The speech I would give at General Synod today

In his seminal work,  ‘On the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’, Richard Hooker states (quote) ‘when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest wellspring and fountain of them to be discovered.’ (Book I. Ch. i. 3). 

It is claimed that the LLF process exposed two roots, two understandings of scripture, two interpretations, two applications and that it is incumbent upon us to live with difference.

But Hooker insists on further exploration of the foundation and root.  He understands the complex relationship between human reason, prejudice, desire, stubbornness, rationalised experience, appetite and the human will in relation to the special revelation of God in scripture when considering laws of ecclesiastical polity.  Hooker challenges us to explore the deep roots of prejudice, based on our desires, appetites and rationalised experience.  

I suggest that the task before us is not to seek a political fix, because we all know that a political fix is not possible. Rather the task before us is a deep dive into personal honesty.  Hooker challenges us to discover the foundation and root of our personal beliefs.  This is a question which all of us must explore for ourselves.  The Holy Spirit will eliminate our prejudices, appetites, tribalism and whether or not we are allowing holy writ to speak for itself or not.  

The pastoral matter is of utmost importance. Its temporal importance relates to the unity of the Bride of Christ on Earth.  Its eternal importance relates to The salvation of souls.  None of us can assume that our desires, appetites and prejudices are on Christ’s side; we must discover the roots and foundation of our stand.

Hooker also nuances our understanding of democratic process because he states [quote] ‘heresy prevails where counterfeit reason is employed’ and that reason may err and, therefore, councils may err.  

I commend a Cambridge Paper by the late Mike Ovey, published in 2003: Beyond scrutiny? Minorities, majorities and post-modern tyranny.’  In this paper, Ovey questions western, post-Christian assumptions about the neutrality of power and the reliability of democracy to return the right answer.  He bases his understanding of tyranny on the work of John of Sailsbury.

Where synod votes in favour of anything which is contrary to the will of God revealed in holy scripture then the governance exercised by synod becomes tyrannical.

16th century Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford argues against the divine right of kings, Rex Lex, in favour of the law of God as king. Lex Rex. Kings, rulers and governments are not, according to Rutherford, free to invent laws contrary to the law of God revealed in scripture, but instead, he points out that all humans, including the king, must live under the rule of God’s law.  And Rutherford advocated for opposition to the King where the King became a tyrant.

And so my plea to the synod is that all members discover the foundation and root of their own conclusions.

I plead that we acknowledge the limits of democracy which is not a neutral power and that even democratic votes may become tyrannical.

And lastly, if the large minority on synod believe that the small majority, especially the bishops who hold power, are acting in a tyrannical manner then Rutherford advocates for that minority to oppose, by various means, the imposition of laws contrary to the laws of our almighty, just and compassionate law giver.

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Summary of Richard Hooker’s ‘Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’

Richard Hooker – Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

I here set out Hooker’s understanding of the supremacy of God in the giving of laws which govern creation.  In summary, Almighty God is the first cause of all things and is both a law unto himself and the source of all laws; the laws which govern creation cannot be broken by inanimate creatures; human beings are unique in creation, being created with the faculty of reason; human reason is affected by prejudice, the affections, desires, stubbornness and rationalised experience of humans such that reason can be used to justify evil; special knowledge is necessary for the will to bend toward it; human reason err and so invent laws contrary to the law of God; God has made special revelation in scripture for humans to employ reason to distinguish good and evil; hersey prevails where counterfeit reason is employed.

BOOK I. Ch. i. 1, 2.I. – Here Hooker sets out the difficulty of governance, viz resolving disputes concerning laws.  Deep rooted prejudice and unwillingness to listen create disputes.

Whereas on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favour of the present state, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such exceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them.

BOOK I. Ch. i. 3. In the case of disobedience to ecclesiastical law, Hooker establishes the need to discover first principles. 

when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest wellspring and fountain of them to be discovered. 

And, when traditions are challenged, we are to set aside partial affections and have eyes and hearts to embrace what’s acceptable to Almighty God.

The Laws of the Church, whereby for so many ages together we have been guided in the exercise of Christian religion and the service of the true God, our rites, customs, and orders of ecclesiastical government, are called in question: we are accused as men that will not have Christ Jesus to rule over them, but have wilfully cast his statutes behind their backs, hating to be reformed and made subject unto the sceptre of his discipline. Behold therefore we offer the laws whereby we live unto the general trial and judgement of the whole world; heartily beseeching Almighty God, whom we desire to serve according to his own will, that both we and others (all kind of partial affection being clean laid aside) may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in his sight are most acceptable.

God, being the first cause of all things, is both a law to himself and the source of all law.

God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To himself he is a law in all those things, whereof our Saviour speaketh, saying, “My Father worketh as yet, so I.” God worketh nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done; and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them.

Laws are imposed on all things God has made, otherwise, those things would also be infinite.

Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch as there is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it should be infinite, even as the worker himself is.

God being the first source of all things, decrees that all things that come to pass, only do so because he wills them to do so.

That law eternal which God himself hath made to himself, and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the cause and author; that law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which hath testified concerning herself….This law therefore we may name eternal, being “that order which God before all ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by.”

Hooker concludes that ‘natural law’ by which reasonable creatures are bound is only known by special revelation from God, Divine law.

That part of it which ordereth natural agents we call usually Nature’s law; that which Angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law Celestial and heavenly; the law of Reason, that which bindeth creatures reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound; that which bindeth them, and is not known but by special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law either of reason or of God men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it a law.

Hooker distinguishes between three things in creation, which act according to the law of God, first, those without comprehension of their actions obey the law second, the fouls, fish and beast, which have some cognition of their actions; and, third, humans who are reasonable beings, capable of comprehension of the law of God and so are able to make choices, bending the will to knowledge.

If fire consume the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before another. And to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the light of that eye, is reason.  So that two principal fountains there are of human action, Knowledge and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end, is termed choice.  Concerning Knowledge, “Behold, (saith Moses,) I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death.” Concerning Will, he addeth immediately, “Choose life;” that is to say, the things that tend unto life, them choose.

Hooker distinguishes between appetite and will.

The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of Appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power, whether we will be stirred with affections or no: whereas actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed.

The strength of Human appetite can cause human reason to teach that the object for which that appetite exists is good.  Even then the will can choose to take or leave.

Sensible Goodness is most apparent, near, and present; which causeth the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked. Now pursuit and refusal in the Will do follow, the one the affirmation the other the negation of goodness, which the understanding apprehendeth, grounding itself upon sense, unless some higher Reason do chance to teach the contrary.

BOOK I. Ch. vii. 7. Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good, and yet the Will of man not incline itself thereunto, as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience doth oversway.

Nor let any man think that this doth make any thing for the just excuse of iniquity. For there was never sin committed, wherein a less good was not preferred before a greater, and that wilfully; which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of Nature, and the utter disturbance of that divine order, whereby the preeminence of chiefest acceptation is by the best things worthily challenged. There is not that good which concerneth us, but it hath evidence enough for itself, if Reason were diligent to search it out. Through neglect thereof, abused we are with the show of that which is not; sometimes the subtilty of Satan inveigling us as it did Eve, sometimes the hastiness of our Wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound Reason.

If Reason err, we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of the general perfection we seek. Seeing therefore that for the framing of men’s actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary, it only resteth that we search how this may be had.

