Dealing with disagreements

One of the things we're not particularly good at doing in the Church as a whole, either at the personal or corporate levels, is dealing with disagreements. Witness the current debates in Anglican Communion about homosexuality or in the Church of England over women bishops. More recently there has been more heat than light generated over two other contentious issues in Evangelicalism; the recent NEAC 'consultation' and the current debate over a critical review of Patrick Sookhdeo's latest book.

When I do 'Marriage Guidance' with couples preparing for their wedding at St John's I always ensure that we cover issues of conflict and get couples to discuss their differing approaches to it in order that they can work out for themselves how to fight as friends. Something similar seems needed within the Church judging by the virulancy of some responses to Christian brothers and sisters over some of the above issues.

At St John's we have recently begun a Bible study series entitled 'Dealing with disagreements' in an attempt, which has not been without its own tensions, to find ways to discuss where and how we disagree within our own church family.

As part of this process we will take forward discussions that began at last year's PCC Away Day of two current controversial issues about which we need to be informed; the issue of responses to homosexuality within the Anglican Communion and the issue of transition in society from reliance on fossil fuels. Both have impacts for local churches and local communities and our PCC think that it would be helpful for there to be discussion at St John's about both topics.

That is not, however, where we are starting our discussions. Instead we are beginning by looking at two areas of disagreement that occurred in the early church (Romans 14 & Acts 15. 1-21). From these passages we are aiming to identify principles for dealing with disagreements that could be applied during our discussions of the two current controversial issues. The final session of the study will then help us reflect on the different ways in which the Bible has been used throughout our discussions and the extent to which our different ways of understanding scripture influence the positions that we take on controversial issues.

If this sounds of interest to you then you can follow a part of the debate online as one of our housegroups are posting summaries of their discussions on their blog. Their first two posts can be found by clicking here and here.

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Elvis Costello - Indoor Fireworks.

GAFCON & the Lambeth Conference: Where do we go from here?

At our PCC Away Day today we thought about the outcomes from the GAFCON and Lambeth Conferences in order to begin discussion about the effect that these conferences should have on us at St John's Seven Kings. The material we used was as follows:

The issues

GAFCON: "The ... acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel ... The ... declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel ... The ... manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy."

Lambeth: "The whole issue of homosexual relations is also highly sensitive because there are very strong affirmations and denials in different cultures across the world which are reflected in contrasting civil provisions, ranging from legal provision for same-sex marriage to criminal action against homosexuals. In some parts of the Communion, homosexual relations are a taboo while in others they have become a human rights issue. The issue of homosexuality has challenged us and our Churches on what it might mean to be a Communion. We are still learning how to be the Communion that God has called and gifted us to be."

1. Approach to homosexuality
2. Approach to scripture
3. Approach to structures of the Anglican Communion

Lambeth: "There is confusion about what "the issue" really means. There are three aspects that would help to clarify discussions: How the church evangelizes, disciples and provides pastoral care for homosexual people; How and on what basis the church admits people to Sacred Orders; How the church deals with the first two locally and globally."

Approach to homosexuality

GAFCON: "This false gospel … promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship."

Lambeth: "The issue of homosexual relations is as sensitive as it is because it conflicts with the long tradition of Christian moral teaching. For some, the new teaching cannot be acceptable on biblical grounds as they consider all homosexual activity as intrinsically sinful. Tension has arisen when those who hold the traditional teaching are faced with changes in the Church’s life or teaching without being able to understand or engage with a clear presentation of how people have come to a new understanding of scripture and pastoral theology."

Approach to scripture

GAFCON: "We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading."

Lambeth: "We acknowledge the full reliability of the texts of the canonical Scriptures given to us by God … From this strong sense of biblical reliability the Church derives norms of moral and ethical life that are to be honoured by the whole Body of Christ; at the same time we discover biblically faithful means to respond pastorally to those who are unable to observe such norms. When serious disagreements arise among us about moral and ethical norms we are called to intensify our efforts to discover God’s Word through continuing scriptural discernment … Biblical scholars have a variety of exegetical tools for their use and employ many different methods of biblical exposition and interpretation. When used discerningly and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these tools and methods can assist us in breaking open the Holy Scriptures and enrich our understanding of God’s Word."

Approach to structures of the Anglican Communion

GAFCON: "Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together … We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans … Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion."

