A Confused ‘Covenant’

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Initial comments on 'A Covenant for the Church of England', issued by Paul Perkin and Chris Sugden and others by the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright

I am surprised that this document ('A Covenant for the Church of England', hereafter CCE) has been issued, and sorry that its clear grasp of some issues is not matched by clarity or wisdom on others. I fully understand what the Bishop of Rochester has referred to as the 'strength of feeling' which it demonstrates, but could wish that this had been matched by strength of thinking, both in the strategic decision to make this move at this time and in the detail of much of the document.

I speak as an 'evangelical'. I haven't actually changed my relevant opinions since I used to be a 'conservative evangelical' (which used to be defined in terms of the classic views of scripture and the cross), and regret the way in which that term has now been redefined around different, narrow and (in my view) slanted opinions. It gives me no pleasure, and indeed considerable grief, to disagree with Paul Perkin, Chris Sugden and the others who have drafted and signed the document. I count them as old friends, and share a good deal of theological and ethical common ground with them. I have frequently urged them to hold on and support those of us who are working for a biblical, theologically orthodox and Spirit-driven transformation of both the C of E and the Anglican Communion. Despite their protestations, I am bound to see this move as a cynical stab in the side from people I thought were friends and allies - and who, when it suits them, have tried to invoke me as such in return. I am really sorry to have to say this, but I and some others have tried to explain this to them before, more than once, and since they clearly haven't heard the point maybe it needs to be said more bluntly. I have no desire to offend, but I do hope to be heard.

The question of how the new document came to be, and who it actually represents, is an interesting one. I am not versed in the labyrinthine politics of current evangelical subgroupings. But the group of signatories (the Rev David Banting, Chair of Reform; Rev John Coles, Director of New Wine Networks; Rev Paul Perkin, Member of General Synod; Rev David Phillips, Director of Church Society; Rev Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbes' Oxford; Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Executive Secretary, Anglican Mainstream; Rev William Taylor, Rector of St Helen's Bishopsgate; Rev Dr Richard Turnbull, Chair of the Church of England Evangelical Council; and Rev Dr Simon Vibert, Chair of the Fellowship of Word and Spirit) with Paul Perkin and Chris Sugden as their apparent leaders, do not seem to have consulted very fully the bodies they are taken to represent. That makes me wonder whether the other leaders have consulted the people they claim to speak for (a claim apparently believed by the Daily Telegraph).

Certainly a large swathe of evangelical opinion within the Church of England - represented, for instance, by Anvil, Alpha, AWESOME, Fulcrum and Grove - was not consulted. It looks as though the authors are hoping that the members of their organizations will not dare to challenge them, though when we work through the document we find plenty of reasons why they should. Not least, it should be said, in that the document is a slipshod piece of work simply at the drafting level; I have been assured that it took a year to write, but it reads as though someone put it together hastily on the back of a few envelopes, and didn't trouble to stand back and reflect on it. I was also assured by one of the authors that the proposals were for 'strictly temporary' arrangements, but there is nothing - not one squeak - in the document that indicates that, and indeed every sign that what is intended is a new, permanent arrangement.

Finally, it has been put to me that what the document is doing is to signal support and affirmation to those parishes that feel themselves to be under attack by unsympathetic bishops. But if that was the aim, it's odd that the document makes no reference to it; and it looks strongly as though this was the excuse for running with an agenda which is precisely not defensive, but rather aggressive.

So to the details.

  1. The first thing to say is that this is an odd time to issue a document like this. The Windsor process is reaching its critical moment, with the Primates' meeting coming up in two months, and Lambeth invitations expected within a year. The leadership of the Communion - supremely, of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) but with many others around him - needs our prayers and support that he and they may follow through with Windsor, which has been massively supported both in the Church of England, by the Primates at Dromantine, and in much of the worldwide communion (of which Windsor's drafters were of course representative). A group has been set up to draft the 'Covenant' which Windsor envisaged - chaired, at the request of the ABC, by Drexel Gomez from the West Indies. The debate about what sort of a 'covenant' Windsor envisaged, and what sort the ongoing process really requires (these are not necessarily the same thing) is well under way. Some on the left, sensing disaster, are already trying to call down a plague on all covenants. But with the ABC holding firm to the Windsor line (which is basically that, since the Communion cannot afford another debacle like 2003-2006, we are bound to develop ways of working together which will enable us to avoid such a thing, even if many of us would prefer not to have to), this is the moment for patience, for holding on. It is a time to stand firm on the high theological and ecclesiological ground of The Windsor Report, not for posturing and throwing toys out of the cot.
