The Letter

"This story has been attributed to Mr. Conan Doyle: A friend of his had often been told that there is a skeleton in the cupboard of every household, no matter how respectable that household may be; and he determined to put this opinion to a practical test. Selecting for the subject of his experiment a venerable Archdeacon of the Church, against whom the most censorious critic had never breathed a word, he went to the nearest post-office, and dispatched a telegram to the revered gentleman: ‘All is discovered! Fly at once!’ The Archdeacon disappeared, and has never been heard of since".  The Strand - 1897.

Following through from my prior mailings here which focused on the fact that American Evangelical leaders have been actively involved in promoting and supporting the Government line on the pandemic whilst denouncing any alternatives, it is time to bring the issue closer to home...

In this week's Irreverend Podcast, the regular team examined Justin Welby's latest statement in which he sought to distance himself from his words back in 2020, requiring churches to close.

I was pleased to hear the words of Daniel French in the podcast in respect to his own experience as an Anglican minister:

"Ministry is the one main vocation that I have had, and after 23 years - now 25 - and to read that letter (Welby's original in 2020 requiring all churches to be closed) I burst into tears, I stormed out and I thought 'what the heck am I doing in this job?' There's a part of me that has never recovered from that. There's a part of me that remains broken. What on earth happened....

In some dioceses, the threat of CDM - 'safeguarding' or de-frocking clergy - was definitely there, evidenced in letters that were sent to the clergy. If that isn't dictatorial, I don't know what is".

I entirely share Daniel's anguish.  I left the church I had been attending for eight years as a consequence of that original missive, because I understood that mere men had done something they had no authority to do - the termination of Christian ministry. 

The question I still find unresolved today is why is it that none of the local or national ministers I know felt as I did - why didn't they respond like Daniel, but entirely complied with the requirements made and continued to do so right throughout the events of the last two years? Why was nothing done, nothing said, beyond a few conversations, to hear and take on board the concerns of those who were voicing that such approaches were wrong?

There's something even more dreadful, however, in Daniel's candour. The Anglican churches in my region have behaved as if the terrible requirements of March 2020 are irrelevant - that the 'church' can merely move on from all of this as if nothing has happened of any relevance and thereby, just like Welby's latest letter, detach itself from any significant role or ramifications caused by the rupture - but the wounds are there!

Do they really think that God is going to just overlook such actions and the compounding of this evidenced in this present, pervasive neglect of those broken by the behaviour of such bodies?

What troubles me so deeply is there is not even a thought amongst the many in respect to suggesting some manner of repentance in regards to this - 'you merely misunderstood what we we doing', appears to be the general line about to be held by those in authority.

In America this week, Douglas Wilson noted that there are those "Reformed Evangelical" ministers who have begun blaming those who left their churches during the crisis as being, at the very least, 'wrong' to have done so, because their 'political' stance was challenged. Wilson notes, correctly, that this wasn't the core issue for such 'leavers' - it was the Gospel; the very nature of truth provided by God. "The authority of scripture is measured, not by an affirmation that someone believes in that authority, but is demonstrated by your submission to and your obedience to it" - you demonstrate your view of what is authoritative, in other words, by what you do.

If you submit to decrees and edicts which order the closure of your church, the severance of your church body, the silencing of your ministers, then you are showing to all that you believe that there are powers which have more validity in what you say and do as a Christian than the requirements of scripture.

The response to this is, 'but the opening of Romans 13 says', and we are then presented with an exposition that requires submission to evil, but the faithful church has always argued that this is not so - the response to evil is to reject it, especially if and when such seeks to diminish the authority of God in relation to the service of the church and the administration of the message of the gospel.

The lesson of the last two years is not learned at all - the gaping wound is very real and has not begun to heal, and there is no escape from the consequences of this - the conforming church will continue to be the toy of the state, and the world will look on with the sting of such a reality clearly evident in their gaze.

Some of us will continue to speak up.

Some of us will continue to seek to draw lost ones into the everlasting kingdom, but for so, so many, that gathering will have to proceed without any reference to what was once deemed to be a 'local' church, whatever its denominational stripe.

Perhaps this will allow a new more refined, less socially conformed, expression of the faith to be seeded.

Let us hope this can be.