Anglican Communion

Written by: Kanishka Raffel

Created: 22 March 2016

How would you like to be at a clergy conference of four thousand? Kanishka Raffel brings us a snapshot of his recent visit to Uganda, where he discovered some important spiritual roots of the church in missionaries, martyrs and revival.

Recently I had the great privilege of taking part in the Provincial All Clergy Conference of the Church of Uganda, a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and a founding member of the doctrinally orthodox renewal movement, the Global Anglican Future Conference. The conference was presided over by the Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev’d Stanley Ntagali and all 35 Diocesan Bishops were in attendance along with no less than 2500 clergy. This was only the third time in the history of the Province that a national clergy conference has taken place, the last having occurred 35 years ago.

The Church of Uganda was established through the pioneering work of two English CMS missionaries in 1877. In 1885 another CMS missionary, James Hannington was consecrated the first Bishop of East Africa but he was murdered at the order of the King of Buganda before taking up his ministry. Bishop Hannington was among the first of 55 Anglican and Roman Catholic martyrs put to death between 1885 and 1887 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and participate in immoral and idolatrous activity commanded by the King. The sacrificial, gospel-minded zeal of the early CMS missionaries and the bravery and faithfulness of the Uganda Martyrs are much honoured roots of the spiritual life of the Ugandan church.

Read more: The Church of Uganda

Written by: Caitlin Hurley

Created: 21 August 2015

Caitlin Hurley reflects on the challenge seen at the AFC of supporting fellow Anglicans
under pressure in changing dioceses.

Caitlin is assistant minister at Redfern and Green Square, NSW and Executive Assistant to the General Secretary of GAFCON.

The recent inaugural Anglican Future Conference was an action packed three days. A highlight for me was the Wednesday evening session Standing with the Global Anglican Community. Hosted by the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglican (GAFCON) General Secretary, Dr Peter Jensen shared how the Anglican Communion is faring around the globe. The prognosis was that is it not faring very well but that the GAFCON movement was providing a place for those committed to biblical Anglicanism to stand together and have both support and fellowship. A constant refrain from those who shared was that after leaving the their national church either forcibly or willingly their churches grew.
The most challenging portion of this evening was hearing from the New Zealand delegates about the Church in New Zealand. In New Zealand ordained clergy must submit to the authority of General Synod. This effectively means that if General Synod passes a motion the clergy are bound to that motion. Recently Motion 30 was passed by the General Synod. This motion has allowed for the creation of a working party to provide a process for and structure by which the blessings of same-sex relationships can occur within the church. The conference heard three different responses to motion 30 from leaders within the New Zealand church. These responses ranged from a desire to work through the process until it became untenable, to an inability to submit to this motion. As a result this rector lost his license, rectory and church building. How long will it be before evangelical Anglicans in Australia are faced with a similar situation?

This is where the work of GAFCON and FCA (Australia) are immensely important. This movement in its global and local manifestations seeks to uphold the authority of Scripture and the Lordship of Christ. In the Australian context this will be achieved through promoting orthodoxy and providing recognition, fellowship and assistance to those who have been disaffiliated from their diocese because of the unorthodox actions of others. It is true that a movement such as FCA (Australia) in and of itself is not going to bring people to salvation but it can help limit the damage of aggressive secularism and culturally conformed Christianity within the church. By providing support for those committed to biblical orthodoxy, parishes and their parishioners can get on with the work of the Great Commission.

It would be interesting to see the composition of the conference. In particular what was the ratio of clergy to laity? For the Fellowship of Confessing Anglican movement to flourish in both its global and local manifestations it needs to be supported by both clergy and laity. It would also be interesting to see the age demographics. As a movement focusing on the future it would be great to see some more individuals under the age of thirty-five involved. This will involve demonstrating to my generation why a movement such as FCA is important and worth supporting.

Written by: Ben Underwood

Created: 20 August 2015

In the wash up from the Anglican Future Conference held in Melbourne and jointly hosted by EFAC Australia and The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Australia, Essentials quizzed conference maestros Stephen Hale and Richard Condie about how the conference went and what it means for the future.

 Richard Condie is the Chair of the Anglican Future Conference and Vicar of St Jude’s Carlton, Vic.