  2. Second, therefore, calling the present document a 'covenant' is bizarre, for three reasons.
    1. It neither mentions, nor bears any relation to the likely form or content of, the 'covenant' envisaged by Windsor. This is bound to be confusing, and indicates perhaps that, despite the Primates' endorsement of The Windsor Report and its playing out in terms of the 'Covenant' drafting group under Archbishop Gomez, the drafters of the present document have lost interest in the whole process and are intent on doing their own thing - thus exemplifying in their chosen strategy the muddled ecclesiology stated within the document (see below).
    2. A covenant is normally an agreement between two or more people, bringing them together for some purpose. Though no doubt the drafters/signers of CCE have come together from slightly different positions, the document reads more like what it manifestly is: a political position-statement, a sabre-rattling call to arms, a half promise and a not-quite-veiled threat. There is little 'covenantal' about it - quite apart from the fact that, as (sadly) with much evangelical re-use of scriptural categories, there is no attempt whatever to engage with the scriptural notion of 'covenant', which might indeed have suggested some radical alteration to the theology and agenda of CCE. (For a very different treatment, see the document issued on the subject of 'covenant', with reference to the Windsor process, by the IATDC.)
    3. At its heart CCE is therefore not about finding a place where 'those who are not against us are for us', where all those of us who embrace biblical theology, the historic gospel, and the Spirit-led life of the church, can link arms and face down the troubles we confront. It is about the other dominical statement, 'those who are not with us are against us'. But among those who are thereby excluded are those of us who believe, on good biblical and theological grounds, that the ecclesiology and 'action plans' of CCE are at best sub-biblical, non-Anglican and (to be pragmatic for a moment, because CCE, for all its claim to high theological ground, is emphatically agenda-driven) unhelpful, both nationally and globally. (An aside: the document claims the support of 'a number of Anglo-Catholic leaders', but I find it hard to imagine that such people would welcome the pragmatic and sectarian ecclesiology that forms the real thrust of the document. I suspect the claim simply means, 'we've spoken to one or two Anglo-Catholics and told them we are asking for our own PEVs and they've said 'good idea'.)
  3. The Preamble to the document states that we are currently faced with 'a faulty view of revelation' and 'false teaching'. Nobody familiar with Anglican history, particularly in the last fifty years, would deny that there is plenty of both (though, surprisingly, CCE is coy about explaining what it means by 'a faulty view of revelation'; presumably it means 'a displacement of the Bible as the authoritative word of God', but it's not clear why it doesn't say that, or what else it might mean if not that). The same is true, in different degrees, of every single Christian denomination, and would be true of the new denomination that the authors of CCE look as if they want to found. But the puzzle is: why now, why this? Faulty views of revelation, coupled with false teaching, have been characteristic of the C of E for many generations. When the CCE authors were students, theology was dominated by people like Maurice Wiles and Denis Nineham; the 1970s report Christian Believing was probably the all-time low water mark of Anglican 'thinking'; The Myth of God Incarnate gave a similar picture. That might have been the time to protest - and some of us did, and have continued to do so not least in the normal Anglican way, by preaching the gospel and out-thinking bad theology with good. Granted, some of today's leaders were trained in that period and still bear the marks of the relativism and sub-biblical teaching they received. And, granted, similar teaching is still offered in some colleges and many parishes. But the crucial thing is that the doctrine and teaching of the C of E has not changed. General Synod has not voted to replace the Bible with the novels of Iris Murdoch, or to affirm Jesus' non-resurrection; however much some Anglicans flirt with the first and insist on the second, the church officially stands where it always did. What's more, as all bishops know well, most of the places where there is growth and new life are churches which preach the true and lively gospel of Jesus Christ and teach, in some form or other, the classic theology which undergirds and sustains it.

