping or parallel jurisdiction by bishops, with neither jurisdiction fully able to recognize the legitimacy or integrity of the other. This has been loudly reviled as ‘schism.’ On the contrary. We should remember that old saying: ‘Schismaticus est qui separationem causat, non qui separat’ [The schismatic is the one who causes the separation, not the one who separates]. 31

It would be a mistake however to think that a structural solution will heal all our ills. At the risk of oversimplifying, what lies beneath the rift within Anglicanism are two different religions: two different Gods, two different views of the fall, sin, salvation, humanity, the cross of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, the coming judgment and the mission of the church. Blessing same sex unions is one manifestation of a deeper conflict in the divergent movement of two irreconcilable theological tectonic plates. Liberals speak of the authority within Anglicanism in terms of the three legged stool: Scripture, tradition and reason (with the recent addition of experience as a fourth leg). This is ‘quite extraordinary folly,’ as Dr. Robert Crouse points out. ‘For Anglicans, as for Christians generally, the ultimate authority is the Word of God . . . What constitutes Anglicanism as a distinctive form of Christianity is a certain way of reading, understanding, and living in obedience to that Word.’ 32

For realignment to proceed there needs to be some willingness on both sides, as both sides stand to lose a great deal. It is vital for biblically orthodox Anglicans to receive international recognition and for congregations to retain the right to decide which communion they affiliate with and to own and dispose of the properties they have paid for and now steward. Biblically orthodox Anglicans need to beware of a narrow monochromatic uniformity (as if that were possible). Instead the must seek to build a generous, diverse platform that will serve the gospel by serving congregations and preserving NT koinonia. This entails contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, with a generosity of spirit and the hospitality, grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Some have used the language of a marital separation leading to divorce, with the consequent division of assets. This will be viciously opposed by those who have elevated structures to the place of the gospel. Regrettably, the same biblically revisionist bishops and bodies of authority in the USA and Canada who have demonstrated a zeal for altering fundamental doctrines, have also demonstrated an irresistible intransigence to any form of structural change. Litigation, the assertion of diocesan property rights, threats to clergy licenses by liberal bishops are thinly veiled exercises of coercive power, censorship and control. A realigned Anglicanism must reverse this centralization of control by empowering congregations to decide ministry succession, how and where ministers are trained, and for there to be an amicable property settlement. Certainly congregations cannot accept the spiritual oversight of a bishop who is out of communion with the catholic and apostolic faith.

b. Money

One of the most prominent expressions of koinonia in the NT is the willingness to share financial resources. The early church is marked by this fellowship in finances first within their congregation and then beyond. 33 Giving money is more than a calculated act of charity, it is a demonstration of spiritual partnership, of koinonia. Paul calls the collection of money for the saints in Jerusalem from Christians in Achaia and Macedonia ‘the koinonia,’ 34 explaining that ‘Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem; they were pleased to do it, and indeed they are in debt to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.’ 35

There are two simple implications for biblically orthodox Anglicans.

The first is that they cannot contribute financially to bodies that approve the blessing of same sex unions. If same sex behavior is contrary to God’s will, and if we are warned not to have koinonia with the unfruitful works of darkness, and if contributing finances is a key expression of koinonia, it is impossible to see how funds given by orthodox congregations can be paid to revisionist bodies for revisionist projects.

The second implication is more difficult. The Anglican leaders who have been clearest and most outspoken for biblical orthodoxy are almost all from the global south. The differences in wealth and possessions between congregations in North America and those in Africa and Asia are staggering. Yet at great personal cost, in the face of tremendous opposition and suffering, bishops and primates from the global south have given extraordinary time and energy to love, care for, visit, defend, protect and inspire biblically orthodox Anglicans in North America. In return they have been vilified, dismissed and accused of being ignorant. They have demonstrated themselves cheerful victims of astonishing prejudice, discrimination and intolerance by biblically revisionist leaders in the USA and Canada. Their care is a demonstration of true koinonia. A realignment of Anglicanism will require biblically orthodox Anglicans in North America to submit to the wisdom of global south leaders and to give generous, sacrificial financial support.

