Peter Adam delivered an address on the final morning of the Anglican Future conference, in which he sought to help us consider what the future may hold for Australian Anglicans. This is an edited and abridged version of that address.
Adoniram Judson, pioneer missionary in Burma, now Myanmar, tied up, ready for the flames, was asked what he thought about his future. His reply: ‘The future is as bright as the promises of God’.
God warns us in the Bible that it is foolish to assume that we know the future, or to think that we can control or create the future. Indeed the prophet Ezekiel was told to prophesy against those who prophesy out of their own imaginations [Eze 13:2].
The Lord Jesus may return today: a great plague may decimate the developed world: orthodox churches may abandon the faith: there may be a world-wide revival of Biblical Christianity: we in the West may face persecution in twenty years’ time: we in Australia may have to pay rates on church property, which would dramatically change our ministry: and certainly leadership of world Christianity will be found elsewhere than in the West over the next thirty years. We do not know the future. We do know that our world is changing at an ever-increasing rate, and that living in a global village increases the possibility of radical change on a world-wide scale. There are no places to hide in a global village: our neighbours are too close, and so World War III is even more likely, as is the universal persecution of Christians, fuelled by a range of motivations, both by pagans, and by the religious.
We learn from Genesis 1 that we humans, made in God’s image, have dependent responsibility for the world. We are absolutely dependent on God, who rules his world in power and love. But we are also responsible to God for this world. Both are true: we are dependent, yet also responsible to God for our work in the world. We know from the Bible that we cannot know the future, nor can we control the future. Yet at the same time, our responsibility to God includes our provisional planning for the future, even if we cannot know it, control it, or secure it.
The book of Proverbs warns us to plan wisely, an apt word for Anglicans, who are more likely to be trapped by the present than they are to plan for the future: ‘Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest’ [Prov 6:6-8].
Yet it also warns us that we cannot control the future, an apt word for the arrogant: ‘The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established’ [Prov 19:21].
We must plan, and we must trust. We should imagine our future, but hold our imaginings and our planning in open hands, trusting that God will achieve his gospel purposes, and that Jesus will indeed build his church.
It is a privilege to address this topic in this forum. It is too often the case that we only have the energy to respond to present pressures and problems, and so we are reactive rather than proactive. It is good for us to spend some time imagining our future, so that we can prepare for it, and focus our energy on achieving it. Decisions made today shape our future ministry. Humans naturally underestimate the damage they can do: and we also underestimate the good that we can do by God’s power and in his plan. As we think of our future, we have three great needs:
Firstly, we need to know that Anglicanism is capable of radical change. What is Anglicanism? Does it have a future? Is it worth investing in its future? These issues are matters of current debate,
not least among Australian Anglicans, including Bishop Tom Frame, and Dr Bruce Kaye, and Archbishop Geoffrey Driver, whose recent books have stimulated my thinking.1
When thinking about Anglicanism our natural tendency is to universalise our present experience, and assume that what we see is what has always been the case. Parishes think that what the last Vicar did is normative Anglicanism. That is not so. Anglican more broadly think that what happened in the 20th century is normative Anglicanism, but that it not so. But Anglicanism is not unchanging. It is contextual and transitional. It is always changing. Here are some examples.
We might think that dioceses and parishes are the essential structure of Anglicanism. That is not so. The early Celtic church in England was based primarily on monasteries and itinerant evangelists and teachers, not dioceses or parishes. The monastery was the base for evangelism, education, and pastoral care. This changed with the arrival of Augustine in Canterbury in 597 AD. He was sent by Pope Gregory to bring that church into line with Roman customs, including geographical dioceses and parishes.
And after the diocese and parish system was set in place in Europe, by the early 1100s it was no longer capable of evangelism and education. So the preaching orders, such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans, were set up, not by bishops but by concerned clergy and lay people. They were independent of dioceses, bishops, and archbishops, and still function that way in the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman church has two distinct forms, and one of those forms comprises a variety of movements or ‘religious orders’, as they are known. We Anglicans would call them ‘voluntary societies’.
Although these preaching orders were abolished in England at the Reformation, both the Church of England and Anglicanism more broadly have been profoundly affected by our own voluntary societies, including many evangelical societies. So the Anglican Church has in fact been pluriform: dioceses on the one hand, and voluntary societies on the other. In Australia these include the Church Missionary Society, Bush Church Aid, and ecumenical societies such as the Bible Society, Scripture Union, the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, the Gideons, World Vision, TEAR, and many more.
You might think the Anglican Communion is essential to Anglicanism. That is not so. It was an invention of the 19th century, and was, at least in part, an ecclesiastical reflection of the British empire. National churches are what matter in Anglicanism. No international association of churches matters in Anglicanism inasmuch as no such association has any power to dictate to Anglican national churches.