As reason may err, the revelation of God’s law in scripture is necessary for men’s direction.

BOOK I. Ch. x. 15. xi. 1. All I will presently say is this: whether it be for the finding out of any thing whereunto divine law bindeth us, but yet in such sort that men are not thereof on all sides resolved; or for the setting down of some uniform judgement to stand touching such things, as being neither way matters of necessity, are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there is open opposition about them; be it for the ending of strifes, touching matters of Christian belief, wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order, and regiment in the church; I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with so great instancy gave as concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient councils again renewed, rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that of all other the worst, which is by sword.

It followeth therefore that a new foundation being laid, we now adjoin hereunto that which cometh in the next place to be spoken of; namely, wherefore God hath himself by Scripture made known such laws as serve for direction of men.

Wherefore God hath by Scripture further made known such supernatural laws, as do serve for men’s direction.

Hooker then turns to the gospel of Christ and the gift of faith by God’s supernatural grace.

Behold how the wisdom of God hath revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which hath witnessed of himself, saying “I am the way,” the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds.

…concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God.

In light of the gospel, the law of God remains for our instruction such that they are either not easily discovered by other means or no reasonable man can be ignorant of them.

When supernatural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected as needless. The law of God therefore is, though principally delivered for instruction in the one.

the Scripture aboundeth with so great store of laws in this kind: for they are either such as we of ourselves could not easily have found out, and then the benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands; or if they be so clear and manifest that no man endued with reason can lightly be ignorant of them, yet the Spirit as it were borrowing them from the school of Nature, as serving to prove things less manifest, and to induce a persuasion of somewhat which were in itself more hard and dark, unless it should in such sort be cleared, the very applying of them unto cases particular is not without most singular use and profit many ways for men’s instruction. Besides, be they plain of themselves or obscure, the evidence of God’s own testimony added to the natural assent of reason concerning the certainty of them, doth not a little comfort and confirm the same.

Hooker points out that differing opinions are due to imbecility and that ignorance blinds whole nations so that gross iniquity is judged not to be sin.

BOOK I. Ch. xii. 2.  Wherefore inasmuch as our actions are conversant about things beset with many circumstances, which cause men of sundry wits to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done; requisite it cannot but seem the rule of divine law should herein help our imbecility, that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil. The first principles of the Law of Nature are easy; hard it were to find men ignorant of them. But concerning the duty which Nature’s law doth require at the hands of men in a number of things particular, so far hath the natural understanding even of sundry whole nations been darkened, that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin.  Again, being so prone as we are to fawn upon ourselves, and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities, without the feeling sense whereof we are most wretched, even so much the more, because not knowing them we cannot so much as desire to have them taken away: how should our festered sores be cured, but that God hath delivered a law as sharp as the two-edged sword, piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart, which the Law of Nature can hardly, human laws by no means possible, reach unto? Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin, and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandering cogitation. 

Hooker states that it is not possible to agree to disagree.  We are not permitted to imagine a difference.

BOOK III. Ch. iii. 1-3.III.  So that if we imagine a difference where there is none, that matters of discipline are different from matters of faith and salvation; and that they themselves so teach which are our reprovers. because we distinguish where we should not, it may not be denied that we misdistinguish. 

Hooker sets out the limits of the authority of scripture on matters of indifference, such as the wearing of a wedding ring, eating different kinds of meat, celebrating festivals on various days, genuflexion, kneeling etc and then establishes four rules for establishing polity.

so easy it is for every man living to err, and so hard to wrest from any man’s mouth the plain acknowledgment of error, that what hath been once inconsiderately defended, the same is commonly persisted in, as long as wit by whetting itself is able to find out any shift, be it never so slight, whereby to escape out of the hands of present contradiction. Their meaning who first did plead against the Polity of the Church of England, urging that “nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded by the word of God;”

there are general commandments for all things, to the end, that even such cases as are not in Scripture particularly mentioned, might not be left to any to order at their pleasure only with caution, that nothing be done against the word of God: and that for this cause the Apostle hath set down in Scripture four general rules, requiring such things alone to be received in the Church as do best and nearest agree with the same rules, that so all things in the Church may be appointed, not only not against, but by and according to the word of God. The rules are these, “Nothing scandalous or offensive unto any, especially unto the Church of God;” “All things in order and with seemliness;” “All unto edification;” finally, “All to the glory of God.” Of which kind how many might be gathered out of the Scripture, if it were necessary to take so much pains? Which rules they that urge, minding thereby to prove that nothing may be done in the Church but what Scripture commandeth, must needs hold that they tie the Church of Christ no otherwise than only because we find them there set down by the finger of the Holy Ghost.

Heresy prevaileth only by a counterfeit show of reason.

Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered unto the world by revelation, and it presumeth us taught otherwise that itself is divine and sacred.

Laws are to be made for the ordering of the Church which are not repugnant to the word of God.  

How laws for the regiment of the Church may be made by the advice of men following therein the light of reason, and how those laws being not repugnant to the word of God are approved in his sight. Laws for the Church are not made as they should be, unless the makers follow such direction as they ought to be guided by: wherein that Scripture standeth not the Church of God in any stead, or serveth nothing at all to direct, but may be let pass as needless to be consulted with, we judge it profane, impious, and irreligious to think. 

Humans might hold that the law is changeable but where Christ forbids change, then we may not change laws against his will.   If laws have been made which are contrary to scripture, then those laws may be altered.

Whether Christ have forbidden all change of those laws which are set down in Scripture. This we hold and grant for truth, that those very laws which of their own nature are changeable, be notwithstanding uncapable of change, if he which gave them, being of authority so to do, forbid absolutely to change them; neither may they admit alteration against the will of such a law-maker. Albeit therefore we do not find any cause why of right there should be necessarily an immutable form set down in holy Scripture; nevertheless if indeed there have been at any time a church polity so set down, the change whereof the sacred Scripture doth forbid, surely for men to alter those laws which God for perpetuity hath established were presumption most intolerable.

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I should stay in the Church of England, this week

As the Church of England continues to plunge deeper into crisis and judgement, three incidents this week have increased my desire to stay (although, even after one of our most encouraging Sunday’s in the parish, I was in the mood to leave by the evening because of the incompetence and evil of many in governance of the CofE).

Before I go on, my free church brothers and sisters and AiME and ACE brothers and sisters, please don’t hear what I am about to say as criticism because I am fully convinced that the local church is the church; that the faithful preaching of the word of God and the right administration of the sacraments is where Christ is with his people. The Universal Church is invisible and known to God alone. The Church of England is not the church in England, it is not even properly a church but a denomination. Denominations are not the church.

With those things in mind here’s what has happened to increase my desire to stay. These all involve the Kingship of Christ. These three things have made me see the long term value of serving in the established church.

1. Like many of us, I have had recent conversations about the role of bishops in the Church of England. I have also spoken with those I know and love serving on General Synod and in the Houses of Parliament. I know the anxieties of many about the declining standards in public life and national governance. I have also been reading King Solomon’s dedication of the first temple in Jerusalem. These things combined so I have seen more clearly the need for national governance under the kingship of Christ. When Solomon addressed the people of God, he addressed them nationally. He cautioned that when they would, in some time, sin against the Lord, nationally, they would all need a change of heart and soul, they would all need to repent and plead with the Lord, then the Lord would forgive them and have mercy and restore the national prosperity and peace they enjoyed under Solomon. I have been challenged that our view of the kingship of Christ has been too limited to individual piety and local church polity in recent generations. Christ is our prophet, priest and king. Our vision of his rule must be personal, parochial and from shore to shore. How will he rule over the nation if his people are concerned only with the personal and parochial?