    Thus CCE is, in fact, addressed to a church which

    1. still affirms the centrality and authority of scripture as the God-given vehicle of the sovereign rule of God in Jesus Christ over his church and in its mission to the world;
    2. still firmly, cheerfully and in many places creatively teaches the great truths of Trinity, incarnation, atonement, resurrection, eschatology and the personal application of all these through the Spirit;
    3. has in its bishops (not only a surprising number who hold basically evangelical views, but) a very large number who, despite various disagreements, join in these broad affirmations and live and teach accordingly Of course some bishops push a 'radical' line on some issues. That has always been the case.

    Why the sudden separatism now?

  4. CCE then mentions 'indiscipline'. True, discipline is currently a problem. But again, as anyone who has lived through the last three years knows, there have been repeated efforts to revise the church's disciplinary codes and practices, and these have become much, much more difficult because of Human Rights legislation, the European courts, and so forth. And because (I cannot forbear to note) of the attitude taken precisely by some leading evangelicals: when proposals for new disciplinary measures came to the York General Synod in summer 2004, voices were raised against them in the influential Evangelical Group on General Synod (EGGS) on the grounds that - liberal bishops might use the new disciplinary system to clamp down on evangelicals who weren't using proper liturgies! As if. Result: we are faced with a new and different CDM, and those of us who are supposed to be exercising discipline have a very difficult time at the purely legal level. It is heavily ironic to see the charge of indiscipline coming from the same quarters as the 'action plans' in CCE - not to mention the actual actions taken in recent years. CCE wants bishops to discipline those they disagree with, but wants to be free of episcopal jurisdiction in all other respects. Grant the latter, and, my friends, you can whistle for the former.
  5. I agree with the implied premise, that the root problem we face in the Anglican Communion is one of deeply faulty theology. But this is not essentially, certainly not uniquely, an English problem, however much bad theology may have taken root in some parts of our system (though not, yet, in any official formulations or Synod-adopted reforms) - and CCE, though one might have expected it to refer to the wider Anglican Communion, is supposedly 'for the Church of England'. The problem is basically an American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) one, since in ECUSA/TEC there have been specific and apparently binding resolutions of General Convention, and actions in various dioceses, which explicitly and demonstrably go against the unambiguous teaching of the Lambeth Conference, the ACC and the Primates. That is where we should be concentrating. (Granted, other provinces such as Scotland have said they are in sympathy with TEC, and of course many in our own church want to push hard in the same direction; but so far nobody else has changed their church's official position down that line. Yes, 'facts on the ground' have been created in various places; but the way to deal with that problem is to hold the high moral ground of proper process and appropriate structures, not to create new extra-legal 'facts on the ground' in turn, and to throw due process and structure out of the window.)
  6. This brings us to the section headed 'Our Identity' - an interesting place to start, one might think, for a group of evangelicals who supposedly believe that 'we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants through Jesus' (2 Corinthians 4:5). Curiously, there is nothing in the statement of identity, or of the gospel, that even mentions Jesus (another sign of hasty drafting, I fear). Instead, the authors identify themselves as 'members of the Church of England' (which, though true, doesn't get us very far), 'part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church' (though they will later cast doubt on something which most who have used that formulation for the last two millennia, including almost all Anglicans, have insisted upon, namely a (dare I say) 'normal' view of episcopacy), and that they share with others throughout the world a commitment to the biblical truths on which the Anglican Communion is based. This latter statement, like the others, is actually not much use in identifying them, since the great majority of members of the Church of England, and I think every single bishop, would heartily and ex animo affirm exactly the same. This 'identity' statement is thus either redundant or duplicitous, since what the authors appear to mean is 'our view of biblical truth is superior to all others, so that we possess an inside track on the real meaning of Anglicanism'; but since they don't identify anything more specific we are left to fill in the blanks. The authors are, in other words, claiming the high moral ground of 'we are the genuine Anglicans', while surreptitiously refusing to say what their real distinctives are (a sub-branch within classic evangelicalism, heavily dependent on some highly contestable readings of scripture and tradition, and consciously excluding many others who use the label 'evangelical' with an equal right and good conscience), and while preparing to rule out the historic Anglican understanding of church order (see below).
