Recently someone discovered and posted on Facebook a list entitled A Short Guide to the Duties of Church Membership issued at the requests of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Here it is:
1. To follow the example of Christ in home and daily life and to bear witness to him.
2. To be regular in private prayer day by day.
3. To read the Bible carefully.
4. To come to Church every Sunday.
5. To receive Holy Communion faithfully and regularly.
6. To give personal service to Church, neighbours and community.
7. To uphold the standard of marriage entrusted by Christ to his Church.
8. To care that children are brought up to love and serve the Lord.
9. To give money for the work of the parish and diocese and for the work of the Church at home and overseas.”
Still capable?
Now that’s rather good, isn’t it? The only problem – it dates from the mid-1950s. These central facets of discipleship do not change, of course. But it’s interesting to ask whether the Church of England today would ever be capable of producing something so simple, clear and helpful. I’m going to use it anyway.
Writing in The Times, Isabel Hardman, assistant editor of The Spectator, lamented the fact that a paper on church growth, going to General Synod, did not have ‘a single mention of Scripture or indeed belief, save for a concluding Bible verse’. She went on to cite the excellence of Co-Mission Churches at attracting newcomers, attributing this to the clarity of their purpose as summed up in ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ and to contrast this with parts of the Church of England which were little more than ‘a civic social club that happens to have pretty windows and colourful uniforms’.
Hardman also criticised the Church of England’s first woman bishop, Libby Lane, as being ‘clearly wary in interview of saying what she believes’. In fairness to the Rt. Revd Mrs Lane, she did speak in the Church Times of how she responded, aged 15, at the Keswick Convention to an invitation to come forward for prayer. She went on: ‘My own Christian faith has always had in it that sense of – if this is what I believe of Jesus – that he took my flesh and lived our life, and gave himself for me on the cross; and that sacrifice has made me new, and forgiven my sins, and given me the hope of eternity by the power of the resurrection – what else can I do but give everything that I am and have in his service?’
She also spoke of her decision to attend the consecration of Philip North as Bishop of Burnley, despite his opposition to women ministers and bishops. Meanwhile, evangelicals await with interest the appointment of the new Bishop of Maidstone who, it is hoped, will serve clergy and congregations who cannot accept women bishops.
Stay together?
Whether these things indicate the Church of England can stay together in any real sense remain to be seen. A leaked report about the views of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff suggested some of them expect the denomination to split over gay marriage sometime in or after 2017.
Evangelical sources quoted by the influential AnglicanInk.Com website suggested that ‘key bishops [are] holding fast for the church’s traditional teachings, [but] the abdication of the teaching office by the Archbishop of Canterbury in favour of becoming a referee... coupled with the progressives’ hold over the central apparatus of the church, made a split likely.’