2. I was sent this aerial photo this week of the village in Scotland where I grew up. My family house is circled and was on a street between two church buildings. The building in the foreground, with the cross over it, is the Free Church of Scotland the other building on the right of the photo, in partial view, is the established Church of Scotland.

The Free Church of Scotland was built in 1843 after the great disruption of 1837. At that time, the evangelicals, who had been in the ascendancy, had established the right of veto, which allowed congregations to reject a patron’s choice of minister. But the veto was repealed and 450 evangelical ministers left the established church. I am aware that the Free Church of Scotland is now the fastest growing denomination in Scotland. But the Free Church of Scotland in my village was demolished in 1979 and the parish church continues to dish out a Liberal diet whilst the national government is arguably the most secular in the UK. We cannot know what might have happened if the evangelicals had stayed and we cannot know our own future. The fact is, 450 evangelical ministers left the Church of Scotland 180 years ago. It is also clear that although the Free Church has preserved individual piety and local polity, the rule of Christ in the nation is lost.

3. I have an intimate but arm’s length involvement in the inner workings of General Synod. Amanda, who some of you know is my wife, serves on the national governing body of the CofE. She will attend a revisions committee for the Clergy Conduct Measure today. She will represent the concerns of me and two fellow CDM (Clergy Discipline Measure) survivors from my diocese. All three of us, and our families, have suffered the mishandling of complaints. The work of making laws which will benefit the whole Church of England is tedious, time-consuming and fraught with risk. The legal team drafting the new legislation is stretched and somewhat myopic. Our input is vital. Yesterday, I asked my two fellow clergy to pray for Amanda, who is feeling ill-equipped, untrained and outnumbered, that she might represent our concerns well. One of my fellow clergy wrote yesterday, ‘thank you both for your painstaking work which will benefit all clergy and their parishes for generations to come.’

The future national rule of Christ, it seems to me, depends on people who may not ever be as famous as Lord Shaftesbury or the Clapham Sect, but who are willing to seek change in the nation in a series of small steps. Some, from free churches, like Kate Forbes and Tim Farron, and others from the established church, will be called to serve on local councils and national government. Those who are in the established church should lean-in, be patient, and seek the common good by establishing the rule of Christ over the Church of England and the land.

My prayer is that personal piety, the living local church and national instruments of governance align with their King so that Christ may rule in every heart, every community and from shore to shore.

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Clergy Conduct Measure Concerns

CCM Draft Legislation Issues Neil Robbie  7th July 2022

The provisions in the draft CCM legislation are a significant improvement on CDM legislation.  A small number of issues need to be addressed where the draft legislation is open to interpretation.

1.  Meaning of Misconduct – Section 3

The definition of misconduct should be objective.  The explanatory note 23 states: “the standards are to be found in particular (but not limited to) in the Ordinal, the Canons, and the Acts of Convocation needs clarification – “for example – The Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy.”  What are the Acts of Convocation?  What standards exist other than those listed?

2.  Registrar of tribunals – Section 6

What qualifications and standard of legal/theological training will be required of registrars?

3.  Regional lead assessor – Section 20

What qualifications and standard of legal/theological training will be required of registrars?

4.  Pastoral support for respondents – Section 20

Clear expectations need to be established regarding pastoral support.  Respondents will have a network of existing pastoral support.  CDM/CMM requires pastoral support from someone who understands the practical and pastoral demands of the process.  Supporters should be familiar with The Measure, The Rules, Code of Practice and offer appropriate pastoral/theological support. Powerlessness is a significant issue for respondents.  They should be able to reject a bishop’s offer of support and request an alternative, with justification for their pastoral needs. 

5.  Definition of vexatious complaint – Section 21

There is a substantial body of material available to help identify and handle complaints of a vexatious nature.  Malicious and querulant complaints should be added to this section.  Where will guidance on identifying and handling vexatious, malicious and querulant complaints be included?

6.  Conciliation during legal process – Section 21

The regional assessor places a complaint in the grievance box, because the ‘evidence’ lacks historical context which shows the complaint is vexatious, malicious or querulant. 

A designated person calls complainant and respondent to begin reconciliation.

The respondent fears saying something which will be interpreted as misconduct and the case I referred back to the regional assessor.

What would happen if the respondent either refuses to engage in reconciliation until the legal process or cries ‘vexatious, malicious, querulant!’

6a.  The designated person – Section 21

Roman law maintained a standard which disqualified judges on the basis of even a suspicion of bias.  Modern legal standards would disqualify a judge if impartiality could be reasonably questioned.  The question of impartiality in law normally applies to preexisting relationships, such as filial, marital or close friendships.   In the context of the church, a designated person in a diocese may have bias in favour or against a respondent or claimant based on previous relationships in the context of normal church life.  Respondents should be able to appeal against the appointment of a designated person on the basis of a preexisting context.

7.  Does a dismissal mean no further action?  Section 21

No further action under CDM routinely resulted in action being exercised by the bishop, outside the measure.  Letters of admonition, placed on the blue file, for example, must either be prohibited altogether, or legislated for, to avoid further judicial action outside the measure.

8.  Conciliation – Section 25

Conciliation requires both parties to agree on what happened, admit fault, take responsibility for their actions, seek forgiveness and to forgive.  The measure makes no provision for fault on the part of the complainant in a grievance.  It should be presupposed that a grievance can be two sided.  What provision is made for discipline of the laity?

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Could the House of Bishops be elected?

The appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury and diocesan bishops has followed pretty much the same path as the appointment of the Pope since the See was established in the 11th century.  Appointed by Rome and latterly by the King or Queen, the episcopacy has been imposed on England from above.

The Scots chose to reject the attempt by Charles I to impose episcopacy on the kirk from above.  Charles persisted in his demands and this led to the last British civil war. 

Civil war has been avoided in the British Isles for four hundred years, in large part, by the development of checks and balances against the abuse of power in government and by universal suffrage. Other powerful contributors included the belief that government exists to serve the common good mixed with the graces of Christian character and virtue.

John Calvin establishes in his Institutes that Christians are to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets.  We do not follow the holder of the first See of the Anglican Communion, nor even our diocesan bishop.  If our bishops chose not to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets, the clergy and laity may choose not to follow their bishop.  The question is, then, how do congregations, committed to being episcopally led, choose a new bishop?

In Book 4 chapter 4 of the Institutes, Calvin refers to the early church practice of bishops being elected by the laity.

In electing bishops, the people long retained their right of preventing anyone from being intruded who was not acceptable to all. Accordingly, it was forbidden by the Council of Antioch to induct anyone on the unwilling. This also Leo I. carefully confirms. Hence these passages: “Let him be elected whom the clergy and people or the majority demand.”

Church of England parishes currently have no say in who is elected as bishop.  The early church was careful to ensure clergy and laity had a say, and partnership, in the election of bishops.  Calvin goes on:

So careful were the holy fathers that this liberty of the people should on no account be diminished, that when a general council, assembled at Constantinople, were ordaining Nectarius, they declined to do it without the approbation of the whole clergy and people, as their letter to the Roman synod testified. Accordingly, when any bishop nominated his successor, the act was not ratified without consulting the whole people. 

