Evangelical Relics?

by James Mercer

The intriguing arrival of the much-travelled mortal remains of an obscure French Carmelite nun at Westminster Cathedral prompted a mischievous memory of two other arcane relics - both evangelical ‘relics’. Both reside (presumably they are still there) within a theological college in Cambridge. To view one of them involves climbing a dark, almost forgotten staircase and entering a room where, on top of a rickety shelf, stacked chaotically with old papers and sepia photographs, lies the furled umbrella famously carried around Cambridge by the Anglican divine Charles Simeon. The life and ministry of the great nineteenth century Cambridge evangelical is remembered and celebrated within the Common Worship lectionary on November 13. Simeon’s pioneering ministry of preaching, teaching and social outreach set a standard of bold, socially engaged Gospel ministry that has left its mark on the city to this day. Charles Simeon appointed his protégé, John Venn as Vicar of St Peter’s in Hereford. John Venn in his turn pursued a challenging, socially engaged ministry with Hereford. Credit unions were established, flour mills constructed, soup kitchens organised, schools founded. A practical, creative Gospel of care that truly was good news to the poor embraced the people of Hereford. That legacy too continues into the present day.

The other ‘relic’ is a sit-up-and-beg bicycle, with an almost certainly mythological association with John Stott. This was to be found among the cobwebs in a dank, murky, underground bike shed. An extract from Roger Steer’s book ‘Inside Story: the life of John Stott’, citing Stott’s critical declaration of ‘history being against Dr Lloyd-Jones’ at the Methodist Central Hall in 1966, won more page coverage in the Church Times last week than the blessed St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

John Stott in the second half of the Twentieth Century, arguably, stands alongside Simeon in the Nineteenth Century, in terms of influence on the understanding of mission and an evangelicalism that seeks to change and transform society. It is intriguing therefore to re-read John Stott’s perspectives on the task of the church in the early Twentieth First Century. In an interview published in ‘Christianity Today’, recorded in 2006, John Stott challenges the church to recognise that people are looking for three qualities in life, which the church, at its best, can provide:

‘The first is transcendence. It's interesting in a so-called secular culture how many people are looking for something beyond. I find that a great challenge to the quality of our Christian worship. Does it offer people what they are instinctively looking for, which is transcendence, the reality of God?

The second is significance. Almost everybody is looking for his or her own personal identity. Who am I, where do I come from, where am I going to, what is it all about? That is a challenge to the quality of our Christian teaching. We need to teach people who they are. They don't know who they are. We do. They are human beings made in the image of God, although that image has been defaced.

And third is their quest for community. Everywhere, people are looking for community, for relationships of love. This is a challenge to our fellowship. I'm very fond of 1 John 4:12: "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us." The invisibility of God is a great problem to people. The question is how has God solved the problem of his own invisibility? First, Christ has made the invisible God visible. That's John's Gospel 1:18: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known."

People say that's wonderful, but it was 2,000 years ago. So in 1 John 4:12, he begins with exactly the same formula, nobody has ever seen God. But here John goes on, "If we love one another, God abides in us." The same invisible God who once made himself visible in Jesus now makes himself visible in the Christian community, if we love one another. And all the verbal proclamation of the gospel is of little value unless it is made by a community of love.

These three things about our humanity are on our side in our evangelism, because people are looking for the very things we have to offer them.

I believe that evangelism is especially through the local church, through the community, rather than through the individual. That the church should be an alternative society, a visible sign of the kingdom. And the tragedy is that our local churches often don’t seem to manifest community’

Transcendence (through worship), significance (knowing who, in Christ, we are) and community (the church as an alternative society) – how do we measure up? If such aspirations are not at the heart of what Anglican evangelicals are seeking to do, then we ourselves surely risk being a curious relic of a bygone age – yet unlikely to draw the crowds. Simeon and Venn embraced the challenges of their day with an energetic and rooted Gospel of change, relevance and social transformation. John Stott read the history of the moment and secured the legacy of a generous, enterprising, evangelical dynamic within the Church of England.

How, I wonder, will history judge our legacy?