Oh my life, we actually decided to do something! True, we’ve not actually done anything, yet. But we’ve said that we will. And that’s better than nothing!

I’ve been faithfully attending Reform conferences for longer than I care to remember. For a restless reformed hot head like me, it’d be fair to say that they’ve been disappointing! In addition, ever since we planted CCB in the Diocese of Southwark I’ve been attending Reform Southwark. I wanted some allies and there weren’t too many of those going around at the start! I enjoy going. It’s a gathering of some of the great and the good of authentically biblical Anglicanism. There are men there that I count as good friends and others that I regard as leaders to be followed. But we specialise in letter writing. Angry ones. To the Bishop. Who ignores them. Every now and again we do something. Like an irregular ordination. And that rustles the feathers. And then we, or the wider constituency, produce something, like the covenant. And that wins widespread approval. But we’re not known really for action, at least most of us aren’t. Occasionally someone brave or reckless does something, others then jump on the bandwagon and countless others express their support. But it’s rare. Too rare for some of us. I know that the ecclesiastical political process can be slow. I’m sure that we need to go through the appropriate hoops. But I can’t help feeling that the Diocese of Southwark has little to fear from the mighty collective political will of the conservative theological constituency south of the river. This may be about to change.

I’ll be honest, and indiscreet, there were times this conference when I questionned the ability of Reform to bring change. After all, how could an organisation unable to get the audio-visual stuff to work be involved in effecting change in a denomination! It may be a wild stab in the dark, but I’m guessing that the churches that we represent aren’t exactly at the cutting edge of employing new technologies in our gospel ministries. The OHP might be viewed as a liberalising step towards cultural accommodation!

I enjoyed many parts of the conference; seeing mates, being taught by someone else who’d done the hards yards of preparation and being challenged by David Short’s courageous principled stance in the Diocese of New Westminster. Most of it was really good, not all of it. But most of it. I almost lost the will to live in the day one session on Women Bishops. It wasn’t David Phillips‘ fault. He was on top of his game and actually managed to make some painfully involved legislative procedures appear almost engaging. But for all his protestations that there’s still the opportunity to walk the General Synod back from its decision to go ahead with the Consecration of Women Bishops, it felt like rearranging the cutlery on the Titanic. The General Synod made it clear that it does not want Evangelicals like me in the Church of England. It is very unlikely that any ministry candidate that we put forward to a Bishops’ Selection Conference would be approved if he thinks that the Bible prohibits women from exercising oversight. In effect, the vote at General Synod closed the door to the next generation of Evangelical Ministers.

Rod Thomas, the Chairman of Reform, came to my rescue in the afternoon with his talk on the strategic path forward. The full text of his talk is here. The Telegraph picked up his words here and the Times here. Ruth Gledhill commented on her blog. Riazat Butt, from the Guardian, doesn’t get it quite right here. Words like ‘breakaway’ and ‘defect’ slightly miss the point. And for the record, I’m not against homosexuals! Clumsy at best disingenuous at worst.

Rod identified three key developments took place this summer

1. We saw a crisis of leadership in the Anglican Communion as the Archbishop of Canterbury failed to persuaude his Bishops to follow his lead on proposals for Women Bishops and Lambeth made not one iota of difference to the fissures in the Anglican Communion.
2. We saw what an Anglicanism united in the gospel and dedicated to mission could look like. GAFCON showed the moral resolve and courage to put into place a the alternative structures necessary to provide for theologically orthodox Anglicans.
3. We saw the intolerant face of liberalism when General Synod took the decision to pursue the Consecration of Women’s Bishops and effectively close the door to classical evangelicals. 

In response to the develpoments this summer Rod suggested that two things must happen; growing gospel fellowship and the development of alternative oversight. Seeking alternative oversight need not be as confrontational an act as everyone fears for the following reasons.

1. The need won’t apply to everyone. Solid Bishops need our support not our opposition. And some of us have them. Not us, but some do.

