Dear EN,
Although I am not an Anglican I follow Chris Sugden’s ‘Worldwide Anglican Update’ carefully and appreciatively. I am thankful EN enables us get his regular commentaries.
In relation to Anglicanism, however, I was particularly struck last month (July EN) by John Richardson’s UK ‘Anglican Update’. Was I the only one to detect a curious disconnect in what he said? He writes: ‘…The proportion of good evangelicals in the CofE has rarely been higher, their equipping and training perhaps never been better, yet they actually punch below their weight when it comes to shaping the “culture” of the institution. They are treated as marginal and they are often content to occupy the margins, as if that were their right place to be’.
I’ve highlighted the relevant section to make the point. My question is simply this: if the training of evangelical Anglican clergy is so good and their relative numbers significant in terms of potential influence, how does he explain the end product — namely, that the good Bible teachers, well exercised in expository preaching and all the rest, nevertheless aren’t doing very much when it comes to ‘shaping the culture of the institution’? It’s a serious and un-partisan question.
What is the Anglican take on this? For, surely, the last thing Anglican evangelical clergy want (though the author seems to think it may in fact be the case) is to be found ‘sitting on the edge waiting to fall off’ — or perhaps even be pushed off!
I was reminded of a comment by Daniel Bourdanné, General Secretary of IFES worldwide, when he observed: ‘The university is… a strategic place... Yet the impact of evangelicalism is declining considerably in its midst. Are we losing the battle for the mind? ... I strongly suspect that there might be a significant correlation between our inadequate approach and the limited impact we are having on society...’ Is there a common denominator here?
Yours sincerely,
