Pluralist.

Do you see the CofE in terms something like this:

1. There are several prominent traditions within it. A tradition being at least an approach to doctrine, a style of worship and an understanding of mission.

2. Most congregations draw on more than one tradition.

3. Each tradition has its own societies to support the tradition within congregations.

4. Each tradition has a party or group within synod 

If so what are the legitimate activities of a society and when do they they become "entryist". Would you for example accept as legitimate the activities of The Church Society, CPAS and CEEC. Put another way, is your attack limited to FoCA, Reform and Anglican Mainstream.

AS I have said before, I do not like your use of the term entryism because it implies coming in from the outside.  

Dave

apologies for double post. I think it might help if conservative evangelicals like Peter and other fulcrum allies got off their high horse and listened to what is happening outside the ghetto. Apologies for the strong analogy.

Peter wrote that 'The parish share is a voluntary contribution and congregations are free to dispense it as they see fit.' This strikes me as evidence of the serious 'disconnect' between metropolitan conservative Evangelicals and what is really happening on the ground out here in the provinces. Managing to pay the parish share is the think line between the survival of a parish and its ministry and closure. In my neck of the woods, lots of parishes are struggling to pay this diocesan tax (and aren't always sure that they're getting much in return -- but that's another matter). In the real church out here in England, life is rather different ...

Stephen, Pluralist & Nersen-- Can the diocese of Southwark so pursue "inclusiveness" that evangelicals-- and everyone else-- is convinced that marriage is being honoured as sacred, and not abandoned as sacred by the diocese? For if the diocese treats the sacredness of marriage as a hot potato and tosses it, then why wouldn't those committed to that catch it? And if they do successfully catch it, how could there not be a shift in loyalties? Apart from everything else, the diocese seems to see the social good of inclusion, but not the religious "bankruptcy" of no longer being a plausible spiritual shelter for human beings making their way through life's passages. And that is not something that can be finessed. People can spot a fake; there is very good competition.

This is about more than the usual competition of tendencies in the Church of England.

Hi Bowman,

Thanks for the response.

But that’s the point, this is seen by a majority of Christians worldwide as an essential because it’s a core issue. It is a core issue of the gospel because the scripture says it affects salvation. It is also a core issue because Christ’s teaching repeatedly indicates that faith in Him requires doing what He teaches. So people are not slow to explain how those views are organically derived from faith in Christ alone. What people don’t do is show any scripture that can undermine that.   

So this isn’t about what different people argue at all, its about on the one hand those who argue what the Biblical testimony of God says, and on the other hand those who argue what different people think. 

Charles Read,

Can you explain how, when the Bible says believers should not be yoked with false teachers, a believer could be yoked with a false teacher financially? If they shouldn’t be yoked then they shouldn’t be yoked with anything and everything you care to add.

Entryism by GAFCON/ FCA regarding the Church of England. To be an entryist in anything you have your own higher hurdle of belief or activity because you don't like the drift of the main body. But your smaller group only covers a minority of believers. So you organise things yourself and maintain that self-organising, as in how this fund is to be operated. You favour people near to you in belief terms, but even they don't come in on the core decision making. You bring in outsiders, like those of overseas. You then enter into the main body and rearrange things slowly but strategically to remove the 'revisionists' (as indeed they get called by GAFCON types) and favour those of whom you approve.

The Church of England consists of liberal Catholics, liberal Protestants, evangelicals, traditionalists Catholic and Reformed, and its basis is not some new Jerusalem Statement but how it understands its relationships to creeds, articles and liturgies. I know of parishes that will never accept that they should comply with some Jerusalem Statement made by a particular group.

Look, it doesn't matter to me. I'm simply observing but how interesting that this plan and opposition to it seems to stir people up so much. Because the other thing entryism doesn't like is the attention to its method.

Before I get accused of something similar, I am definitely outside and my liberalism is independent. And if the Conservative Evangelicals behind the Jerusalem Statement were honest, they would set up funds and their overseas bishops and start  their own denomination.

What may happen is that the authorities of the Church of England wake up and force the Jesusalem Statement people to fully comply with the diocesan system and how it works in total, or to organise themselves independently.

If the Church of England was, as a collective body, to decide minimum standards of belief, doctrine and action and make these clear, then the liberals or so called revisionists would themselves become entryists if they were to try to organise in order to redirect. If the C of E did this then they should get out.

But that is not how it is. For example, Modern Church is a pressure group that is more Church of England than anything, and it is a pressure group for liberal Christianity. But it doesn't engage in activities to redirect funds and alter forms of authority. Sea of Faith is not a Christian group as such, but some of its people are in the Church. But whilst they are their own group, they are not reorganising to promote some and undermine others, and indeed many in Sea of Faith have come to the conclusion it is better to be out.

My background is sociology of religion, and what is fascinating (for me) is how the liberal side sticks and is so difficult to shift - I wish they would come out - but it is the evangelicals who try the entryism and due to institutional pressures eventually come out and go independent. Look down the ages at those groups who ended coming out - usually because they get pushed out.

So when the Methodists in their enthusiasm organised their own classes, meeting places, and even forms of authority, the writing was on the wall. They've since moderated and times have changed. But whilst ecumenism is one direction, the arguments of division are in the other direction, and that's what GAFCON/ FCA is all about.

Nersen - can you remind me exactly where the Bible says we are not to be financially joined to false teachers?

Is ther a significant typo in Q2 pay or play?

Dave

This is my view posted on my blog. It's only the beginning and I wouldn't be surprised to see similar throughout England's 'dodgy dioceses' in a short period of time.

 It used to be that evangelicals were above grubbing for preferment....and certainly above demanding "representation" in this kind of way. they preached the gospel in their parishes and sought to be faithful. O tempora, o mores.