What would the Church of England look like if, on a quinquennial cycle, every member on the electoral roll was allowed to vote for clergy, bishops and archbishops?  Proporotional representation rather than a diocesan first past the post, would allow the most theologically representative House to be elected. This prevent the kind of power imbalance we are witnessing today with our unelected bishops.  The number of evangelical and traditional Catholic parishes voting for bishops would, surely, change the make up significantly. A change in constitent members of the House would provide theological debate of a very robust nature. The product would, surely, be better. Heresy might not be avoided, but the chances are reduced. And the incipient, secular management style of the bishops would be reformed.

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Lessons from Reformation Schism

John Calvin’s theology of the church (ecclesiology), the power of bishops and his analysis of the dynamics of schism are highly significant for the Anglican Communion as the church begins to schism. There are two lessons we can learn from Calvin. First, how schism can be avoided. Second, how bishops can chose to relinquish power. The article includes my personal convictions on whether to stay or leave. It is an 8 minute read.

In Book 4 of the Institutes, Calvin is concerned with the nature of the church, the limits of episcopal power, church discipline and order.

Calvin reminds readers at the beginning of the book how he established, in the preceding books, that salvation is an operation of the will of God, through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit and the salvific work of Jesus Christ, so that believers are saved by God’s grace alone through the gift of faith alone.  We are made one church by the will of God.

Concerning the church, Calvin focuses on the gathering and nurturing work of God.  The church, properly understood to be our mother, aids God’s children, who are gathered into her care. 

“But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars.”

Calvin’s vivid description of the church as our mother has worked two changes in me.  First, I have grown in my grasp of being nurtured and educated within the loving bosom of the church.  I have learned much, and still have much to learn, until I am divested of mortal flesh.  Second, although it is sometimes deeply painful to belong to the church, and I’d much rather live on a croft in northwest Scotland, not nearer than 10 miles from my nearest neighbour, our mother church loves her children and holds us close to her as we learn and grow in her care.

Calvin’s ecclesiology is relational and local.  The church, in his view, is any congregation where the word of the Lord is proclaimed and the sacraments duly administered, but it is also universal.  And to make this point, Calvin takes the reader to the creed.  ‘I believe the church’, visible and invisible (seen and unseen).  His ecclesiology is of the local congregation and the catholic church.

“It is not sufficient for us to comprehend in mind and thought the multitude of the elect, unless we consider the unity of the church as that into which we are convinced we have been truly ingrafted. For no hope of future inheritance remains to us unless we have been united with all other members under Christ, our Head.”   

In spite of the great schisms of church history, Calvin restates the testimony of scripture which points to the invisible, unseen church, the ‘catholic’ church, where there are not two or three churches, but one church, to which all elect are grafted in.

He then turns his attention to the appearance of the visible church, with all her distortions and imperfections; 

“The name of Church is designated the whole body of mankind scattered throughout the world, who profess to worship one God and Christ, who by baptism are initiated into the faith; by partaking of the Lord’s Supper profess unity in true doctrine and charity, agree in holding the word of the Lord, and observe the ministry which Christ has appointed for the preaching of it.”  

This may or may not be what Stephen Cottrell said about our unity by baptism after February’s synod.  We are certainly visibly united as the church through our profession of faith and baptism.  But Calvin goes on to say: 

“In this Church there is a very large mixture of hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance: of ambitious, avaricious, envious, evil-speaking men, some also of impurer lives, who are tolerated for a time, either because their guilt cannot be legally established, or because due strictness of discipline is not always observed. Hence, as it is necessary to believe the invisible Church, which is manifest to the eye of God only, so we are also enjoined to regard this Church which is so called with reference to man, and to cultivate its communion.”

It is very important, to me, that we seek to cultivate the communion of the visible church, rather than to destroy it.  I take this to mean we are to unite, engage, question, wrestle theologically, teach, exhort, encourage, debate and reform.  Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.

Calvin presses home just how dysfunctional the visible church can be, turning his attention to the Corinthians.

“Among the Corinthians it was not a few that erred, but almost the whole body had become tainted; there was not one species of sin merely, but a multitude, and those not trivial errors, but some of them execrable crimes.  There was not only corruption in manners, but also in doctrine. What course was taken by the holy apostle, in other words, by the organ of the heavenly Spirit, by whose testimony the Church stands and falls? Does he seek separation from them? Does he discard them from the kingdom of Christ? Does he strike them with the thunder of a final anathema? He not only does none of these things, but he acknowledges and heralds them as a Church of Christ, and a society of saints.”

In my context, the Church of England, the Diocese of Lichfield, the deanery of West Bromwich and the parish of Holy Trinity, despite all our corruption in manners and doctrine, is called a society of saints and, in order to cultivate her communion, we are to avoid one of two evils, according to Calvin:  

“The name of heretics and schismatics is applied to those who, by dissenting from the Church, destroy its communion. This communion is held together by two chains—viz. consent in sound doctrine and brotherly charity.  Hence the distinction which Augustine makes between heretics and schismatics is, that the former corrupt the purity of the faith by false dogmas, whereas the latter sometimes, even while holding the same faith, break the bond of union (August. Lib. Quæst. in Evang. Mt.)”

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York insist that we ‘Walk Together”, placing emphasis on the catholicity of the church whilst ignoring, downplaying, minimising, even obliterating, the need for consent in sound doctrine.  To avoid schism we need both brotherly charity and sound doctrine.  We are to be of one mind.  The pain we are all enduring at this time, which could lead to visible disunity, is due to false doctrine. 

The visible church needs to develop and agree on sound doctrine on what it means to be human, made in the image of God, male and female, as sexual beings, whilst holding to the sound doctrine of marriage, between male and female.  

I am more solidly confident now, inlight of reading Calvin and my teaching on church history for Lent at Holy Trinity, that God our Father and the church, our mother, mature the church through disagreement, scandal, crisis, even war.  The love of God and the care of the church toward the elect is expressed in such turmoil as much as the wrath of God is being revealed toward the ungodly (Romans 1:18).  The rich theology being developed by the church is the sweet fruit of a bitter argument.  It has always been thus in the church.  Rich doctrines, including of the Trinity, Christology, doctrine of salvation, the sacraments and so on were developed in the heat of theological crisis.

I was once an international athlete, of a mediocre standard, representing Scotland twice.   Sometimes the discipline of training made me physically sick.  And I am reminded that no discipline seems pleasant at the time but, for those who are trained by it, it produces a harvest of righteousness (Hebrews 12).

Having established the nature of the church as local, universal, seen and unseen, with a mixed congregation of the elect, whom God alone knows truly, and the wicked, which is still called the church, the society of the saints, whose communion we are to cultivate, Calvin moves onto consider the limits of the power of bishops.

Calvin has a high view of scripture as God’s depository of true doctrine, revealed directly to the patriarchs, the prophets, evangelists and apostles and recorded for our learning and contemplation.