c. Mission

The NT reveals that there is a living and indispensable link between koinonia and mission. The events of the last few years have exposed two different missions, two different koinonias under the umbrella of Anglicanism. The issue of the blessing of same sex unions is symptomatic of the two missions. Liberals believe it is a gospel issue for them to affirm, approve and consecrate same sex behavior as part of their mission: evangelicals believe it is a gospel issue for them to proclaim forgiveness and freedom in Christ from all sin, including homosexual conduct. Moral neutrality on issues which the Scripture reveals with clarity is cowardly, self-deceiving and disobedient. The desire to avoid conflict and confrontation is good and godly but not if it means calling evil good and good evil, putting darkness for light and light for darkness. 36

There are now two competing unities in Anglicanism: one regards Scripture as God’s sovereign word written, the other as the repository of the symbols of our faith; one names Christ as the unique and only savior of the world—meaning there is salvation in no-one else, the other sees Christ as the unique savior for them only. One sees mission primarily in terms of the proclamation of the gospel, of conversion to Christ from sin through repentance and faith, of lifelong growing discipleship, of presenting people mature in Christ for the last judgment. The other sees mission in terms of extending the church (meaning ‘denomination’), of making the world a better place, of providing religious services, of helping people connect with their inherent spirituality, of affirming people in their lifestyle preferences, of boldly reflecting the cultural zeitgeist of tolerance, pluralism and inclusivity. Liberals see the evangelical gospel as simplistic and fundamentalistic, evangelicals see the liberal gospel as compromising and antibiblical.

The two missions are irreconcilable. There is no basis for koinonia between them. You cannot throw a blanket of structural communion over two different gospels. In Matthew 28 the risen Jesus asserted that all authority in heaven and earth had been given to him. ‘Therefore,’ he went on, ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ 37 Mission involves making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Holy Trinity. It demands relations with the community of believers through baptism and obedience to everything Jesus commanded.

For the sake of the gospel, for the sake of koinonia, it is time for Anglicans to realign. Jesus is still building his church.

David Short – May 2004.

___________________

Footnotes

1 The Eames Commission: The Official Reports (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1994). p. 21.

2 The Virginia Report: The Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission (London: Partnership House, 1997).

3 There are four such ‘instruments:’ the Anglican Consultative Council, the global primates meeting, the Lambeth conferences for bishops from every Anglican province, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

4 e.g. Luke 5:10.

5 Eames, p.14, Virginia, 2.3.

6 1 John 1:3.

7 1 Cor.1:9. The writer to the Hebrews uses a slightly weaker synonym for koinonia in Heb. 3:14 when he says: ‘For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.’

8 2 Cor.13:14.

9 1 John 2:23, 2John 9.

10 1 John 5:12, 2John 9.

11 Jude 19, Rom. 8:9.

12 Phil. 3:10.

13 2 Cor. 1:7.

14 1 Pet. 4:13. See also Heb. 10:33, 1 Pet. 5:1, Rev. 1:9.

15 Rom. 11:17.

16 2 Cor. 8:23.

17 Philemon 17.

18 Acts 2:42.

19 Metecho — virtually synonymous with koinonia.

20 Eph. 5:11.

21 1 Tim. 5:22.

22 1 John 1:6,7.

23 John 13:8.

24 2 John 9-11, notice ‘have God.’

25 Eames, p. 23.

26 1 Cor. 6:9-11.

27 Perhaps more helpful is the Lambeth-Quadrilateral insisting on the Scriptures, the creeds, the apostolic ministry and the sacraments as the basis for unity.

28 John Woodhouse, ‘Christian Unity and Denominations’: Matthias Media website 2004.

29 Eames, p. 17.

30 1 Cor. 5:9-11.

31 J. C. Ryle, Charges and Addresses (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1978) p. 69. Quoted in J. I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002) p. 50.

32 Dr. Robert Crouse, The Essence of Anglicanism; http://www.anglicanessentials.org/. Crouse adds, ‘nothing of it should be attributed, as is sometimes done, to Richard Hooker, who thinks quite otherwise.’

33 Acts 2:44, 4:32.

34 2 Cor. 9:13.

35 Rom. 15:26, 27.

36 Isa. 5:20.

37 Matt. 28:18-20.

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