Anglican Mainstream

The clergyman who performed the ceremony at St Bartholomew’s the Great has requested a right of reply to the letter published on this website from the three churches in the City of London.  He compares his situation of blessing persistent disobedience to God with that of those who refused the ministry of a Bishop who had been consecrated by a bishops who had surrendered the scriptures to the authorities. AM website notes that the same Augustine he quotes defines schism as separation from those who believe the same things; the three churches explicitly say they do not believe the same things.

A Response made to the Representatives of Three Evangelical Churches  in the City of London by the Revd Dr Martin Dudley  Read here

The representatives of three evangelical churches in the City of London have declared that their fellowship, koinonia, with me is fractured.  We could substitute another word for fractured; we could use the Greek schisma,  meaning a rent, a tearing of the fabric of the Church.  When Paul writing to the Corinthians speaks of a division in the body of Christ, he uses the word schisma.  The representatives explain that thire fellowship with me has been broken because of my recent actions, namely the blessing of the civil partnership of Peter Cowell and David Lord on 31 May this year, and they make another statement of particular significance — they say “we cannot recognise him as a teacher of same gospel as ours. [my emphasis]”

There was a schism in the North African Church that began in the 4th century.  It was named after a Bishop called Donatus, and was known as the Donatist heresy.  It began from a refusal to accept the ministry of Caecilian, Bishop of Carthage, on the grounds that he had been consecrated by Felix of Aptunga, who has been a traditor during the persecution by the Emperor Diocletian.  A traditor was someone who, for fear of punishment, had given up a copy of the Scriptures to the authorities.  So it wasn’t Caecilian but Felix who consecrated him who was the problem, but Caecilian was, we might say, contaminated by Felix.

The Bishop of Rome investigated the objections and decided against the Donatists.  They appealed unsuccessfully to the Council of Arles in 314 and to the Emperor in 316.  Nevertheless, the schism prospered theologically.  Let me explain why.  The Donatists were rigorists.  They claimed that as the Church was a unique source of holiness, no sinner could have a part in it.  Unworthy bishops had to be excluded for the guilt of a bishop automatically rendered ineffective his prayers, including those used in baptism and ordination. To survive in its full holiness the Church, like the vine, had to be drastically pruned, or, to put it in terms of a parable, the weeds sowed among the wheat had to be rooted out now.  The Donatists saw themselves as a group that existed to preserve and protect an alternative to society around them.  They felt that their identity was constantly under threat, first by persecution, then by compromise.  They believed in Law.  Some of their attitudes came directly from the Old Testament and like the Jews they believed in ritual purity, and believed also that such purity could be lost through contact with an unclean thing.  They held that the unworthiness of the minister did indeed affect the validity of the sacraments.

They were opposed to the Catholics who did not feel that the world threatened their identity.  The principle spokesman for the Catholic position came to be St Augustine of Hippo.  Twice I find him preaching on the parable of the wheat and weeds.  First he says, Why are you so full of zeal?  You see weeds among the wheat, you see evil Christians among the good, you wish to root out the evil ones.  Be quiet, he says, it is not the time of harvest.  The time will come, may it only find you wheat!  Why do you vex yourselves?  Why bear impatiently the mixture of the evil with the good?  In the field they may be with you, but it will not be so in the barn.

In his second sermon he mentions Donatus by name.  He is talking about unity and charity.  He points to the problem involved in correcting the sins and faults of others, and twice he quotes Paul saying first “Let anyone who thinks he stands, take care lest he fall” and then the familiar warning of 1 Corinthians 13  that “though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” And as an example of these difficulties he turns to the parable of weeds and wheat, and of the good seed sown everywhere.  An enemy has sown the weeds.  “Let them grow together,” says the householder to his slaves.  Grow where?  In the field, of course.  What is the field?  Is it Africa?  No.  What is it then?  It is the world. 

And what does Jesus say when he explains the parable?  The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one; the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels.  Augustine asks: “Is Africa the world?  Is this present time the harvest?  Is Donatus the reaper?”

To the representatives from St Helen Bishopsgate, St Peter-upon-Cornhill, and St Botolph-without-Aldersgate, I say this:  We become Donatists if we doubt the faithfulness and promises of God.  We do it if we think the Gospel is ours and not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We do it if we think we, and we alone, are the good seed and everyone who does not agree with us is no better than weeds.  If we take that approach, then we must scrutinize the life and behaviour and connections of everyone.  At the door of the church-building those who should be welcoming will be required to ask questions about what each person has thought and said and done in the past week.  It cannot be sufficient that hearts are open to God, that each person should review their own behaviour before confessing that we do not trust in our own righteousness — no, some will be called upon to judge others, as these representatives have chosen to judge me, though no-one appointed them as my judges, and if a negative judgement is returned then the person who is judged is unchurched, declared unworthy to be a part of the Body of Christ.  Is the City of London the world?  Is this present time the harvest?  Are the representatives of these City churches the reapers?

We are all unworthy, in varying degrees.  If it depends on us, there will be no Church.  Some of my critics have written to me in recent months as “true Christians” proposing, in fairly strong language, that I should be expelled from Church and ministry; I can only reply as a very flawed and imperfect Christian, unwilling to unchurch anyone who believes in the love of God in Jesus Christ.  Perhaps we do have one claim to superiority in Smithfield: experience tells us that it is dangerous to judge others, to pronounce them unchristian, to declare fellowship fractured, to rend the Body of Christ — it leads to the fires that consume the martyrs.  We know that because it is a shameful part of our history.

We have to ask ourselves what it means to be, not an inward looking Church, obsessed with the purity and proper order of those within, but a Church open to the world, witnessing to the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ — it is the only Gospel that we know at Saint Bartholomew the Great.  Everything we are and say and do is about love, about God’s love for us.  It is not about differentiating who can be loved from who can’t be.  It is not about saying “God will only love you if you do this and this”.  Come to me, says Jesus, all you that are weary and carry heavy burdens.  Here it is, the key word, in Greek pan, all, the root word of pantechicon — a wonderful large van into which you pile everything, and sort it out later.  And Saint Bartholomew the Great is a pantechnicon sort of Church.  That same idea is found in the parable of wheat and weeds — the same idea of keeping together the pure and the impure, the good and the bad, the weeds and the wheat, and letting them be divided only at the end, at the harvest, by the one who only can judge the living and the dead.

The Revd Dr Martin Dudley
Rector, Saint Bartholomew the Great
City of London

18 October 2008
 

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