 Stephen Hale is Chair of EFAC Australia and is the lead minister of the St Hilary’s network in Kew and North Balwyn Vic.

Ess: What were your best hopes and worst fears for the Anglican Future Conference as it began?

SH: I hoped that it would be a significant national gathering that would offer hope and renewed commitment to mission and ministry in and through the Anglican Church. By God’s grace we got there! There was an inherent tension between the twin partners in making the Conference happen. EFAC is an evangelical fellowship while FCA is very new and is a broader group who have a more particular focus. Some people didn’t come because of that tension and others were anxious while there. I think we got the balance right and it was a remarkably unified and positive conference. The joint venture meant we had a genuinely national conference and with the presence of a good group of New Zealanders meant it was transnational.

RC: My best hopes were that a fire might be lit under our denomination to recover a great energy and passion for gospel ministry in our nation. I was reasonably confident that the speakers we had lined up, the topics we intended to cover, and the workshops we had planned, met quite a number of the issues we need to face as a Church. I hoped and prayed that we would be united around the gospel, and take seriously what we need to do to recover and stimulate gospel witness in the world.
My fear was that because GAFCON/FCA is seen by some to be divisive that we might not hear the Spirit’s voice through the conference, because we were worried about a hidden political agenda. I knew there was not a hidden political agenda, but I feared some may have thought that, and would not participate well as a result.

Ess: What were for you the best moments of the conference in the end?

SH: Ashley Null was a surprise and a delight. He opened up very familiar material in surprising and fresh ways. I’ve never really thought of Cranmer’s liturgies in the way that Ashley explained and it has given me a whole new way of approaching liturgy. Related to this was that we decided quite late in the picture to use liturgy in each of the worship sessions. Each seemed very apt and as with all good liturgy it was both participatory as well as a great way of expressing our unity together. The three plenary sessions were excellent and involved a diverse range of input. Kanishka exposed us to some tricky but helpful teaching from 2 Peter and did it in his usual clear and positive way.
As I said at the outset we don’t get together much because we are a large island nation. The best part was meeting new people and renewing connections that go back 30 or 40 years.

RC:When I saw that we had managed to bring together not just evangelical Anglicans, but people from all traditions and “unexpected” places, and that we had managed to get representation from every state and territory and New Zealand, I was really delighted. It said to me that there is a real hunger out there for direction, inspiration and encouragement. Then it was so good when the Bible was taught, and Ashley Null brought us back to our common roots, and we actually grappled with the big issues of culture.

Ess: Was there anything surprising or unexpected that came out of the conference?

SH:The overall unity was exceptional. In the past these sorts of conferences have often ended up in a dust up over something but that didn’t happen.

RC: I was personally bowled over by the strong response to the launch of the FCA. I have been so close to it for so long, and it was wonderful to have so many at the launch and sign up on the night. If you missed out – www.fca-aus.org.au

Ess: The conference was jointly hosted by EFAC and FCA. Where are these organisations overlapping in their aims and where distinct?

SH: EFAC is a fellowship of evangelical Anglican clergy and lay people. It generally is stronger where evangelicals are in a minority and therefore cherish the support and encouragement of gathering with like minded people. Generally EFAC is not involved in direct political action within the denomination yet it may also play a role in offering theological and biblical perspectives on issues of contention.

RC: FCA and EFAC are very close in many respects, in that both spring out of a clear view of the biblical gospel. I guess the aim of FCA is to gather orthodox Anglicans from a wider pool than just among evangelicals. In fact internationally, there may even be a majority of members who identify as “Anglo-catholic” rather than evangelical. FCA is designed to be a “broad tent” to gather people with a common concern for our denomination and its future.

Ess: Is FCA about helping dissaffected people leave Anglicanism?

RC:No, on the contrary, it is about helping them stay within the Anglican Church. One of the sad things that has happened internationally, is that faithful Anglicans who have not shifted in their commitment to Anglican theology and practice have been forced out by theological novelty and moral innovation which is foreign to historic Christian faith. FCA allows these people to continue to identify as Anglican
even when their leaders have wandered away, and allows other faithful Anglicans to remain in fellowship with them. FCA is a fellowship of orthodox  Anglicans and reform movement to help heal our denomination.

