jQuery Slider

You are here

A MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

A MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

By Bruce Atkinson PhD
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
July 16, 2014

The Church of England desperately needs some words of wisdom but they are unaware of this need. Perhaps it is too late; at least my ‘gut’ tells me so. If the English bishops would not listen to the clear teachings of Paul about women’s appropriate role in church and family, and if they would not follow the example of Jesus in calling only men to be His Apostles and writers of New Testament scripture, then they were never going to take seriously the words of living orthodox Anglicans. The handwriting is now on the wall and I am convinced that this decision to consecrate women bishops (and to force it upon the conservatives) will not be rescinded, it will only be confirmed and strengthened over time.

Look at the York Synod votes:

            For  |  Against  | Abstain
-------------------------------------------
Bishops     37   |     2     |    1
Clergy     162   |    25     |    4
Laity      152   |    45     |    5

Since the Church of England did this so easily, can ordaining active homosexual priests and consecrating them to the episcopate be far behind? It is a strong reminder of what happened to the American Episcopal Church, like dominoes falling one after the other. The spiraling down into the burning sewer of apostasy will continue unless there is some huge miracle from God. But more likely than a miracle, since the prophetic warnings have been clear and present for decades, God will judge the CofE perhaps more severely than the judgment on TEC. This could be because the CofE is the mother church of Anglicanism with the ancient seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus she has had greater influence in the Communion, for good or ill. Lately, mostly ill.

In a 2009 commentary, "England, Oh England, How Often Would I have gathered You...", David Virtue wrote: “England is going nowhere spiritually. The nation has lost its way. Its inhabitants are stirring out their lives with coffee spoons; they are dying for lack of spiritual bread and they are sending themselves to hell. In the end, the church will be held accountable for its failure and lack of nerve, bearing in mind St. Peter's words, ,‘judgment begins first with the household of God.’” Like with TEC, church attendance in Church of England congregations has continued to shrink. Expect this shrinkage to continue unabated. Expect the schism to continue to grow in the Anglican Communion; a schism caused by heterodox theological ideas and the growing acceptance of pansexual immorality coming from wealthy Anglican churches in the north and west. But also expect the continued worldwide growth of GAFCON/FCA churches in terms of both depth of discipleship and number of converts.

Diagnosing the Problem

Why has all this happened to the churches in the west? It is like the “frog in the pot” metaphor, where the water is heated so slowly that the frog is unaware of what is happening until it is too late and he cannot jump out of the pot. Likewise, with our churches, the process has been so gradual, deceptive, and pernicious, that it could only result in a hard-boiled frog.

In an interview of Philip Jenkins by Stan Guthrie, discussing how churches die out, he says, “It's almost as if one door closes and another one opens elsewhere. I would not say God closed one eye and opened another, but when Christianity is at its weakest in one area, amazing new opportunities open elsewhere. My concern is that when we write Christian history, so often it's a matter of, ‘Let's look at this expansion, and let's look at this growth and new opportunity.’ We're not really seeing the doors that are closing…” Here is what closing doors look like: as the Holy Spirit leaves and moves elsewhere to spread His gospel seeds, the old church loses all spiritual power and influence — it dies, as T.S.Eliot phrased it so well in The Hollow Men, “not with a bang but a whimper.”

Orthodox believers might take Jesus’ advice in Matthew 10:14, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” That is how the Holy Spirit works in spreading the gospel. He keeps moving on and spreading the seed where there is fertile ground. All of this is ordered by God and is not the result of human will: What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open. (Rev 3:7b)

The problem in the western churches has not been about Protestant or Catholic, it has been about a lack of faith in Jesus Christ and in the scriptures, and the resultant movement elsewhere by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit ran through the Mediterranean area and southern Europe (50 to 500 AD), then moved to Northwest Europe (1500-1700 AD) during the Reformation, and then to the United States (1700-1900 AD). There were true revivals and Great Awakenings. However, the Holy Spirit has backed off now in these areas and moved to the Third World due to our materialism and pride— which have allowed secularism (and lots of other ‘-isms’) to take over.

Abraham Lincoln diagnosed the end of our Age of Awakening with these words: “Intoxicated by unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace and too proud to pray to the God who made us.”

Some church historian has written (I lost the reference) that John Wesley (1703-1791) labored mightily and fruitfully for revival in 18th century England, but he recognized a bittersweet aspect to spiritual awakening: Revival generates a new work ethic, which in turn generates riches, which in turn threatens revival. As the American Puritan Cotton Mather expressed it, “Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother!” 1 Wesley wrote: “I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.” 2

We need to remember that the Lord warned us how hard it was for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:23-24). “Rich” is a relative term, of course, but compared to 90% of the world, a middle-class Englishman or American is truly wealthy. And by our attitude and behavior, we are spoiled and indolent, unable to become truly fired up about the most important things; we are unwilling to spend our lives (much less our careers or our material security) for Jesus’ Kingdom. When our Lord warned the church at Laodicea (Rev 3:14-20) about their lukewarmness, without a doubt He was speaking as well to today’s nominal churches in the western “first world.”

