Anglican Mainstream

 By Charles Raven, Virtue Online  
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=297
12 April 2008

Fulcrum seems to take pride in being the voice of balanced orthodoxy, but Tom Wright’s recent lecture is evidence that the real function of Fulcrum - whatever the intentions of its members - is to try and hold the balance between post modern religiosity and the historic biblical Anglicanism which it mimics. Such a position is of course fundamentally unstable and the strained exegesis of this latest lecture shows the extent to which reality, not least in the form of GAFCON, is overtaking the Fulcrum fantasy.

We are invited, in a manner reminiscent of Rowan Williams, to consider a middle way which avoids both the ’shrill functional pragmatism of today’s muddled left’ and ‘the equally shrill and functional pragmatism of today’s muddled right’, those on the left preoccupied with breaking the old rules and those on the right with keeping them. These polarities, we are encouraged to believe, are transcended by an eschatological ecclesiology expressed in covenant community. Wright then quotes at length (in the online version of the lecture) from the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission Communiqué of September 2006 to establish the biblical credentials of this approach, although one looks in vain for any clear statement of the authority of Scripture in its plain sense or any reference to the classic Anglican formularies. Instead, the focus is on the emergence of covenantal beliefs through the development of ‘bonds of affection’ and it is this covenantal perspective which underlies the Windsor Process and the proposal for an Anglican Communion Covenant.

So far we have been walking along a fairly well worn path, but things become more interesting when Tom Wright tries to interpret the acute stresses in contemporary Anglicanism in terms of the turbulent relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church. In fact he refers to this as ‘the heart of the matter, the re-enactment today of 2 Corinthians’. This has bizarre and provocative consequences.

Firstly, Rowan Williams’ Advent pastoral letter encouraging attendance at Lambeth and the further letters which we are told are ‘in the post’, discouraging attendance on the part of those bishops deemed unsympathetic to the Windsor process, represent Paul’s personal and deeply painful appeal to the Corinthians as he seeks to re-establish his apostolic authority on the basis of an appeal to their shared participation in the New Covenant. It may be that the Archbishop is not quite so committed to this Pauline agenda as Tom Wright thinks because Ruth Gledhill http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2008/04/our-absenting-m.html reports that Lambeth Palace have denied sending such letters. But whatever the case, the parallel is perverse; Rowan Williams’ apostolic authority has ebbed away because he himself has failed to uphold the basis of that authority, the authority of Scripture. He has never repented of his teaching and support for the gay/lesbian movement sustained over many years and it was his willingness to invite the consecrators and supporters of Gene Robinson to Lambeth 2008, a direct affront to the clear mind of the previous Lambeth Conference, which precipitated the withdrawal of so many Global South bishops.

Apparently untroubled by these difficulties, Tom Wright presses on. In this peculiar re-enactment of 2 Corinthians, not only does Rowan Williams represent the Apostle Paul - whose teaching he has felt at liberty to discard - but secondly GAFCON and its leadership represent the ’super-apostles’ of 2 Corinthians 11:5. So we are told that ‘just as the super –apostles were conveying the message to Paul that if he wanted to return to Corinth he’d need letters of recommendation, we are told that, if we want to go on being thought of as evangelicals, we should withdraw from Lambeth and join the super-gathering, which, though not officially, is clearly designed as an alternative’. This may or may not be the case since the text (2 Corinthians 3:1) does not actually specify that the ’super-apostles’ were the ones asking for letters, but it is certainly uncharitable. The Global South leadership has persevered in dialogue for the past ten years after a Lambeth Conference which would have settled the divisions in the Anglican Communion if all had been willing to abide by its resolutions. I have personally seen and heard the pain of the African leaders as they have sought to maintain the ‘bonds of affection’ as revisionist agendas have come to the fore in the Anglo-American Churches, but if anyone did have authority to ask for letters of recommendation, it would surely be these leaders who like Paul need none themselves because they have the living letters of growing and vibrant churches (2 Corinthians 3:2).

Unfortunately, the problem with this representation of GAFCON and its leadership goes deeper than simply lack of charity. The ’super–apostles’ of 2 Corinthians are not just arrogant, they are false apostles. Tom Wright can hardly have overlooked Paul’s description of these leaders in chapter 11 - they are preaching another gospel and a different Jesus (11:4); they are ‘false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ’ (11:13). In fact they are ’servants of Satan’ (v15). To identify those leading and supporting GAFCON with those who propagate a false gospel is a very serious distortion of reality.

GAFCON has emerged for precisely the opposite reason - to provide a genuinely Anglican orthodox counterpoint to the apostasy which is tightening its grip on the old churches of the Global North. Tom Wright knows that this is happening and refers to ‘the awful situation that many of our American and Canadian friends have found themselves in, vilified, attacked and undermined by ecclesiastical authority figures who seem to have lost all grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ’. So wouldn’t such leaders be much more obvious candidates to be described as ’super –apostles? Yet by preferring to apply this term to other evangelicals Tom Wright is himself beginning to look like an ecclesiastical authority figure who is in danger of losing his own grip on the gospel.

Perhaps we are getting some insight into the priorities of the Lambeth establishment. If your primary concern is for the gospel, then there are much more plausible candidates for modern day ’super-apostles’ than the GAFCON leadership. On the other hand if your primary concern is power, you will bend all your efforts to discrediting those who threaten your control. The attractions of a middle way are now a forlorn hope. The crisis in the Anglican Communion is such that only GAFCON has the potential to articulate the vision of a stable and united global Anglican Faith.

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