Ecclesiology: A Reformed Understanding of the Church

Even if Dr. Runcie was encouraged to say what he did by evangelical leaders, his words express very well the Anglo-catholic perception of evangelicals: that we have no doctrine of the church, we simply believe in individual salvation and in voluntary attendance at worship for the purpose of individual edification. There is some truth in this charge, but only if it is aimed at certain parts of the evangelical movement, which are in fact caricatures of true evangelical or reformed Anglicanism. However it is those strands of evangelicalism, weak on their doctrine of the church, which are most prominent in what the Archbishop calls ‘the current evangelical renewal in the Church of England.’ And it is becoming increasingly common and fashionable for leaders and members of the doctrinally weak and individualistic new evangelicalism to see and to say that they need a doctrine of the church. This is why Dr. Runcie’s words were so welcome to many at Caister, and so necessary—even though they could have seemed almost offensive to those with a longer evangelical pedigree who have and rejoice in a much better developed and more biblical doctrine of the church than anything seen in Anglo- or Roman Catholicism.

Let us not be conned: if we go back to our roots in the Old and New Testaments, in the early fathers, in the English church, in the protestant reformation and the puritan movement, in the evangelical revival, the modern missionary movement and in this century the Inter-Varsity Fellowship and the Universities and Christian Colleges Fellowship, we will find an exciting and adequate doctrine of the church. Of course if we focus on just part of our heritage we will be weak on some aspects of ecclesiology, and if we imagine there is nothing more for God to teach us we will be arrogant and foolish.

But the danger—and it is a very real one—is that our new evangelical brothers and sisters, by and large ignorant of the doctrinal treasures which are theirs as evangelical Anglicans, will look for a satisfying ecclesiology and accept the modern liberal-catholic-ecumenical consensus doctrine, which will appear better than nothing. It is up to us to ensure that this does not happen, both by teaching afresh the truths that are ours in Christ, and by challenging what has become the orthodox establishment ecclesiology but is in fact a slow poison to any evangelical and reformed church. Read more