The Church of England in Crisis

http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1470

[Banner of Truth Trust] 29 Aug 2008--The above heading should give no satisfaction to any evangelical Christian. Some of the finest literature in the evangelical heritage comes from gospel ministers of the Church of England, and a considerable number of evangelicals continue to belong to that denomination today. The crisis to which we refer has arisen from more than one direction; one major cause has been the fact that no discipline has been exercised within the Anglican communion (led by the Archbishop of Canterbury) on the Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church USA for their allowance of practising homosexual clergy. This has prompted the withdrawal of some evangelicals from these sections of Anglicanism and their realignment with the Province of the South Cone (which covers six South American countries), whose Primate, Archbishop Gregory Venables, remains in communion with Canterbury. By this means the disaffected — of whom Dr Jim Packer is the best known — support their claim to remain Anglican.

Justification for this procedure requires a re-examination of what it means to be ‘Anglican’. The historic definition has treated membership in the Church of England as adherence to the Church as by law established in Britain, under the sovereign as ‘Supreme Governor’ and in communion with the See of Canterbury. As the denomination spread into the Dominions, and the overseas provinces ceased to be simply colonial attachments, the definition has been slowly modified. In June of this year, however, a step was taken to redefine ‘Anglican’ in a fundamental manner. Some 1,200 Anglican delegates, including Archbishops Venables (South Cone), Akinola (Nigeria), Orombi (Uganda) and Jensen (Sydney), met at Jerusalem, and took the name ‘GAFCON’ (Global Anglican Future Conference). The primary aim was ‘to promote the gospel as we Anglicans have received it’; this included adhering to the name ‘Anglican’ while disowning large numbers identified with that title and perhaps even Canterbury itself.2 The proposal that emerged was the formation of a new structure which would stand for genuine Anglicanism, that is, for the ‘tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican Identity’. For this purpose the Primates attending the Jerusalem gathering were encouraged to ‘form a Council’.

Within weeks of the Jerusalem Conference the majority of the General Synod of the Church of England, meeting in York, while not directly addressing the GAFCON proposal, determined that nothing like it would be acceptable. At that Synod a motion that clergy be allowed to remove themselves from the oversight of female bishops (whose existence is now in view), to be under the oversight of another diocese, was decisively rejected. No such accommodation is to be allowed. Evangelicals, however, were not seen as the main sufferers from this decision. It was Anglo-Catholic clergy who took the lead in resisting the appointment of female bishops; many evangelicals voted with them, not necessarily because they were against female bishops, but because the Anglo-Catholics represent ‘orthodox Christology and morality’ and were therefore judged worthy of support.