SH: I think it would be better to ask this the other way around. FCA is committed to helping people to stay and then support them if they, in conscience leave or are pushed out. This is not likely to be simple or straight forward. As we saw from our New Zealand brothers and sisters there were three different responses to their crisis. Some have left and lost titles and buildings, some have stayed but are in dispute and others are staying and without contention. In saying that we have to bear in mind that the New Zealand, US and Canadian churches have a much stronger national basis than we have in Australia where we are a federation of dioceses.

Ess: Where can people catch up on things they may have missed from the conference?

SH: The main papers will be available via EFAC Essentials…

RC: ...and the conference website www.afuture15.org.au has many of the workshop outlines for download, and will soon have links to the videos of the main sessions. Some FCA resources are found at www.fca-aus.org.au/resources/

Ess: Where can people continue the conversation about our Anglican future?

SH: Join an EFAC Branch in your city or state or start one.

RC: I want to encourage a grass roots movement where local Anglicans take the initiative (either under the EFAC or FCA banner, or something else) to consider what they need to do to secure a strong healthy Anglican future in their own location. Wouldn’t it be great if groups of Anglicans in every diocese got to talking and praying about the future, and what changes they needed to make, to ensure it was a positive vital one. Maybe it is the reader of this article who needs to take the initiative. FCA Australia and your local EFAC branch are ready to help. Perhaps we will run some local conferences, or even another national gathering, but it would be much better if we did it ourselves.

Ess: What and whom do you hope that conversation will include?

RC: I would love to see congregations, individuals, parishes and even dioceses, having conversations about recovering confidence in the gospel, confidence in our theological heritage, and confidence in our God to turn our church and nation around. I am praying that bishops, clergy and laity will embrace and develop these themes for themselves.

SH: The conference captured a sense of optimism about the future of the Anglican Church. Hopefully this will filter through and start to shape conversations at a diocesan level and beyond. This sense of optimism and hope is often missing from other gatherings and is absolutely essential if we are going to honestly address our many challenges in terms of ministry and mission.

Written by: Richard Condie

Created: 10 March 2015

It might not be too far fetched to claim that the Anglican Church in Australia is at a cross-roads. With one third of our Dioceses now declared unviable, and several more teetering on the edge, at the least, we have a serious problem to address. It seems to me that we need to come together to make some positive decisions about our future direction.

One of the glaring omissions in the viability report that was presented to the General Synod last July was the recovery of mission and evangelism as the only real strategy to reverse the trend of decline. There was an assumption that if we got the structures working better, then somehow we would see improvement.

I was recently talking with a ministry colleague of a different tradition. The ministry they were doing was primarily around trying to get people to “come to church”. That was the expressed and assumed goal. When I tried to prod that perhaps helping people come to faith in Jesus might be a more effective goal (and even delivering the desired outcome), I was met with a slightly mystified look, as if I was espousing some arcane idea from a bygone age.

But before I feel too smug, I weep when I see the relatively few people who have made first time professions of faith through our own ministry. If I am brutally honest, the vast majority of people who have become disciples of Jesus at our church have been from overseas, and vastly different cultures from the one in which I have grown up. Praise the Lord for students from Asia, and refugees from the Middle East who are hungry for the gospel, and who want to learn about Jesus!

But to borrow Paul’s phrase in Romans 9, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart … for my kindred” Aussies. Perhaps it has something to do with living in “the most livable city in the world”, but they seem almost immune to the gospel message that we try to hold out to them. While Melbourne claims that moniker, the rest of the country ain’t that bad either. I remember as a Curate in rural northern NSW preaching at a harvest festival on Deuteronomy 8 about the dangers of “forgetting the Lord”. In many ways the fertile valley where we lived was the Aussie equivalent of a “land flowing with milk and honey”, well at least bananas and sugar cane!

So what are we to do? If Australians already live in something they think of as close to heaven, and quite frankly see no need for the God that we speak about, then we need to do some pretty clear thinking if we are going to make any kind of impact, let alone see a future for our denomination.

At one level we need to be concerned more about the progress of the gospel than we are about the viability of Anglicanism. But at the same time, our Anglican heritage and identity is exactly what Australia needs. The English reformation was about transforming the church so that it was able to present the pure word of God to a world that was in the dark. Sound familiar? And the prayer book, was an attempt to put the word of God and the worship of God into a form that was understandable to the masses (pun intended). It was a missionary endeavor, to reach the people in a way that made sense.