  7. This latter point is immediately relevant to the statement 'this is what guarantees our fellowship with Anglicans historically and globally'. Not so. What guarantees our fellowship with one another through space and time (not that the authors worry much about time, or indeed about geography, as we shall see) is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the communion with the Father which we thus share (1 John 1:3). Our commitment to biblical truth (which here, sadly, seems clearly to mean 'our commitment to our understanding of the Bible') ought to be seen as part of our response to God's grace in Christ and the Spirit, and that response neither guarantees nor grounds our fellowship. But when we pose the question this way, we are back with the question of Anglican ecclesiology - which as we shall see the authors want to revise, or perhaps we should say subvert and effectively abandon.
  8. This introduces a short statement of the Christian gospel: 'the love and grace of God in the gospel saves and converts individuals to a relationship with God, introduces people to life in the Spirit, and draws members into the Body of Christ.' This is at one level unexceptional. Most Anglicans (including most bishops) would say 'Well, yes'. But if this is all one is going to say, there are various puzzles. I have already pointed out the complete absence of any statement about Jesus (yes, they would say they're taking this for granted; but what sort of a document is this meant to be?). Equally worrying is the resolute opening statement of individualism, couched in classic evangelical-modernist terms: 'individuals' coming into a 'relationship' with God. Let's be clear: of course each person must answer for themselves, must come to personal faith. But that (especially when reduced to the shabby 60s language of 'relationship') is not the centre, or the full width, of the biblical gospel. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself; God's purpose was to sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. The challenge to each person comes, as Ephesians makes clear, within that larger framework. And when the authors write that the love and grace of God in the gospel 'draws members into the Body of Christ', the teacher feels his red pen jumping out of his pocket at the slapdash writing: are they already members of the Body before they are drawn into it? Surely they mean 'draws people into membership of the Body of Christ'...and what is this 'Body', anyway? Wait and see, is the authors' answer: it turns out to be not the church as envisaged within classic Anglicanism or indeed classic Pauline theology, but the free agglomeration of a bunch of individuals. Rather like the authorship of CCE, in fact.
  9. The results of the gospel are listed as 'holiness of life, unity in the Spirit, and life-giving and life-transforming mission'. Once again, we say, 'Well, yes', and note that virtually every Christian, certainly every Anglican (including a great number whom these authors would want to exclude) would agree. Once again, the statement is either redundant or duplicitous. What it must mean (but has decided not to say) is holiness of life in our understanding; unity in the Spirit on our terms; life-giving and life-transforming mission in our sense of 'mission', not the one embraced by many who sit humbly under scripture. It is hard to critique a document which doesn't say what it manifestly means, except to point out its inadequacies even as the kind of position statement its authors clearly hope it will be.
  10. The document therefore commits its authors to 'spreading the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ, making disciples who make disciples of Christ, and reviving existing and planting new churches.' I am all in favour of spreading the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ, though I have observed over the years that people who say this often mean 'continuing to do and say what we did and said fifty years ago', whereas I have also noticed that God has constantly been shedding more light from his word and that this has enabled faithful Christian people to address the very new culture we now inhabit in ways that were unthinkable in 1956. The middle phrase is odd, but I suppose it means 'training people to become evangelists in turn.' Fair enough. When it comes to reviving existing churches, I am of course all in favour, and I don't think I know anyone - well, maybe the odd muddled person here and there - who would disagree. Most of us bishops spend much of our time trying to revive existing churches, and one of the things you learn in doing so is that it doesn't happen by bullying and threatening. But then they mention 'planting new churches'. That of course opens various cans of worms. I could unfold a tale or two of church-planting. There is healthy planting, and there is unhealthy. Not everything which calls itself 'planting' is legitimated by Mission-Shaped Church or the 'Fresh Expressions' movement.
