Forum Thread
NEAC 2008

Why would Old Etonian views dominate Fulcrum? Oh, I get it....

What follows is entirely a personal view, but it might go some way to explain why there is a degree of antipathy towards CEs (I'm going to stick with conservative evangelicals, thanks) here.

Firstly, it's to do with the word evangelical. Evangelical is not a set of defined doctrines, social, political or theological. It's a process - a way of reading the Bible. If I want to own the word 'evangelical', and have it mean something other than 'narrow-minded, gay-hating, woman-hating, sex-obsessed killjoy' - which is how not just the wider world but large parts of the church understand it, I have to explain that I can be thoroughly evangelical and not automatically subscribe to those doctrines.

Secondly, it's to do with the recognition that evangelicals are part, and just a part of the church. They are not the whole of the church, and the truth does not soley reside in them. I believe that evangelicals without the high church catholics, the MOTR parishes, the hands-down-for-coffee charismatics and yes, the liberals too, are less than they could be. I do not want them marginalised, I do not want them thrown out. Their witness as part of the body of Christ is as valuable as mine. Probably more so.

Thirdly, it's to do with tactics. Giles Fraser's Thought for the Day was apposite. We should care less what we do, how we are seen, who we are seen with. We change things not by opposing them. We change them by loving them. So when I look at the goings on in Jerusalem, in Oxford, in Pittsburgh, I see Christians behaving more like Machiavelli's Prince than the Incarnate God.

Fulcrum is the last chance for me to be an evangelical - openly acknowledging the name - rather than abandoning it as hopelessly compromised.

Phil - I'm disappointed that you see my comments that way, because it doesn't matter what I think of CEs. What matters is what people - church people, non-church people, whoever - think of when they hear the word evangelical. Both of us would want them to think of a humble, prayerful bringer of Good News. Both of us would be deceiving ourselves if we thought that was true - which is what I said, and you have chosen to either misread or ignore.

Survey after survey shows this to be the perception. Even the polling data from within the evangelical community itself tells us that the majority of our children and young people do not see a problem with women in positions of real authority within the church, and have a much more relaxed attitude to homosexuals and homosexuality. Rather than 'going off on one', as they say, why not apply yourself to what you're going to do about the suspicion, ridicule and hostility that has collected around 'evangelical'.

As to Giles - I don't know him. I've never seen him in the flesh. But if the Lord can use an ass to speak the words of truth, I have no problems with him using the Vicar of Putney... By 'his attempts', I take it you mean the highly irregular, boundary-crossing, Reform-backed Co-mission? Again, not acknowledging that there might be another side to the story, or that the other side might actually have a point - is another reason (or perhaps a symptom) why I'm not a CE.

Phil Allcock stated:

What I cannot for the life of me see from the debates of the sixteenth century, is what part liberals had in the birth of the CofE.

Let me help. First of all, Ernst Troeltsch (sociologist and theologian) has pointed out that the earliest gospel period contained an individualistic streak, and liberalism picked up on that individualistic streak, no doubt liberated by the Enlightenment. Troeltsch had three categories of religious organisation: Church, Sect and Mysticism, and the latter was a free association of individuals brought about in the Enlightenment after the Church could no longer rely on Christian culture for its anchorage into society.

In addition, the Reformation had a left wing from the very beginning. As soon as people were able to read Bibles for themselves, from scholars able to make option to anyone, it became obvious that key doctrines were not explicit in the Bible, the principle one being the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, in some places, and situations, the Socinian view had its own organisation - the Minor Reformed Church in Poland, for example, where the Bible was read literalistically and according to "ordinary comprehension". It was destroyed by the Jesuits and about 1660 the Socinians dispersed, some to the slightly more radical Unitarian Church in Transylvania (that subsequently survived by freezing its catechism) and is only now expanding again, and some to the Netherlands.

In England these Socinian ideas over the water and coming here were noted by English Presbyterians, but at this point they were the fierce ejected Calvinists and were quite strident in opposition. So Socinian ideas came into the Church of England, adding to the moderation of the State Church (and the balance of the Elizabethan Settlement) and coming into various proto-liberal movements, such as centred around Cambridge. Then you get the impact in the South West of such as Samuel Clarke over in Exeter, who was the (Reformation style) Arian liturgist, and also Theophilus Lindsey at Catterick, movements and pressure groups which crossed over from Anglicanism into the English Presbyterian stream whose sola scriptura (no articles or creeds, the Bible only) had led to its liberalising but mainly to Arminianism whereas Arianism was located in the Church of England. However, the crossover rejuventated English Presbyterianism into what became the Unitarian movement proper.

When the High Church party started to develop, the Broad Church party also developed, and it made use of the Biblical criticism that was developing in German universities, and the Broad Church party was an enthusiast for this. This also became a battleground in Unitarianism between the biblicalist denominationalists, believers in a Unitarian God, miracles, resurrection etc. and the broader biblical criticism people who shifted the focus to a more synthesising historical view of Christian origins, and who saw that a subjective reading was individualist and shifted the focus from the book to the individual conscience.