In an earlier book, Calvin presents the case of the authority of the scriptures and concludes: 

“As Christ declared that he spoke not of himself (John 12:50; 14:10), because he spoke according to the Law and the Prophets; so, if anything contrary to the Gospel is obtruded under the name of the Holy Spirit, let us not believe it. For as Christ is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, so is the Spirit the fulfilment of the Gospel” (Chrysost. Serm. de Sancto et Adorando Spiritu.) Thus far Chrysostom. We may now easily infer how erroneously our opponents act in vaunting of the Holy Spirit, for no other end than to give the credit of his name to strange doctrines, extraneous to the word of God, whereas he himself desires to be inseparably connected with the word of God; and Christ declares the same thing of him, when he promises him to the Church. And so indeed it is. The soberness which our Lord once prescribed to his Church, he wishes to be perpetually observed. He forbade that anything should be added to his word, and that anything should be taken from it. This is the inviolable decree of God and the Holy Spirit, a decree which our opponents endeavour to annul when they pretend that the Church is guided by the Spirit without the word.” 

This argument for the supremacy of scripture leads Calvin to caution us to be very earnest in our contemplation of God in his word.   

“if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men. It being thus manifest that God, foreseeing the inefficiency of his image imprinted on the fair form of the universe, has given the assistance of his Word to all whom he has ever been pleased to instruct effectually, we, too, must pursue this straight path, if we aspire in earnest to a genuine contemplation of God.”

Calvin distinguishes between the Apostles, who were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write scripture, and their successors, the bishops.  

“I have observed, there is this difference between the apostles and their successors, they were sure and authentic amanuenses of the Holy Spirit; and, therefore, their writings are to be regarded as the oracles of God, whereas others have no other office than to teach what is delivered and sealed in the holy Scriptures. We conclude, therefore, that it does not now belong to faithful ministers to coin some new doctrine, but simply to adhere to the doctrine to which all, without exception, are made subject.”

Calvin cautions bishops not to vainly invent doctrine from human imagination but to continually refer to the Word:

“they [the bishops] will have our faith to stand and fall at their pleasure, so that whatever they have determined on either side must be firmly seated in our minds; what they approve must be approved by us without any doubt; what they condemn we also must hold to be justly condemned. Meanwhile, at their own caprice, and in contempt of the word of God, they coin doctrines to which they in this way demand our assent, declaring that no man can be a Christian unless he assent to all their dogmas, affirmative as well as negative, if not with explicit, yet with implicit faith, because it belongs to the Church to frame new articles of faith.”

Is it not clear to us all that the current division occurs in the Anglican church on this point?  The disagreement and division over the blessing of same sex couples is not primarily about the presenting issue.  The disagreement is far more fundamental and complex.  The disagreement revolves around the place of scripture, tradition and reason; the authority of bishops and councils; and the discipline and order of the visible church.  

On one side there are the Calvinists, although most would not call themselves such, who believe in the scriptures as the rock upon which we are anchored and  we aspire, in earnest, to contemplate God and mine true doctrine.  On the other side, there is a belief that the Holy Spirit will lead councils of bishops and synods to coin some new doctrine, contrary to scripture.  

The current, painful disagreement is really a reenactment of the reformation in the opposite direction.  The modern-revisionists are attempting to revert to a pre-reformation epistemology, of a mystic and/or gnostic kind.  The direction of travel for the church, if history is to be repeated, is the separation of the church into two strands.  Just as ‘protestants’ were cast out of the Roman church to form new alignments, so the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion will realign in this generation.

I believe this is why there is such a high degree of exacerbation and frustration with the House and College of Bishops.  The bishops presented the so-called Prayers of Love and Faith without any theological rationale or grounding in scripture.  Bishops are being accused, rightly it seems, to have presented something vainly invented from their untethered imagination having long since abandoned our reformation roots.  Calvin faced a similar situation:

though our opponents should name councils of thousands of bishops it will little avail them; nor will they induce us to believe that they are, as they maintain, guided by the Holy Spirit, until they make it credible that they assemble in the name of Christ: since it is as possible for wicked and dishonest to conspire against Christ, as for good and honest bishops to meet together in his name. Of this we have a clear proof in very many of the decrees which have proceeded from councils. But this will be afterwards seen. At present I only reply in one word, that our Saviour’s promise is made to those only who assemble in his name. How, then, is such an assembly to be defined? I deny that those assemble in the name of Christ who, disregarding his command by which he forbids anything to be added to the word of God or taken from it, determine everything at their own pleasure, who, not contented with the oracles of Scripture, that is, with the only rule of perfect wisdom, devise some novelty out of their own head (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18).

I have grown in my appreciation that our own Articles are clearly derived from Calvin.  Canon A5, on the authority of scripture, Canons A20 and A21 on the authority of the church and councils, which may err.  The House of Bishops, the College of Bishops, the General Synod, may err and will be seen to have erred if they devise some theological novelty out of their own head.  It seems, to me, that parish churches which seek to remain rooted in scripture, whether they think of themselves as Calvinist or not, know that the synods and councils of the church may err and stray.

Calvin’s understanding of episcopacy in the early church highlights the bishops’ pastoral care and discipline of the clergy.  The bishops’ supported and encouraged clergy to proclaim the Word of God and administer the sacraments.  If a bishop was accused of failing in his duty, then synods could meet and remove the bishop from his post:

…each bishop was entrusted with the superintendence of his own clergy, that he might govern them according to the canons, and keep them to their duty. For this purpose, certain annual visitations and synods were appointed, that if any one was negligent in his office he might be admonished; if any one sinned, he might be punished according to his fault. The bishops also had their provincial synods once, anciently twice, a-year, by which they were tried, if they had done anything contrary to their duty. For if any bishop had been too harsh or violent with his clergy, there was an appeal to the synod, though only one individual complained. The severest punishment was deposition from office, and exclusion, for a time, from communion.

Perhaps my greatest frustration with the House of Bishops at this time is a lack of accountability.  The House has morphed, it seems to me, into a club of like minded managers, who are attempting to follow secular change management techniques.  The vote by houses at general synod hands bishops the veto to their own motions.  The church needs a means by which bishops who have done anything contrary to their duty, set out in the scriptures, canons and ordinal, to be fairly tried and called to repentance and forgiveness or removed.  CDM is the closest we get to holding bishops to account, but matters of doctrine are not permitted under the measure.  Bishops stand apart from any proper means of accountability.

In his seventh chapter, Calvin considers the political path which led to the establishment of the Bishop of Rome as the ‘first bishop’ or ‘chief bishop’ rather than a fellow bishop, brother bishop or colleague of the African and Eastern bishops.  The establishment of the first Archbishop of Canterbury followed the same path.  Appointed by Rome and latterly by the King or Queen, the episcopacy was imposed on England from above.  The Scots chose to reject Charles the First’s attempt to impose episcopacy from above, which led to civil war.  The meeting of GAFCON in April this year, where many African and Asia Archbishops refused to follow the lead of the Archbishop of Canterbury and no longer recognise him as the ‘first among equals’ was, in large part, an undoing of the politics of Empire as much as it was a correction to the notion that one bishop can be superior to another.  We are to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets.  We do not follow the holder of the first See of the Anglican Communion, nor even our diocesan bishop.  If our bishops chose not to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets, the clergy and laity may choose not to follow their bishop.  The question is, then, how do congregations, committed to being episcopally led, choose a new bishop?

These four excerpts from the Institutes Book 4 chapter 4, on the rise of the Bishop of Rome and power struggles, reveal there is truly nothing new under the sun when it comes to church politics.  This is not the first time the African bishops have been ignored by European bishops:

[At the second Council of Ephesus] the Roman bishops were never ashamed to stir up the greatest strife in contending for honours, and for this cause alone, to trouble and harass the Church with many pernicious contests.

