Evangelicals and Catholics working together —where now, after October 20th?
An address to the Manchester branch of Forward in FaithIntroduction
Until very recently, I took the view that in the present difficulties facing the Church of England, evangelicals and catholics could and should simply work together. Part of my work involved editing New Directions, and that was our strapline on the front page.
I now think circumstances demand that evangelical and catholic Anglicans both look at themselves carefully, and that any questions of cooperation can only be addressed in the light of that self-examination.
Let me explain what I mean.
The evangelical identity crisis
The first issue that brought this home to me was the evangelical identity crisis. This is something I have been trying to address for some time, but it is nothing new. On the contrary, evangelicals have a long-running problem over their identity.
As long ago as 1971, Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote a book titled, What is an Evangelical? John Stott addressed the same issue in 1977, as did Mark Thompson as recently as 1995 in a book titled Saving the Heart? subtitled, What is an evangelical?
However, in recent years the evangelical identity has become even more diffuse, even within Anglicanism. Do you mean Conservative, Open, Liberal, Charismatic, New Wine, Emergent or what?
When the Bishop of Durham is prepared to describe a book on penal substitution authored by members of one our most conservative evangelical theological colleges, as ‘hopelessly un-biblical’, and yet expects to be received as an evangelical by evangelicals generally, you know you’ve got a problem. If someone introduces themselves to me as an evangelical, I no longer say ‘Great’, I think, ‘What sort’?
The catholic identity crisis
But then we come to October 20th and the Pope’s offer to Anglican catholics. The significance of this still has to be assessed, but I think it says something about Rome’s view of Anglicanism.
To me, it suggests that the period of formal ecumenical discussion is over for the foreseeable future.
It also suggests that Rome views Anglicanism as desperately weakened —and it is a weakness which Rome is not particularly bothered by.
It should also hearten Anglo-Catholics, because it clearly implies that Rome does take them very seriously indeed.
But at the same time, it raises a difficulty, because it confronts Catholic Anglicans as never before, and in a way that has never before been available, with the need to decide whether to go or stay.
The implications for both
In the light of these two apparently unrelated issues —the evangelical identity crisis and the offer of the Personal Ordinariate — evangelicals and catholics need to take a look at themselves, and I think both need to admit that for a long time they have not taken their church very seriously.
Indeed, I would go further and say that by our attitudes and actions we have exacerbated the problems which we blame for our lack of seriousness.
By calling ourselves ‘evangelicals’ or ‘catholics’, for example, we show that we regard our core identity as lying elsewhere than in the Church of England.
At the same time, though, we have colluded with the public perception that the Church of England doesn’t really stand for anything.
We have distanced ourselves from the ‘Derek Nimmo’ image of Anglicanism, by distancing ourselves from the ‘middle ground’, but we have left that middle ground open for others to occupy.
The offer of the Personal Ordinariate more directly impinges on catholics, but evangelicals face the same question. If we are to stay in the Church of England, we have got to start taking it more seriously before we can consider how we work together.
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