Allusions and Illusions:
Advent Reflections
by
prepublished, with permission, from the Church of England Newspaper
The season of Advent, with its allusions and illusions, approaches us this Sunday from the future. We are called to understand the ‘present’ from the perspective of the ‘end’. The ultimate presence of the returning Christ, at the remaking of the universe, will reflect the intimate presence of the arrival of a baby, in the making of a family.
Multiple allusions to scriptural themes develop: judgement and promise, the prophet preparing the way of the Lord and the mother bearing the Son of God. Myriad illusions are dispelled: a military Messiah, a King born in a palace.
The setting of this big picture of God’s salvation is vital for us in the midst of our current crisis in the Anglican Communion, where positive allusions may be used in a negative way and illusions may be enticing.
In the context of his article (CEN 21 Nov), discussing the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) and the recent National Evangelical Anglican Consultation (NEAC),
An illusive strategy of ‘purity by isolation’ is not favoured in the gospels – or in deanery chapters, on General Synod or in the Anglican Communion. Involvement in national and international official commissions, and wider dialogues is, in fact, the fruit of the first NEAC at Keele in 1967.
Another critique in last week’s article manifested the illusion of literalism. It assumed that the metaphor of three streams in contemporary evangelicalism in the Church of England - ‘conservative, open and charismatic’ – was rigid. It is, however, fluid and is a metaphor. This concept grew out of general observation and developed into the Eclectics Conversations in Islington in April 2003 at which Philip Giddings, the convenor of Anglican Mainstream, gave a positive summary address (see Anvil Vol 20 No 3 2003). We need more of these sorts of gatherings and conversations where evangelicals can hear and learn from each other and avoid polorisations.
In the same edition of Anvil are the addresses on the theme that day, ‘Our Mission in Britian’, by Vaughan Roberts,
The serious questions concerning the representative nature of the current CEEC, raised by
The ‘Jerusalem Declaration’, which emerged as the major statement of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in June 2008, was printed in the leaflet put on our chairs at the beginning of the NEAC meeting. Most of the declaration is encouraging concerning the gospel, the scriptures, the creeds, the Anglican formularies etc but three aspects have caused concern and context, as in biblical interpretation, is crucial.
First, the preamble, which gives its provenance in GAFCON and includes the words ‘we agree to chart a way forward together…’. The ‘we’ clearly refers to GAFCON and a backing of the Jerusalem Declaration, with this preamble, would give a commitment to the GAFCON strategy as well as to the doctrinal statements.
Second, paragraph 7 upholds ‘the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders’. This is an excellent paragraph but has been publicly contradicted by the recent decision of the Diocesan Synod of Sydney to allow deacons (and in principle, lay people) to preside at Holy Communion. Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney, was chair of the organising committee of GAFCON, and is currently honorary secretary of the continuing movement, the ‘Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans’ (FCA), which has the Jerusalem Declaration as its basis of belief. Other key figures in the FCA, including Stephen Noll (secretary of the drafting group of the Jerusalem Declaration) and Chris Sugden, have questioned this innovation. It will be interesting to see the results of these discussions.
Third, paragraph 13 states ‘we reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed’. This negatively allusive statement allows the ‘we’ to give judgement on whole churches (which would include everyone in them – including those who are conservative on sexual issues) and unspecified leaders (which is likely to be used by some evangelicals in
There are in fact two conservative strategies for the way forward for Anglicans in
First, the ‘Federal Conservative’ strategy which is focused on the 'Common Cause Partnership' and involves splitting from The Episcopal Church (TEC) and working with GAFCON/FCA (4 dioceses, some previously separated groups and about 24 churches in
Second, the 'Communion Conservative' strategy which is focused on 'Communion Partners' – a development of the ‘Windsor Bishops group’ which now includes 40 Rectors of major churches - and involves working from within TEC and with the Windsor Process (15 dioceses).
At the beginning of Advent, these two strategies are represented in two conferences. On
On Saturday 6 December 2008, four days later, at the Church of the Incarnation, Dallas, Texas, the ‘Covenant’ web site and the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas are holding a conference, open to everyone 'Discerning the Body: The Gift and Discipline of Communion'. The speakers are
As Advent approaches us, let us pray for God’s wisdom and righteousness in all our discussions and deliberations and specifically for the Archbishop of Canterbury as he writes his Advent Letter.
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Canon Dr
The Rt Revd Dr Graham Kings is Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely and Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.