Next came the Council of Chalcedon, in which, by concession of the Emperor, the legates of the Roman Church occupied the first place. But Leo himself confesses that this was an extraordinary privilege; for when he asks it of the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria Augusta, he does not maintain that it is due to him, but only pretends that the Eastern bishops who presided in the Council of Ephesus had thrown all into confusion, and made a bad use of their power.

In regard to the mere title of primate and other titles of pride, of which that pontiff now makes a wondrous boast, it is not difficult to understand how and in what way they crept in. Cyprian often makes mention of Cornelius (Cyprian. Lib. 2 Ep. 2; Lib. 4 Ep. 6), nor does he distinguish him by any other name than that of brother, or fellow bishop, or colleague. When he writes to Stephen, the successor of Cornelius, he not only makes him the equal of himself and others, but addresses him in harsh terms, charging him at one time with presumption, at another with ignorance. After Cyprian, we have the judgement of the whole African Church on the subject. For the Council of Carthage enjoined that none should be called chief of the priests, or first bishop, but only bishop of the first See.

Wherever the bishop be, whether at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, the merit is the same, and the priesthood the same. The power of riches, or the humbleness of poverty, do not make a bishop superior or inferior” (Hieron. Ep. ad Evagr.).

The Anglican Communion and Church of England have moved from torn fabric to the early stages of schism.  Schisms in the reformation were brutal, murderous, ugly.  The schism in the Episcopal Church was litigious, mean and bullying.  Bishops in the West must, as Justin Welby has indicated, be willing to relinquish both their historical, political superiority and their attitude of ‘west knows best’.  In the Church of England, the bishops face a choice between fighting for the buildings or providing an ordered, peaceful and gracious separation.  The attitude of the bishops towards their power will determine which we face. 

Bishops could allow parishes to align with a bishop who shares their pastoral and theological convictions.  It would be very Christlike for bishops to relinquish their power to the laity.  The only way to give this power to congregations is to change from graphical to theological bishops.   Bishops can say, ‘If this is of God, it will wither and die.  Allow them to continue.’   Christ’s kingdom is not of this world.  His people are his temple.  The branches which remain faithful to Christ, will grow.  Those which cut themselves off from the root, will wither and die. 

Schism is, now, inevitable.  The national and global realignment which has begun will follow the existing fault lines, between those who elevate the subjective to the place of highest authority and those who hold the scriptures to hold authority over all.  Lex Rex.

Calvin lived through a period of schism from which we can learn much.  Calvin’s theology of the unity of the one true church and the dynamics of schism give us serious pause for thought.

We have seen that Calvin believed in the one church, visible, whose members are to work for her communion under her head, Christ, the only source of light and truth.  He was for the unity of the church, for her wellbeing:

Cyprian, also, following Paul, derives the fountain of ecclesiastical concord from the one bishopric of Christ, and afterwards adds, “There is one Church, which by increase from fecundity is more widely extended to a multitude, just as there are many rays of the sun, but one light, and many branches of a tree, but one trunk upheld by the tenacious root. When many streams flow from one fountain, though there seems wide spreading numerosity from the overflowing copiousness of the supply, yet unity remains in the origin. Pluck a ray from the body of the sun, and the unity sustains division. Break a branch from a tree, and the branch will not germinate. Cut off a stream from a fountain, that which is thus cut off dries up.

He goes on to discuss the dynamics of schism.  The bishops of Rome accused him of heresy.  He fled from France when widespread deadly violence erupted against the reformers.  Having ‘withdrawn’, i.e. run for his life, he was content to leave his accusers to judge him as a schismatic, but his own conscience was clear before Christ.

Words could not more elegantly express the inseparable connection which all the members of Christ have with each other. We see how he constantly calls us back to the head. Accordingly, he declares that when heresies and schisms arise, it is because men return not to the origin of the truth, because they seek not the head, because they keep not the doctrine of the heavenly Master. Let them now go and clamour against us as heretics for having withdrawn from their Church, since the only cause of our estrangement is, that they cannot tolerate a pure profession of the truth. I say nothing of their having expelled us by anathemas and curses. The fact is more than sufficient to excuse us, unless they would also make schismatics of the apostles, with whom we have a common cause. Christ, I say, forewarned his apostles, “they shall put you out of the synagogues” (John 16:2). The synagogues of which he speaks were then held to be lawful churches. Seeing then it is certain that we were cast out, and we are prepared to show that this was done for the name of Christ, the cause should first be ascertained before any decision is given either for or against us. This, however, if they choose, I am willing to leave to them; to me it is enough that we behoved to withdraw from them in order to draw near to Christ.

Calvin helps me to address the question, as a Church of England vicar, should I stay or should I go?  This is my thinking so far, following Calvin.

  • There is only one true church.
  • I am a member of a visible church, local, denominational and in the world.
  • God is teaching and maturing me in the church where I have been placed.
  • I am to work for her communion under Christ, by the proclamation of the true word and right administration of the sacraments. 
  • I do this locally and, by engaging in synods and meetings, regionally and nationally, and by writing.
  • The House of Bishops and General synod have erred on a point of first order doctrine, a salvation issue.
  • I face no accusations, yet, of heresy.
  • I am not being cast out, yet.
  • The power to order a peaceful settlement lies with the bishops.
  • The bishops will either relinquish their power and make provisions for a peaceful settlement or go to war against parishes which reject their leadership.
  • The church which cuts itself off from Christ will die. 
  • The dynamics of schism, for Calvin, are for all members to work for reform under the word of God until the false teachers cast them out.  [I have a question regarding being cast out:  False teachers today do not hold the threat of imprisonment or deadly violence, rather, they patiently discriminate against their enemies, choosing not to appoint those who hold to true doctrine to positions of responsibility until the whole church is cut off and dies (as statistics from TEC, The Scottish Episcopal Church etc confirm).  I am not qualified to know what God has in mind for the Church of England in the future.  Who knows what might change! Reformation and revival or slow death?  I will content myself by focusing on today, for tomorrow has enough worries of its own.  I will lean in, move toward, seek to make the Church of England better by teaching and the proclamation of the truth.]

I am left with an increased love of the visible church, a more realistic perspective on the struggle we face today, a willingness to be taught by God within the church through theological and political crisis, a desire to lean in, to seek reformation.  I am more committed to being episcopally led but also frustrated by the lack of proper, objective accountability for our Bishops.  How far our synod seems to be from the nature of the synods of the early church.  We have standards by which to measure the conduct and beliefs of bishops and clergy, but cannot use them.  I asked, in my letter to you in October last year, how do we replace bishops who fail to uphold the teaching of the prophets and apostles?  This is a question which synod should be asking, especially after the point of order made by Stephen Hophmyer over the ability of Bishops to veto every amendment to their own motion.  The veto seems, to me, and many others, to be a serious abuse of power.

What are my hopes?

I hope there will be an honest discussion about the primary issues, with regards the authority of scripture and the subordinate authority of bishops and councils.  I hope we will discuss the development of a means by which bishops can be removed from office by synod for failing in their duties as established in scripture, the Prayer Book and the ordinal.  I pray that the presenting issue regarding human sexuality will be subsumed by the primary issue of authority.  I pray that the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion will be united both by true doctrine and by filial affection.  My fear is that we will continue to argue, from very different starting points, about who can have sex with whom and the church will schism and realign.  I am also fearful of a repeat of the ungodly power battles which occurred in the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church.  My ultimate hope is that a righteous branch will grow from the stump.

