Bishop Martyn Snow, Lead Bishop for LLF, has just published a booklet. The challenge is in the title: can we possibly imagine a future in which we can stay together in the Church of England—or is it time to give up and separate? Bishop Martyn has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in the past year trying argue that the time to separate hasn’t yet come, and this booklet is his proposed way forward.

The booklet begins with an analogy from couple’s therapy: when the two parties in a relationship are asking whether they can remain together, the therapist cannot make them stay together—(s)he can only ask them whether they can possibly imagine doing so. If they can’t, separation is the only option.

The problem with the analogy is that +Martyn is not a neutral therapist in this scenario. He is the Lead Bishop for LLF, a process which has caused massive division and a breakdown of trust at every level of the national church. If we stick with the marriage analogy, it’s more akin to one spouse having an affair and then telling the other, ‘I don’t think this is worth separating over!’ +Martyn might claim to be ‘personally orthodox,’ but he is spearheading the push for heterodoxy. He is not neutral, and he does not get to tell those opposed to his proposals how upset we are allowed to be.

Snow draws on his experience as Bishop of Leicester, a city that has put much thought into multiculturalism. He believes that there are lessons from interculturalism that might help us stay together in a divided Church of England.

What are the lessons he wants to share with us? Well, there is a very brief outline of the history of assimilation (the minority culture must learn to be subsumed into the majority/host culture), multiculturalism (multiple cultures living alongside each other but not bridging their differences), and interculturalism (multiple cultures engaging in dialogue across difference). Though he concedes the issues are not the same, he would have us adopt an ‘intercultural’ mindset towards our theological differences.

In this, he tries to be realistic that we’re not going to agree any time soon. Indeed, we may never agree on these matters. That’s an honest, if depressing, admission. What struck me, however, was that +Martyn doesn’t seem to be depressed by the situation. Indeed, he comes very close to celebrating our theological divisions.

"Could it be that our disagreements in the Church are something that we must learn to live with? Could it be that our disagreements are a condition which is not going to change in our lifetimes? It could even be argued that such disagreements are built into Anglicanism – we were born in dispute with Rome, our early history involved much bloodshed, the 'ejection' of ministers who refused to use the Book of Common Prayer and recognise the authority of bishops, and many other controversies. This is arguably the greatest challenge and greatest gift of Anglicanism." (p.18, emphasis added)

+Martyn refers to the work of Ron Heifetz in Leadership Without Easy Answers. Heifetz drew a distinction between technical work, in which we simply apply known solutions to solve a known problem, and adaptive work, in which we learn to live and work in a changed environment. That changed environment, +Martyn argues, is a world of divisions both in the church and in society. Rather than spending all of our energy trying to solve our divisions, maybe we should be asking, ‘how do we relate to one another in a time of division?’ In other words: our divisions are here to stay; what are we going to do to be about it?

I find the circular reasoning galling, because accepting that we are in a time of division and that we need to bear with one another is precisely the reasoning the bishops have given for pressing forward with LLF. ‘It’s not a change, it’s just a pastoral provision in a time of uncertainty.’ The problem is, those causing the uncertainty and those proposing change are one and the same. The uncertainty only exists because they don’t like the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality and want to change it. All this talk of ‘a time of uncertainty’ and ‘a season of discernment’ is just smoke and mirrors designed to distract us. It’s throwing a load of sand in the air and then saying ‘there’s a sandstorm, we need to change direction!’

There is division and uncertainty in the Church of England—of course there is. But that uncertainty is not because God in Scripture has been unclear about these issues. He has been very clear, and the Church has always understood that.

There is division and uncertainty because a large group of people, led by a majority of the bishops, are trying to illegally change the Church’s teaching. This is their fault, and they are trying to capitalise on it to get what they want.

+Martyn’s plan for this ‘season of discernment’ is simple:

1. Generous giving. He calls us to embrace the intercultural maxim of ‘gift exchange’, filtered through a gospel lens in which we give radically, without expectation of return (pp.47-48). We should be willing to give of our time, our resources, our people, and even our tears, even to those with whom we disagree.

2. Radical receptiveness. The flip side of 1. is that we should be willing to receive from those with whom we disagree. “Can we identify with the other person in a way which enables the saving grace of God to flow between us?” Will we be willing to open ourselves ups to gifts that may change us or even hurt us (p.49)?

3. Transformative thanksgiving. +Martyn argues that giving thanks for the gift of God is at the heart of our worship and our life together. He laments that “[a]rguably one of the saddest parts of the LLF process has been the unwillingness by some people to share Holy Communion together. This is a tragedy, yet expressive of where we are in this time of discernment.” Despite lamenting it, +Martyn does not try to argue that we should be willing to partake together. Instead, how can we practice ‘transformative thanksgiving’, even for those with whom we disagree?

It’s an attractive vision in some respects, but it falls short. It falls short because it’s far too simplistic. It doesn’t get beyond ‘wouldn’t it be nicer if we were all a bit nicer to each other?’ The things he suggests might be nice things to do in themselves, but they don’t come remotely close to dealing with the depth of the spiritual issues we face as a church.

+Martyn says time and time again that the time of separation has not yet come. But he doesn’t get to make that call. He can plead with us not to leave—and I’ve written at length here and elsewhere agreeing with that plea—but he doesn’t get to tell those opposed to his proposals how seriously we should disagree or how hurt we should feel.

To quote from a recent Faith and Order Commission report:

it is a failure of Christian love for one side to declare what kind of disagreement is being experienced by the other. It must surely be the case that those who disagree with a given decision are themselves determinative of what kind of disagreement is in view, not the content majority. Those who dissent from the majority view or decision get to define the nature of their disagreement: if it is widely held that such-and-such a belief or practice calls into question apostolic communion or ecclesial communion, then the disagreement simply is a first- or second-order disagreement, regardless of whether the majority think it merely strains communion (third order).1

Again: those proposing change don’t get to tell those opposed how upset they get to be about it. That is “a failure of Christian love”. +Martyn may be right that so far the numbers of those leaving the Church of England have been relatively small, but that is not the only kind of division and separation we should be concerned about.

The LLF proposals have broken trust between bishops and those on the ground. They have divided congregations and PCCs. They have led countless clergy and parishes to declare that they are in impaired/broken fellowship with their bishops and other senior clergy. They have led to ordinands and curates feeling unable to proceed with their ordinations. And yes, they have driven churches, clergy, and lay people out of the Church of England.

The time of great institutional schism may not have yet come, but that does not mean that the LLF proposals have not rent our church in twain. There is a massive spiritual chasm between Christianity and liberalism in the Church of England, and it grows wider and deeper by the day.

That is the reality that the bishops and their supporters in Synod have created, and that is the reality that we must decide how to live in light of. This is not a cute and cuddly, ‘we can ask questions and buy one another gifts’ kind of disagreement.

Can we imagine a future together? If we can, then I would suggest that it is not the kind of future +Martyn proposes, wherein our disagreements and divisions are treated as oddments and curiosities to be examined and even celebrated. There is nothing to celebrate about a Church that is divided about the very nature of the gospel. As +Martyn himself acknowledges (on p.42), nowhere in the New Testament are Christians called to rejoice in their divisions. Nowhere in the New Testament are Christians called to be thankful for those who teach a false gospel. Quite the opposite. We are to bear with one another, yes. We are to seek to live out Christ’s love better, yes. But there is nothing to celebrate in a church that doesn’t even know how to define the gospel anymore. Read Paul’s letter to the Galatians and come back and tell me that gospel divisions are ok in the church.

For what it’s worth, my position hasn’t changed: I still don’t think those of us aligned with ‘The Alliance’ should leave the Church of England. But I also don’t think we should give up the fight. Rather, we should stay and we should fight as though eternal souls are on the line. Because they are.

+Martyn presents what he hopes is an exciting vision for the future of the Church of England. It’s not. It’s a future in which division and disagreement are not only normal, they are the point. That’s not what Christ calls us to be as a church, and it’s not the abundant life he died to give his Church. Don’t let anyone sell you short.

In the July 2024 General Synod group of sessions, the Bishop of Leicester described his most recent proposals as ‘an Anglican way forward.’

“What’s before us is a compromise,” he said.

“No parish, no priest has to offer these prayers but once the detail has been worked out – not yet done, we’re still on a journey – standalone service [sic] can take place and [for] those who for reasons of conscience and theological conviction cannot support this, delegated and extended episcopal ministry for pastoral care, sacramental care and teaching ministry will be put in place.

“What’s before us isn’t what everyone wants …. but it is an Anglican way forward.”1

Clearly, for Bishop Snow ‘Anglican’ means a compromise that no one wants.

Anglicanism-as-compromise is hardly a new understanding of the Anglican Way. Marcus Throup articulated it this way:

“The very notion of a unity that makes room for and celebrates diversity is a key principle of Anglicanism. Related to this is the concept of comprehensiveness, which has been defined as ‘agreement on fundamentals, while tolerating disagreement on matters on which Christians may different without feeling the necessity of breaking communion.’ Thus, the principle of comprehensiveness implies an openness to different perspectives and interpretations, and the recognition that ongoing dialogue can gradually help us discover God’s truth more fully.”2

Such a spirit can be seen in the 1948 Lambeth Conference. For example, Resolution 56:

“The Conference calls upon all the Churches of the Anglican Communion to seek earnestly by prayer and by conference the fulfilment of the vision ‘of a Church, genuinely Catholic, loyal to all truth, and gathering into its fellowship "all who profess and call themselves Christians," within whose visible unity all the treasures of faith and order, bequeathed as a heritage by the past to the present, shall be possessed in common and made serviceable to the whole Body of Christ.’ It recognises that `within this unity Christian Communions now separated from one another would retain much that has long been distinctive in their methods of worship and service.”3

How ‘Anglican’ is the idea of comprehensiveness? How comprehensive should the Church of England be? What would Cranmer say? Or Archbishop Parker? Or Richard Hooker?

The constitution of the Church of England, as it existed for centuries, was largely laid in the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559.4 Elizabeth I inherited from Mary I a church and a country that was deeply divided on matters of faith and religion. Elizabeth was a convinced Protestant—albeit of a moderate temperament. Many of her subjects were not. A good deal many others were more hotly Protestant than she was.

The Elizabethan Settlement, though referred to in the singular, was in fact a wide range of principles and actions. At its heart were the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy (both passed in 1559). The constitution of the Church of England was founded on the Book of Common Prayer as the common liturgy, and the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the church. As the constitution of the national church, that was also part of the constitution of the country: a united church, under a single government. At least, that was the hope.

Another plank of the Settlement was the promulgation of the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1571. The Articles, whilst not as fulsome confession of faith as some other Reformation confessions, were intended to be an official statement of the doctrine of the Church of England on a wide variety of subjects. The Preface to the Articles makes their intent clear: ‘Agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562 for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true religion.’5

The Elizabethan Settlement actually left quite a lot of scope for doctrinal and liturgical variance. It was not, however, a limitless scope. Inevitably, there were those who were not content to follow the lines agreed on by Parliament and Convocation, and remained resolutely outside the Church of England’s walls. The lines were not redrawn to accommodate everyone who took issue or wanted to disagree. The Church of England did not reinvent itself every time a clergyperson or a bishop said something contrary. The boundaries were broad, but those who still couldn’t stay within them were disciplined.

The Oxford Movement, born in the 1830s, propagated the myth that Anglicanism’s founders, chiefly Richard Hooker, consciously placed themselves in a via media between Rome on one side and Calvin’s Geneva on the other. They chiefly made that argument through much historical revision and novel interpretations of the formularies and Hooker’s Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie.6 Whilst we might see the inchoate beginnings of Anglican comprehensive-ism in their arguments, what they were actually trying to achieve was quite different to what we hear today. The Tractarians wanted to put themselves forward as the true heirs of Anglican patrimony, and to have their interpretations of the articles vindicated. They might have been fighting for a right to exist in the Church of England, but there was no agreeing to disagree.

Things changed in the 1850s, with the rise of the ‘Broad Church’ movement. Exponents of a Broad Church vision, led by Thomas Arnold, “argued that we should take a deep breath and seek to bring into being a renuited, truly comprehensive Church of England”.7 Arnold’s vision was for a Church of England so comprehensive that even Free Church ministers and congregations could find a home within her walls. Needless to say, he didn’t get very far. What did happen, however, was that throughout the second half of the Nineteenth Century an increasing proportion of the church hierarchy bought into the vision. Packer explains further:

“Broad Church theology steadily grew during the second half of the nineteenth century, although the seeds had been sown in earlier years. About 1850, Broad Church thinking became a power in the church, a power that laid hold of the Church of England’s management centre, specifically the bench of bishops. Broad Church thinking maximized inclusivism. The bishops—and Parliament, standing behind the bishops—were very concerned to maintain Anglican inclusiveness.”8

In a church racked by internal conflict and external pressures, those most invested in maintaining the status quo—bishops, ecclesiastical parliamentarians, and other dignitaries—were usually the ones arguing for everyone to play nicely and get along. Sound familiar? So many of the Church of England’s current woes—a decline in active churchgoing, a lack of priority for scriptural authority, institutional leaders who care more for the institution than for the Church’s distinctive mission, a jettisoning of reformed catholicity, a willingness to listen to anyone who presents their case eloquently, no matter what they’re actually saying—so many of our problems in some way or another can trace their seeds back to the Broad Church advocates in the 1850s.