We have just sent out a family from our church to work in cross-cultural mission in East Asia. They have spent the better part of the last 10 years learning about the culture and the ministry context into which they are about to step. They will learn the language, they will find appropriate illustrations of gospel truth that will work in their new context, they will think hard about how the gospel challenges the idols and systemic sins of the country in which they work.

We Aussies need to do the same. We need to realize that we are losing ground for the gospel in Australia by our refusal to change. I do assume with the general readership of Essentials that I am preaching to the converted. However even the converted need to keep sharpening their tools.

We recently did an exercise among our leadership team to develop a spiritual profile of the area we are trying to reach – a series of observations about what people believe and how the gospel addresses each of these beliefs. It was a fascinating exercise and we have much more work to do on it. So far we have identified that the typical person in our neighbourhood views themselves as: 

• Autonomous – valuing freedom to govern their lives.
• Secular – valuing the here and now, the material, and rejecting the supernatural .
• Consumerist – where their consumerism is focussed on experiences.
• Activist – passionate about social and political causes.
• Tribal – belonging to groups of like minded individuals.
• Culturally diverse – in ethnicity but also subcultures.
• Distrusting of institutions – therefore suspicious of the church along with other institutions.
• Egalitarian – believing that every individual has value and a say.
• Sexually active and libertine – where sexuality is a matter of personal choice.
• Highly educated and affluent – most with tertiary qualifications and or well paying jobs (with significant pockets of exception).

Highly engaged with technology – constantly connected through social media and tech devices.
That list might resonate with your context too. But that is a very different kind of person to the one who was being reached by Anglicans in Australia even in the 1980’s when I came to faith. If we don’t adapt, and don’t think how the gospel addresses these changing aspects of our society, and then build an action plan around them, then we will be tossed onto the scrap heap of irrelevance.

We know the Gospel still has something to say. We know that it is the Word of Life for our broken world. We know that it is powerful to transform lives. We know that it answers the deep assumptions and yearnings that are behind many of these observations. But we are going to have to work hard at finding new ways of communicating and engaging with the world and communicating in their language and culture, which I think is a very “Anglican” thing to do. The Anglican Church of the next generation may look very unlike the Anglican church of the last (or even this) generation. But being culturally adaptive, while holding on to the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3), is exactly what Anglicans are supposed to be good at.

Enter, The Anglican Future Conference, 2015. My hope and prayer all along has been that this national gathering of Anglicans will grapple seriously with the issues that I have raised. The conference has six strands:

1. Hearing from God’s Word: It is right that we listen to what God wants to say to us as his people. Kanishka Raffel will open up 2 Peter for us with its challenge about the importance of doctrine and the godly life, and its call to action.

2. Recovering our Anglican Identity: As I have said above, the Anglican movement has been a force for gospel good in our world. Recovering what it really means to be Anglican in a theological sense will help us see the relevance and beauty of what our tradition has to offer for mission in the 21st century. Anglican identity is “what we believe”, and Ashley Null (an internationally renowned Anglican scholar) will unpack this for us over our three days together. Our desire is that it will make us confident about our Anglican future.

3. Standing in the Global Anglican Community: We are not alone in dealing with rapidly changing mission environments. In fact the whole Anglican communion is engaged in different ways. From the challenges of Islam, to the rise of secularism, and the changing face of mission, we need to learn from each other. We are bringing the world to Melbourne in March, where we will hear from Anglican brothers and sisters across the globe about what contending for the faith means for them.

4. Understanding our Missionary Context: As we have noted above Australia is on the move. Our plenary session on our missionary context, and the seven workshops that follow, will help us encounter some of these changes, and think how the gospel helps us to engage them. Simon Smart from the Centre for Public Christianity and Julie-Anne Laird from AFES at Melbourne University will help us think like missionaries at home.

5. Encountering Critical Issues for the Church in the West: There are many issues we need to grapple with if we are going to adapt for mission. New ideas and opportunities abound, and a few hurdles must be overcome. A plenary session led by Stephen Hale (Chair of EFAC Australia) with a panel of practitioners will identify the issues, and again 8 different workshops will help us think about how to put this into action.

