An Covenant for the Church of England?
The Story so far:
Separate from the process of the Anglican Communion Covenant a small group of conservative Evangelicals presented Archbishop Williams with a document called:
A Covenant for the Church of England
This provoked a rapid and very critical response from Fulcrum. On the same website Bp Tom Wright expressed his vehement disagreement and sense of betrayal.
Chris Sugden wrote a defensive article 'Covenant for a Confused Church' in the Church of England Newspaper.
One point of interest is that both Tom Wright and Chris Sugden use 'liberals' as a common enemy in order to paper over divisions within Evangelicalism.
MCU's Response
In December 2006, in response to an article in the Sunday Telegraph, MCU made its first response.
Second, a letter was sent to the Church of England Newspaper in response to Colin Sugden's article.
Letter to the Church of England Newspaper, Joanathan Clatworthy
The recent spat between Tom Wright and Chris Sugden about December's ‘covenant' neatly reveals how some of the current ‘conservative evangelical' campaigning neither conserves nor evangelizes.
Sugden's latest article in the Church of England Newspaper makes the usual claim to represent ‘the biblical and Anglican tradition of the Church of England' while really representing only a minority view. He speaks of ‘war for the soul of our national culture' and warns of ‘the liberal agenda' and ‘the liberal consensus'. His ‘covenant' (more of an ultimatum, really) is primarily for ‘those who are working under revisionist bishops and so have their gospel ministry hampered'.
What does this mean? No British bishops describe themselves as ‘revisionist'; this is, one suspects, just one of those terms, like ‘unsound' and ‘liberal', to describe anyone who disagrees with the speaker. How is their ministry hampered? Appealing to confidentiality, he does not tell us; but he writes as though all non-evangelical bishops ought to support conservative evangelicals in doing whatever they want. If we are to have bishops at all, I fear, we shall have bishops with whom we may disagree, and who sometimes consider our pet projects ill-advised.
As General Secretary of the MCU I think I have a pretty good overview of what liberal Anglicans do and believe. I can assure you that there is no such thing as ‘the liberal agenda' or ‘the liberal consensus'. Liberals, like the Christians of the Early Church, think for themselves and rarely accept a party line, mainly because they are too committed to the search for truth for its own sake. Just like the prosecutors of Essays and Reviews in the nineteenth century and Pope Pius X who condemned Modernism 100 years ago, Sugden attributes to liberals a unity of mind and purpose which we just don't have; and, like them, he does so because he is trying to present us as the innovators and himself as the upholder of tradition.
If the issue at stake is narrowly conceived as the ethics of homosexuality, he has a case; but what lies behind it is a programme to change the authority structures of the Anglican Communion, and on this point he - and Wright - are the innovators.
Sugden and his fellow campaigners, in Anglican Mainstream, Reform and elsewhere, persistently fail, in their public literature, to credit Anglicans who live outside their ‘conservative evangelical' bubble with being equally sincere Christians, equally convinced of the truth of our views. They treat their own views as the only legitimate Christian position: that homosexuality is immoral, that the Church cannot tolerate gay clergy, that the existence of gay-supporting bishops therefore generates a crisis, and that they must resolve it by taking over the Anglican Communion and replacing those bishops.
Instead of taking over the institution, perhaps they should put more effort into winning the arguments.
Firstly, is homosexuality really against the will of God? There is a lively debate about this, with no sign of agreement that it is. We know it is forbidden in the Bible, but so are many hundreds of practices common among Christians today; my diocesan bishop, for example, regularly trims his beard, thereby disobeying Leviticus 19, but nobody objects. If they are so convinced that homosexuality is immoral, instead of bullying us they should try to convince us. One suspects that taking over the institutional church is a displacement activity for those who subconsciously fear that they have lost the arguments.
Secondly, even if they are right about homosexuality, why split the Church? We can worship together while disagreeing on hundreds of other issues, even when – like divorce – we have the words of Jesus on the matter: why not on this one?
Here are two questions which ought to be central to the debate. Perhaps the oddest thing about it is that the anti-gay campaigners are, at least in public, united in ignoring them. They prefer, it seems, to treat these questions as though they were already settled, and all that remained was to bully the rest of us into acquiescing.
All these oddities – writing off those who disagree as ‘revisionists', refusing to grant them authority or even to listen to their views, treating the central theological and ethical questions as though they had already been settled, demanding that only those they approve of should be appointed bishops – all point to an inability, or at least refusal, to treat other people as they expect to be treated themselves.
For thousands of years most religions have taught the need for each of us to overcome our selfcentredness. From infancy, we need to learn that other people have minds, with thoughts, beliefs and feelings, just as we do. Their views may be wrong, but so may ours. Astonishing though it may seem to Sugden and his allies, most liberal Christians believe in God just as strongly as he does, care about truth as strongly as he does, and desire to avoid evil and do good just as strongly as he does. We disagree with him, and are prepared to discuss our disagreements with a view to resolving them.
If he finds that difficult to believe, he could perhaps pay attention to what liberals are saying. It may not suit his idea of being a ‘conservative evangelical'; but listening to others is an essential part of evangelism, and it may even help to conserve Anglicanism.
Jonathan Clatworthy, General Secretary, MCU
MCU Press Release 13 December 2006 (in response to initial press reports)
The latest attempt by a group of conservative evangelical clerics to split the Church of England over the issue of gay priests is not just a threat to the church but to the nation, says the MCU (Modern Churchpeople's Union).
A weekend press report suggests that a rebel group of clergy, losing patience with the Archbishop of Canterbury's perceived prevarication over the issue of homosexuality, want not only to break off relations with liberal bishops and set up alternative pastoral oversight, but actively bar those bishops from churches in their own diocese.
"If the report is true, and so far there has been no denial, then we believe not just the church but the whole country should be alarmed," said MCU general secretary, Jonathan Clatworthy.
"The Church of England is open to everyone. That, surely, is its strength. What does it say about the place of the church in society if bishops of all people, who have pastoral care of their flock, are to be banned from crossing the threshold? It is a very slippery slope. Once you say 'you can't come in because we don't agree with your views' – on whatever topic – you are saying in effect that that person is not worthy of a place at the altar. We think this is a potentially dangerous and divisive precedent, with implications for everyone, Christian or not, who wants to come to church."
The rebel clerics are reported to be asking for a panel of conservatively-inclined retired bishops opposed to the 'marriage' of homosexual priests, to provide pastoral care of churches in a diocese where the bishop has more liberal views.
Says Jonathan: "There seems to be an assumption that if only they can create a safe place, away from liberals and gays, they can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their lives.
"Yet history shows that splits like this just lead to further schism. The current issue is homosexuality, but the pace of change in society means inevitably that something else will come along in due course, and cause further division. It happens – unless you accept that church is the place where you can air your differences, but still love your neighbour. If that isn't at the heart of the Christian message, I don't know what is."