From the Broad Church movement came modernism in an Anglican guise, and then postmodernism—each step moving ever further from orthodoxy as the church has ever understood it. Of specific relevance is the rise of ‘liberal catholicism’—perhaps the dominant churchmanship among bishops, deans, archdeacons, and other senior leaders today. Charles Gore is widely recognised as the father of Anglican liberal catholicism. In contrast to the conservative catholicism of men like Pusey,9 Gore and his followers were happy to buy into the burgeoning higher criticism coming from Germany, especially kenosis theory. The result:

“One of the spheres of Jesus’ resulting ignorance, so Gore argued, was that he naively held what all Jews of his day held about the Bible—namely, that it came directly from God through prophetic writers, prophetic in the biblical sense of people who received and relayed God’s message. Now, said Gore, we know better. And Gore argued that it is no disrespect to Christ to say that Jesus was wrong in his assumption that everything in the Bible came directly from God.”10

Liberal Catholics increasingly laid much less emphasis on Scripture and tradition, relying on reason—and later, experience—to do the theological heavy lifting. Liberal Catholics have talked much about the importance of catholicity, but what they mean by catholicity is not what the church catholic has meant by it. Peter Toon points to the influence of the ecumenical movement, which took off in the 1960s, on the liberalising of the Anglican mainstream.11

This liberalising trend continued throughout the Twentieth Century. FD Maurice gained some popularity with his proposal for a view of comprehensiveness as integration. Anglicanism, he contended, is at its best when it takes and synthesises the best of its constituent parties. Behind such thinking is an optimism that everyone has something good to contribute, and the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

Stephen Sykes was highly critical of Maurice’s proposal:

“It must be said bluntly that it has served as an open invitation to intellectual laziness and self-deception … the failure to be frank about the issues between the parties in the Church of England has led to an ultimately illusory self-projection as a church without any specific doctrinal or confessional position.”12

The comprehensive train of thought has resulted in a widespread acceptance of doctrinal relativism: you do you, I’ll do me, and that’s good and beautiful. Few seem to care about true doctrinal unity any longer. Individual, atomised freedom of belief and conscience seems to be the only goal.

We’ve seen that time and time again in the LLF/PLF debates. The revisionist instigators don’t actually care about changing anyone’s mind or garnering genuine agreement. They just want enough votes for a position that lets them do what they want, with the concession that others can do or not do what they want.

The doctrine of comprehensiveness has developed over time to the modern understanding of ‘anything goes, unity is all that matters.’ Even our understanding of unity has morphed into an extremely loose institutional affiliation. Unity as ‘still being willing to call yourself Church of England’ would be a foreign, and frankly bizarre, concept for the vast majority of the Church of England’s history.

Throup contends that “Anglicanism has long seen value in the maxim: ‘unity in the essential things, freedom in the uncertain things, and charity in everything.’”13 The trouble with that is: how much are we really agreed in the essential things anymore? If we no longer agree on our doctrine of God, the authority of Scripture, the nature of sin, the nature of atonement, the requirement for faith and repentance, the exclusivity of Christ, the nature of the church, the sacraments, the nature of marriage, anthropology, or eschatology—what does unity even mean anymore? Is it really, in fact, just a matter of whose logo is on the noticeboard?

At what point do we have to admit that we’re not one big happy family, and in fact we actually disagree too much to walk together, even at a distance? At what point does de facto disunity need to be translated into de jure disunity? One thing’s for certain: the “Anglican way forward” is not to put every difference aside and sing songs around the campfire together. At some point, the Anglican thing to do is to take a stand for the gospel, and to oppose those who oppose it.

To argue that comprehensiveness and compromise are baked into the DNA of Anglicanism is difficult to sustain, given that none of our formularies spell that out, and no-one really argued for it before 1850. What is baked into our DNA is a unity around the truth of the gospel. Our forebears were happy to extend the right hand of fellowship to anyone who truly held to the gospel of salvation in Christ. Those who didn’t were excluded from our fellowship. That’s not a high bar to cross—and nor should it be. We do not need to agree on every jot and tittle of theology in order to share institutional structures—no reformed catholic has ever held that. What we do need is the approach Packer commended: “evangelicals were right to approve the older type of comprehensiveness, based on common acceptance of the fundamentals of the creed, but that they cannot and, for a fact, do not commend or condone what that historic comprehensiveness has now turned into.”14

We must remember ‘Hume’s Law’, often expressed as the ‘is-ought fallacy’: we cannot reductively draw conclusions about what ought to be from what simply is. In other words, the way things are is not necessarily a good thing. Simplistic accounts of Anglican comprehensiveness are liable to violate Hume’s Law: Anglicanism is a broad and diverse body, therefore we should take steps that are in keeping with that breadth and diversity. The circular nature of such logic is evident.

Anglicanism in practice is indeed very diverse, to the point of outright contradiction and division. Those who would champion that state of affairs must do more to positively argue for why that should be. ‘This is the way it is, and we quite like it’ shall butter no parsnips.

We do indeed have a startling breadth of theological opinion in the Church of England—and the wider Anglican Communion. For some of us, however, that’s not something to be celebrated but rather lamented. A church that harbours false teachers and those who would deny the core of the gospel is not a laudable church. That’s a church that is in danger of losing its lampstand.15

A house divided against itself cannot stand.16 A church that cannot even agree on the fundamentals of the gospel cannot survive long as a church. That’s not beautiful; it’s not “one of Anglicanism’s special goodies".17

There’s nothing Anglican about ill-thought-through proposals to throw out an essential matter of the faith as the Church of England has received it. The fathers of the Anglican Way envisaged a comprehensiveness that found its unity in a common core: the faith as held by the Church catholic. What is proposed now is a comprehensiveness that has no common centre, and no real agreement on fundamental issues of the faith. That’s not Anglican. It’s madness.

I think evangelical Anglicans can commit ourselves to a comprehensive vision of the Church of England. We don’t need to agree 100% on every theological question. But it cannot be a boundless comprehensiveness, blind to what people actually teach or how they behave. The Bible is formally and legally our supreme authority in matters of faith and doctrine. The creeds and the formularies set the boundaries for how Anglicans approach theology. There is plenty of room for comprehensiveness within those guardrails—as our forebears maintained.

The “Anglican way forward” is indeed to make room for all who can affirm Scripture, the catholic creeds, and the formularies—but it is also to recognise when someone is outside of those bounds, and to differentiate ourselves from them if necessary.

‘Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.’

I suspect that we all know those words from Luther. They mark one of the defining moments of the Protestant Reformation. Wouldn’t you love to have been there, cheering Luther on as he faced down the might of the Church and Empire?

Have we reached our own Luther moment? Is it time for us to face off against the authorities on grounds of conscience? For some, it is. For others, that conscience moment came years ago. What role should conscience play in our discussions about our future in (or out of) the Church of England? 

To answer that question, we need to take a step back and ask some foundational questions: what is the conscience? How does it work? Should we always listen to it? What if my conscience tells me something different to what yours is telling you? 

What is the Conscience, and What Does It Do?

Bible 

Old Testament 

There is no specific word for ‘conscience’ in the Old Testament. It does, however, have a lot to say about the ‘heart,’ and much of that looks quite similar to what we generally mean by ‘the conscience.’ For example, 1 Samuel 24:5: “And afterward David’s heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.” David’s heart was ‘struck’ again after he took the census, in 2 Samuel 24:10. When Solomon confronts Shimei in 1 Kings 2, he says to him, “You know in your own heart all the harm that you did to David my father. So the Lord will bring back your harm on your own head.” Job can confidently say, “I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.” In both Ecclesiastes 7:22 and Jeremiah 17:1 it is the heart which accuses one of transgressing the Law. 

Among the many functions of the heart in the Old Testament, we find the capacity to accuse one of wrongdoing, or to exonerate as righteous. 

New Testament

The New Testament does have a word for conscience: syneidēsis. From its root, it has connotations of knowledge, perception, consciousness, and self-consciousness. Interestingly, Jesus never uses it. That doesn’t mean that the conscience is absent from the gospels, however. For example, we read of the prodigal son: 

 But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’

In John 8 and the woman caught in adultery, Jesus confronts her accusers: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then after Jesus writes something on the ground, the men walk away without uttering another (recorded) word. What can have happened other than their consciences convicting them of their sin?

Paul has much to say about the conscience. Indeed, syneidēsis is used 20 times in his letters. And the consistent message is that conscience is a witness that either accuses us of our sinfulness before God or exonerates us. In Romans 2:15, that’s what conscience does for the unbelieving pagans. Those who sin habitually end up with consciences that are defiled, or even seared. But for Christians, it is possible to have a clear conscience. That’s possible, Hebrews tells us, because our consciences are washed clean by the blood of Christ.

The consistent biblical witness, then, is that the conscience, as a subdivision of the heart, is an internal witness, testifying either to our guilt or to our innocence. 

Historical Theology

The Classical Period

Conscience is a universal human reality—every single human being who has ever lived has had one. It’s surprising, therefore, that the ancient world displayed very little interest in it. We don’t find a single use of syneidēsis in Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle. That’s significant, as they are the three most significant philosophers of the ancient world. And yet, not once in their voluminous discussions of the nature of humanity, the soul, or ethics do they talk about the conscience. As Bavinck explains, this is explained by their theory of virtue: virtue is to be lived externally, in the polis. The law of the polis is what condemns or exonerates, rather than an internal, individual conscience.

It was much later in the classical period, during the time of writers like Cicero and Seneca (1st Century AD), that the philosophers began to pay attention to the conscience. Cicero went so far as to say, ‘There is no greater theater for virtue than conscience.’ Then, from the reign of Alexander the Great (4th Century AD), the focus shifted from the external to the internal, from the polis to the conscience.

Even within the Church Fathers, very little is said about the conscience. Bavinck notes that it is generally only discussed in their exegetical works and sermons—i.e. when it comes up in the biblical text. They didn’t appeal to the conscience in their apologetics.

Oliver O’Donovan draws together the threads of biblical and classical history to define the conscience as “that uneasy awareness that one has of oneself when one knows one has done something wrong.” He couples this with a warning that none of these writers would have understood the conscience as “a faculty of moral direction. In other words, the conscience can warn us, but it can’t tell us what to do.

The Medieval Period

It was from this era on that there was a shift in both focus on and understanding of the conscience. O’Donovan marks the decisive shift as beginning to identify the conscience with moral reasoning. By locating the conscience as a subspecies of the faculty of reason, medieval scholastics opened up the possibility that it could guide as well as warning. In this period we also begin to see a distinction between syneidēsis (as a general knowledge of right from wrong) and conscientia (that knowledge applied to specific circumstances.

To locate the conscience within reason was not necessarily a good thing, however. The medieval scholastics were well aware of the effects of the fall, and the corruption of reason. The conscience may be a guide, but it is not to be implicitly trusted. Bavinck notes that the medieval volumes of ‘cases of conscience’ were written as manuals for confessors, advising them on what form of penance to give in different cases of sin.

The Early Modern Period

The conscience took centre stage in the Reformation. As the quote from Luther at the top of this article suggests, the Reformation itself could be considered an act of conscience. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin all frequently discussed it. Their focus was on what (or who) may ‘bind’ the conscience. That’s understandable, given their context was one in which the Bishop of Rome was claiming absolute moral and doctrinal authority over the whole Christian Church. For Calvin, the conscience was a matter between God and human beings, not between human beings and other human beings. The conscience functions as a witness in the heavenly tribunal between us and God, testifying either to our guilt or to our righteousness. Therefore, as a matter between us as individuals and God, only God may bind the conscience. It was for that reason that Luther said ‘My conscience is held captive to the word of God.’ Popes and councils contradict each other, and their testimony of us counts for nothing before the throne of judgment. It is God who judges us, and he reveals his will to us in his word. That should be the rule of our conscience.

Theologians of this period agree that the role of the conscience is limited to moral testimony, speaking of our guilt or innocence before God. William Perkins, the father of Protestant practical theology, wrote at great length on the conscience. His major works on the subject were A Discourse of Conscience and the mammoth The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience.

For Perkins, the duties of conscience are twofold: to give testimony of actions that have (or have not) been committed, and to give judgment on the morality of those actions. Conscience is there to say ‘You have done X, and X is a sin according to Scripture.’ Thus, conscience functions as

“a little god sitting in the middle of men’s hearts, arraigning them in this life as they shall be arraigned for their offences at the tribunal seat of the ever-living God in the day of judgment.”

It may do so in respect of things we have done in the past, or things we propose to do in the future. In either case, however, it “meddles not with generals; it only deals in particular actions.”

We should respond to conscience, particularly when it accuses us of sin—but that response belongs to the will, informed by reason, rather than to the conscience. Conscience is but one discrete part of our moral nature.

The Modern Period

Much changed in theology after the Enlightenment and the advent of modernism—and the theology of the conscience is no exception. O’Donovan traces how the conscience became increasingly internalised and self-referential; the loop was closed, in other words. Modernists came to see the conscience as an internal guide, to be followed and trusted on moral matters. 

“Without any of the caution that Thomas displayed, moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries simply gloried in the absolute authority with which conscience, displaying, as they thought, its rational character as well as its divine institution, presided over the vacillations of the will and the ambiguities of judgment.”

