The original question asked was, “Where is your church now, and where do you want the Anglican Church of Canada to be by 2019?” I take ‘my church’ to be the Anglican Church of Canada, rather than my parish church, St. George’s, Guelph, because I can say pretty confidently that where the ACC is, there is St. George’s, and where the ACC goes, St. George’s will follow. So I ask the question, “The Anglican Church Of Canada: Where Is It Now, And Where Do I Want It To Be By 2019?”
Where is it now? We have just come through a very painful and costly schism over the status of Same-Sex blessings, led by the bishop and diocese of New Westminster. I don’t wish to enter into the endless argument over this, except to say that the two camps have two ‘authorities’ on which they base their argument. The supreme authority of one is the Holy Spirit, the living Word in the world today, and leading us into all truth; the supreme authority of the other is the Holy Bible, the written word.
There are major distinguishing marks between these two. To one the Bible is a window through which we view Jesus Christ, our Lord; to the other it is a rule of law for all time and all places. To the one, through eyes of faith, the world, and everyone in it, is reconciled to God; to the other it’s totally evil, except for the ‘saved.’ One welcomes sinners; the other shuns them. One is inclusive, the other exclusive. One is the church of the Publican, the other the church of the Pharisee. One is a holy church, the other a ‘holiness’ church. Between these two there’s no Via Media, our Anglican way, and until we resolve our fundamental theological disagreement, I see no hope for either a resolution or reconciliation between the ACC and the Network, and the two parties will continue to drift further apart.
Need I say that the authority of St. George’s, Guelph, is the Holy Spirit?
Where would I like to see the church in 10 years time, in 2019? I strongly believe that where we should be is where we are now, worshiping a Trinitarian God, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and not the ‘binitarian’ god of Jesus and the Holy Bible, which is whom I believe most of our evangelical friends worship (and until recently I have been one myself, and have many friends in the Network church, as I used to attend St. George’s, Lowville.) One seldom hears mention of the Father and the Holy Spirit in such churches. To be a member one has to be a ‘Bible believer,’ and no dissent is allowed, and one hears endless monotonous testimony to ‘what Jesus means to me,’ regardless of anyone else. One can go to the other extreme by not mentioning Jesus at all, as if there could be a Christian church without his ever having existed. I think we’re in danger of that, but I trust we’ll steer the middle way to worship the full Trinity, to be neither unitarian nor binitarian. It’s appropriate that the church is launching Vision 2019 on Trinity Sunday.
However, I am concerned that we have chosen to lie in bed with the Beast, rather than with the Lamb. That’s why the Book of Revelation is so difficult for us to read today. We’re not where we’re supposed to be. The popularity of the Left Behind novels is that they make it all to appear so easy, which everyone can follow as a guide book into the future. To use the Bible in this way is the Beast’s ploy, as it supplants the Holy Spirit, who is the Christian’s true guide into an unknown and uncertain future; but he is right there with us, guiding us all the way. We’re tempted to use physical weapons rather than spiritual ones. Paul says: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (2 Corinthians 10:4) He and his contemporaries may not have used worldly weapons, but I fear that we do today. This is why we don’t see the peace that we all so desperately crave for. We pray for peace, but continue to serve the Beast, who only gives us strife, schism and war.
By the ‘way of the Beast’ I mean settling our differences with the Network by means of the courts. It’s so expensive, diverting money that we should be spending on Mission to pay lawyers. What does it matter if we loose a church building or two? Church building in 10 years time will be albatrosses around our necks, and we’ll be trying to divest ourselves of them as fast as we can. So let’s do it now! The church is not the building. In this respect the church will not be the same as it is now. Much as I love organ music in worship, it’s a luxury that we can’t afford, especially if we continue to waste money in legal fees.