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A biblical theology of the Lordship of Christ from John 21

The desciple who Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ (John 21:7).

After Jesus and Peter, Thomas, Nathanael and two others disciples had eaten breakfast, Jesus turned to Peter and asked him

Do you love me more than these? Is that question clear to you?  It’s not clear to me. What does Jesus mean by “these”?  

Does he mean more than these 153 fish Peter had caught.  They must have been worth lots of money. Or more than these fishing nets and boat? Or more than these other fishermen? Or, is it all of these and more?

I think Jesus was asking Peter if he loved Jesus more than anything else. Does Peter love Jesus with all his heart?

Peter replies “Yes, Lord, I love you.”

Not Yes, Jesus, i love you Not Yes, Rabbi, or teacher, I love you Not, Yes, my friend or brother, I love you But Yes, LORD, I love you.

What is the first and greatest commandment?  

Love the …..?   

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.

Do you love me more than these?

Yes LORD, I love you.

Jesus is Lord.  Love him!

Jesus says to Peter.

“Feed my sheep.”

If Jesus has sheep which belong to him, what is he implying? He’s the shepherd.

Peter was a man who knew the scriptures.

When Jesus said “feed my sheep” Peter would make connections. He would think, Jesus has sheep which belong to him therefore he’s the shepherd which God promised in the scriptures. Which Old Testament passages immediately come to mind when you think of shepherds?

Psalm 23 – The Lord is My shepherd.

John 21:15-19 reflkects the structure of Psalm 23

Psalm 23John 21
The Lord’s my shepherdFeed my sheep – the shepherd
He leads me by quite watersBy the lake of Tiberias
He restores my soulPeter restored after his denial
Guides me on paths of righteousnessFollow me
For his names’ sakeTake care of my lambs
walk through the valley of the shaddow of deathWhat kind of death Peter would die
Prepares a tableJesus prepared a fire, fish, bread

Who is my shepherd, the LORD. What is Jesus implying when he says “feed MY sheep?” He’s saying that he is the Lord

Jesus is Lord.  Love him!

Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the good shepherd. We should love him with all our heart, more than these

And there is another passage from the Old Testament which immediately comes to my mind. What did Jesus ask Peter to do?  What does it mean to feed his sheep What does the shepherd do?  

Ezekiel 34. God calls The leaders of Israel the shepherds of Israel.

Look at chapter 34 verse 2

The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?

There was a problem with the shepherds of Israel. The leaders of Israel were Fat, sleek, powerful They fed themselves on riches, they did not care for the flock, the people

So the Lord promised to Come and shepherd the flock himself.

Look at verses 15 and 16

I MYSELF will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

Who is speaking here?  The Sovereign Lord. He will tend his sheep. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Feed my Sheep”. God does not have one flock of sheep and Jesus has a different flock of sheep. There is one flock because there is one God. Jesus is the Sovereign Lord. He is the second person of the Trinity, he is God, the Lord.

Jesus is the Lord.  Love him!

Jesus is the Shepherd

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The Fabric is Ripped. Gafcon and GSFA reject CofE direction and Canterbury’s leadership. How can Church of England parishes follow them?

The GAFCON IV statement has been declared, loud and clear. The Global South has, inevitably, rejected the doctrinal direction of the Church of England and the leaership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican Commuion is dead. Long live the Church of Christ.

Global South bishops have offered to support orthodox parishes in England. What emerges is yet to be imagined. I wrote to senior figures in the evanglical consitituency in December last year about the abuse of episcopal power in England and the need to replace the House of bishops. This is the text of that letter, which I make public today in support of our Global South brothers and sisters.

…in light of the messages from the bishops and discussion by people on the ground, I had a growing sense that we need to consider the power of the House of Bishops and how evangelicals can subvert it.

Power is something we are increasingly aware of and can see being exerted in all kinds of directions.  The bishops of the Church of England, it seems to me, and to many, are under enormous pressure from society and from powerful voices within the church, not least within the House of Bishops itself, to change the church’s understanding and practice of marriage.  At the same time almost every diocese is facing financial crisis and even bankruptcy.  In our own diocese we have only four years of liquid reserves before we are functionally bankrupt.  The power of dioceses is diminishing as wealth vanishes.

General Synod has become very evenly balanced by two groups with opposing views on marriage,  which are now deeply entrenched.  The battles, which exhaust us all, seem to be set to continue in  perpetuity, with no hope of an end to the war.  Both sides are dug in.  It is a stalemate as power struggles continue.

Our parishes are functionally congregational, operating alone.  We have very little power at a parish level.  Large, city centre churches might have the financial resources to abandon ship, if necessary, but most parishes face difficult choices, similar to our brothers and sisters in the Methodist Church and Church of Scotland. 

Pastorally, we give great thanks to the Lord for the richness of theology which has emerged in the skirmishes and the wranglings over what it means to be human beings made in the image of God, male and female.  We are now far better equipped to teach and pastorally care for all people in our church families and those who are drawn to living faith in Christ, who will benefit from that teaching and pastoral care.

Politically, we do not know what the House of Bishops will bring to Synod in February.  In my own correspondence with [redacted].  Of course, it is not in the interests of the bishops to divide the church into separate, non-geographical provinces.  Why would a Bishop want to dissolve the structures which he or she has inherited and lose power over that geographical area?

These 5 broad conditions exist

  • The bishops seem ready to capitulate and fold under the pressure
  • The dioceses are almost functionally bankrupt
  • An ongoing argument will continue to squander our energies at a time when theological wrestling is largely complete and we’re ready to offer good teaching and pastoral care.
  • The bishops will not favour visible differentiation
  • Parishes are isolated and lack power.

And so my question is simple, but I don’t underestimate the difficulties in seeking to achieve a good outcome.  It is a question about power.

Tony Benn asked these five questions about power and democracy, which we can ask of our bishops:

  1. What power have you got? 
  2. Where did you get it from? 
  3. In whose interests do you exercise it? 
  4. To whom are you accountable? 
  5. And how can we get rid of you?”  If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

Tony Benn’s questions are deeply Christian, rooted, unconsciously, in the work of Samuel Rutherford, who wrote in his seminal work, Lex Rex: “No title could be given to any man to make him king, but only the people’s election”.  

Rutherford argues from the Old Testament how the consent and choice of the people was essential in making a ruler. The will of God is expressed in the will of the people.  If a ruler is tyrannical, opposing the commandments and law of God, the people have the right to remove the ruler.

This moves the conversation from one of human sexuality to that of the power of the bishops.

To answer Tony Benn’s questions; the power of the bishops is power over the Church of England.  They got it from the Crown Nominations Commission.  They are to exercise that power in the temporal and eternal interests of God’s people, for his glory, by upholding the law and the gospel.  They seem, at this time, to be accountable only to each other and there is no means for getting rid of them.  

If the bishops seek to enact anything which removes the Church of England from collective obedience to the will and commandments of God, that act is tyrannical (Psalm 2), or as you put it ‘bad obedience’.  It is a tyranny against God, contrary to the interests of God’s people.  If our bishops do not humbly uphold the law of God and the gospel of forgiveness through repentance for sin through faith in Jesus Christ, the people have the permission to remove those bishops.