As the famous bishop, philosopher, and apologist Joseph Butler said, “That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action is itself an obligation. Gone was any concept of the corruption of conscience, and the consequent need for it to be tested and calibrated according to Scripture. ‘My conscience says X, and therefore I should/should not do X’ became valid moral discourse. What should you do in a given situation? Follow your conscience. 

“In the newer philosophy, conscience became an enlightening, infallible, and undeceived star. All the emphasis is placed on the formal function of judging by the conscience, which function is glorified; no attention is paid to its content.”

Bavinck critically traces how this line of thought descended into subjectivism and relativism. We act ultimately according to our feelings, and our feelings may well differ. I’ll act according to my feelings, and you act according to yours. 

A Definition of the Conscience 

Before the Enlightenment, theologians largely agreed on the nature and role of the conscience. It is a part of the God-given faculty of reason, which passes moral judgment on our actions. It is the internal witness as to our guilt or our innocence before God. As with our whole reason—and indeed our whole being—it has been degraded and twisted by sin, and it is therefore imperative that we test and calibrate our conscience according to Scripture. It cannot be implicitly trusted. However, neither can it be written off or ignored. 

So, How is This Relevant to the Church of England?

If we are to stay in the Church of England, then we should make sure that we can do so in good conscience. William Fenner noted that a guilty conscience is like “a hell to men here on earth.” That’s why the writer to the Hebrews asks his brothers and sisters to pray that he would be able to maintain a good conscience in his ministry.

To establish whether it is possible to stay and minister in the Church of England in good conscience, we need to address several foundational questions, arising out of the above theology. 

What would it mean for staying in the Church of England to attack one’s conscience? As we noted from Perkins above, the conscience is concerned with the specific and concrete, not the general and abstract. ‘Membership of/ministry within the Church of England’ is too general and abstract for the conscience to deal with. Incidentally, this is also why I don’t think the conscience can simply be tainted by association. ‘associating with Y’ is too abstract a question. What does it mean to associate with, or be associated with? In whose eyes is it wrong? Are there different kinds of associations? We need particulars.

To properly listen to the conscience, one needs to condense it down to specific actions:

• Can one be ordained by a Church of England bishop? 

• Take an oath of canonical obedience to them?

• Receive their licence? 

• Attend deanery chapter?

• Send candidates forward for selection?

• Can churchwardens be admitted by the archdeacon?

• How about attendance at diocesan events? 

• What about receiving the Lord’s Supper from/alongside heterodox clergy?

• What about paying parish share?

• Drawing a stipend? Staying in the pension scheme?

• Standing for various synods?

These are matters on which it is proper to test the conscience. These are actions which the conscience may deem righteous or sinful. It will come as no shock that I believe that we can do each of these things in good conscience. My conscience is not wounded by having a licence from the Bishop of Norwich. Regardless of his theology, what the licence tells me to do is proclaim the gospel, teach the word, and minister the sacraments. That it has a bishop’s signature at the bottom just makes the commissioning more official. 

There is, however, the issue of the individuality of the conscience. Your conscience is your conscience. My conscience is my conscience. I cannot bind your conscience with my judgments, and nor can you bind mine. We will each stand before God as individuals and give our own account. 

That does not mean, however, that the conscience should be individualistic. We’ve already seen that our conscience must be calibrated externally to Scripture. There is also a sense, I think, that this is something we should do together, as the Church. Scripture was not just given to us all as individuals; it was given to the Church, that we may read it in the ‘School of Christ.’ If we accept that our consciences are fallen, as is our reason, then it would be hubristic to think that we can calibrate them by reading Scripture by ourselves and coming to our own conclusions. We should be taking counsel together. 

In the end, however, each of us—for better or worse—has our own conscience. And “to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.” It is neither right nor safe because conscience is a God-given faculty, and speaks in the name of God. If we have tested our conscience against Scripture, taken counsel with others, and our conscience is firmly convinced that to do all of the actions required to stay in the Church of England, then it would be sinful to stay in the Church of England. And I say that as someone currently firmly convinced in my own conscience that it is not sinful to stay here. If your (informed) conscience tells you otherwise, I urge you to listen to your conscience. Because conscience speaks in the name of God, even if it speaks wrongly, it is rebellion to do otherwise.

As Beeke and Jones warn:

“Since conscience represents God’s authority to us, unless a Christian informs his conscience by the Scriptures he is trapped in a moral dilemma by his erring conscience. Baxter wrote, ‘If you follow it you break the law of God in doing that which he forbids you; if you forsake it and go against it, you reject the authority of God, in doing what you think he forbids you.’ Therefore we must compare the book of our conscience with the book of Scripture. Where conscience is lacking, let us copy Scripture’s words into it. Where conscience differs from Scripture, let us correct the book of human conscience with the book of God.”

If you are firmly convinced in your own conscience that you cannot safely stay in the Church of England, then I think you should leave. 

If, however, you can stay: please do. If, on consideration, your conscience would not be mortally wounded by staying, then please do so.

It’s hard to be part of the Church of England right now. The crisis in leadership and faith has been going on for years, and many of us are exhausted. Keeping going in a war of attrition is costly. To be part of a church that seems determined to walk away from Christ is tragic. Much of what is said about us by revisionists hurts. Who signed up to be called a heretic, unloving, a safeguarding risk, or liable for the deaths of LGBT young people? In arguing for staying in the Church of England and contending for the gospel, I am not naïve about the personal cost.

Neither is the New Testament.

Matthew 5:11–13: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.¹

John 15:19–20: If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they keep my word, they will also keep yours

2 Timothy 3:12: indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Jesus Christ will be persecuted

1 Peter 2:21: For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

1 Peter 3:14: But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.

1 Peter 3:17: For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

1 Peter 4:12–14: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Jude 3–4: Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 8: Yet in a like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.

Jude 17–23: But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Revelation 2:10–11: Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

I find this perspective encouraging. It’s much harder to endure suffering when it comes as a surprise. But suffering for the gospel should not be a surprise to any of us. We’re told to expect it—embrace it, even. We can rejoice in gospel suffering for three reasons:

1. We follow in the way of Christ, who himself suffered, died, and rose again for our salvation. We follow him on the path that runs: suffering-> death -> grave -> resurrection -> glorification. To be united with him in his suffering is to be united with him in his glory.

2. To suffer for the name of Christ is a great honour and blessing. It’s the greatest honour this world can afford us.

3. Christ sees every pain and cost we endure in his service, and will abundantly repay them when his kingdom comes.

To stay in the Church of England and to minister faithfully will be abundantly painful. It’s painful to see false teachers devouring the sheep before our very eyes. It’s painful to hear the name of Christ attached to ungodly teachings and practices. It’s painful to know that your fellow clergy and bishops are breaking the same ordination vows that you take so seriously. It’s painful to have people leave your church family because they have bought into the worldly narrative on these issues. It’s painful to be treated as a safeguarding risk, simply for teaching what the church has always taught. It’s painful to be called schismatic when you haven’t moved anywhere. It’s painful to be slandered and defamed for your faithfulness.

To contend is costly. And there is a special pain that comes when the ones afflicting us are inside the Church. We might expect it from the world outside, but ‘friendly’ fire hurts more.

It might be a surprise to find John Dod referenced in this article series, given Dod was a strict nonconformist who advised other nonconformists on nonconformity. But what I find helpful is this, related by Michael P. Winship:

Dod had no illusions about how fortunate he was. When puritans came to him to discuss nonconformity, Dod would adjust his answers to his assessment of their capacity to suffer.²

Dod would gauge their capacity to suffer, and then base his advice accordingly. My ecclesiological purposes may be somewhat opposite to Dod’s, but I still find this instructive.

We all have different capacities for suffering, and different appetites for conflict—for a whole host of reasons. There may well be personal reasons, particular family circumstances, innate personality makeups, personal experience and history, health concerns, and any number of other factors that mean that someone isn’t able to bear conflict and suffering as much as another person. That’s ok.

If someone genuinely could not bear the suffering of contending within the Established Church, if it would be beyond what their faith could bear, then I think they should leave. I say that with no judgment whatsoever. The crisis in the Church of England is spiritual—a spiritual battle.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

That means that the wounds suffered may be spiritual wounds. Our faith and our souls may be on the line. And so, if someone is genuinely concerned that to stay and contend within the Church of England may be more than their faith could bear, then they should probably leave. Our primary calling is to be Christians, first and foremost. Some of us then have a particular calling to minister and worship within the Church of England. But we should remember that our primary calling is to be Christians. And if the particular calling would be to the detriment—even to the destruction—of the general, then we should put aside the particular calling. In this case, by leaving the Established Church.³

If, however, that isn’t you; if your capacity for suffering, if your faith is strong enough to bear the current conflict, then please stay. Please stay and contend. Don’t leave the Church of England in pursuit of an easier ministry. We don’t need an easier ministry, we need to be faithful no matter the cost.

It will be costly. It will cost you and those close to you. But to suffer for Christ is to be blessed by Christ. A crown of life awaits those who count Christ worthy enough of their suffering.

Notes

1. All Bible references The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2. Cited in Michael P. Winship, Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America (Yale University: New Haven, CT), 2019, 145. I am indebted to Jon Carter for pointing me to this reference.

3. Here I am echoing Perkins on the nature of vocations. See Joel R. Beeke, Matthew N. Payne, and J. Stephen Yuille, ed.s, Faith Working Through Love: The Theology of William Perkins (Reformation Heritage Books: Grand Rapids, MI), 2022, 179: “Everyone is to ensure that their particular calling gives place to the general calling ‘when they cannot stand together.’”

Previous parts of this series have covered my case for staying and contending from biblical, ecclesiological, and historical perspectives. In this final part,¹ I want to cover what I’ve loosely grouped as ‘pastoral’ and ‘personal’ factors. Pastoral will cover thoughts towards others; personal will be, well, personal factors.

Pastoral

The flock
There is currently a not-insignificant group of people among whom I minister: the church family at St Andrew’s, the business community in our parish, the university students with whom we have a ministry, the parish on the edge of Norwich where I’m helping with occasional offices during their vacancy, and the wider diocese in which I have responsibilities. I have a ministry among people that is tied to my current role as a presbyter in the Church of England. They expect me to turn up in certain places at certain times and to pastor them, to preach and to teach, to administer the sacraments, to encourage and build them up in faith and maturity, to lead them. I cannot consider the question of my ministry without considering those people, those specific, defined people.

‘Should I stay or should I go?’ is not an abstract, theoretical question. Ministry may have its transferrable skills, but a ministry cannot simply be picked up and transplanted somewhere else. Ministry is amongst, to, and for people.

Were I to decide to walk away from the Church of England, I’m sure some people would come with me. If the vicar and I were to announce that next Sunday we’ll be meeting in a school hall as a new endeavour outside the Church of England, many, if not all, would be there with us. But let’s say not all of them did: can I be ok walking away from those people? Can I withdraw my ministry from them, can I choose to stop teaching and feeding them, in favour of those who agree with me and want to leave? What about the people with whom I will only ever be able to have contact because of my current role? Can I walk away from them and leave them to whomever the diocese gets to replace me?

Walking away is not as simple as walking away from a bishop. It’s choosing to walk away from a flock, to leave some of them behind to be devoured by the wolves. And I can’t do that.

The need for the gospel in the established church
There are 12,500 parishes in the Church of England, covering every square inch of the country. The average weekly attendance across those parishes in 2022 was 654,000.² That’s a lot of people poring into Church of England churches every Sunday. They need to hear the Gospel more than anything.

Now, I’m not saying that the Church of England is ‘the best boat to fish from.’ If you want to see me visibly cringe, try saying that phrase to me. What I am saying is that those of us who are ordained have a ministry to preach the gospel. Church of England churches have not only a pulpit, they also have a lot of people coming into their parish church who need to hear the gospel. If you are ordained in the Church of England, it is your job to be there preaching it to them. As above, some of them would probably leave. But others will never go anywhere other than their parish church. Are you willing to take away the gospel from their pulpits?

The nation needs the gospel in the pulpits of the Church of England, for its salvation.

But it’s even more important than that. The Church of England is the established church; she still has a role in the civic and political life of the nation. She still has bishops sitting as Lords Spiritual. Earlier this year our monarch was crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a service of Christian worship, and it was great. Clergy up and down the land sit as school governors, as trustees of food banks and local charities. The local vicar, particularly in rural areas, is the one to call in a time of crisis, or when there’s an event in the life of the local community that needs to be marked.

In so many ways the Church of England still has a key role in the civic and political life of the nation. Are you willing to take away any remnant of gospel witness from within her? What would that do to the spiritual health of the nation?

Care for evangelicals in other denominations
Though our Gospel Partnership brothers and sisters often scoff at us for staying in the Church of England, or at least think we’re rather quaint, many of them also realise that they depend on us to stay and be faithful within the Church of England. As John Stevens of the FIEC said recently:

Change by the Church of England, given its established status, will undoubtedly affect us all. It will make it harder to stand firm for the orthodox biblical teaching on sex and sexuality in society and may make the state less inclined to tolerate our dissent from the prevailing mores of society.³

If you want to love your free church brothers and sisters well, perhaps you should stay in the Church of England and fight for the gospel. The freedom to preach the gospel that has been guaranteed to the Church of England since the 13th Century has been granted to other denominations from the 17th. If the Established Church no longer has an interest in preaching the gospel or living God’s way—as would be the case if all the orthodox Christians left—then life would become a lot harder for evangelicals in other denominations. How is the FIEC to make a case for continued protection for Christian sexual ethics, if even the established church has abandoned them as outdated and bigoted? If the Church of England no longer requires exemption from some aspects of the Equality Act, how much longer would that protection be afforded to other denominations?