  11. There then follows an interesting little note: 'we wait for heaven to belong to a pure and perfect church - indeed, we confess our own guilty part in the church's present failings.' I would love to know what they see as 'their own guilty part', since I would regard this document as falling into that category and presumably they don't mean that! In addition, it's a shame they carry on with the sub-biblical use of 'heaven' where scripture would nudge them to saying 'the new heavens and new earth'. That's a whole other topic for another day, though I note that a 'purely heavenly' view of the ultimate future (ie ignoring Ephesians 1:10, Revelation 21-22, and perhaps above all Romans 8:18-26) does tend to go with the 'invisible' ecclesiology which CCE so strongly advocates. Not to mention the decidedly apolitical (though in fact resolutely political!) 'gospel' which screens out, and indeed labels as heretical, all attempts to announce the kingdom of God before the powers of the world, and to take seriously the preamble to the 'great commission', in which Jesus claims all authority not only in heaven but also on earth. One of our big problems right now is the collusion of certain types of Christianity with the split-level culture of late modernity, and this document gives plenty of evidence of that cultural captivity (of which, of course, in other respects it accuses its opponents).
  12. CCE then quotes Canon A5 and the Preface to the Declaration of Assent (though missing out the bit which says that the church is 'called upon to proclaim [the gospel] afresh in each generation'), following with two sentences which are again cryptic to the point of redundancy. First, 'this is what the C of E confesses and true unity belongs in this common confession.' Does this mean that 'true unity' is not to be found in some other location where other people think it resides? It isn't clear, but as the document goes on it seems to mean 'unity is a function of this common confession rather than church structures'. At one level this is all well and good. In Galatians 2 the doctrine of justification by faith means precisely that all those who believe in Jesus belong at the same table - in other words, that unity flows from the common confession that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. But the unity in question is there the very concrete one of a community that eats together, whereas the unity spoken of in this document seems to mean the 'invisible church' beloved of some protestants, which results, as the history of the last four hundred years has shown, in a succession of splits and schisms. It is all very well then to say that 'it is departure from this common faith that is responsible for causing schism'. It will not only be cynics, or those committed on other grounds to disagreeing with the doctrinal and ethical stance of these authors, who will read the rest of the document and declare that these authors are planning schism and are doing so precisely through flawed doctrine, in this case the biblical doctrine of the church.
  13. So to 'action'. This is divided into five areas: mission, appointments, fellowship, money and oversight. I am delighted that this document begins with mission; one of the great gains of the last decade has been to shift the whole church into a mission focus. But the six points made under 'mission' seem scatty and uneven, and turn out not to be about mission as such - indeed, it has nothing creative to say about mission at all, and appears to lack any engagement with the fresh and lively thinking on the subject that has gone on in the last decade or two - but about the politics of a 'mission' which wants to clone certain types of churches at the cost, if necessary, of driving a coach and horses through normal Anglican life. The first point, quoting the 'great commission', is fine so far as it goes, though what sort of renewed force it has in our post-Christian society is not explored. If it had been, quite different things might have emerged. Instead, we are projected at once into what appears to be the real agenda of the whole document: a break away from any normal ecclesial practice and into a free-for-all. This is justified by the claim that 'as is being increasingly recognized [by whom, we might ask?], the historic focus [clergy, buildings, etc]...is now inadequate by itself...etc' - in other words, we can't do what we want in the existing structures so we shall go elsewhere. The third point, which is put in quotation marks though without a reference ('Existing ecclesiastical legal boundaries should be seen as permeable') is not, in this context, a way of saying 'we are working within the framework of Mission-Shaped Church, but is rather, in this context, a way of saying, 'we intend to plant churches wherever we like and claim that they are Anglican'. This becomes clear in the fourth point: 'there cannot be any no-go areas for gospel growth and church planting'. Here, I'm afraid - and this is not a cynical interpretation, but the reflection of a reality I have witnessed - 'gospel growth' means 'the spread of our particular type of church'. The attempt to hook this agenda back into the official parlance of the contemporary church ('we will support mission-shaped expressions of church...') is disingenuous, as becomes clear in the final clause, 'even when official permission is unreasonably withheld.' The report in question was quite clear that mission-shaped church doesn't mean 'churches which do their own thing and cock a snook at any bishop who questions them'. But that, alas, has sometimes been the reality.