6. Imagining Our Anglican Future: We have the potential for a strong positive and healthy future. In the plenary session Peter Adam will share some thoughts about what this might look like, and then a panel will respond to him. Contrary to the thoughts of some, this is not about the secession of FCA and EFAC from the Anglican Church of Australia, it is about our positive contribution to its future. Various workshops will help equip us for a strong faithful future.

On the Thursday evening we will launch the Australian branch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and invite people to become members. We think this fellowship of likeminded orthodox Anglicans will be a necessary alliance as we move forward together.

My hope and prayer is that this conference will be a positive contribution for all Anglicans in Australia. We have a great gospel to proclaim, and much work to be done. Registrations continue to grow and so I’m glad that it looks like we will have a strong group of Anglicans gathered to work out how to move through our cross-roads to a fruitful and exciting future.

Richard Condie
Chair – Anglican Future Conference
Vicar, St Jude’s Carlton.

Written by: Paul Hunt

Created: 04 December 2014

To Stay or To Go?

A maelstrom of political, social and religious factors, mixed with theological divisions and zeal for God were tearing the Anglican Church apart. 

Sinful or godly motivations were hard to discern as clergy and lay people faced hard choices about whether they would stay in the Anglican Church or leave.

People agonized over their options and at what point their threshold of faithfulness to the word of God meant they should leave and shake off the limitations of the church structures.  Some with the same commitment to faithfulness led them intentionally to stay, and seek to reform the church from the inside. 

Some ministers started independent churches, some stayed, but quietly “broke the rules”.  Still others left, but felt torn by the decision and the damage to congregations they had left behind.  Some criticised those who left, some criticised those who stayed. 

A present day scenario? 

Well, yes, but the description above refers to a defining year in the Church of England.  It was 1662 and the Act of Uniformity required ministers to assent to its declarations and restrictions and to only use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in their public worship.

In a short but extremely illuminating book, Gospel Trials in 1662: To Stay or to Go? [82 pages The Latimer Trust, 2012, ISBN 978-1906327132.]Dr. Peter Adam (former Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne) outlines the pain and struggle over the years before and after that had a profound effect on the Church of England, such influences that carry over into today's challenges.  This is a timely, readable and relevant book, from an “elder statesman” of the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church in Australia.

Between 1660 and 1662 an astounding 1,760 of its clergy, 20%, left the Anglican Church, unable, for various reasons to stay.

In analysing the historical context and causes of the divisions, theological foundations and assumptions, the political and social factors that precipitated such changes, Peter Adam raises some helpful questions and indeed gives some direct advice for our current context, and the basis on which some might choose to remain within the Anglican Church in their context, or choose to leave.

He doesn't gloss over the complexities¹ nor give a definitive answer as to why people left in such numbers, rather he suggests that there was no one issue and hence no single answer as to why people left, such were the assortment of factors at play.  He reminds us of the difficulties at this distance to comprehend the intentions of the people involved, and in a helpful pastoral comment amidst the historical analysis, notes that human sinfulness rarely allows us to be completely honest about our motivations, no matter how self reflective we seek to be.

Nevertheless some motivations can be discerned, and you will find in this book a striking number of parallels with our present day.

Some did not want to accept the role of Bishops, or to have Bishops' powers changed.  Some, though they found the Book of Common Prayer generally to their liking, were offended that no other prayers could be used except those authorised. This excluded extempore prayer, which offended the sensibilities of those who felt there needed be more reliance on the work of the Holy Spirit.

Quakers saw no room for them under the strictures of The Act of Uniformity nor did a number of pastors of Puritan persuasion.  Some, like Richard Baxter while acting as a Puritan pastor, stayed in the Church of England as a parishioner but not as a minister, so as to “to separate from them no further than they separate from God”.² 

These “non conformists” started independent churches (sound familiar?) or held private meetings for teaching people the faith.  But unlike today, these public or private meetings were under sanction from the government, as well as the Church of England, and persecution, fines, loss of property or imprisonment could result from rebellion against the Act of Uniformity. 

Various acts of parliament in the years that followed turned the screws tighter against those who would not conform – “This was a persecution of Protestants by Protestants unique in Europe in its intensity and bitterness: another major question mark against the complacent English boast of a national history of tolerance”.³  Nonconformists were not allowed to graduate from Universities until the 19th Century!

