Divided by untruth: why we are where we are today

Thursday, 10 July 2008
by Revd John P Richardson

How did we get to be the Church of England we are today — a Church where the Synod just voted to marginalise its Conservative and Traditionalist wings, whilst throwing the door open to Liberal and Revisionist movements?

The answer, I am persuaded, is a lack of theological coherence and integrity, despite having Scripture, Creeds, Articles and Prayer Book. We are like Israel before Josiah’s reforms. The book of the Law is there, but it is gathering dust. We pay lip service to our history, and to historical formularies, but in practice they mean nothing.

You can say one thing and believe and do another as much as you like (provided, now, you accept the ordination and consecration of women) and there is no theoretical limit to the responsibilities you might be given or the promotion you might receive.

Occasionally I have a look to see how traffic has come to my blog, and if the source looks interesting I’ll nip over there and see what is going on. Thus earlier today I found myself on Bishop Alan’s Blog, run by Alan Wilson, the Area Bishop of Buckingham.

There I found a thread headed ‘A Church of Navel Gazers?’, which quoted approvingly an article from the Daily Mail which accused the Church of England of neglecting its real mission for all this stuff about women and gays. Why, the writer asked, couldn’t the Church just accept both and get on with the job? And Bishop Alan entirely agreed.

The problem is, though, it surely depends on your understanding of Church, and therefore on your understanding of controversies within the Church. If the Church is a ‘rainbow coalition’ of theologies where we focus on tackling social issues, then I can see the point of the Mail article. But if the Church is ‘the pillar and bulwark of the truth’ (and according to my computer Bible, the word ‘truth’ occurs in 237 verses in the NIV translation, beating the word ‘poor’ by 60), then the issues which divide us are ‘mission issues’ (including on mission to the poor). the rest