The question is then, how do we get rid of this House of Bishops, if it becomes necessary to do so?   How do we elect a new house of bishops?   The answer it seems to me is that we can’t, within the existing structures.

The risk, it seems to me, is that the Church of England evangelical churches will fragment and disperse, leaving behind a church in a similar state to the Methodist Church of Great Britain or the Church of Scotland.

Given this scenario, can we think of ways of collaborating, under the direction of [redacted], so that we act as one body to remove power from ungodly bishops, if necessary?  

Could evangelical congregations work together to elect godly bishops?  Could we, on a single day, in a single ceremony, announce that we are changing our allegiance from the current set of bishops to a newly appointed set of bishops?  Nothing else changes at that point, except, perhaps, the way finances reach the Church Commissioners.  Congregations would remain in place, the church commissioners would continue to pay stipends, synod members continue to function on synods.   We effectively reject the ungodly authority of bishops who have rejected the will and commandments and law of God.

Parish share would need to by-pass diocesean finances.  A ‘Good Stewardship Fund’ could be established for the churches which choose to change bishops together.  The good stewardship fund would continue to contribute the parish shares of each parish directly to the Church Commissioners.  Dioceses which already face a financial crisis would certainly not have the resources for a legal challenge to try and evict all those congregations from their buildings or vicars from their vicarages.

This is an embryonic thought, but I do think it’s one worth considering, and an action which I think the Church of England Evangelical Council might have, or could raise, the resources to establish.

The Apostle Paul told Timothy to reprove, before everyone, any elder who is sinning, so that the others may take warning.  1 Timothy 5:20.

The Church of England needs bishops who will humbly uphold the law and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  If our current bishops will not listen to reproof then it is right to seek to replace them.

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John Calvin’s word of caution to the church about bishops who move toward their goal, one step at a time.

Bishops and their wily art.

John Calvin observes and cautions the church about bishops, who move toward a goal, one step at a time. Institutes bk 4.11.10.

There can be no doubt that this great progress [in this case, from bishops as pastors to being magistrates in the state] has been made from slender beginnings. They could not reach so far at one step, but at one time by craft and wily art, secretly raised themselves before any one foresaw what was to happen; at another time, when occasion offered, by means of threats and terror, extorted some increase of power from princes; at another time, when they saw princes disposed to give liberally, they abused their foolish and inconsiderate facility.

Though their indulgence had some appearance of piety, they did not by this preposterous liberality consult in the best manner for the interests of the Church, whose ancient and true discipline they thus corrupted, nay, to tell the truth, completely abolished. Those bishops who abuse the goodness of princes to their own advantage, gave more than sufficient proof by this one specimen of their conduct, that they were not at all true bishops. Had they had one spark of the apostolic spirit, they would doubtless have answered in the words of Paul, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” but spiritual (2 Cor. 10:4). But hurried away by blind cupidity, they lost themselves, and posterity, and the Church.

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Should I stay or should I go? A Church of England vicar’s dilemma.

I am a Church of England vicar. The latest theological, pastoral and political crisis is causing me, and many others, serious cause for concern about our future in this denomination. My question is, should I stay or should I go? My response has been to read and re-read John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christisn Religion book 4.

Calvin’s theology of the unity of the one true church and the dynamics of schism have given me serious pause for thought before abandoning ship.

What follows is a condensed version of the opening two chapters of book 4 of the Institutes.  Here Calvin establishes the doctrine of the church and the right attitude of her members before exploring the dynamics of schism.

Summary of Calvin book 4

Bk4 ch1-2.4

Calvin believed in the one church, visible, whose members are to work for her communion under her head, Christ, by the proclamation of true doctrine and the right administration of the sacraments.  He worked towards this end, but was accused of heresy and cast out of the church.  Having ‘withdrawn’, i.e. run for his life, he was content to leave his accusers to judge him as a schismatic, but his own conscience was clear before Christ.

Point by point summary.

There is one church, our mother.

The church is visible and invisible.

The invisible Church is known only to God.

The visible church consists of the elect and the wicked.

Even when the church is full of people of bad manners and false doctrine it is still called the church.

The church is our mother, where the elect are born and nurtured and matured and taught, through all kinds of trials, internal and external.

Believers are to remain members of the one church until God is finished his work in us and divests us of mortal flesh.

Believers are to work FOR the communion of the church under Christ as head.

The church is true church when she proclaims the truth of God’s word and duly administers the sacraments

The church is the false church when her ministers invent vain customs from their own imagination.

Bk4.2.5

Calvin was accused of heresy, which he refutes

The Roman authorities accuse him of heresy for preaching a different doctrine

Church members are to consent to the will of Christ and be united in good will in Christ.

The church is founded on the word of God i.e. the prophets and apostles.

But the ungodly reject Christ’s word.

Bk4.2.6

In this section, Calvin outlines the dynamics of schism, where the ungodly cast out the godly, by anathema, curses (threats) and so he withdrew, against his doctrine of the one church but, given the nature of the judgements against him (with accompanying threats), for his own safety and communion with Christ:

There is one church in a multitude of locations, like there is one sun with a multitude of rays or one tree root and trunk with a multitude of branches.

Cut off a branch and it dies

The light of Christ pervades his church across the globe

Believers are united to the head, Christ

False doctrine cuts men off from the head and that church dies.

LET them call us heretics for withdrawing from THEIR church.

They cannot tolerate a pure profession of the truth.

I say nothing of their having expelled us by anathema and curses.

To call us schismatic, they would have to call the apostles schismatic, who were cast out of synogogues, and whose cause we uphold.

Seeking it is CERTAIN we were CAST OUT and we are prepared to show this was done for the cause of Christ.

The cause should be ascertained BEFORE any decision is given for or against us

I am willing, however, to leave it to them to decide.  It is enough for me to say I have withdrawn from them to draw near to Christ. (i.e. there is not point in arguing with them about who caused the schism, but it was them, for certain).

.

So, as a Church of England vicar, should I stay or should I go?  This is my thinking so far, following Calvin.

There is only one true church.

I am a member of a visible church; local, denominational and in the world.

God is teaching and maturing me in the church.

I am to work for her communion under Christ, by the proclamation of the true word and right administration of the sacraments. 

I do this locally and, by engaging in synods and meetings, regionally and nationally, and also by writing.

The House of Bishops and Genetal Synod have erred on a point of first order doctrine.

I face no accusations, yet, of heresy.

I am not being cast out, yet.

The church which cuts itself off from Christ will die. [Question: Does this mean the whole Church of England will die, or just local churches which continue to proclaim false doctrine? Is this for me to make a decision to leave or for Christ to decide, in his time? I know I am called to be a faithful servant and church member working for the true communion of the church.  I also know a righteous branch will emerge from the stump, in God’s time. I am not being cast out, yet.]

In Calvin’s scheme on the dynamics of schism, i am to work for reform until the false teachers cast me out.  [Question regarding being cast out: False teachers today do not hold the threat of the death penalty, rather, they patiently discriminate against their enemies, choosing not to appoint those who hold to true doctrine until the whole church is cut off and dies.  I am not qualified to know what God has in mind for the Church of England in the future.  Who knows what might change! Reform or death? I can only really content myself by focusing on today, for tomorrow has enough worries of its own, until the day I am clearly being cast out.]

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