While we in Australia do not yet feel such extreme pressures (although no doubt there are some who do indeed face hostility from liberal Bishops), some of our fellow Anglicans in the USA and Canada have faced persecution from The Episcopal Churches.  They have lost their church properties, and through secular courts have been threatened with legal action including the threat of suing individuals who have sought, through convinced biblical reasons, to separate their churches or dioceses away from the liberal philosophies of a heterodox church.

In trying to identify some factors as to why the division in the Church of England occurred and so many ministers left, Peter Adam gives us reason to reflect on our own church context and practice. 

Some of it was due to the political agenda pursued by the Puritans, some to the failure of Puritanism to actually bring about the change in the hearts of people that should be expected of those who were committed to listening to faithful preaching from the Scriptures.

While skepticism of scholastic preaching – that is detailed academic and intellectual ways of doing theology and paying close attention to the text - would likely not be a weakness of current-day evangelical Anglicanism (although it might be in other parts of the Australian church), the Puritan commitment to the medieval style of preaching – taking a short text of scripture and analysing and dissecting it, seemed to be too far above the minds (and hearts?) of ordinary people so that it “became increasingly culturally inappropriate and unacceptable”.⁴

While those who are preachers today lament that many in our congregations seem to think that most sermons, no matter how long, are “too long”, Puritan sermons were routinely an hour or so in length, and became unpopular in being caught up in the minutia of the text. 

One Puritan, Joseph Carryl, in thinking Job would be an appropriate book for a suffering church, began as Peter Adam sagely says a “perhaps pastorally unwise” decision to preach on it for 29 years!

 There were class divisions undermining the Reformed movement (not such an issue in egalitarian Australia?), and a weakness within reformed theology that led to Arianism, Deism and Unitarianism creeping into the church, whilst Calvinist ministers fought over the extent of Christ's atonement – “only for the elect or for the whole world?”  These theologically founded fights, though different in emphasis, are evident amongst Australian Anglican churches today.

The Preface to the Book of Common Prayer” says

Christ's Gospel is not Ceremonial Law, (as much as Moses' Law was) but it is a Religion to serve God, not in the bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the Spirit…

Adam says, “While the rhetoric of the Church of England appeared to promise liberty, the practice was very different… The Act of Uniformity felt like bondage,not liberty”.⁵

Clergy in Australia today who work under liberal bishops can find similarly that their “liberal” bishops do not tolerate questioning or dissent, and sometimes work actively against the practice and placement of evangelical clergy in parishes as well as seek to micro manage the practice of their ministries.  “Liberalism” can tolerate great diversity, but sometimes be very intolerant of evangelicals with little “liberty” offered to them. 

Despite all the ructions and divisions that surrounded it, Peter Adam also says the Church of England in 1662 is rightly described as “Reformed Anglicanism” and 1662 a key to Anglican identity even today.  He argues that its formularies and emphasis on Scripture as the final place of authority above church councils helps its reformed flavour, even if it did over time become broader in practice and lose some of its cutting gospel edge.

Peter Adam finishes his book with some helpful lessons and wise advice as the Anglican Church of Australia faces its own internal tensions over numerous issues – from the role of women in ordained or bishop's roles to the sexuality debate that has continued for decades.  These issues in some cases divide evangelicals from evangelicals, in some cases evangelicals and liberals.

The Anglican Church worldwide faces great strains with the rise of the African initiated GAFCON movement, who no longer see the link with “Canterbury” as necessary to have an authentic Anglican identity. 

Orthodox Anglican clergy, congregations and even dioceses are leaving the Episcopal Church in both North and South America.  Some have suffered much in these circumstances, and some clergy in trying to work for the good of the Gospel and in seeking to be godly have seen their health broken and their ministries taken away.

The Church of England in England seems set for ongoing fights over numerous issues.  Many of these are seen as battles for orthodoxy and it seems almost inevitable that more clergy, members of churches and congregations will need to decide whether “to stay or to go”.

