A Credibility Crisis

By Lee Gatiss Actions speak louder than words. Jesus said that regardless of what people say, “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16). James says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” There is something crucial about following up our words with deeds, as far as the Bible is concerned. It reveals what we really mean by the words.

There is at present something of a credibility crisis in the Church of England. There are many words, but the challenge is in following them up. Let’s look at one current claim, easily spoken, which would require action to back it up. “We want you to flourish” The Archbishop of Canterbury recently spoke about being committed to the flourishing of those who disagree with the ordination and consecration of women. He said that this would require “massive cultural change” that some may find threatening. The legislation on women bishops, now coming before Dioceses for discussion and approval, requires that conservative evangelical complementarians (those uncomfortable with the ordination of women) should be enabled to flourish in the life and structures of the Church. On this basis, many see no reason to oppose the package now on offer.

The question must be whether these commitments are credible. In some ways, the package is not a disaster. If implemented straightforwardly, we might be able to continue teaching and modelling biblical headship. We might be able to request the ministry of male bishops, and will have potentially stronger protection against discrimination when it comes to ordinations and appointments than exists in the 1993 Act of Synod.

This careful provision could be overturned by a two-thirds majority in any future Synod. This makes it more secure than some would have liked it, and yet it is worrying that there are no conservative evangelical complementarian bishops currently serving in the Church of England, whether inside the House of Bishops or outside. This means that the package we are now being asked to sign up to could be rather more swiftly overturned in future than we might think, and without our senior leadership even being consulted on it. Why are there no complementarian evangelical bishops at all?

I was hugely encouraged by the Archbishop’s address to Synod recently. The fact that members of his team have some experience of delivering massive cultural change and power sharing agreements in the fraught atmosphere of Northern Ireland could be a real help. So we are looking to him, in a positive and hopeful way, to make the claim that he wants evangelicals like us to flourish in the Church truly credible. He could do that in two ways: first, by engaging complementarian evangelicals in real dialogue, listening in detail to our concerns; and second, by encouraging and ensuring the appointment of 12 conservative evangelical Bishops.

I am not pleading for a percentage “quota” system (although many dioceses are happy with the idea of quotas when it comes to us helping pay for their upkeep of course!). A dozen bishops would not be entirely proportional to our numerical and financial strength or reflect our numbers in the House of Laity. That is not the point. How damaging would it really be to move beyond tokenism to a decent group of complementarian evangelical bishops? It would not be sufficient to block repeal of the provision for us on the gender issue. And there would still be around 100 bishops on the other side of that debate!

Sadly, the relentless opponents of conservative evangelicalism have fallen over themselves recently on social media in a rush to prove how little they want us to flourish. Scoffing dismissively at the mere suggestion of complementarian evangelical representation in the college of bishops is not a great way to convince us that we are welcome in the life and structures of the Church. Some say that if we are to have conservative evangelical bishops then we need also to have practising homosexual bishops. But the Church has voted to enable orthodox evangelicals to flourish; it has not voted to enable sin to flourish. Sin must be repented, not promoted.

This is not a “demand”, in order to derail the process. We are not in a position to demand. Rather, this is a concrete proposal to help give credibility to the Archbishop’s soaring vision. A commitment in this area would convince us, including many young evangelicals exploring vocations, of the sincerity of the House of Bishops’ claim that they wish to provide for our flourishing. It would be a welcome gamechanger in creating trust from our constituency.

In an episcopal system, to which we are happily committed, this would be a very persuasive sign that we have a future. We don’t just want to rely on Anglo-Catholic bishops who will simply tolerate us. How is the unity and mission of the church promoted by our deliberate exclusion? Dr Lee Gatiss is the Director of Church Society and co-author of Reformed Foundations,

Reforming Future: A Vision for 21st Century

Anglicans

A report by the now famous Sir Joseph Pilling in 2007 (“Talent and Calling”, GS1650) stated clearly that it was “desirable that conservative evangelicals should be represented among those occupying senior appointments to a greater degree than is at present the case.” We are less represented now than at any time in the last 30 years.

Pilling recommended that “Bishops should be asked positively to look for clergy from [the conservative evangelical] constituency who might either be qualified for inclusion on the Preferment List or might be developed in such a way that they might be qualified later on.” How many conservative evangelicals has your bishop put on this list?

If the Archbishop is truly committed to the cultural change he has spoken of so inspiringly, we in Church Society are committed to seeing credible complementarian evangelical bishops trained and appointed in the very near future. We’re working on it behind the scenes, and part of our forthcoming conference will look at “evangelical episcopacy.” Of course, we all know Justin Welby doesn’t have the power to simply create bishops, and this can’t happen overnight. But let’s be courageous and creative! There are ways to make it happen.

In all this, the words of the Apostle remain our guide and our challenge: “Let us not love in word or talk but in action and in truth” (1 John 3:18).