Prescribing the Cure

For a Third Great Awakening to occur in the west, it will require basic Gospel preaching and prayer for the return of the Spirit. We need to commit to the advice given in 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The Church of England has lost the vital Christian theology of the Word. You cannot have true faith and also disbelieve the authority of the Bible. When the doctrine of the authority of Scripture is removed, virtually any sin or heresy can become accepted by the organized church. The English bishops need a refresher course. With the aid of John R.W. Stott, I am happy to help out, as follows.

The heretical version of ‘progressive revelation’ asserts that the Holy Spirit at times brings truly new knowledge that contradicts or re-interprets the traditional understanding of Scripture. Those who believe this are grossly deceived. With such a view, there is no stability or trustworthiness in God or in His Word. It is as if God did not know any better in the past, or did not know our future. It is as if God were whimsical and less than honest with us in His inspired communications. It is as if God were not powerful enough to make sure His chosen human instruments (prophets, Apostles, NT writers) would write exactly what He willed and inspired.

Fortunately, God is omnipotent and does not change ("I, the LORD do not change.”, - Malachi 3:6) and neither does His Word (“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” - Isaiah 40:8). The ultimate authority for us is Jesus, as the “Word of God Made Flesh,” who fulfilled many scripture prophesies and revealed Himself to be speaking directly from the Father (John 8:28, cf. John 14:10b-11a, 24). Only Jesus had the authority to correctly interpret the scriptures for all time, and thus He has no need to re-interpret them (“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. - Hebrews 13:8; “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” - Jesus, in Matthew 24:35).

The Lord may speak to you or to me personally, but we have insufficient authority to convince anyone that this communication was really from Him and not just a product of our own imagination. However, the New Testament has Apostolic authority: first-hand witnesses chosen personally by God for their roles of remembering and writing the words of Jesus. The Old Testament was the authoritative Bible for Jesus (Matthew 5:17-19) and for the Apostles; they quoted it extensively. Jesus interpreted the OT scriptures (for example, on the issue of divorce) but He never once criticized it.

As I have written before, for a person to believe the liberal view of progressive revelation, they must disbelieve God’s omnipotence and omniscience. For these liberals, God is weak and, like humans, must always be learning. . However, we know that God lives in eternity and knows everything that will happen. He is not limited by our temporal circumstances. Either God knew exactly what we would be dealing with today or He is not God. So His Word as given was pre-existent, settled in God’s mind prior to being spoken or written by human beings, perhaps even prior to the Creation itself.

We believe that the Bible is called the written word of God because the Holy Spirit made sure that what ultimately emerged was exactly what God wanted. God is the sovereign Almighty who cares greatly that we receive an accurate representation of Himself and His will in His communications to us. . He is not out to fool anyone who truly wants to know Him. And we today have zero authority to revise the scriptures. God knew exactly what He was doing when He inspired His chosen people to speak and write what we have received as His special revelation to us.

John R. W. Stott’s thinking is pertinent here: "We take our stand on the divine origin of the Bible because we believe the Bible itself requires us to do so. Indeed, it is a strange fact that theologians who are prepared to accept the biblical doctrine of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of man and of the church, are often not willing to accept the biblical doctrine of Scripture. But…if the Bible is authoritative and accurate when speaking about other matters, there is no reason why it should not be equally so when speaking about itself." For example: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16) “God-breathed”!

We cannot renew and revive our churches by allowing ourselves to be co-opted by the values of our current culture. Becoming enculturated means getting involved with idols (such as popular philosophies, sex, fame, fortune, and pagan religious ideas) and this has never been spiritually healthy throughout the history of God’s people. The Zeitgeist culture is an enemy of the Church, an enemy which Jesus called “the world” (Matthew 24:9, John 15:18-20, John 17:14, cf. James 4:4). In contending for the faith once and for all delivered (Jude 1) we must bring back the all-important doctrine of the authority of Scripture, as indicated in Articles VI and VII of the Anglican Articles of Religion.

As the Lord repeated seven times, once to each of the Asian churches in Revelation: “Whoever has the [spiritual] ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” Put your ears on, England, before it is too late.

___________________________________________

1 Quoted in Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 63.

2 John Wesley, quoted in Robert Southey, The Life of Wesley: And the Rise and Progress of Methodism (London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1889), 516.

Dr. Atkinson is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary with a doctorate in clinical psychology and an M.A. in theology. He is a licensed psychologist in clinical practice in Atlanta and also works as a clinical supervisor training Christian counselors for Richmont Graduate University. He is a founding member of Trinity Anglican Church (ACNA) in Douglasville, Georgia

Subscribe
Get a bi-weekly summary of Anglican news from around the world.
comments powered by Disqus
Trinity School for Ministry
Go To Top