For the ‘Anglican Communion’ was to a large extent not the product of the evangelistic energy of the Church of England, but came from the evangelistic activities of voluntary missionary societies. Some of these were evangelical, such as the Church Missionary Society, and others were high church, such as the Universities Mission to Central Africa. It was these societies which provided effective international sharing of resources, prayer, and fellowship, before there was anything called the Anglican Communion.
The initiative to evangelise the inhabitants of India did not come from leaders of the Church of England. It came from a group of concerned evangelical clergy and laity, members of the Clapham Sect. Similarly the initiative to plant the gospel and begin Anglican ministry in Australia with the arrival of the First Fleet did not come from the Archbishop of Canterbury, but from people such as John Newton and William Wilberforce.
You might think that the Archbishop of Canterbury must be the leader of what we call ‘The Anglican Communion’. But this is not so. The idea is based on the notion of geographical origin, the idea that the Church of England originated in Canterbury, and therefore all Anglicans originate from Canterbury. There is no evidence that the geographical origin of the Church of England was Canterbury: and Canterbury was not the powerhouse that created Anglican churches around the world. And in any case, an accidental event of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of revelation.
You might think that the creative energy for Anglicanism has come ‘from above’, from Archbishops and Bishops. That is not so. The great and effective movements for reform within Anglicanism have been initiated ‘from below’ rather than ‘from above’. These included Wycliffe and Tyndale and the translators of the Bible into English. The Bishops burnt the first translators and their Bibles. The Reformation was exceptional in being both a reformation ‘from below’ and ‘from above’. But it certainly would not have been effective without the costly and sacrificial movement ‘from below’. Similarly, the Evangelical Movement, the Oxford Movement, the East African Revival, and the Charismatic Renewal were fuelled ‘from below’. Such movements have usually been persecuted by the hierarchy, then grudgingly accepted, and then celebrated.
So historically, structures have changed, and new structures have been created, to enable people to be converted, churches to be planted, and people groups and nations to be evangelised.
One of the great contributions of the Baptist William Carey was that he realised that the Baptist churches of England could not evangelise the world, without what he called a ‘means’. Carey, later missionary to India, wrote his Enquiry Into the Obligations of the Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen, which led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, and the founding of many other missionary societies in following years. A ‘means’ is an organisation, a structure: voluntary societies are ‘means’.
The Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion was a movement ‘from below’, set up by John Stott and others to offer support, encouragement and resources to Anglican evangelicals throughout the world. The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans was also set up more recently to serve the Anglican Communion, by providing alternative structures for those who held firmly to Biblical and creedal Christianity. Both are ‘voluntary societies’ of the Anglican Communion, set up to provide what was lacking in that Communion, and to correct some unhelpful tendencies in that Communion.
You might think that it is impossible to have more than one Anglican diocesan structure in one place. That is not so. In Europe there are two different structures of Anglicanism. One is the Diocese of Europe, which is part of The Church of England. The other is the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, part of The Episcopal Church of USA. Perhaps this is an instructive model for the future. There is room for two different expressions of Anglicanism in the same place. Anglicanism is more flexible than first appears!
You might think that the continuation of Anglicanism is essential. That is not so. Effective mission is always contextual, and so church life must always be in a sense ‘transitional’. However Anglicanism is also ‘transitional’ in another sense to do with its self-understanding.
I have always valued the modest claims of Anglicanism: it does not claim to be the only church: it does not claim to be the best church: it does not even claim to be a necessary church. The idea of Anglicanism as transitional has been prominent in Anglican ecclesiology in the 20th century. It is the idea that Anglicanism could one day be absorbed into a larger fellowship: it could, on the one hand re-amalgamate with the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, it could join with other Protestant churches to form a new church, a new denomination.
This happened in India and Pakistan. There Anglicans joined with other Protestant churches to form the Church of South India, the Church of North India, and the Church of Pakistan. There are no ‘Anglicans’ left in India and Pakistan: they have all joined with other churches to form a larger church. Those churches are not considered part of the Anglican Communion. So, on the global scale, all Anglicans in every place could decide to join with other Christians to form a new church, and ‘Anglicanism’ might cease to exist!
Of course our flexibility is our weakness, as well as its strength. Anglicanism was able to be Reformed in the 16th century, but then lost its gospel clarity in the 17th century. It was renewed by the Evangelical Revival in the 18th and 19th centuries, but then compromised by the rise of Liberalism in the 19th and 20th centuries.