  14. But the real shocker is the next section, 'Appointments'. This begins with a breathtaking statement of congregationalism: 'The local congregation is the initial and key seed-bed for recognizing, authorizing, raising up and releasing new leaders.' Recognising, perhaps. Raising up, quite possibly. Authorizing? Not within any recognizable Anglican polity. The authors should read Article 23 once more: 'It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's vineyard.' The rest of the Articles make it clear that 'Congregation' here cannot mean 'the local church, doing its own thing'. The following sentences (points 2-6) concede that wider recognition and authorization are needed, but say, in effect, 'since we don't trust the church to select, train and ordain, we'll do it ourselves.' Fine, if that's what you want to do; don't pretend it's Anglican, and don't be surprised when Anglicans, including a great many evangelicals, regard you as radically out of line. It is no surprise, reading the seventh point ('If the local Bishop unreasonably withholds authorization, we will pay for, train and commission the ministers that are needed, and seek official Anglican recognition for them'), that the two principal authors of this report were present and supportive at the irregular ordinations - with a bishop from the 'Church of England in South Africa', a body with whom the Church of England is not in communion - which took place in the Southwark diocese a year or so ago. Basically, this section is a way of declaring UDI and must be seen as such. Is that really what the constituency of CEEC and the other relevant bodies want? Have they reflected on the consequences of such a move - not least for those of us who don't live in the affluent parts of the country where 'we will pay for this' is a cheerful, sometimes even arrogant, statement of social status?
  15. The next section, 'fellowship', is a further clear statement of secessionist intent. Nobody would deny that there are polarizations taking place within our church, as within others (though whether these are quite so easily characterized as they are here is open to doubt). In particular, the idea that 'church structures' are part of the wicked, liberal, anti-Bible, culture-shaped theology is very odd, since historically the great orthodox teachers have seen church structures (episcopacy, dioceses, and so on) as a deep-rooted element within the overall faith. Indeed, at this point the 'orthodoxy' of these authors appears itself to be distressingly damaged by the same western secular culture they decry when it shows up in their opponents. (This would take too long to spell out here, but is worth a lot of further reflection: the rejection of geography goes with an Enlightenment-driven disdain for 'place' and its significance, and ultimately colludes with a radical dualism...). The paragraph then moves into threatening mode: 'we can no longer associate with teaching...contrary to...scripture...or church leadership which advocates such teaching.' Fine: from now on everyone can and will do that which is right in his own eyes. (This is easier, of course, if you have the resources to afford such independence: see below.) And that way, as we all know, lies split after split, schism upon schism. This is already indicated in the last line, about respecting and supporting 'those who cannot in good conscience maintain Christian fellowship with neighbouring Anglicans who do not uphold the authority of scripture.' Sadly, this kind of rhetoric translates, at local level, into, 'neighbouring Anglicans who believe that it's OK for a woman to lead a Bible study with men in the group', and similar detailed 'application' of 'authority of scripture'. If I saw any serious wrestling here with what 'authority of scripture' actually means, rather than simply using it as a shorthand for 'our particular theology, which we assume is what the Bible teaches' (I could amplify this!), I'd be happier. But I don't. We need to remind ourselves that there are some positions taken in good conscience which need to be challenged. Consciences need to be informed by prayerful, wise teaching (as this group would quickly insist if someone told them that in conscience they felt bound to support Civil Partnerships!). To teach impressionable people that they must hold a particular interpretation of some biblical texts and then, having seared their consciences on the matter, to say 'we must support those whose consciences say this, or that', is to use the sensitivities of others to boost one's own political position.
