Desperate CofE

Dear Editor,

I admire and support the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) and Church Society in their faithful defence of the Anglican doctrines, but I have a view on what their strategy should be which is different from that set out by John Dunnett in Evangelicals Now, October 2023 (‘Will there be a place for me in the Church of England?’).

I assume it is common ground that the paramount need of all people everywhere is to hear, believe and obey two vital messages. The terrible warnings, some from Christ’s own lips, to flee from the wrath to come; and the wonderful and sincere invitations and promises to all, some from Christ’s own lips, to repent and submit to Christ in His atoning death and life-giving resurrection, and to obey Him for the rest of their lives.

And the paramount responsibility for those who are in Christ Jesus is to pray that God in his sovereign love, mercy and grace will send his breath from heaven and breathe on those not in Christ Jesus, that they may live, and to pray that He will move the hearts of all who name the name of Christ to believe, teach and preach both of these two vital messages.

Those in the Church who believe the supreme importance of these two vital messages are, no doubt, encouraged by the Church of England Evangelical Council and Church Society, teaching and preaching them and praying that God will move the whole Church to join in doing the same. They are convinced that these messages are not only revealed in the Bible, but also supported by the 39 Articles, Homilies and Book of Common Prayer which all Anglican Ministers have promised to follow by making the Declaration of Assent and their ordination vows.

The disagreement about same-sex behaviour and marriage has consumed and is consuming a lot of time, energy and debate in the Church of England, because the truth of the Bible and a change to the doctrine of the Church is at stake.

John Dunnett sets out the principles and specific provisions needed to ‘secure a place for those who wish to hold to the present teaching and practice of the Church’ on sexual ethics. This will involve a ‘structural rearrangement of the CofE’. I note that John does not say anything about the situation if General Synod does not authorise such provisions and structural rearrangement.

Nobody is presently trying to change the doctrines of Original Sin and the Wrath of God to which the 39 Articles, Homilies and Book of Common Prayer point. But are the terrible warnings and the wonderful invitations and promises believed and preached by the whole Church with the earnestness and urgency promised by those who have made the Declaration of Assent and their ordination vows?

The clear answer to that is ‘No’. Most of the Church disagrees with the terrible warnings. This failure is surely more important than the same-sex disagreement, important though that is!

That being the case the time has come to follow the remarkable example set out in Galatians 2:11-14, where one apostle who met Christ on the Damascus Road openly rebuked another apostle on whom Christ said He would build His church: ‘But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’’’

What is needed in the desperate situation of the Church of England is an open letter of challenge and rebuke to the Church about her failure, as a whole, to believe, teach and preach the terrible Biblical warnings of the Day of Judgment facing non-Christians, and the wonderful invitation to all to repent and submit to Christ in his atoning death and life-giving resurrection.

A serious effort by the CEEC and Church Society to do everything possible to organise this would involve mobilising all the Diocesan Evangelical Groups to support such a letter together with an integrated plan to get this issue raised formally at all Synodical levels.

Yours sincerely,
Philip Almond Preston