Dear Editor,
I thank Lee Gatiss for explaining how he seeks to reconcile his remaining a minister of the vitiated Church of England (en Jan.).
The New Testament is not so much interested in the niceties of the Constitution and Canons of the Church of England but whether we, especially those who are pastors and teachers, are maintaining due separation from error and heresy, or whether our words and actions give credence to the claims of ‘dodgy’ and heretical bishops and ministers claiming to be true ministers of Christ’s church?
Are he and his fellow ministers avoiding the appearance of evil (I Thess. 5:22)? Or are they effectively wishing dodgy and heretical bishops and ministers ‘God speed’ and so becoming ‘partaker of ‘their evil deeds’ [2 John 11]? Do their bishops reject heretics after the first or second admonition as required by Paul (Tit. 3:10)? Are they excommunicating those the Church has always excommunicated to keep the Church pure? In other words are the sacraments ‘duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things requisite to the same’ (Article 19)? So are they teaching and obeying all Christ commanded in the Great Commission (Matt. 28)?
Yours sincerely,
Alan Bartley
Greenford, Middlesex