Lambeth: "There is a willingness to continue exploring a Covenant together … The ‘Instruments of Communion’ are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting. There is a need to clarify the role and function of each of these ... and their relationship one to another … There is clear majority support for a Pastoral Forum … There is widespread support for moratoria, building on those that are already being honoured … The moratoria cover ...: ordinations of persons living in a same gender union to the episcopate; the blessing of same-sex unions; cross-border incursions by bishops."

Questions

1. Approach to structures of the Anglican Communion: GAFCON is forming a new Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans led by a Council of Archbishops and Bishops while Lambeth wants to review the four Instruments of Communion, establish a Pastoral Council, introduce an Anglican Covenant and maintain moratoria. Which do you think is the better approach and why?

2. Approach to scripture: GAFCON believes that "the Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense" while Lambeth argues that "Biblical scholars have a variety of exegetical tools for their use and employ many different methods of biblical exposition and interpretation. When used discerningly and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these tools and methods can assist us in breaking open the Holy Scriptures and enrich our understanding of God’s Word." Which do you think is the better approach to understanding scripture and why?

3. Approach to homosexuality: A false gospel or a new understanding of scripture and pastoral theology? Which do you think is the case when it comes to different approaches to homosexuality taken by Christians and why? How should we deal with the tensions that arise when those who hold the traditional teaching are faced with people who have come to a new understanding of scripture and pastoral theology?

4. Where do we go from here? What effect do you think these issues have or ought to have on St John’s and why?

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Keane - Everybody's Changing.

Write to the PM about MDGs

The Bishop of Chelmsford has called attention to the millions of lives which depend on the promises made in the Millennium Development Goals.

He has urged the churches in Chelmsford diocese to write to the Prime Minister before he leaves for the meeting of the United Nations on September 25 to support him in pressing on the meeting the desire to keep those promises.

Speaking of the passion across the recent Lambeth Conference on the urgent necessity of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, the Bishop has said: “Time and again people from north and south would say that they were tired of having to argue about sex and the church when millions were dying because of our failure to act.”

Bishop John’s reflections on the 2008 Lambeth Conference can be read by clicking here. He concludes his reflections by writing:

"Throughout the conference people of every theological perspective talked about their love of Jesus, their desire to call the world into discipleship and obedient faith, and of their own commitment to a Gospel of welcome and hospitality for all. The church is not a sect for the likeminded but a community of faith, drawing people of every culture and context into a life of holy and life-giving love in Christ.

If Anglicanism is to mean anything in the 21st century, and if it is to make its contribution to the future of both church and world it must hold fast to this great tradition and to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ with all its deep demands upon what we stand for in this fragile 21st century world.

Thank you for your prayers for us throughout this Lambeth process. Your prayers have been answered and fresh opportunities put in front of us on the road ahead."

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Sounds Of Blackness - Optimisitic.

From the papers

Angus Ritchie, Director of the Contextual Theology Centre, has an interesting comment column in this week's Church Times. Titled 'Social capital can be built by the people,' Angus describes the cross-party support secured by London CITIZENS for a striking array of policies.

Also in the Church Times, Margaret Sentamu describes the input to the spouses conference at Lambeth from Mugisa Isingoma, who visited St John's shortly before the conference and who shared her story with our Mothers' Union.

The Times published a letter today from 19 bishops supporting Rowan Williams following the publication just after the Lambeth Conference of correspondence from eight years ago by Williams on the issue of homosexuality. Their letter states that one can only wonder at the motives of those behind the releasing, and highlighting, of these letters at this precise moment – and at the way in which some churchmen are seeking to make capital of them as though they were ‘news’. One example of attempts to make capital of them can be viewed here while for a much more balanced view click here.

Finally, in responding to the comment by Libby Purves, which I highlighted in Thursday's post, Richard Dawkins, in his letter to the Times, once again reveals his complete inability to recognise the extent to which many Christians are able to engage creatively and constructively with both science and belief.

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Woody Guthrie - Jesus Christ.

Covenants of fate & faith

Ruth Gledhill reports that the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks spoke powerfully at the Lambeth Conference last night and received a five-minute standing ovation. You can download his full text here and Ruth's report on the speech in The Times here.

I find the Chief Rabbi's interpretation of scripture extremely challenging and helpful. This speech is all that one could expect given the depth of his understanding of scripture. It is all the more powerful for being the first occasion a rabbi has addressed a plenary session of the Lambeth Conference and a speech that, rightly, refers to the time when "the word 'Christian' struck fear into Jewish hearts."