  16. The next section is Money. More threats. And unbiblical, too. Imagine this letter: "From Martinus, presbyter in Corinth, to Paul, our one-time apostle; we hear that you are coming to us to take a collection on behalf of - those false believers, those Jewish 'Christians', those works-righteousness people you warned us about! Surely 'funds are expected to be directed towards the churches and causes in line with the beliefs and expectations of those who give'? You're in dereliction of duty, Paul. Maybe your Jewish roots are resurfacing after all! We can no longer support ministries or structures we deem inappropriate. Don't bother coming back to Corinth; we shall give generously to those ministries that 'share the same values'. Grace be with you (and it had better be, otherwise you're in trouble)."
  17. The real problem - speaking from one of the poorest dioceses in the country - is this. I'm truly sorry to say it but it must be heard. The threat in question looks arrogant and self-serving. Of course the churches represented by the authors and signatories are well off. Goldman Sachs is well off - it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing God's will all the time! Of course there are failing churches with corrupt and heretical clergy; and we bishops spend a lot of time trying to turn those situations around, and deeply regret in some cases throwing good money after bad. But there are also a good many parishes in areas of high unemployment and deep post-industrial depression, where with the best ministry and the soundest gospel they struggle to pay a small parish share, and need to be helped by richer neighbours in the smarter areas of the diocese. When, and only when, the church networks represented by these signatories show that they're prepared to leave their wealthy enclaves and support churches who (all right, may not be aware of the finer intellectual points of the gospel, but who) are living the gospel on the street day after day - then I might take them seriously.
  18. Lastly, 'oversight'. There is an irony here. When I was young, evangelicals got on with preaching the gospel and teaching the faith, and didn't bother from one year's end to the next whether the bishop was onside theologically or not. They cheerfully imported missionary bishops to do confirmations most of the time; they didn't want or need 'oversight' to be 'available' and to be of exactly the right theological stripe. Now, despite the extreme congregationalism of this document, we discover that we need 'episcopal oversight for the sake of God's mission' (why, on their theology?) - but it must (of course!) be biblically orthodox; and so, despite the fact that all ministry (according to the earlier section) must be grown and authorized locally, everyone must now have bishops to suit their own liking. Yes, there is a crisis over the fundamentals of revealed truth. Yes, there is a crisis over some pressing moral issues of our day (don't I know it). But the new mood of intolerance, and of crying 'victim' just because someone disagrees with you (welcome to postmodern culture, refracted through would-be evangelical pietism!), means that now some 'justifiably consider that their communion with their bishop is impaired', who need support, help and alternative oversight. If there was the slightest hint that the authors knew what 'being in communion' with one's bishop, let alone 'impaired communion', really meant, this might be more interesting: I don't recall anyone in the classic evangelicalism of even twenty years ago ever using such phrases, though goodness knows there were dodgy bishops around here and there, more so in fact than now. As it is, this statement is simply as a way of saying, 'We want to run the Church of England in our own way, and we're going to throw the crockery around the room until we're allowed to do so.'
  19. The final flourish states, again, things which no loyal Anglican is going to disagree with. Praying and working for restoration, reformation and renewal of the Church of England is what I do for a living. Holding to orthodox convictions about scripture, the cross and the Spirit is basic to everything I am, believe and try to do. But that is not what this document is about. It is a power-play, claiming support from various groups that haven't had a proper chance even to debate it, claiming also to speak for 'evangelicals' but calculated to marginalize a good many, like myself, who cherish that label and yield to none in our allegiance to Jesus crucified and risen and to scripture as God's utterly trustworthy word.
  20. All this is deeply sad, and I am sad and sorry to have to write this. There are enormous issues going forward in the Anglican Communion, and this document will not help us to address them, let alone solve them. Rather the reverse: it will polarize opinion in deeply unhelpful ways, leaving many in the church to suppose that 'all evangelicals' think like this, and so driving many in the centre ground, who properly should be allies in the larger battles we face, into the arms of the liberals and radicals. This document is not a 'covenant' in any meaningful sense, except perhaps a covenant with chaos. This is a dark time, and in this Advent season all we can do is wait in the dark in prayer and faith.
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