The history of the Unitarian/ Church of England area of co-operation by both sets of liberals also had the characteristic that only a trickle of people crossed over from the Church of England into the Unitarians. The liberal party, if you like, stayed where it was. There were notable individuals crossing in both directions, but the bulk stayed where they were.

One may not realise it today, but using the terms Father, Son and Holy Spirit do not themselves establish trinitarian doctrines. A great deal today that passes for trinitarian explanation would baffle our forebears for its inadequacy. It is only in recent times that the Thirty-nine Articles have been demoted within the Church of England to historic formularies, partly also thanks to the High Church party, but despite creeds and articles most liberals adopted a symbolic attitude to liturgical spirituality and now, of course, postmodernism has blown any literalism wide open.

The liberal stance, as ideological, had to develop, but that which allowed it was present in the State Church from the beginning, its ideas were in the Reformation from the beginning, and its individualist basis is in the Gospel origins.

Simon -  polling data on the attitudes of society is clearly NOT to drive our theology....and I notice in England today lots of empy "liberal" churches near large and full evangelical churches which do not bend to the views of society....perhaps we do best to stick to scripture?

Adrian (a pluralist) -  you have not disproved Phil Allcock's point at all.  Clearly, the Reformers were not liberals. The 39 articles do not really invite all and sundry to be Anglican do they?  As for "left wing" reformers, if that is an appropriate label, that does make them "liberal" in theology...... I have never voted Tory in my life but that does lead me to have a low view of scripture - in fact, the reason I don't mind paying thousands of pounds of tax every month is that I believe it is right that we have education, health etc available to all people in society according to their need - because the bible tells me I should care about all who are in need and help them (not just through taxes, obviously....). This is an orthodox, conservative evangelical view.  Better rush to work another 12 hour day now......so I can continue to pay those taxes and meet my social responsibilities to society!

I welcomed Simon's piece ....

Of course polls don't drive our theology, Nersen - and I didn't read Simon suggesting that - but it surely makes sense to seek a discerning awareness of how we are coming over if we want people to pay any attention to us in the first place. Something to do with being stumbling blocks I think.

More alarming is your assumption that 'large and successful' is proof of God's blessing/or our 'rightness' and small or empty isn't.  Really? Eugene Petersen on the American scene castigates his own evangelical tradition for selling out to consumerist assumptions on precisely these lines and declares that he personally now seeks out smaller churches to join on principle. When, he asks, has the truly faithful church of Christ ever been popular in history? Something about being wary when all speak well of you.

For long periods of the last century evangelical Anglican churches were all small and the tradition as a whole was a despised minority - open to precisely the kind of assumptions you make about 'liberal' churches today?

David - I was responding to the logic of what Simon said  -  if people want to suggest that orthodox Christian teaching is in danger of not connecting with modern society (looking at the polling data as Simon says), it is fair to point out that it is the CofE churches which are most out of line with the views of society which are strong and growing as they stick to the bible.  In a global context, this stands out....TEC is in line with the views of US society on moral issues but just 0.3% of the US population go to a TEC church (and most of those are over 55) - yet  some of them lecture orthodox people about being out of touch with modern society (and imply African bishops are somehow backward....as if TEC attracted lots of young Americans with its liberal theology....it does not)

Being small or insolvent is, of course, not necessarily a sign of being in error.... but, in the context of the discussion  below, it is fair to point out that those CofE churches which are closest to the views of society on moral issues do not attract many people typically.

Clearly, it is not necessarily a sign of failure, sin or compromise to be large.....someone once had thousands of people listening to him on a hillside, as you know. We're not talking about US megachurches here.... I think God has blessed some evangelical churches in the CofE very greatly in the last 50 years as they have stuck to the bible and not followed liberal theologians or society's ilberal views.  Thank God for HTB, St Helens, All Souls and the many other faithful evangelical CofE churches we have and may they never worry about what society thinks but carry on sticking to the bible.

Phil - I appreciate that you won't see this for a bit, but thanks for replying.

As David has noted, I'm not suggesting that theology needs to be altered to fit the polling data. What I am saying is that you're ignoring the elephant in the room: that the word evangelical has baggage (precisely in the same way that liberal does, especially in the USA). Do you acknowledge there is a problem? Do you even see it as a problem? A woman can become Professor of Tricky Bible Bits, but can't preach to an evangelical congregation - and society sees this as positively mad. How do you counter this criticism?

You ask for dialogue, saying you don't understand why CEs are the target of antipathy, and then refuse to engage with any of the points I raise. I mention Giles Fraser, and you dismiss my  whole argument - I found myself in agreement with Anne Atkins this morning, which doesn't happen often - as if you have to either 100% agree with everything someone says or does, or oppose them 100%. I find this binary view immensely frustrating (I'm pretty certain Tearfund do, too).

Regarding CoMisson: I welcome their zeal and church planting ethos. It seems that sometimes their zeal leads them to do things that aren't necessarily wise - as can happen, sometimes. The humble acknowledgement that mistakes can be and have been made appears to be lacking (back to that 100% thing again). I am not the enemy, Phil - just pointing out that handing extra ammunition to Giles Fraser when he already has a gun isn't in CoMission's, or the gospel's, best interests.