There are already parliamentarians—led by Ben Bradshaw—lining up to bully the Church of England into embracing heterodoxy. Do we think they’ll stop when they’re done with us? We need to stay and resist them, for the sake of all of our brothers and sisters.

Personal

Contextualised ministry
God, and his Church, have called me to a ministry of preaching and teaching the Word, and of administering the sacraments. That is not a general, rootless calling, however; it is a contextualised calling. I have been sent to exercise that ministry in a particular place. Currently, that context is the parish of Norwich: St Andrew, in the Diocese of Norwich. That may only be for a few more months though, depending on when I am signed off as having completed my curacy. At that point, I could very easily slip out the back door. Out of all the people facing the question of whether to stay in the Church of England, I’m among the people for whom it would be easiest to leave. I wouldn’t even have to resign if I didn’t want to, I could just wait out the clock, not bother to apply for another post, and leave when my licence is up at the end of June.

I’m not going to do that, though. I’m not going to do that because I have a wider view of the context in which I minister. I said in Part 2 of this series that my understanding of my ministry is contextualised in the Church catholic — I was ordained a presbyter in the church of God. However, it is also more specifically contextualised within the Church of England. I offered myself for ministry within the Church of England; I was ordained by a bishop of this church, for ministry in this church; I hold a licence for ministry within this church. The Church of England is the context for my ministry.

That’s not to say that I can’t minister outside of this context. I have no issue being involved in the Norfolk Gospel Partnership, for example. Were an independent church to ask me to do some kind of ministry — a weekend away, for example — among them, I don’t think I’d have an issue with that. But the Church of England is still the context in which I am rooted. Context matters to me, it’s what stops me from floating around aimlessly. I would think it unwise to lead an Anglican church at one point, then a Presbyterian, then a Baptist, then a non-denominational. Rootedness matters.

Context can change, but it’s a big deal. Intentionally leaving and seeking out a completely different context must be considered and done soberly.

Conscience
I won’t say too much about the nature of conscience here, and save that for its upcoming post. What I will say, however, is that my conscience is not currently imperilled by my role within the Church of England. I am currently able to do everything that I think I should be doing. I don’t have to do anything that I think I shouldn’t be doing. Yes, many of my colleagues have embraced and are teaching heterodox views. The bishops of my diocese are among them. I’ve told them so. But their teaching is their teaching. We are institutionally implicated by our association with each other, but I don’t feel personally guilty because they are teaching something dodgy. That’s on them. I am still teaching truth and refuting error. I’m warning people to avoid the false teaching. I’m engaging with those who teach it, calling them back to a knowledge of the truth. My conscience is fairly clear on this point.

The point at which I would struggle in terms of conscience would be if I noticed myself beginning to compromise, or soften, for an easier life. If I stopped speaking out or spoke out for moderation and tolerance. If I could see myself being tempted to compromise and agree to teach or to do otherwise for the sake of ease or advancement. Then I’d have an issue. And if someone were in a position where they genuinely could not stay without risk of compromise or unfaithfulness, then I would tell them to leave.

But I’m not there yet. And I don’t think the default evangelical clergyperson is there yet, either. And so my conscience is not telling me to leave. It’s telling me to stay and fulfil my ministry.

No red lines
And so, to the big question, the one everyone wants to ask when I tell them I’m committed to staying and fighting: when would I leave? As I alluded to above, if I were in a position where staying would be to the peril of my faith and faithfulness, or that of my family, then I think I should leave at that point.

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36 ESV)

But even in that situation, leaving isn’t the only option. Let’s say, for example, that the Church of England goes further down this road, and actively requires its clergy to use the Prayers of Love and Faith, or to perform same-sex marriages. To do so would be a sin, and defile my conscience. But just because a bishop is saying I have to do it, doesn’t mean I actually have to do it. Yes, I would be disciplined and probably sacked for it, but I cannot be actually made to physically say or do anything that I don’t want to. They cannot make the words come out of my mouth. They can punish me for not doing it, but they cannot literally make me do it.

Or, to make it more extreme: Even if a bishop put a gun to my head and told me to say the prayers, I’d still say no and face the consequences.

And so, I struggle to see many circumstances in which I would actively choose to walk away. I can see many, many circumstances in which I could be disciplined and chucked out. My ‘red lines’ concern what I will and will not do, and what I will and will not teach. But I don’t have a list of circumstances under which I will leave. My red lines are not about ‘if you do this I’m going to leave.’ My ministering within the Church of England is not conditional on her meeting my standards. If she decides that I no longer meet her standards and makes me leave, that’s another matter. I could then minister elsewhere in good conscience.

Notes

1. Well, the final part of the main series. As I’ve said elsewhere, I intend a further couple of articles, dealing with the very specific issues of conscience and suffering in ministry, and how they relate to the question at hand.

2. https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/church-attendance-rises-second-year-running

3. http://www.john-stevens.com/2023/11/expository-thoughts-1-thessalonians-4v1.html

Introduction

In Part 3 we covered the history of contending vs seceding up to the Reformation. We now turn to some history from the Reformation onwards.

History, Continued

John Jewel 
The Church of England at the start of the Elizabethan era was wracked by turbulence. “After all, by the most conservative of counts, that church had undergone four religious revolutions in the preceding three decades, three of them in just the last ten years.”¹ Reeling from the reign of Mary I,² the church and the nation were in desperate need of religious stability. That was the impetus behind the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559. The Settlement marked the end of the Reformation at a formal level and aimed to preserve the structure and form of the Church of England in a manner agreeable to most people in the Church at that time. And most people were content and did sign up for it. But most is not all — along came the “Puritans,” so-called because they wanted to keep the reformation going, to keep weeding out any form of popery left in the Established Church. The history of early Puritanism was bitter and fiery. Sparks and tracts constantly flew between the Puritans on one side, and the establishment on the other. And of course, those still loyal to Rome attacked Elizabeth and her church as heretical and apostate.

It was in this context of attacks from left and right that John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote his Apology of the Church of England, in 1562.³ Jewel’s key argument was that the Church of England was (and is) a reformed catholic Church—she stands in the historic, worldwide Catholic Church, and she holds to the faith that the church has always held. However, she is a reformed catholic Church. Any developments that had taken place in the Reformation were a matter of excising the abuses of Rome that had built up over centuries, and becoming more Catholic, rather than less.

There are three points from Jewel that I think are salutary in our current situation:

Firstly: 
The truth has always been reviled and slandered, and Christ, Truth Himself, was no exception. Jewel says that if we see ourselves as standing in the tradition of the prophets, apostles, the Church throughout the ages, and indeed Christ himself—why would we think that we are experiencing something uniquely hard when we face mockery, slander, and persecution for holding to the truth in our own day? “For since any man’s remembrance, we can scant find one time, either when religion did first grow, or when it was settled, or when it did afresh spring up again, wherein truth and innocency were not by all unworthy means and most despitefully entreated.”⁴

If we are not in a uniquely difficult situation, then we ought to look to how our brothers and sisters in the church catholic have responded to the same difficulties. Our brothers and sisters throughout the ages have faced torture, displacement, and death for the gospel. They responded in various ways, but schism was very rarely on the menu of options. We are not facing torture, displacement, or death in the Church of England today. We are facing: bishops being annoyed with us, awkward conversations at the deanery chapter, campaigners asking us for blessings so they can broadcast our ‘no’ all over local media, a hard time moving jobs, and attack from non-Conformists tarring us with the liberals’ brush. That will be painful and costly—contending for the truth always is. But it’s not unique, and in history, the Church has seen much worse. It doesn’t justify schism.

Secondly:
Jewel freely acknowledged that within the heritage of the Reformation, there had arisen heretics; he named Anabaptists, Libertines, Mennonites, and Schwenckfeldians.⁵ We should expect, where the gospel is freely taught, to find heresies springing up, parasitically feeding off the life the gospel produces.

“And yet, as we said, doth not this great crop of heresies grow up amongst us, which do openly, abroad, and frankly teach the gospel? These poisons take their beginnings, their increasings, and strength, amongst our adversaries, in blindness and in darkness, amongst whom truth is with tyranny and cruelty kept under, and cannot be heard but in corners and secret meetings. But let them make a proof: let them give the gospel free passage: let the truth of Jesus Christ give his clear light, and stretch forth his bright beams into all parts; and then they shall forthwith see how all these shadows straight will vanish and pass away at the light of the gospel… For whilst these men sit still, and make merry, and do nothing, we continually repress and put back all those heresies, which they falsely charge us to nourish and maintain.”⁷

The correct response to finding heresy within our midst is to honestly admit it, and then to teach the truth ever more stridently. Walking away and “mak[ing] merry” does nothing to help the church—it only makes our lives easier.

Thirdly:
“We truly for our parts… have done nothing in altering religion, either upon rashness or arrogancy; nor nothing but with good leisure and great consideration. Neither had we ever intended to do it, except both the manifest and most assured will of God, opened to us in his holy scriptures, and the regard of our own salvation, had even constrained us thereunto.”⁸

Matters of religion, church, theology, holiness—these are serious matters indeed. And serious matters merit serious consideration, not rash judgment and quick decisions. I get the temptation to feel thrown by the latest press release from the House of Bishops and to want to make an immediate response—I feel that myself, most times. But if we make all of our biggest decisions from a place of defeat and resignation, we’re going to risk making some very bad decisions. If a vote at General Synod is enough to make you resign your orders and leave the Church of England, where are you going to find stability?

I know we’ve talked about these issues ad nauseum, but the fight is not over yet. We could respond by turning purely to questions of pragmatics and politics—but they’re not enough. This is a spiritual battle, and we must respond spiritually. Part of what responding spiritually entails, I put forth, is doing more theology—particularly in the area of ecclesiology. Let’s slow down, take a breath, and go back to our theological principles.

William Perkins (1558–1602)
Perkins, being born the year Elizabeth ascended to the throne, was brought up in the turbulent Elizabethan church. Despite what most historians will tell you, Perkins wasn’t really a Puritan.⁹ At least, not in the sense that we usually mean in the period 1560–1600. In the words of one scholar,

Recent scholarship suggests, however, that Perkins has been misunderstood and underestimated by most historians, with the result that his real significance for the English Church and nation has not been recognized. Perkins… was not so much an Elizabethan Puritan as he was an apologist, perhaps the chief apologist, for the Church of England as it emerged in the late Elizabethan period.¹⁰

Perkins was an Anglican, and he was committed to the Established Church of England. There were some issues he wanted to see further reform on, to be sure. But there was not the agitation for wide-scale reform on an ecclesiological level that typified those more readily identified as Puritans in that period.

In the original sense of the term, he was not a puritan, did not regard himself as a puritan, and was not regarded by others as a puritan. He was simply a diligent Church of England pastor, utterly loyal — although not uncritically so — to church and crown.¹¹

Perkins’s strongest defence of the Church of England came in his treatise A Reformed Catholic.¹² Therein he is concerned with defending the Church of England as a true part of the Catholic church against her Roman Catholic opponents. He also shows a concern, however, to defend her position as a Reformed Catholic Church, against her Puritan opponents. And he saw no contradiction or tension between those two identities.

This Reformed Catholicity showed itself in Perkins’s ecclesiology. Perkins, as an heir of the Reformation, was happy to make a distinction between the invisible and the visible church.¹³ With the Church of England, we are concerned with the question of whether she is or is not a true part of the visible Church. Perkins argued that just as we may know “whether a man is a true apostle or not… by the same gift [we] may discern the state of any particular church.”¹⁴

These marks of a true church are:

• “the doctrine taught by the apostles concerning Christ is made the foundation of the Church, and … where this doctrine is rightly held and confessed, there it is an infallible note of the true church.”¹⁵

• The true administration of the sacraments

• Church discipline

MacLean notes, “The three marks are not equal… Where church discipline is lacking and sin is tolerated in practice in the church, this does not violate the existence of the true church.”¹⁶

Faced with attacks by both Roman Catholics and Puritans, Perkins had to look at the Church of England in the light of these marks of the true church, and ask the question, ‘Is this a true Church of God?’ He acknowledged that there we many who said, “It is no church of God, that there are no true ministers, true preaching, or right administration of the sacraments in it.”¹⁷ Because of this, “sundry men… do separate themselves from our Church as being no true member of the Church of God.”¹⁸

Perkins, however, strongly disagreed with such people. He argued that ‘ours is a true church of God’ based on:

• the Reformed churches of Germany, France, Scotland, and Italy all “give the right hand of fellowship unto us and reverence our church as the church of God.”¹⁹ Perkins would rather listen to the testimony of the wider church than “to the opinion of a few private men.”²⁰

• Those who left and declared the Church of England apostate were too rash and immoderate in that judgment; indeed, there were often “greater faults” in her critics than in the Church of England herself.²¹

No man ought to sever himself from the Church of England for some wants that be therein. We have the true doctrine of Christ preached among us by God’s blessing, and though there be some corruptions in manner among us, yea, and though they could justly find fault with our doctrine, yet so long as we hold Christ, no man ought to sever himself from our Church.²²

Perkins, it must be said, was not naïve about the spiritual reality of the church in his day. He lamented the spiritual and theological ignorance that prevailed among many. He used the parable of the wheat and the tares to acknowledge this reality. However, “yet this may be said in behalf of our church, that the wants thereof are not such as do in any way raise the foundation of Religion, or of God’s holy worship, and cannot make it cease to be a true church, and therefore none ought to separate from it for such wants.”²³

In considering the question of when a church may cease to be a true church, Perkins notes that the Church of Galatia, even amidst her confusion and errors in the doctrine of justification, was still addressed by Paul as a church.²⁴

Perkins gave three rules to assist in answering such a question:

• “if the faults of the church be in manners, and these faults appear in both the lives of ministers and people, so long as true religion is taught, it is a church.”²⁵ Corruptions in manners/living may be grounds for separation from “private company”, but they are not grounds for separation from a church.