However the Anglican Communion as presently run seems to express some of the worst features of an English identity, described by the English novelist John Fowles:
‘Perhaps all this is getting near the heart of Englishness: being happier at being unhappy than doing something constructive about it. We boast of our genius for compromise, which is really a refusal to choose; and that in turn contains a large part of cowardice, apathy, selfish laziness…’ 2
Over thirty years ago I decided to respect people who left the current structures of Anglicanism, and to hope that they would respect me if I stayed.3 In my study of those who left the Church of England in 1662 and those who stayed, I indicated my respect for those who conformed, and for those who became ‘nonconformists’, and recognised how God worked for gospel good among both groups of people.
Matthew Newcomen, Vicar of Dedham, was one who resigned in 1662. In his final sermon, he preached these words:
‘It hath been all along, a Merciful Providence of God, that when some of his servants could not satisfy their consciences, and come up to the things that have been imposed upon them, without injuring their Consciences; yet others have had a greater freedom given them, that they could yield: and if not so, what would have become of the people of God? Therefore, in those things, achieved there may be some providence of God, for good to you be in it.’4
We need the ministry of EFAC, continuing to support evangelical Anglicans, whatever their ecclesiastical connection. And we need the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, for those Anglicans who need new ecclesiastical structures for fellowship, support, and encouragement. Even if you do not need FCA in your context at present, you may need it in the future, and others need it now. We in the West may feel that we do not need larger fellowships to belong to, but they are of particular value to Christians who face constant persecution.
Anglicanism has constantly changed its shape, and style of ministry. Anglicanism is a mixture of the good gifts of God and human sinfulness. God in his mercy has used, is using, and will use Anglicanism: God does not need Anglicanism, in any form: but God in his mercy may continue to use those called Anglicans for his gospel purposes in the world. Anglicanism is still changing, and we are all part of those changes.
Our second great need is that we need the Spirit’s clarity about God’s purpose for his church in the last days. If we try to imagine our future without reading the Bible, we are sure to be confused, deceived, and destructive. The detective writer P.D. James, who was herself a devoted member of the Church of England, has one of her characters describes Anglicanism in these terms:
‘Some of the girls practised a religion. Anglicanism…was accepted as a satisfying compromise between reason and myth, justified by the beauty of its liturgy, a celebration of Englishness; but essentially it was the universal religion of liberal humanism laced with ritual to suit each individual taste.’5
I attended a funeral in one of our Anglican parishes late last year. The Bible reading was from John 14. The reading finished half way through John 14:6. So the first half of the verse was read: 'Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life"', but the second half of the verse was not read: ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’. What futile arrogance to edit the words of the Lord Jesus in order to change his theology!
As God has given us 2 Peter to show us what life will be like in the last days, so he has shown us from Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus what ordinary churches of the post-apostolic age should be like. Here is a checklist. Whatever the future of Anglicanism, these must be its primary features:
We need to believe, teach, and implement the gospel in our church, and proclaim the gospel to the world. [2 Tim 3:14-16, 2 Tim 4:5]
We need theological clarity about the content of the gospel from the Bible. [2 Tim 1:13-14].
We need godly, stable and able ministers of the gospel, who do not engage in abusive behaviour [Titus 1:5-9]
We need an effective team of gospel ministers around the world, both imported and indigenous. [2 Tim 4:9-21].
We need effective training for gospel ministry, and to raise up the next generation of gospel workers. [2 Tim 2:2].
We need people in ministry who know the gospel from the Bible, and are trained and equipped by the Bible to do their ministry. [2 Tim 3:15-16]
We need to know that our greatest problem and limitation is our sin and our sinfulness; as we need to know God our saviour, and his transforming gospel. [Titus 2:12-14].
We need to rebuke and correct error in life or theology. [2 Tim 2:14-19]
We need to be able to distinguish between fellow leaders who do call on the Lord out of a pure heart, but whom we must correct with gentleness [2 Tim 2], and those corrupt church leaders who have the form of godliness but deny its power, of whom Paul says, in 2 Tim 3: ‘have nothing to do with them’.
We need to pray for the world and the church, that the gospel may be proclaimed to the whole world. [1 Tim 2:1-7].
We need to be willing to suffer for the gospel. [2 Tim 1:8].
I love Cranmer’s ordination services, not least because the instrument or means of ministry is the Bible handed to every candidate. But I would like to add one question to every ordination service. Not just, ‘Do you believe the gospel?’, but also ‘Are you willing to suffer for the gospel?’ All ministry involves suffering, as indeed Paul wrote, ‘all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’. Ministers who are not willing to suffer for the gospel, will not defend the gospel. We must prepare ourselves, our children, our churches and our converts to stand firm.
Our third great need is absolute trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Saviour, Lord, and Judge of his church. If we try to imagine our future without reading the Bible, and without trusting in
Christ, we are sure to be confused, deceived, and destructive. God gave us Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus to teach us what ordinary churches of the post-apostolic age should be like. So too he gave us the book of Revelation, to increase our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever our future. Revelation begins with a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ in 1:12-18.