The Chief Rabbi spoke, as he had been asked to, about covenant and discovered in that word not only a transformative idea, one that changes us as we think of it, but also a way forward for faith in the 21st century. As a result, we find ourselves better able to answer the question: what is the role of religion in society, even in a secular society like Britain?

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Fiddler On The Roof - Sabbath Prayer.

Re-hearing the Gospel message

Brian McLaren is one of the leading US figures in forward-thinking evangelicalism, post-Christendom approaches to mission and 'the emerging church'. In an address to the Lambeth Conference he said that Christians have to engage the rapid changes of post-modernity, and that cultural sensitivity on issues such as sexuality was a way to re-hear the Gospel message from each other, rather than dividing into factions.

A staff member with the Anglican Communion News Service (http://www.aco.org/acns/) caught up with McLaren for a brief, informal conversation, which Ekklesia have reproduced here. McLaren has also written about his "Lambeth experience" on his website and blog: http://www.brianmclaren.net/.

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King's X - It's Love.

Weeds, Wheat & Unity

This sermon from the Three Minute Theologian, who has the Lambeth Conference happening within his parish, is worth a read. The sermon is on the same theme as my sermon post, The parable of the wheat and weeds.

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Patty Loveless - God Will But I Won't.

The parable of the wheat and weeds

The parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13. 24-30, 36-43) divides people into weeds and wheat. So, who are the weeds and who are the wheat? Our natural tendency as human beings is to want to know and to assume that we are in the wheat camp rather than the weeds camp.

More worryingly, our natural tendency as human beings is probably to try to identify those who are different from us and attempt to weed them out of our community. That is what we call scapegoating and, interestingly, it is a human tendency that the French cultural critic, Rene Girard, suggests is gradually unmasked and exposed by the Bible. Firstly, because the people of Israel sacrifice animals as scapegoats instead of other human beings (as happened in the nations around them at that time) and then as God himself, in Jesus, becomes the ultimate scapegoat bringing an end to the need for any further scapegoating. “Jesus’ ‘strategy’ as the ambassador from a loving, non-violent Father is to expose and render ineffective the scapegoat process so that the true face of God may be known … in the scapegoat, or Lamb of God, not the face of a persecuting deity.”

We can probably all think of times and places in our society where scapegoating occurs, not least in the election campaigns of the British National Party. But there is a very real sense in which identifying those who are different from us and attempting to weed them out is going on within our community, the Anglican Communion, at present in the controversies over sexuality and women bishops.

Whichever side of those arguments we stand on, we need to beware of the arguments made by those at the extremes which would seek to rid us of those who don’t agree with their position because Jesus, in this story, says that it is not our job to pull up the weeds from the field.

It is not our job partly because, if we were to try, we would pull up the wheat with the weeds. In other words, we do not know, as we look around our church, the Anglican Communion, or our society, who are the wheat and who are the weeds.

It is God who “searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” we are told in 1 Chronicles 28. 9 can see what goes on in our hearts, he knows “the secrets of our hearts,” says Psalm 44 and this is because it is God who created our inmost beings and formed us in our mothers’ wombs says Psalm 139.

Therefore, it is for God, not us, to make that judgement in his way and in his time. Jesus warns us that it we judge others, we ourselves will be judged by the same measure we use on others (Matthew 7. 1&2). Again, he is saying to us that it is God’s place to judge, not ours, and, even, that we are likely to be surprised by the judgements that God makes at the end of time. Sometimes, Jesus says, as in Matthew 7. 21-23, that those who appear to be the most religious are actually those who are among the weeds.

So, it is not our job to judge but God’s and he will do so in his way and his time. What we need to do is to trust that that is so and we do this by allowing the weeds to grow together with the wheat. In other words, Jesus is commending here the aspect of Anglicanism that, it seems to me, has always been its great strength and glory; its holding together from its inception of ‘catholics’ (with a small ‘c’) and protestants and in more recent centuries its holding together of the diverse streams that have developed within those traditions – anglo-catholicism, evangelicalism, liberalism, the charismatic movement and so on. To hold these things together is, it seems to me, to show absolute trust in God’s ultimate judgement because we are allowing the wheat and the weeds to grow together.