2. The Church of England already accepts that alternative oversight is needed because there are circumstances when a ‘flying Bishop’ can be provided.

3. It can provide a positive way forward and one that the Church of England could accommodate. The C of E is sused to the existence of religious communities. They exist outside the Diocesan authorities. And they get to choose their Bishops. Brilliant, Reform could become a religious community!

Rod then challenged us with these words, ‘this is not a time to be timorous. The fact that so many across the world could be brought together in such a short time at Jerusalem and achieve so much should surely encourage us to aim high, here in England‘.

To achieve that he suggested that we need to do four things

1. Educate our congregations because they may not understand what’s going on in our denomination. They may not have perceived that we have two religions in unhappy co-existence; the religion of the word and the religion of the world. When the debates are distant, Bishops are so nice and the issues so complicated it’s tempting to just plough on with our preaching series in Colossians. But if we’re to expect support from our churches, we have a responsibility to put them in the picture. To this end a forthcoming commentary on the Jerusalem Statement should help. 

2. Co-operate with others in forming the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK. Reform will not accomplish this on its own. We need others. And they are there and willing. And we can do so without compromising our integrity or biblical faithfulness.

3. Maintain our determination to keep pressing ahead as we seek reform. We need to press for change both inside and on the edge of eth structures. We need to take a lead and seek to bring others with us.

4. Disseminate our aims and invite others to join us. As Rod said, ‘As we move towards the development of a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and despite the fact that the very emergence of this fellowship indicates the reality of two religions within Anglicanism, we want to insist that we are not setting up a separate ecclesial organisation. Rather, we are a fellowship operating within a wider federation. And as a fellowship we seek to reach out to whoever wants to be a partner in the gospel. We must win friends to the cause‘. 

He closed with these words, ‘There are many question marks about what all this will mean in terms of our institutions. But the New Testament is remarkably free of institutional recommendations. It may be that our affections have to become increasingly oriented towards confessing Anglicanism rather than the Church of England per se. We do not know what the future holds in that respect. What we do know is that we are called to be faithful to the Gospel and to organise ourselves accordingly’.

For a considered reflection on the conference you’ve come to the wrong place. Try John Richardson’s blog for that. For the young, reformed and restless; gear up, ‘cos we’re good to go, the bullets in the chamber and I think the boys with their fingers on the trigger are finally prepared to pull it! The future of evangelicalism in the Church of England just might have turned a corner.

I didn’t get to vote on these on Wednesday. I wanted to get back home for my kids’ swimming lessons at the local pool. Underastandably, my five year old daughter gets freaked when the water is higher than her mouth. In those circumstances Mummy just won’t do!

Here are the three resolutions put before the Reform Conference. 

1  This conference welcomes the outcome of Gafcon, pledges the support of Reform for the resulting initiatives, and calls on evangelicals in the Church of England to show more courage in promoting the gospel and resisting unbiblical teaching.

That’s a hearty ‘amen’ from me.

2  This conference recognises that when bishops accommodate themselves to unbiblicalteaching, they deny the faith and therefore abandon their sees.  In these circumstances it is vital that alternative oversight should be provided.

Yes please, count on my vote.

3  This conference calls on the House of Bishops to recognise that pursuing the General Synod Resolution on the preparation of legislation to allow the consecration of women bishops will permanently damage and narrow the Church of England unless full legislative protection is given to the ministry of those who cannot with integrity go along with this development. We urge the House to present alternative proposals to the General Synod so that greater generosity of spirit can be displayed.

Nice touch with the use of the word ‘narrow’. The self professed broad church is apparently not broad enough to welcome us classical evangelicals.

Three terrific proposals that get my full support.

Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbe’s Oxford, was at his brilliant best as he charted a clear path through the rocky waters of unity, co-belligerency and secondary matters. This was the talk at the recent Reform Conference that I was most looking forward to. I wanted help in understanding the partnership that we’d undertaken within the GAFCON movement and the proposed Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. My first impression of the Jerusalem gathering at GAFCON was that we were a broader constituency than I’d imagined or hoped for. All the usual suspects were there; classical evangelical friends from the Southern Hemisphere and so on, but there huge numbers of people who we’d never met or heard of. In reality once we started working together and chatting in our groups and informally over meals we discovered that there was much more in common than appearances might have suggested. It wasn’t the case that those who dressed like an Anglo-Catholic background necesarily were; they just loved purple dresses!

In his talk, Vaughan identified three dominant groups within the Church of England eager for reform. Of course these are generalisations and therefore all the usual caveats apply, but nevertheless it’s helpful to identify these three main streams within those who long for change within the Church of England.

1. The pragmatists
The pragmatists have a knee-jerk reaction for opportunity. They tend to see things in political categories. On the one hand, there are some who are cautious about GAFCON because they worry that any political involvement with GAFCON will harm our opportunities within the formal structures of the Church of England. They fear that any alignment with GAFCON will rock the boat and deny us the opportunities that favourable Dioceses can provide in terms of buildings, staff and so on. On the other hand, there are those who are enthusiastic about GAFCON because they recognise that the Dioceses have the potential to severely handicap growing evangelical ministries. They have a more negative view of what to expect of the Diocese, they don’t expect any concessions to be forthcoming. And so any new organisation willing to provide alternative Episcopal oversight is to be greeted with wild enthusiasm. They contend that now is not the time to be asking awkward questions about GAFCON. It’s better than what we’re used to and so don’t kick up a fuss. 

2. The pietists
The pietists have a knee-jerk reaction for unity. Their instinct is to affirm and not to challenge or criticise. Any movement which contends for the truth is therefore open to suspicion. Often they can be in broad agreement with the ‘contenders’ on the issue, it’s just that they don’t like the chosen methods of contention. And so there are some charismatic evangelicals who are nervous about Reform because they’ve been too harsh and hard line with their opponents. In addition, they’re also nervous about GAFCON because they fear that the Diocese of Sydney, and Peter Jensen their Archbishop,  might be orchestrating things from behind the scenes. And many of them have been deeply wounded by negative comments made by a few in Sydney on the charismatic issue 20 years ago.

3. The purists
The purists have a knee-jerk reaction for truth. These types are delighted that so much of what GAFCON affirms is confessional Anglicanism. However, there are some who worry that the new alignment is far too elastic. Quite rightly the ‘hot prots’, in particular current student friends from Oak Hill, question the wisdom of ‘jumping into bed’ with a broad coalition of Charismatics and Anglo-Catholics in our desire to be free from the tyranny of revisionist liberalism. They to know whether we’ve jumped out of the frying pan of unbiblical Anglicanism into the fire of compromised co-belligerency!

Being the true Anglican that he is, Vaughan argued that everyone had a valid point of view, that he thought all three groups were right and that we needed to listen to them all! That man will be a Bishop one day. Perhaps sooner than he thinks if the Reform proposals are enacted!

The purists are right because the truth matters and therefore our unity must be evangelical not ecumenical. We can’t have elastic limits to our unity. GAFCON should be supported since it recognises that we have those limits already in the formulary documents of the Church of England.  

The pietists are right because unity matters and therefore we must pursue agreement on the fundamentals and accommodate differences of opinion on secondary matters. Vaughan warned that he fears that this is a massive danger for us. We’re so tribal. And therefore, we must work hard to preserve our unity and not fight over non-essentials.

The pragmatists are right because this is the time of opportunity and therefore we must work together with others in a loose alliance on a whole range of different issues. Vaughan used the image of a convoy of ships travelling in the same direction to explain how we can be associated with those of a slightly different theological emphasis as we press ahead towards the reform of the Church of England.

The one book which Vaughan said that he found most helpful was J.C. Ryle’s ‘Principles for Churchmen’. It may be time to dig that out. But in the meantime Vaughan’s summary is just what’s needed.