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Encouraging Words (Stott) |
Although I come from a different part of the Anglican Communion, we are all Anglicans - the Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion, as you know - and what unites us is plain: it is that we are increasingly disturbed by the current situation in the Episcopal Church. Many of its leaders - bishops, cathedral deans, seminary deans, seminary teachers, parish clergy - are guilty today of multiple unfaithfulness. Doctrinal truth and ethical standards which are plainly taught by scripture, and have been accepted and promulgated by the Church for centuries, are now being called in question and even summarily rejected. This is of very great concern to all sensitive and thoughtful Anglicans. 'Then what should we do?' is the question I have asked myself, and to which I wish to try to address myself. It seems to me, broadly speaking, that we have three options, three possibilities before us. The first is to get out, which is the way of secession. The second is to give in, and give up our evangelical testimony, and that is the way of compromise. The third option is to stay in, while refusing to give in, which is the way of witness and of protest. I thought I would enlarge on those three, then make some slightly more practical and positive suggestions. The first option is to get out. There are convinced evangelical men and women in the Episcopal Church who are saying to themselves and to one another that to stay in the Episcopal Church would be an intolerable compromise, and, in order to retain our Christian integrity, we have to drop out and leave the Episcopal Church. Well, that is not the way that I feel to be right. There might come a time that the Episcopal Church or the Church of England were to deny one of the central fundamental truths of the Christian faith, like the incarnation, or the bodily resurrection, or the atoning death of Jesus. If the Church as a whole were to deny one of these things, it would no longer be a church. It would not be recognizable as a Christian church. It would be apostate, and then maybe it would be necessary for us to get out - but not yet. I think secessionists forget a number of things. They forget that the New Testament lays much more emphasis on fellowship than it does on separation, and makes clear that separation, or secession, is justified only in the most extreme situation. The apostle John in his letters, for example, indicates that anybody who denies that Jesus is the Christ in the flesh, that is, who denies the divine/human person of Jesus, is antichrist. The apostle Paul makes it clear at the beginning of his letter to the Galatians that anybody who does not hold to the gospel of free grace also is anathema, or under the condemnation of God. But, apart from those extreme situations, the New Testament lays nearly all its emphasis on fellowship rather than on secession, that is, on unity rather than disunity. I think secessionists forget that the 16th century reformers were very reluctant schismatics. They did not leave the Catholic Church with any relish. On the contrary, they dreamed of a reformed Catholicism. They dreamed of the Catholic Church, the universal church, reformed according to the word of God. I think secessionists forget that the secession of Methodists in the 18th century, and the secession of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the 19th century, both considerably weakened the evangelical witness in the Episcopal Church. I don't want to become controversial in that, but I sometimes have said to myself that if only they had found it possible to remain, the evangelical witness would be much stronger today in the Episcopal Church than it actually is. What they have done is to leave it weaker by abandoning it. So, I hope that we are not secessionists. I hope that we are determined to stay in as long as we possibly can with a good conscience, The second option is to give in. There are people who are determined to stay in the Episcopal Church and they find that their willingness is to remain in the Episcopal Church at any cost even at the cost of betraying the gospel. They prefer to swim with the stream and they are, I think, exhibiting the spirit of the age, and not least, the spirit of post-modernism. The post-modernist spirit says there is no such thing as objective truth: you have your truth and I have mine and he has his and she has hers and they have theirs. There are multiple truths; there is no such thing as the universal truth, they say; therefore, anything goes. Of course, there are many in the Episcopal Church today who take this view and they don't feel it is right to take their stand on the revelation, the objective revelation of God in Christ and the total biblical witness to Christ. I do not know anybody who has caricatured more amusingly this attitude of mind than Ronald Knox, who was a Roman Catholic, and who wrote Essays in Satire. One of the best chapters is called 'Reunion All Round,' and it is subtitled, 'A Plea for Inclusion with the Episcopal Church of all Muhammadans, Jews, Buddhists, Brahmins, Papists, and Atheists.' In the new and universal church which he saw as emerging, nobody would be expected to recite the whole Creed, but only such clauses as he finds relish in, it being anticipated that with good fortune, a large congregation will usually manage in this way to recite the whole formula between them. Having dealt with differences between Christians and theists, he comes finally to the problem of reunion with the atheists. In their case, he says, we have only one single quarrel to patch up - namely, as to whether God exists or not - and he proposes to the theologians that as we believe God to be both immanent and yet transcendent, we should be able to reconcile ourselves to the last final antinomy that God is both existent and non-existent. In the end, he says, thank God, in these days of enlightenment and establishment, everyone has a right to his own opinion and, chiefly, to the opinion that nobody else has a right to theirs. It's a marvelous piece of writing that you may look up in the library one day. I am suggesting that giving in says it really does not matter what you believe and that, in the Episcopal Church there is total freedom to believe what you want to believe. That is not the way to go. Our Lord Jesus and his apostles were very clear in their call to us to recognize false teachers and false prophets, to oppose them, and to have the courage to fight the good fight of the faith. Only dead fish swim with the stream, and there are those who want just to go the easy way of not being troubled in your conscience if other people believe differently from you. But Jesus and his apostles call us to stand firm in the truth. So, for the glory of God and the good of the Church, we must maintain our witness, including our protest within the Episcopal Church, without compromise. I do not think the right way is either to get out or give in. The third way is to stay in, while refusing to give in. That is the way of protest and witness. Frankly, it is the most painful of the three and it causes all of us considerable misery. The other two options are much easier psychologically because they ease the tension. If you get out well, the tension is over. It's only if you stay in and refuse to give in that you find yourself walking a tightrope, living in a permanent state of tension and debate within the church, which is very painful. But we are called to it. So let me suggest that the way of secession is to pursue truth at the expense of unity; the way of compromise is to pursue unity at the expense of truth; but the way of protest and witness is to pursue truth and unity simultaneously. Encouraging Words - pg. 2 | |
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