There’s also another aspect in which I trust we will be different, and I’ve hinted at it already. In stead of the church’s limiting the ‘saved’ to those baptized, I believe God through Christ’s reconciling the world to Himself, has saved all humanity. This may sound as if I’m a universalist, but I must stress that I believe that there’s no other way to God, but through Jesus Christ. Since the Council of Constantinople of 553, the church has tended to shy away from universalism, but I believe that both Jesus and St. Paul were universalists, and the church has officially been in error since 553. I trust that in 10 years time we will have put that matter right.
So, where are we now? I trust that we’re in the palm of God’s hand. Where will we be in 2019? I trust in the same place, but more so.
Michael Burslem
You make a number of good points. This is rather a mischaracterization of “evangelicals”, however, whom you seem to be confusing with fundamentalists. Certainly, this isn’t the first time this has happened on this particular blog, and this mistake has been made by some very intelligent people. There was, indeed, recently an article about this by Charles Lewis in the National Post.
The result of this misunderstanding is the creation of a dichotomy where there isn’t one (or, at least, ought not to be). The suggestion that evangelical theology is necessarily “exclusive” is certainly inaccurate, and suggesting that all evangelicals are binitarian is a vast overstatement. I would hope that all Christians would say that “the Bible is a window through which we view Jesus Christ, our Lord”, but remember that our Lord put forth a law to follow (or at least try, and admit when we’re not doing so). As it happens, this is most accurately recorded — through the work of the Holy Spirit — in the Bible.
Since the term “evangelical” seems to be bruited about quite a bit, it’s worth attempting to define what that actually means. J. I. Packer does this rather well in his essay “A Stunted Ecclesiology?” (in Ancient and Postmodern Christianity, edited by Kenneth Tanner and Christopher A. Hall, pp. 120-127). His paper is actually a criticism of evangelical “churcliness”. He identifies six equal “belief-and-behaviour principles” in normative evangelicalism, as follows (pp. 121-122):
The first point, of course, needs to be understood within the evangelical interpretation of Scripture. The Bible, of course, cannot be understood without the Holy Spirit. Packer goes on to clarify that “because evangelicals know that the Holy Spirit’s guidance into truth was and is a reality, they expect to discover that tradition is full of truth and wisdom” (p. 122).
Certainly, there are evangelicals that do not fully realize what is described here, and furthermore miss much from other traditions; it is these that Packer criticizes. It is manifest that evangelicals have made many mistakes over the years, and continue to do so. Furthermore, it is unhealthy to follow evangelicalism’s usual emphases as describing the full work of the church. It is equally unhealthy, however, to write it off entirely because of this, for no part of the church, in its fragmented state, is complete in itself. Isn’t that why we’re Anglican?
By the way, the book I mention above is on Google Books, with the entirety of Packer’s essay available to preview. The following chapter, “Recognizing the Church: A Personal Pilgrimage and the Discovery of Five Marks of the Church”, by Thomas Howard (pp. 128-139), is also very worthwhile, especially within the context of the Vision 2019 discussion.
Thanks for the distinction between evangelical and fundamental. However, I would take issue with J.I Packer’s very first point in describing a normative evangelical; the enthroning of holy Scripture, the written Word of God, as the supreme authority and decisive guide on all matters of faith and practice. I would say that our supreme authority is the Holy Spirit, and Holy Scripture needs to be dethroned. I’ve written about it in this month’s Niagara Anglican, our diocesan paper. It’s not yet on line, but is usually put on line as the paper comes to print.
Though I may be at odds with most evangelicals over this I still think myself an evangelical; one who declares God’s Good News, which is that his grace has covered all the sin even committed by anyone in this planet. That’s really good news, not just that we Christians are “saved.” This has tremendous ramifications in how we regard people of other faiths, or of no faith at all. I’ve written about this in previous editions of the NA and for Arab West Report, a Cairo thinktank run on a shoestring by friends there, and shall be writing more some time in the future, Insha’Allah, as I believe it’s a path the Holy Spirit is guiding us along.
I find that the older I get the more heretical (in the opinion of my evangelical friends) I become.
Michael