• If the error is doctrinal rather than moral, we must “consider whether a church errs in the foundation, or no.”²⁶ This is an argument for theological triage — we need to be able to distinguish between different orders of disagreements, as some are much more serious than others.

• Even if the error is in a foundational matter, “inquiry must be made whether the Church err of human frailty, or of obstinacy.”²⁷ Thus, it is possible for a church to err, even to err greatly and widely, and still be a church so long as there is hope of correction. However, “if a church shall err in the foundation openly and obstinately, it separates from Christ, and ceases to be a church, and we may separate from it and may give judgement that it is no church.”²⁸ I think it is important even in this extreme case that Perkins says we may separate and may give judgement. He does not make it imperative.

The judgment that a visible church is no longer a true church of God is an immensely serious one, and should not be given lightly. It must be done after much discernment and inquiry, not just individually but catholically. “So long as a church makes no separation from Christ, we must make no separation from it.”²⁹

Reflecting on Perkins’s ecclesiology, MacLean says,

principally this… calls us to have a much higher threshold before we consider leaving a church or a denomination. … If the word is preached in accordance with apostolic doctrine, if the sacraments are dispensed and if there is church discipline we have no grounds to leave a church.³⁰

What of the Church of England today, however? Does the recent decision made by the House of Bishops, approved by the General Synod, mean that we have crossed the Rubicon and can no longer be considered a true church of God? Many would, and do, say so. I’m not so sure. There’s no doubt that we are in a dangerous position. The error being promulgated by episcopal authority is a serious error that will imperil souls. We have heard much argument from the revisionist faction that ‘this is not a credal’ matter, and therefore we are wrong to fight this as a ‘first-order’ issue. Those on the conservative side have argued that they’re wrong, as this is about salvation.³¹

The error being put forward and enshrined in our worship is grave, I will never deny that. But I do not believe that it disqualifies the Church of England as a true church of God. It does not disqualify us because the marks that Perkins identified still apply to us: the true word of God, and apostolic teaching, are still to be found within us. Canon A5 is still our rule of doctrine:

The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures.

In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.³²

There may be many laity, clergy, bishops, and even archbishops who do not believe that who do not believe the doctrine of the Church of England. That is grievous, but it is not new. Nor is it a matter of the church believing one thing on paper and teaching another in our pulpits. That is true in some corners of the church, but it’s also the case that you can go to any one of many, many faithful churches in the Church of England and find the true word of God, the faith as we have inherited it, taught freely and without embarrassment. The pure word of God is still taught and believed, both in our formularies and in our pulpits, albeit not universally. Canon B30 still stands as our doctrine of marriage, although the House of Bishops³³ is determined to undermine it and change our de facto teaching, knowing that they have neither the votes nor the power to change our de jure teaching. Please don’t hear what I’m not saying: the Prayers of Love and Faith, and all that goes with them, do represent a change in the doctrine of the Church of England in an essential matter — no matter what the House of Bishops nor their legal officers say.³⁴ But the official doctrine of the Church of England on marriage and sexuality has not changed — and you will still find that taught by clergy and bishops across the country. That hasn’t changed.

I won’t do that cringy, presumptuous thing of saying ‘Were Perkins alive today, he would tell you to stay in the Church of England’. What I will say is that, from my reading of Perkins, I’m convinced that it is still too early to declare that the Church of England is no longer a true church of God, and to depart from her. That terrible day may well come, though we should earnestly pray that it never does. But I am yet to hear a convincing argument that it has come. And so we should stay and labour for reform and repentance.

The Free Church of England
According to their website,

The Free Church of England (FCE) is an Anglican church which separated from the established Church of England in the course of the 19th Century. The FCE was founded by evangelical clergy and congregations in response to the growth in influence of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England.³⁵

According to Richard Fenwick, around 200 congregations have been part of the FCE at one point or another³⁶—though it is very difficult to tell when, and how big, the peak was. Fenwick notes that the period from 1927 (the merger of FCE with the Reformed Episcopal Church) onwards was marked by “leadership problems and decline.” That is still very much the case today—there are now just 19 churches listed on their website, and the past 6 years have seen several more high-profile departures of congregations and even an entire diocese.³⁷

For a denomination that left the Church of England in protest against the Oxford Movement, Anglo-Catholicism is remarkably flourishing within its bounds today.

Concern about ritualism in the FCE is so well-established that in 2003 a group of two bishops and ten congregations felt the need to establish the ‘Evangelical Connexion of the Free Church of England.’ It says a lot that they felt the need to differentiate themselves as evangelical in the church so marked by evangelicalism in both its Declaration of Principles and its history. Just four of those Evangelical Connexion parishes are still in the FCE.

I can remember the flutter of excitement around 2016–17 when it appeared that some Church of England evangelicals remembered that the FCE was a thing, and were holding it up as the lifeboat we should all jump to. A series of scandals and schisms in the years hence have somewhat dampened those calls.

I take no joy in writing that; it is always a grief to see a Church imploding. But it should be a salutary lesson for those tempted to leave in protest: leaving and setting up something new ain’t easy, and failure is painful. That failure may come nearly 200 years later, but we can’t dismiss that as a future generation’s problem.

The Lloyd-Jones Crisis
In 1966 Martin Lloyd-Jones shook the world of British evangelicalism by standing on the stage of the National Assembly of Evangelicals to call for evangelicals to leave their denominations and unite together. There had been calls for evangelical unity before then, but the big difference here was the size of the platform and the strength of the call. Lloyd-Jones made a creative argument that, rather than it being schismatic to leave one’s denomination, evangelicals were already committing the sin of schism by remaining divided from each other across different bodies. The solution was for everyone to depart and band together in “a fellowship, or an association, of evangelical churches.”

It’s well-known that Stott publicly disagreed with Lloyd-Jones, and said so at the close of the event. Stott argued that Lloyd-Jones had against him: history, given others had tried and failed to achieve what he was calling for; and Scripture, given the faithful remnant is within the visible Church. The ensuing division is still felt today in some ways.

Andrew Atherstone summarises the arguments later put forth by Stott, Packer, and other evangelical Anglicans:

Their arguments took three forms:

(1) Historically, they argued that the constitutional basis of the Church of England was Protestant and Reformed, seen in the Reformation formularies like the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. So evangelicals held the legal “title deeds” to the Church of England, and the liberals and catholics should get out, not them.

(2) Biblically, they argued that many New Testament churches were doctrinally confused or morally compromised, like the church in Corinth that was muddled about the resurrection, or the church in Sardis that numbered only “a few” godly people (Rev. 3:4). But believers in those churches are told to hold fast to the gospel, and to fight against false teachers, not to leave the church and set up a new one.

(3) Pragmatically, Stott and his friends argued that the Church of England provided many gospel opportunities for evangelicals, and that it would be a dereliction of duty to hand over their pulpits to unbelieving clergy. What then would become of their congregations?³⁸

Few evangelical Anglicans heeded Lloyd-Jones’s call—Atherstone numbers around 20. I’ve noticed an increasing number of people, still within the Church of England, referencing the controversy, and concluding wistfully, ‘maybe Lloyd-Jones was right’. On what grounds can we conclude that? The variables are simply too numerous to be able to assess what might have happened had more people taken that course of action nearly 60 years ago. Sure, it’s conceivable that there could be a large, flourishing, thoroughly evangelical single denomination in the United Kingdom today. But it’s equally conceivable that it could have failed in any number of ways: it could have failed to grow, it could have split and schismed further, it could have ended up compromising and liberalising in its turn—look at the United Reformed Church.

It’s easy to say that a group of people over half a century ago should have acted differently and things would have been fine. It’s a lot harder to make a case that we should take that same course of action today as was advocated then, and things will be fine. There’s no evidence to lean on for such certainty.

The Church of England (Continuing)
Left the Church of England in 1994, after the ordination of women to the presbyterate. Today they have four congregations, three clergy, and one church building. Their website makes several references to their small size but does not show any obvious signs of growth.³⁹ In fact, it’s hard to see much positive on their website/online presence at all, sadly.

It’s easy to get caught up in dreams of thousands of the faithful standing up at once and walking out together, to move to and flourish in another pasture. That’s not guaranteed, though. History shows us that it’s just as likely to be a small trickle leaving at any one point, and growth is not inevitable.

Machen’s warrior children

J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism is possibly one of the most important Christian works written in the last hundred years. Coming out of the debates over increasing liberalism within the Presbyterian Church (USA), Machen made a trenchant argument that within that church there were really two separate religions being propagated: Christianity, and liberalism. Lee Gatiss summarises the message:

Its basic point is that Christianity and Liberalism are two different religions. That is, liberal Christianity is a different religion to the sort of Christianity found in the Bible and practiced throughout church history. It is not just a benign variant of the original, but something so different that it should be classified as another religion, and a parasitical and poisonous one at that.⁴⁰

In the end, Machen and his colleagues felt that they had lost the battle against liberalism within their denomination and left Princeton Theological Seminary, and later the PCUSA. This led to the formation of Westminster Theological Seminary, and later the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA).⁴¹

John Frame, in an article excitingly titled “Machen’s Warrior Children”, notes that although Machen’s band of followers were initially small, they were beset with disagreements, and split into increasingly smaller groups, which then further split over new disagreements.⁴² It took less than a year for the first split to happen. Frame writes:

Machen died of pneumonia in 1937, disappointed that his new denomination was already showing signs of division. Machen’s children were theological battlers, and, when the battle against liberalism in the PCUSA appeared to be over, they found other theological battles to fight. Up to the present time, these and other battles have continued within the movement, and, in my judgment, that is the story of conservative evangelical Reformed theology in twentieth-century America. In the rest of this essay I will discuss that theological warfare, distinguishing 21 areas of debate.⁴³

Machen rightly took a stand against liberalism, and the toleration of liberalism, that was infecting his denomination. The unintended legacy, however, was nearly a century (so far) of internecine Reformed conflict and schism. We should heed that lesson, lest we find ourselves leaving the same legacy. The last year has seen unity and cooperation amongst evangelicals within the Church of England that few, if any, have seen in their lifetimes. It has been beautiful and a kind providence of God. Are we sure that we could maintain that unity if we all left?

Conclusion

In Parts Three and Four I have endeavoured to focus on some moments in history when the church was particularly troubled by theological confusion and to draw out some noteworthy aspects of how our brothers and sisters responded to those days. The overwhelming response, the catholic response, for the vast majority of church history has been to stand firm, to teach the truth, and to resist the error that troubles the church; to stay and contend, not to leave and give up the fight. Those who have gone before us knew that if heresy is serious, then it must be engaged and refuted, not walked away from. Nor is the answer to enter into peace negotiations with the heretics, to try and negotiate a ‘permanent protected place’ for both sides. If heresy is serious, then it must be engaged and refuted, not compromised with.

I think we must also deal honestly with the reality that leaving hasn’t always been the easier option. Those who have left in generations past have often learned that they have swapped one set of institutional problems for a whole other set—or sometimes the same problems, just a generation later. Leaving is not necessarily the easier option, and its pathway to success is not guaranteed.

What God does promise, however, is that he will reward and bless his faithful servants who have laboured for his gospel.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.⁴⁴

Part 5 will turn to pastoral arguments in favour of staying and contending. Future installments will address the questions of personal conscience, and suffering.

Notes

1. Bradford Littlejohn, “Introduction,” in John Jewel, An Apology of the Church of England, ed. Robin Harris and Andre Gazal (Burford, UK: Davenant, 2020), iii.

2. You might know her better as ‘Bloody Mary.’

3. Apology meaning a defence, rather than apologising for.

4. John Jewel, An Apology of the Church of England, ed. Robin Harris and Andre Gazal (Burford, UK: Davenant, 2020), 5.

5. Jewel, An Apology, 40.

6. ibid.

7. ibid, 41.

8. ibid, 119.

9. Oh, how I’d love to get into that now! In the interests of brevity, I shall leave it for another article.

10. WB Patterson, William Perkins and the Making of a Protestant England (London: Oxford University, 2014), 40.

11. John H. Primus, Richard Greenham: Portrait of an Elizabethan Pastor (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 196–9.

12. William Perkins, “A Reformed Catholic,” in The Works of William Perkins, ed. Shawn D Wright and Andrew S. Ballitch, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2019), 1–168.