Peter Adam identifies a lack of grace towards those who stay or those who go a major failure of Christian charity.  In 1662, the Bishop of Exeter, a Reformed Anglican, described some of those who left as “enemies of the church”.  “Those whom he should have loved as brothers in the gospel he dismissed because of their lack of Anglican order.  Valuing conformity to church practice over gospel partnership is a great sin”.⁶

I was challenged by his comments - “it is difficult to think of a Biblical instruction to leave a church or to leave ministry in a church because it has fallen away from the Gospel.  Jeremiah had to continue his ministry, and face the consequent persecution.  Timothy seems to be the only minster in Ephesus… who was still faithful to Paul’s gospel, but he was instructed to stay, teach and reform”.⁷

He warns to not to be too quick to judge the motives of those who choose a different path, to be careful of being so critical that we focus on secondary matters and make them primary.  That issue of course depends on your definitions of “primary” and “secondary”!  He suggests that the Puritan problem – that their theological rigor led often to division and intolerance – may be true of some evangelical movements today.

Referencing the call to love and the fruit of the Spirit (1 Cor 13:4; Gal 5:22) he urges those of us who are pastors to be patient in ministry even though we are urgent for godly change and God's glory – “We need patience with individuals, much more patience with a congregation, and even more patience with a denomination or nation.”⁸  Aim to win people, not arguments he says.  God is patient with our sin so we should show God's patience towards others.

In a caution to those who think leaving will solve many problems he notes “If you look from the perspective of the 21st Century, it could be argued that staying within the Church of England had as much gospel impact on the nation as leaving”.

If you are planning to leave he says, do not leave for trivial reasons, for “unnecessary schism is a sin”.  He recognises that different people with different temperaments might be more likely to stay or to leave, one to reform within, another to offer through a new ministry something that the existing structures won't or can't.

He warns about thinking the pasture is greener on the side of leaving when you may not be in a good position to know the real cost to gospel-founded relationships if you leave.

For those who stay he encourages reforming your church by the Bible, making godly, appropriate changes.  He even draws our attention to the strategy of the liberal part of the Anglican Church.  They made their theological and ministry changes despite the objections of the orthodox, and those changes are now accepted as normal Anglican practice.  His advice? – “Make changes, and suffer the consequences, and eventually the Church of England will change too”.⁹  On the certainty of outcome of that piece of advice I am more skeptical, although maybe I need a more historical perspective on our current day church!

Gospel trials are not unexpected; indeed they come upon those who seek to be the true church in every age.  And while we need to plan long term – training future gospel leaders especially – he reminds the impatient amongst us that we must trust in the providential care of God and his accomplishment of his gospel plan for the world.  It is a call to humility and recognition of the limits of our wisdom as we put into place our plans.

Of those 20% who left in 1662 he asks - “was it right to leave or to stay?  It is not for us to say:  each of us is accountable to God, not to each other.” (Romans 14:12).

“This booklet is dedicated to those who for the sake of Christ and the gospel, and to those who left, for the sake of Christ and the gospel.  They honoured God by patiently enduring gospel trials, and by their lives and ministries.  May their examples encourage us to fight the good fight, keep the faith and run the race, so that we, with them, may receive the crown”.

To that I say – Amen.

Paul Hunt is Rector of St Georges Anglican Church, Magill, Adelaide and Chair of EFAC-SA.

Written by: Dale Appleby

Created: 22 November 2014

The Diocese of Perth - A Test Case?

The Perth Diocesan Synod has twice debated (the same) motion that sought to affirm same sex partnerships as consistent with Christian discipleship.  In 2012 and 2013 the motion was passed by a majority of Synod voting by houses but vetoed by Archbishop Roger Herft.  On both occasions, the Synod debate was accompanied by media coverage before and/or after the Synod.  On both occasions, Archbishop Herft made use of the full thirty days allowed to him under the statutes to prayerfully consider his decision.  Under the statutes, the second use of the archiepiscopal veto required that the motion be voted upon by the Provincial Council.  The Provincial Council unanimously rejected the motion, thereby endorsing the Archbishop’s veto. 

The Archbishop’s reasons for veto included that:

a.    the resolution ‘as worded’ was capable of being interpreted as contrary to the Fundamental Declarations and Ruling Principles of the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia which govern the Matrimony Canon 1981; and

b.    the resolution gave a focus to sexuality that is ‘at variance with the doctrine of the human person’ as expressed in Lambeth Resolution 1.10/98’

Read more: The Diocese of Perth - A Test Case?