Rowan Williams, in the opening session of the Lambeth Conference, encouraged the bishops and archbishops present to “find the trust in God and one another that will give us the energy to change in the way God wants us to change.” That is, he said, “the most important thing we can pray for, the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion.” But it is trust in God and one another, he says, that will give us this energy.

Why is that? Well, if all our energy is going into pulling up what we think are weeds then our energies are not going into what makes for fruitfulness. Our responsibility is not to be monitors and judges of others but to allow our energies to flow into developing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This won’t happen if we are forever distracted by try to spot and root out weeds but if we trust God to sort out the weeds in his way and time then we can focus on the thinks that contribute to fruitfulness. As many have said going into the Lambeth Conference, there are actually far more pressing and significant issues in our world which we need to urgently address than the debates with which we are currently engaged over gender and sexuality.

So let us do what Archbishop Rowan has suggested and pray for the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion. Let us pray using the Lambeth Conference prayer:

Pour down upon us, O God, the gifts of your Holy Spirit, that we and those who are part of the Lambeth Conference may be filled with wisdom and understanding. May we know at work within us that creative energy and vision which belong to our humanity, made in your image and redeemed by your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Al Green - Let's Stay Together.

Prayer for Lambeth

A prayer from the Evangelical Alliance at the start of the Lambeth Conference:

Dear Lord,

We repent of all that we have done that has failed to communicate in word or deed the love of Christ.

We confess that, at times, the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ has not remained central in our proclamation and practice and we pray for your help in returning to the primacy of that gospel.

We pray for all those attending the Lambeth Conference and ask that their discussions and deliberations may be characterised, above all, with the grace and compassion of Jesus Christ.

We pray that as they focus on issues of global justice, evangelism, discipleship, the Bible and the future of the Anglican Communion that they will be able to hear your voice guiding and uniting them in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We pray also for those Anglicans who have chosen not to attend, that they may know your wisdom as they seek how best to remain faithful to your gospel in the context of the Anglican Communion.

We pray for the Archbishop of Canterbury and ask for your especial blessing on him that he might be able to unite all Anglicans around your truth and your grace embodied in Jesus Christ.

We acknowledge our utter dependency on you for all of this, conscious of our own failings and weaknesses, and with a desire to see your gospel faithfully proclaimed throughout the world.

We pray all of this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ekklesia have made the following comment on the EA's statement and prayer:

"The body which seeks to provide an umbrella for Evangelical Christians in the UK has criticised some Evangelicals for seeking to define who can or cannot be considered an Evangelical in terms that are 'too narrow'.

The statement from the Evangelical Alliance, which comes at the start of the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, also expressed its concern about the tone of the discussions concerning sexuality amongst Anglicans.

Many Evangelicals with the Anglican Communion hold a 'conservative' position on homosexuality. Others, however, some known as 'open' Evangelicals, consider that it is in line with their faith for gay priests and bishops to be appointed.

Previously there have been divisions within Evangelicalism over issues of sexuality.

One Evangelical group, the Courage Trust, which started out seeking to 'heal' Lesbian and Gay Christians twenty years ago, ended up changing its position after studying the Bible and working with Gay and Lesbian people. It now seeks to affirm and support Lesbian and Gay Christians. The Courage Trust was however subsequently told to leave the Evangelical Alliance, after the Alliance considered its position to be incompatible with Evangelicalism.

The latest statement however may indicate that the Evangelical Alliance may be shifting to a more tolerant position which accepts Evangelicals who hold differing views on homosexuality as its members."

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Sam Phillips - I Need Love. "I need God, not the political Church."

St John's photos on 'The Times' blog

Ruth Gledhill, the religious correspondent for The Times is compiling photos of the British Church doing its Benedectine duty with grace by offering the hospitality of dioceses around the UK to visiting bishops.

Two photos from Bishop Isingoma's visit to St John's have been included in her compilation of photos and these can be seen by clicking here.

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Sounds Of Blackness - Hold On (Change Is Comin').

Lambeth's Cartoonist in residence

For those interested in keeping up with the various goings on at the Lambeth Conference (both serious and humourous) then Dave Walker's Church Times blog promises to be a good way of keeping up with what is going down.

He'll be at Canterbury in his 'Cartoonist in residence' role which will commence on Wednesday and plans to post a Lambeth Diary the blog - the conference as seen from his special drawing tent.

His most recent blog includes reactions and responses to Gene Robinson's sermon last Sunday plus a link to a video of the sermon in full.

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Leonard Cohen - Bird On A Wire.