13. See Part 2 of this series.

14. William Perkins, “Exposition upon the First Three Chapters of Revelation,” in Works of William Perkins, ed. J. Stephen Yuille, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2017), 421. In this section on Perkins’s ecclesiology, I am indebted to the work of Donald John MacLean, “Ours Is a True Church of God”: William Perkins and the Reformed Doctrine of the Church (London, U.K.: The Latimer Trust, 2019), 18–38.

15. William Perkins, “An Exposition upon Christ’s Sermon in the Mount,” essay, in The Works of William Perkins, ed. J. Stephen Yuille, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2014), 26–31.

16. MacLean, “Ours is a True Church of God”, 22.

17. Perkins, Revelation 1–3, in Works, 4:421.

18. Perkins, Sermon on the Mount, in Works, 1:65.

19. Perkins, Revelation 1–3, in Works, 4:421.

20. I advanced a similar argument in Part 2, under ‘Reformed Catholicity.’ To declare a church as no longer a true church is far above the pay grade of any individual.

21. William Perkins, “A Commentarie upon the Epistle to the Galatians,” essay, in The Works of William Perkins, ed. Paul Smalley, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2015), 161.

22. Perkins, Sermon on the Mount, in Works, 3:264.

23. Perkins, Sermon on the Mount, in Works, 3:65.

24. Perkins, Galatians, in Works, 2:19.

25. ibid.

26. ibid.

27. ibid.

28. ibid.

29. William Perkins, “An Exposition of the Creed,” in The Works of William Perkins, ed. J. Stephen Yuille, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2014), 307.

30. MacLean, “Ours is a True Church of God”, 39.

31. For a fuller discussion on this subject, see Michael Hayden, “On Sexuality, Justification, and Sanctification,” Church Society, November 27, 2023, https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/on-sexuality-justification-and-sanctification/?fbclid=IwAR38v7z8Z7MVTWrQCkS3vBFaEe30GNyYYiiUyvOdml7Eman-6lQxYOrlNb0.

32. https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/legal-services/canons-church-england/section

33. Acting as a collective body, albeit with some notable, godly exceptions.

34. Well, we don’t actually know what their legal officers say, because they’re still burying the legal advice.

35. https://fcofe.org.uk/who-we-are/fce-history/

36. See Fenwick’s PhD dissertation:
    https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/1976/2/1976%20Fenwick%2C%20R.%20Free%20Church%20of%20England%20%281995%29%20Vol%201.pdf

37. https://anglican.ink/2021/05/06/south-american-diocese-withdraws-from-the-fce/

38. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/50-years-ago-today-the-split-between-john-stott-and-martyn-lloyd-jones/

39. https://cofec.org/

40. https://www.churchsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Christianity-and-Liberalism-at-100-.pdf

41. Which, confusingly, later became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), distinguished from what is now the PCA, which left the PCUSA in the 1970s. And you thought it was just Anglicans who had problems.

42. https://frame-poythress.org/machens-warrior-children/

43. ibid.

44. 1 Corinthians 15:57–58 (ESV).

History

By theological specialty, I’m a historian/historical theologian. A great deal of my mental space is given to living in ages long past, especially in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. When faced with a theological or ecclesiological question, I’m naturally going to start trying to contextualise it historically, digging back into the church’s past for help and resources. There are a few historical events that colour my approach to the secession question. In this post (3) we shall look at events up to, and including, the Reformation. In the next (4), we shall pick up from the Reformation onwards.

Athanasius of Alexandria (298–373)
Many Christians have identified with the 4th-century Bishop of Alexandria when they have found themselves in the heat of theological controversy. What does the ‘Athanasius Option’ consist of? Athanasius wasn’t a bishop of the time of the Council of Nicea in 325, he was there to accompany Alexander, the incumbent bishop. But Athanasius quickly established himself at the forefront of the orthodox, pro-divinity-of-Christ party. The Council was a significant victory for the orthodox party; only two bishops voted against the resulting Nicene Creed.¹

Within three years, Athanasius had succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria, and the Nicene consensus was already falling apart. Despite largely having voted for it, the Arian bishops refused to abide by the consensus and were still teaching Arian views. Debates were reopened, and pro-Nicene bishops tried to find a way of softening the language to win a consensus that all could live with. Athanasius never budged on the Nicene formula, and for his trouble, he was exiled 5 times, for a total of 12 years. 25% of his tenure as Bishop of Alexandria was spent in exile, for teaching what the church catholic had agreed to in its first ecumenical council. He didn’t waver from the catholic teaching even when 4 separate emperors, most of the bishops, a sizeable number of clergy, and several episcopal councils took against that teaching — and anyone who taught it.

Athanasius got himself a bit of a reputation for being a fuss-pot, too hung up on precise wording at the expense of church unity.² Edward Gibbon, the great historian of the Roman Empire, even said—dismissively of Athanasius—“the difference between the Homoousion and the Homoiousion is almost invisible to the nicest theological eye.”³ Athanasius didn’t waver, he didn't succumb to the pressure to soften his stance, to ‘walk together’ with the Arians (we might say). The attempts to walk together found their expression in several successive councils and creeds, culminating in the ‘Dated Creed’ that came out of the fourth council of Sirmium in 359.⁴ The ‘Dated Creed’ ends by asserting:

But the term ‘essence’ has been taken up by the Fathers rather unwisely, and gives offence because it is not understood by the people. It is also not contained in the Scriptures. For these reasons we have decided to do away with it, and that no use at all shall be made of it for the future in connexion with God, because the divine Scriptures nowhere use it of the Father and the Son. But we say that the Son is like the Father in all things, as the holy Scriptures say and teach.⁵

Sound familiar? The way the wind was blowing saw the Arians and the ‘moderates’ come up with a compromise, something that would enable them to ‘walk together’, to stay within the same church. That compromise involved no longer saying that the Father and the Son were two Persons of the one God, but instead merely saying that the Son was ‘like’ the Father. That compromise was agreed upon and accepted as the new orthodoxy in both the Western and the Eastern branches of the Church catholic.⁶

Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil of Ancyra, Cyril of Jerusalem, and a few others, still held out though. They repeatedly denounced anything that wasn’t the orthodoxy agreed upon at Nicea, and they kept arguing in its favour.

Hilary and Athanasius… gradually converted the ‘moderates’ and the Nicene faith and formula were vindicated at the council of Constantinople, 381.⁷

The ‘Athanasius Option’ is to contend, and to keep contending, to not waver from the truth of the Scriptures as understood by the Church catholic. It is also to continue to contend within the Church Catholic –within her fold, within her structures. Athanasius did not live to see the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed the Nicene orthodoxy in 381, having died about 8 years before. But we rightly still remember him as among the foremost defenders of Christian orthodoxy in the 4th century.

We laud and want to follow Athanasius in contending for the truth, even at the cost of episcopal censure and exile. But we mustn’t miss something else from the history of Athanasius: he might have been exiled, but he never walked away. He might have been one of the very few bishops who still believed in the divinity of Christ, but he never broke away from his fellow bishops and tried to set up his own church. He kept coming back, kept contending, kept defending the truth — within the church that was even officially denying it by that point. He might have been exiled, but he was no schismatic.

The ecumenical councils
For the first thousand years or so of Church history, if we had a major theological disagreement the solution was to call an ecumenical council—made up of bishops and church representatives from across the Church catholic—to sort it out. The Roman Catholic Church has kept going with the idea, albeit somewhat less ecumenically now that both the Eastern Orthodox and Protestant branches of Christianity reject their claim to authority… Protestants haven’t held an ecumenical council since the Synod of Dort in 1620. Why aren’t there calls for one to settle the sexuality question that is tearing churches in the West apart? We have GAFCON, yes, which is great for bringing together Anglican bishops from across the world, especially the global south, but it’s not ecumenical enough. Could GAFCON call a council, inviting representatives from other denominations across the world, to settle the question? It would certainly be a catholic approach to the problem. If such a council were to reaffirm the historic, catholic teaching on Christianity, and to anathematise churches that have departed from it, that would be a different matter than everyone doing what is right in his own eyes, and departing when they, individually, have had enough.

It’s probably never going to happen. If it doesn’t, how then are we going to settle the question? Scripture’s teaching on marriage and sexuality is crystal clear, and the church was of one mind in understanding it until about 60 years ago. In that sense, we don’t need a council to tell us what we already know. But we didn’t need LLF to tell us what we already know, yet here we are—because many people don’t want to know it. Sooner or later we’re going to have to work out how we come to a settled position. How are we going to do that catholically?

The Great Schism (1054)
For a variety of reasons, relations between the Western Church (centred in Rome) and the Eastern (centred in Constantinople) had been deteriorating for centuries. Funnily enough, successive Bishops of Rome claiming ever-expanding dominion over the church catholic didn’t go down too well in some other parts of the church. The most important dividing issue between the two parties, however, came in the filioque controversy. Eastern theology holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds/derives being from, the Father. Western theology says that he proceeds from the Father and the Son. The big argument came in the eleventh century when—and no one really knows how—Rome officially inserted the words “and the Son” into the relevant clause of the Nicene Creed.⁸

Changing the Nicene Creed was a big deal, as it was the creed that came from the very first ecumenical council, that became the foundational test of Christian orthodoxy for generations to come. And Rome, in a power grab, unilaterally stuck it into the creed and expected the East to put up with it. Up with it they would not put. After a couple of years of strife, in 1054 Rome excommunicated Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople; Cerularius responded by excommunicating the papal ambassadors. West and East went their separate ways, and are very much still separate to this day.⁹

How is this relevant to the Church of England today? Well, the Great Schism was a great tragedy. It led to a scar, a divide in the Church catholic that hasn’t healed in nearly a thousand years. It’s impossible to sift through the complicated mix of factors and personalities to assess whether it could have been avoided. Had there been less stubborn leaders in Rome and Constantinople, perhaps it could have been. What we should see, however, is that the Schism was about a truth most fundamental to the faith: the very nature of the Trinity.

Yes, there was a lot else going on. But when it comes down to it, the final break happened because the Western Church tried to force the Eastern to adopt a contested theological position that the Church catholic had not come to a common mind on up until that point. We risk the same thing happening when it comes to marriage, gender, and sexuality. Some want to take the church’s catholic teaching in a certain (revised) direction. Some do not accept the revision and want to believe what we’ve always said we believe. How do we resolve that?

We could have another schism, where both sides anathematise each other and go their separate ways. That would be tragic, schism always is. But sometimes schism is unavoidable. Sometimes there are irreconcilable differences in the very foundation of theology that make unity impossible. If we end up in such a position, then we must be sure that it is on a matter sufficiently vital enough to justify the tragedy.

For what it’s worth, I think that this is a very important question. Unlike some, I do believe that we need to consider that this could touch on credal questions: what do we mean when we say we believe in the “forgiveness of sins”? I’m pretty sure that I have a different answer to that than the majority of revisionists I’ve heard from. Or the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”? There are credal questions to be answered here.

But, as with so often in this series, I’m going to say that we need to answer such questions catholically. To leave the Church of England is an act of schism, to declare that those whom you are departing from are not part of the one true church, which is why you must depart from them in judgment. That’s a big declaration. It’s far too weighty a matter to be left to private, individual judgment.

The Great Schism happened because one part of the Church tried to force a particular theology on another part of the Church, and the latter felt compelled to distance themselves from the former. Relations across the Church are still scarred today. When it is a private individual separating from part of the Church catholic, the damage and the grief might be on a smaller scale, but it is no less serious. Are you willing to commit a schism over this issue?

Reformation
Speaking of monumental tears in the unity of the Church… I’m not saying that the Reformation was wrong. It was entirely necessary and has been used by God for the good and the preservation of his Church. But the impact it has had on relations among Christians is still felt, and still causes tensions today, 500 years later. There are some lessons I want to draw from the Reformation for the current subject:

• The formal issue was at the centre of theology: justification, the nature of salvation itself. Again, there were many issues and personalities that fed into it, but at its heart, it was about justification.

• The Reformers felt that separation was unavoidable. The early Reformers did not set out to separate from the Roman Church. When I’ve had people read Luther’s 95 Theses for the first time, they often remark on how, well, meek and conciliatory they are. Luther’s objective was to raise the issue of indulgences being abused, and was confident that if the Bishop of Rome just heard about what was going on in the provinces, the whole matter could be resolved. Even when the arguments widened and escalated, Luther technically never left the Church of Rome. He was excommunicated in 1520.¹⁰ The spread of the Reformation from then onwards was much more about churches, congregations and even whole nations, coming to believe and teach Protestant ideas—and generally being excommunicated by Rome for it. The idea of leaving one church to join another separate church is somewhat foreign to the early-modern era.

• The Reformers felt that they were not separating from the Church catholic, so much as returning to catholicity by separating from centuries of Roman errors that had occluded it. It was not a walking away from, but a returning to.

When one makes this sort of argument, the English Reformation is often brought up as an example of an active Reformation schism. Henry VIII wanted a divorce, and so committed schism to get what he wanted—or so the narrative goes. As Alec Ryrie argues, however, there’s really no such thing as “the English Reformation.” It’s a matter of how you interpret it.¹¹ Most of the English reformers saw themselves as Catholics, seeking to restore true catholicity to a church that had lost it under layers of Roman error. Archbishop Usher, writing in the Seventeenth Century, wrote the treatise: “A Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British.” His argument there was that if one were to compare the religion anciently held in the British Isles with that held respectively by the Roman and the English Churches of the early modern era, one would be forced to conclude that it was the latter who held the true claim to antiquity. They saw themselves as not separating from a particular part of the church, but as returning to the catholicity of the Church.