Notice two important features of this vision. Firstly, he is seen ‘among the golden lampstands’, and as ‘walking among the golden lampstands’. Like the high priest in the Old Testament sanctuary, Christ walks among the golden lampstands, and walks among them to tend them. In that sanctuary, the golden lampstands in the holy place were a reminder of the glory of the presence of God. In this vision, the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches addressed in John’s letter. Christ walks among his churches; he sees and knows them; and he speaks to them; with a specific message for each of those churches, a message which is also what the Spirit says to all the churches.
The speaking of this message is the second important feature of this vision: ‘coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword’ [1:16]. Christ is present among his churches, and he speaks these powerful words to them, and so to us. Christ walks among his churches even today. He walks among our churches: he knows them better than do. He knows our works: he knows our good works, and he rewards them: he knows our bad works, and he condemns them. He warns us of our dangers, he encourages us in our strengths, and invites us to trust his promises.
We need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is the glorious and sufficient saviour and redeemer of his church, that he is the glorious and sufficient Lord of his church, and that he is the glorious and sufficient Judge of his church. If we do not know this, we might despair, we might give up, we might try to control, we ourselves might to try to save the church, to rule the church, to secure the church, or to judge the church. But this is Christ’s work, and he does it as he walks among his churches, to tend them, correct them, and care for them. He sees, he knows, he saves, he warns, he judges, and he rewards.
We do not know what our world will be like over the next fifty or a hundred years, or until the return of Christ, nor do we know the future of the Anglican Communion, or the shape of future world Christianity. We do know that no prayer is wasted, because ‘the prayers of the saints rise to the presence of God’. We know that that no good work is wasted, because the Lord Jesus knows our good works, commends them, and rewards them. We know that no sin is unknown to Christ, or unnoticed or ignored by him: he rebukes our sins, and invites and commands us to repent.
We know, too, that no repentance is wasted, because we are ‘set free from our sins by the blood of the Lamb who loves us’; that no suffering is wasted, for followers of the Lamb will suffer, and will conquer by suffering, and by not holding their lives dear even unto death. We know that no ministry is wasted, because Jesus knows our good works, and commends and rewards them, and because he is worthy of our service.
We do not know the future of Christianity in Australia. Will we face virulent persecution? Will we become a flourishing persecuted church? Will we see widespread revival? Whatever the case, we do know that no personal repentance, self-denial or self-restraint is wasted, for ‘those who wash their robes will eat of the tree of life, and enter the city’. We know that no self-sacrifice is wasted, because when Christ comes ‘he will bring his rewards with him’. Not even our weak ministry is wasted, because we are the armies of heaven, following the Lamb, praising the Lamb, witnessing of the Lamb, conquering through the Lamb, and one day ruling with him. No careful tending of the Church is wasted, because Christ walks among the churches, tending them, caring for them, rebuking them, and encouraging them, and because when he returns the Lamb’s bride will ‘be ready, clothed in fine linen, and adorned for her husband’.
Whatever the future holds, we know that no speaking, teaching, or preaching of the Bible is wasted, because Jesus Christ who tends the churches ‘has a voice like the roar of many waters, and his words are like a two-edged sword’, and his words are ‘what the Spirit says to the churches’. We know that no martyrdom is wasted, because ‘those who conquer will sit with Christ on his throne’; that no endurance is wasted, because ‘those who endure will eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God’; that no service, suffering, or sacrifice is wasted, because the slain Lamb has conquered, and is ‘worthy of all power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing’.
We do not know the future of Christianity in the two-thirds world. Will those churches lapse into liberalism or legalism? Will they be taken over by syncretism or the prosperity gospel? Will they re-evangelise the West? Will they lead a world-wide revival of Biblical Christianity?
We know that Satan’s work is to spread heresy and persecution, but we also know that ‘we conquer by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our witness, and by not loving our lives even unto death’. We know that no evangelism is wasted because there will be ‘a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, crying with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb”’.
We know that no cleansing of the church is wasted, because one day we will be revealed as the bride, the wife of the Lamb, as God’s holy city, having the glory of God radiant as a rare jewel, and the dwelling place of God and the Lamb. We know no suffering is wasted, because one day ‘God will wipe away every tear from our eyes’.
No suffering for Christ is wasted, no sacrificial service for Christ is wasted, no worship of Christ is wasted, because he is ‘worthy to receive all power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing’, because he ‘was slain, and by his blood he ransomed for God people from every tribe and language and people and nation’.
Adoniram Judson said, ‘The future is as bright as the promises of God’. St Paul wrote, ‘All the promises of God find their yes in Christ’. I urge you to trust Christ as your saviour. I urge you to trust Christ as the powerful and effective saviour of his Church. I urge you to trust Christ as the powerful and effective Lord and judge of his church.