I’ve had lots of long conversations with people who have left the Church of England in recent years, and with those who are contemplating leaving. To be honest, not a single one of them has cited catholicity as their reason. It’s always been about separation—from false teaching and false teachers. The preservation of individual conscience rather than the preservation of the catholic faith.¹²

Conclusion
As I said in both Parts 1 and 2, this is not the first time in the history of the church that we have been faced with doctrinal confusion and false teaching. It is fairly common. It’s the default experience of the church. False teaching is always wrong and should be disciplined and rebuked. But it’s always going to be present. We can learn from those who have gone before us, from how they dealt with the false teaching of their own day.

What I think we learn from the examples in this article is that we should take a bold stand for the truth, even if it costs us greatly. We should, however, be slow to walk away. Schism is not a light matter, division between Christians is not something to pursue readily. It should only happen when it is unavoidable and over issues of the most fundamental importance. And such a matter is too weighty to be handled by any private individual acting alone.

Notes

1. Secundus of Ptolemais and Theonus of Marmarica

2. See e.g. Michael Reeves, The Breeze of the Centuries: Introducing Great Theologians from the Apostolic Fathers to Aquinas. (Nottingham, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2010), 58–62.

3. For an overview of the compromise creeds, see Henry Scowcroft Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University, 1963), 58–63.

4. Bettenson, Documents, 62.

5. It was even given the catholic seal of approval by the council that met in Constantinople in 360.

6. Bettenson, Documents, 62.

7. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch.21, n.155.

8. For a helpful overview, see Nick Needham, The Middle Ages, Revised, vol. 2, of 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power(Fearn, U.K.: Christian Focus, 2016), 131–7.

9. Those excommunications were officially lifted by the relevant parties in 1965—over 900 years later—but the churches are yet to reunite.

10. Interestingly, the writ of excommunication doesn’t actually cite justification by faith alone as one of Luther’s heresies. Much more concerning was his denial of papal supremacy.

11. Alec Ryrie, The English Reformation: A Very Brief History (London, U.K.: SPCK, 2020), xiii.

12. I hope in an upcoming article to address the question of individual conscience separately.

Part 1 of this series explored Biblical passages that have informed my decision to stay in the Church of England and to contend for the truth. I shall now turn to doctrinal considerations.

Doctrine

Reformed Catholicity
The book that turned my theology upside down and gave me a passion for Reformed Catholic theology was Allen and Swain’s Reformed Catholicity.¹ Their opening chapter is entitled “Learning Theology in the School of Christ,” and they make a compelling argument that,

Christian theology flourishes in the school of Christ, the socio-historical reality to which the apostolic promise applies: ‘But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him’ (1 John 2:27). Because the anointing of Christ dwells within the church, the church is the school of Christ. The Spirit of Christ teaches the church in sufficient and unmixed verity such that the church need not seek theological understanding from any other source or principle.²

So the church, the whole church, the church catholic, is the context in which we do theology. We do not press ahead and do our own thing, just because we think we’ve come to a fresh, yet faithful, reading of Scripture. Yes, that is a lesson the House of Bishops needs to take on board—but so do we in the orthodox camp. We might have catholicity on our side when it comes to the sexuality question, but we must make sure that we maintain catholicity in our ecclesiology. As it stands, the Church of England still has a claim to be the historic expression of the Church catholic in this country, and to separate from her would be a big deal.³ The primates of GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans have expressed their immense grief at the direction of travel in the Church of England, and have rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leadership in the Anglican Communion⁴—but they have not yet rejected the Church of England as a Christian church. At least for the time being, the Church catholic still extends the hand of fellowship and recognition to the Church of England, and if we are to be guided by Catholicity, we should continue to do the same ourselves. The day may come when the Reformed Catholic thing to do is to no longer recognise the Church of England as a legitimate church and to depart from her. But that is not a decision we should make alone. Certainly not as individuals.

Ecclesiology⁵
What even is the Church of England? It’s a question I enjoy posing for debate, especially in response to simplistic statements of ‘The Church of England has done/is doing ‘X’.” What even is the Church of England? What we refer to as the Church of England today is sprawling and disparate. Depending on how you look at it, it’s one national, established church; or it’s two separate-but-not-entirely-separate provinces of the Anglican Communion/the Western Church, each with its own Archbishop, history, and convocations; or it’s 42 different dioceses, which sometimes work in common, and often do things entirely their own way; or it’s c.12,500 parishes; or it’s a bewildering combination of all of the above, somehow connected to a bewildering array of Diocesan structures, staff, National Church Institutions, the Church Commissioners, and those-committees that-seem-to-be-referenced-a-in-report-but-no-one-knows-what-they-really do.

What even is the Church of England? What even is the Church?

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Article 19, The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.⁶

Here the Articles draw on the well-known Reformation distinction between the invisible and the visible church. When talking about the Church of England, we are talking about an expression of the visible Church: the church that we can actually see and tangibly experience, as opposed to the invisible church, the mystical body of Christ’s elect and redeemed people.

It’s complicated, though. Because when we talk about ‘the visible church’, are we talking about local, individual congregations? Or denominations? Or non-denomination-denominations? Or something like the Anglican Communion, the Roman Catholic Church, or Eastern Orthodoxy? What is ‘the visible church’?

The relationship between the national church and the local church in Anglican polity has been the subject of much debate in recent decades, intensifying as evangelicals have become disillusioned within the wider structures they minister within.⁷ Since at least David Broughton Knox, Anglican congregationalists⁸ have read Article 19, and its reference to a ‘Congregation’, to mean that the only Church that Anglicanism really recognises is ‘the local church.’⁹

In response, Lee Gatiss cites extensively from early Anglican divines to show how that is far from what the authors of the Articles envisaged ecclesiologically.¹⁰ He fairly asks,

Why else do the Articles talk about the jurisdiction of the monarch over the church (Article 37)? Why else do they talk about archbishops and bishops, priests and deacons (Articles 32 and 36)? Why else does the Prayer Book consecrate bishops and archbishops to preach, drive away errone- ous doctrine, and administer discipline across their dioceses, in accordance with the canon law of the Church? Articles 33 and 34 speak about the Church and ex- communication (which is reserved to bishops, not local gatherings), and about par- ticular national churches having authority to ordain, change, and abolish rites and ceremonies (which has never been a power given to each parish meeting within Anglican polity). So understood in their own context, the Articles cannot be singling out the local parish assembly in Article 19 as self-contained and supreme, apart from the wider Church, unless they are contradicting themselves rather blatantly.¹¹

The framers of the reformed Anglican formularies were concerned with the church on a national scale. To talk of ‘St X’s Church, Y’ as a separate church from ‘AB Evangelical Free Church’ would have been entirely foreign to our forebears. They knew of only one church, and the Church of England was our particular national expression of it.

This is relevant, for we need to have an understanding of the church if we are to try to answer the question, ‘What is the impact of a decision of the House of Bishops, or General Synod?’ If they take a particular decision, if their decisions are heterodox, does that mean that the Church of England is heterodox? What about what is taught on the ground, in pulpits up and down the country? Does that have any impact on defining our doctrine? If every bishop in the country were heterodox, and every incumbent and curate orthodox, what would we conclude about our church? Would we write it off? We need to sharpen up on our ecclesiology if we’re to tackle this properly, rather than reactively.

In my mind, I think we need to talk more about the national church than the local. The local church is easy to reform, it’s (largely) within our control. But it’s the national church that is dysfunctional and in the grip of false teaching right now—and we can’t just ignore that. We can’t just walk away from that. But the fact that some bishops, and a slim majority of the General Synod, are on a certain heterodox trajectory does not mean necessarily that the Church of England is to be written off. For the Church of England is not solely defined by her bishops and synods.

The Ordinal
The Ordinal, as appended to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, is heavy on the weight of the presbyteral office:

And now again we exhort you, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you have in remembrance, into how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and charge ye are called: that is to say, to be messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord; to teach and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever.
Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his spouse and his body. And if it shall happen the same Church, or any member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. Wherefore consider with yourselves the end of your ministry towards the children of God, towards the spouse and body of Christ; and see that you never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life.¹²

It’s a big calling. And currently, evangelical Anglicans are divided as to the best way to fulfil this calling. Some are firmly convinced that the only way they can protect their flocks from wolves in bishops’ clothing is to resign their office and call the sheep to follow them out. They feel that to stay and to encourage their congregation(s) to stay would be to expose them to great spiritual harm negligently. I don’t condemn them for acting as they feel their conscience compels them. But neither do I agree with them that such a course is the way to fulfil the Ordinal’s charge. The above charge sets our ministry in the context of ‘The Church and congregation… his spouse and his body.’ (emphasis added). Our ministry is not just to and among a particular local congregation. Presbyters are ordained for ‘the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God.’¹³ I can’t have an eye solely for the local congregation to which I’ve been licensed to serve. My ministry is a part of the Church catholic. And we live in an age where this particular part of the Church catholic, the Church of England, is sick and suffering, harassed by false teachers and at sea in theological and biblical ignorance. She needs us to stay and minister to her for as long as we can. To remove an orthodox presence from the Church of England would be to remove all chance of life from a Church that, though she is critically ill, is not dead yet.

We know that she is not dead yet because there is still much life and spiritual vibrancy in her. In parishes up and down the country, the true word of God is being preached, the sacraments are being duly ministered, and God is giving growth. In just the last couple of months I’ve seen people: come to faith; new to faith, desiring to grow in faith and understanding; repenting and endeavouring to mortify long-established sin; openly wrestling with suppressed doubts that have plagued them for decades; visiting the housebound member of the church family under the radar; rearranging their Sunday morning routines to make sure said member can get to church; discipling other members of the church family; making an effort to have substantial spiritual conversations over coffee after church, even when they’ve felt awkward doing it. I see signs of spiritual life and vitality every day in parish ministry, and I talk to a lot of other evangelicals, so I know that is being replicated in parishes up-and-down the country. It may be despite whatever is going on higher up the hierarchy, but the Church of England is not dead yet. God is still blessing us with spiritual growth. If you believe that the Church of England is apostate, then you must ask: why is God still breathing life into an apostate church? Why is he bringing new converts into a dead church, where they might be taught the doctrines of demons? It seems to me that in order to be consistent in that judgment, you cannot believe that what I have described above is not true spiritual growth, but only an ersatz growth.

There may come a day when the Church of England truly apostatises, and God will remove our lampstand in judgment—and that day may be soon. But we are not there yet. If we all leave, however, we make that day both certain and sooner.

The mixed nature of the church
As this debate has unfolded in the Church of England, it has become increasingly aware that there is a great spiritual schism among her members. That was on full display at the aforementioned sitting of General Synod, where the Houses of Clergy and Laity were split almost 50/50, and the Bishops far from united. And the divide is not merely between those who feel one way about same-sex relationships and those who feel another. There are fundamental, irreconcilable disagreements on the authority of Scripture, the nature of the church, the meaning of sin and salvation, what it means to be blessed, the role of the Holy Spirit in revelation, the holiness of God, and the doctrine of God — to name but a few. The longer the arguments go on, they become wider and more deeply felt. There are people on both sides who are proclaiming entirely different gospels.

The thing is, if you look at the history of the church, that is far from unusual. We are not the first Christians who have disagreed with other members of the church about such fundamental issues. ’Twas always thus.

Nicholas Ridley identified three senses in which we find the word ‘Church’ used in Scripture:¹⁴
- “that Church which is His body and of which Christ is the head”; that Church consists only of true Christians, who are such inwardly.
- that which Augustine called “the mingled Church”; comprised of both genuine and false professors
- “the multitude of evil men” who are part of this mingled company, “the malignant church and synagogue of Satan.”¹⁵

The visible church in this age will always be a mixed church, part of which will be made up of those who are true members of the invisible Church, but part of which will be “the multitude of evil men”.¹⁶

This was a point frequently made by Bishop Ryle, who often referred to the parable of the wheat and the tares¹⁷ to make the point that the church in this age will be made up of both elect and non-elect, Christians and non-Christians. In response to this principle, Ryle said:

There have never been wanting men of this kind, who have forgotten that every thing must be imperfect which is carried on by human agency, and have spent their lives in a vain search after a perfectly pure Church. Members of all Churches must be prepared to meet such men, and especially members of the Church of England. Fault-finding is the easiest of all tasks. There never was a system upon earth, in which man had anything to do, in which faults, and many faults too, might not soon be found. We must expect to find imperfections in every visible Church upon earth. There always were such in the New Testament Churches. There always will be such now. There is only one Church without spot or blemish. That is the one true Church, the body of Christ, which Christ shall present to His Father in the great last day.¹⁸

Or as Ridley wrote to Hugh Latimer, whenever the church is mostly composed of those who are elect, who are truly members of the invisible Church, we can be confident that their Councils and decisions will be guided by the Holy Spirit, and will represent the universal Church. However, when those who are not members of the universal Church are in the majority, then we should expect to see a contrast between “superstition and the sincere religion of Christ, will-worship and the pure worshipping of God” — such parties, as light and darkness, can never agree. And though the minority who are of Christ be “gathered in the name of Christ” in their midst, “forasmuch as the decrees and ordinances are pronounced according to the greater number of the multitude of voices, what can the lesser number of voices prevail? It is a known thing, and a common proverb, ‘oftentimes the greater part overcometh the better.’”¹⁹

Nowell’s Catechism,²⁰ having drawn out the distinction between the invisible and the visible church, goes on:

Q: Art not then all they that be in this visible Church, of the number of the elect to everlasting life?
A: Many by hypocrisy and counterfeiting of godliness, do join themselves to this fellowship which are nothing less than true members of the Church. But for as much as wheresoever the word of God is sincerely taught, and his Sacraments rightly ministered, there are ever some appointed to salvation by Christ : we count all the whole company to be the Church of God, seeing also that Christ promiseth, that himself will be present with two or three that he gathered together in his Name.²¹

It’s instructive that for Nowell, the chief Anglican catechist of the sixteenth century, those who are in the visible church but are not of the elect are nevertheless “true members of the Church.” So long as the marks of the church—the true preaching of the word, the right administration of the sacraments, and discipline—are present, the true Church is to be found, and everyone within her fold is a true member of the Church. It would follow, then, that to leave that Church, though she be filled with false professors and traitors, would be schism. And schism is always a grave matter.

In no way am I seeking to downplay the seriousness of the current situation in the Church of England. I’m simply saying that if we take a historical view, we are not in uncharted territory. The church has always been mixed and always will be until the day of the Lord Jesus’ return. Changing denominational affiliation will not change that.

As Ryle went on to argue:

I will only ask those who advise men to leave the Church of England, what have they got better to show us? — Where is the visible Church, — where is the denomination of Christians upon earth, which is perfect, without spot, and without blemish? None, I say confidently, — none is to be found at all. Many people of scrupulous consciences, I firmly believe, have found this to their cost already. — They left the Church of England because of alleged imperfections. They thought they could better their condition. What do they think now? If the truth were really told, I believe they would confess that in getting rid of one kind of imperfection, they have met with another; and that in healing one sore, they have opened two more, far worse than the first.²²

There isn’t a single denomination or grouping in the history of the Church that has been free from blemish or error — and we will never be able to create one this side of glory, no matter how many times we leave and separate from the liberals among us. If we believe in the doctrines of original sin and radical depravity, that should be obvious.

Conclusion
My goal here has been to try to answer, doctrinally, ‘What even is the church?’ I contend that that is the most important question for us to answer in the weeks and months ahead as we think about what comes next for orthodox Christians in the Church of England. In this article, I have outlined how the Church of England is categorised according to the visible church, and how Anglicans throughout history have asserted that the visible church in this age, before Christ’s return, will always be a mixed Church. That’s nothing new, that’s not unexpected. We shouldn’t be shocked and run for the hills when we discover that there are some among us, bishops even, who don’t believe in the authority of Scripture. If we did, we would risk discovering two realities: i) the church we have left is a part of the true visible church of God, and we have cut ourselves off from true members of Christ’s body, with all the sin that comes with that; ii) the hills we run to are just as mixed and sinful as those we have left. Possibly even more so.

If we are Anglicans, then let’s be Anglicans, rather than Congregationalists in how we deal with this. Let’s be Reformed Catholics, and keep fighting for the good of the whole Church.

Notes

1. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain. Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015).

2. Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 18.

3. I make no claim that other denominations in this country are not part of the Church catholic, I am not attempting to ‘de-church’ them. I simply contend that if you look back in history, the Church of England has the continuity of the ages as the Catholic Church in England. It wasn’t formed from people who left another church, other denominations were formed by people leaving the Church of England. When people propose leaving the Church of England today, they are proposing leaving what is our default church.

4. https://www.thegsfa.org/news/ash-wednesday-statement-of-gsfa-primates-on-the-church-of-englands-decision-regarding-the-blessing-of-same-sex-unions

5. Some of these points will be built upon in Pt 3, which will look at historical perspectives. As a historical theologian, the two categories are somewhat blurred for me, but I have tried to separate them as much as possible, or this article would have been significantly longer.

6. https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/109014/Thirty-Nine-Articles-of-Religion.pdf

7. For a summary of the debate, see Lee Gatiss, “The Anglican Doctrine of the Visible Church,” Evangelical Quarterly 90.1 (2020): 25–49.

8. Yes, I know that’s an oxymoron. Take it up with them.

9. Knox: “Article 19 defines the visible church in terms of a worshipping congregation.” cited by Gatiss, “The Anglican Doctrine of the Visible Church,” 26.

10. Gatiss, “The Anglican Doctrine of the Visible Church.”

11. ibid, 34.

12. https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/ordaining-and-consecrating-0

13. ibid.

14. I draw here on the summary found in Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers. (London: Hodder and Staughton, 1965), 228–229.

15. For more detail, see Ridley, Works, pp.125ff.

16. More on that below.

17. John Charles Ryle, Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points of Religion, From the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman. (Edinburgh, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), 266.

18. Matthew 13:24–43.

19. Ridley, Works, 130.

20. Published in 1570 with the approval of Archbishop Matthew Parker, Nowell intended his catechism as a follow-on from the ‘little Catechism’ of the Prayer Book, which he thought sufficient for little children, but not for full instruction. It is now widely believed that the Prayer Book catechism is Nowell’s ‘little Catechism’. He published a full catechism in 1570, and the abridged ‘middle Catechism’ in 1572. The middle catechism can be found at https://www.anglican.net/works/alexander-nowell-middle-catechism-or-the-institution-of-christian-religion-1572/.

21. ibid.

22. Ryle, Knots Untied, 267.

Introduction

The November session of the General Synod of the Church of England approved, by a very narrow margin, the House of Bishops’ proposals to bless same-sex relationships. Depending on who you listen to, that’s either a great victory or a great tragedy. I’m in the latter camp. I lament that the governing body of the Established Church of England has spurned Scripture, rejected catholicity, and walked away from our inheritance of faith. I, along with thousands of others, have prayed, begged, pleaded, argued, written letters, contended, taught true doctrine. And yet here we are. The small majority of our governing body would have us walk with them into unfaithfulness and heresy. It’s a tragedy. My greatest fear for the Church of England is that we could find ourselves charged alongside the Israel of Psalm 78, who responded to the wonders of God’s work of salvation by spurning him, testing him, and provoking him.

I have no idea what comes next, I don’t know where we go from here. Something that I can’t do, however, is to stand on the sidelines and shake my head in disbelief. That’s not an option for me, because I’m not just a member of the Church of England—I’m a presbyter ordained in this church. I hold a licence from one of the aforementioned bishops. I’m involved in this situation, whether I want it to be or not.

And that leaves me with the question of how I respond. Sadly, some of my brother-presbyters have already left, some left years ago. I know more than a few others who are contemplating whether they can stay. Something this big, this catastrophic should raise those questions. But, despite my deep-seated opposition to the whole enterprise of the Prayers of Love and Faith, I’m resolved to stay. To stay and continue fighting.

The reasons for that are numerous, and in this four-part series I shall endeavour to explain some of them.

The Bible

As an evangelical Anglican, the discussion must start here. In response to the question, ‘Why are you staying in the Church of England?’ it might be overly glib to just reply ‘The Bible tells me so.’ There are, however, a few passages that have particularly informed my thinking on this question over the past couple of years.

John 10:10–16
“10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (ESV)¹

Critical to my understanding here is seeing pastors and church leaders as under-shepherds of Christ, the great Shepherd of our souls. How does Christ show his care for his flock? He lays down his life for them. He doesn’t run away when the wolves come — that’s what the hired hand, who cares not for the sheep, is prone to do. Christ lays down his life for the sheep, for he is the Good Shepherd. Pastors of the church can never lay down their lives for the sheep in the way that Christ did — and nor is there any need for them to. They should, however, pattern their care for and love for the flock after the love of Christ himself. And Christ lays down his life for the sheep. He doesn’t run away, he doesn’t issue a clarion call for the sheep to leave and join the Free Church of Sheepfold. He stays and he lays down his life for the sheep, that they may have life. Some of the greatest tragedies I’ve seen among evangelical Anglican churches in the past decade have been where evangelical clergy left the Church of England on a matter of conscience and were replaced with a liberal who couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into the sheep. “He… sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.” I care deeply for the sheep that Christ has commissioned me to look after in my current context, I care deeply for the sheep who are not yet part of the sheepfold, and the wolves are circling around them, ready to pounce.

Ezekiel 34:7–10
7 “Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.”

1 Peter 5:1–4
“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”

In Ezekiel 34, God has severe words for the false shepherds who care not for his sheep, who use them as a pretext for their own gain, who abuse the sheep and lead them abroad. There are many such shepherds in the church today, including in the Church of England. I don’t dispute that. But I don’t see anywhere in Ezekiel 34, or elsewhere, that the solution to that age-old problem is to up sticks and move to a different denomination. Many of my faithful brothers and sisters have done so, sincerely believing that they are protecting the sheep from false shepherds and wolves. But I can’t follow them. I can’t follow them because of two realities:

1. Many sheep would come with us if we said we were leaving, but not all would; what would happen to the sheep who were left behind? Are they acceptable fodder for the wolves?

2. If the goal is to avoid the wolves and false shepherds, where are we going to go? There isn’t a single denomination, there never has been one, free and pure from the plague of false teachers and corrupt shepherds.

If we leave the sheepfold we’re currently in to search for purer pastures we shall be condemned, as have some of our brethren, to perpetual wandering, moving from one denomination to another in the vain hope that ‘this will be the one.’ I don’t think that’s loving the sheep, and it takes away energy from pastoring them in the way God promises them he will care for them by giving them good shepherds.

1 Timothy 1:3–7
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

The church at Ephesus had fallen into confusion, led there by confused teachers who did not understand what they were teaching. These teachers strayed from the core of the faith into “vain discussions”, making “confident assertions” about things they little understood. Sound familiar? Timothy, however, was to stay in Ephesus and talk to these confused teachers. He wasn’t to walk away, wasn’t to form a Church of Ephesus (Continuing). He was to stay and ensure that true teaching would be upheld in the city.

1 Timothy 4
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

I take some small encouragement from vv.1–2: the Spirit expressly says that in the Last Days, some people in the Church will depart from the faith and listen to false teachers, the doctrine of demons. That’s not a good or laudable thing, but also, it’s not an unexpected thing. Not only are we not the first generation of Christians in history to face this problem, but the Spirit actually tells us to expect it, to factor it into our expectations of being part of the Church. The General Synod doing what the General Synod has done hasn’t created an unprecedented, unexpected crisis.

How was Timothy to respond when he encountered it? To remain godly and faithful, to continue teaching the truth, to continue to set the truth before the Church, to keep toiling and striving, to labour on in hope, to “devote [him]self to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” In short, to be faithful and get on with the job he’d been ordained to do. His commission was no different from what it was when he’d been ordained, just because some teachers were teaching heresy, and some of the laity were listening to them. If anything, it just makes doing that job among those people even more important.

2 Timothy 4:1–8
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Another charge in Timothy to do two things:

• Expect people to depart from sound teaching

• Continue to preach the word anyway

“As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.”

James 5:7–11
7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

An exhortation to all Christians—pastors included—to be patient and to wait for Jesus’ return. In order to know what patience particularly looks like, we are told to “take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” The Old Testament prophets were: ridiculed, reported to the authorities, had their message impugned, banned from the Temple, beaten, imprisoned, threatened with death, and some were actually killed. The common experience of a prophet was that their message was rejected by at least some people. It wasn’t a great gig. And yet we are told to look to them as an example of suffering and patience, to learn what it looks like to faithfully proclaim the Lord’s word in the face of opposition. And “we consider those blessed who remained steadfast.” And the best part? “you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

1 Peter 3:13–17
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

Who is there to harm us if we are zealous for what is good? What can Bishops, General Synod, or parliamentarians do to us? Even should they persecute us, sack us, or imprison us for teaching God’s true and holy Word, why should that trouble us, so long as we are honouring Christ as holy? Such suffering will only lead to their shame and our blessing—so there is no need to leave the Church of England in or

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der to have an easier time. We don’t need an easier time. We need to preach the Gospel.

2 Pet. 2:17–21
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

We don’t need to point out to God how desperate the situation is, we don’t need to explain to him how dangerous the heresy is. He’s already given his judgment on those who teach such things. And the Day of Judgment will come upon those who have strayed from the way of righteousness, God will bring these days of confusion and error to a swift and terrible end. But that day is not today, we are still awaiting that day. In that day, we don’t need to take it upon ourselves to declare our own judgment and punish the false teachers ourselves by withdrawing fellowship and money from them.

Conclusion
The above passages are not an exhaustive survey of all that the Bible has to say about being a pastor amidst false teaching and suffering. As explained at the beginning, it’s simply a commentary on a few of the passages that have informed my response to the unfolding situation: to stay in the Church into which I was ordained, to stay and keep contending, to keep faithfully preaching the word, to keep arguing and trying to persuade, and to let God sort out the rest.

Upcoming parts of this series will address the same question from doctrinal, historical, pastoral, and personal perspectives.

Notes

1. All Bible references are quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.