NOW FOR THE PRACTICALITIES OF THE LIVERPOOL AFFAIR

This by Cranmer's Curate first appeared on VirtueOnline:

Other writers including Charles Raven, Peter Ould and John Richardson have ably exposed on VOL the biblical infidelity and missional nonsense of Bishop Jones' pronouncement at Liverpool Diocesan Synod promoting diversity on sexual ethics. Now come the painful practicalities for orthodox Anglicans in Liverpool and beyond, for his stance is bound to open the floodgates to more trendy 'Evangelicals' of his Blairite stamp being appointed as bishops.

What does an orthodox Anglican Evangelical ministering in a small parish church do at the Archdeacon's annual Visitation at the Cathedral where there is a service of Holy Communion? The e-mail has gone round that it is a canonical requirement for clergy to be there with their churchwardens to be sworn in. Clergy from the big Evangelical flagships can do what they have always done - ignore the archdiaconal directive with no consequences. But the Evangelical first incumbent who ministers in a non-Evangelical church cannot get away with being so cavalier.

'I was speaking at a church growth conference in the States' doesn't sound very convincing.

The practising homosexual 'priest' from the neighbouring parish, whose boyfriend has just moved into the vicarage, is sitting there with partner in the pew in front. The cohabiting vicar is there, whose girlfriend moved into the vicarage after his marriage broke up.

Representations were made to the bishop by the diocesan Anglican Mainstream group but he replied:

Just as the church over the last 2000 years has come to allow a variety of ethical conviction about the taking of life and the application of the sixth Commandment, so I believe that in this period it is also moving towards allowing a variety of ethical conviction about people of the same gender loving each other fully. Just as Christian pacifists and Christian soldiers profoundly disagree with one another yet in their disagreement continue to drink from the same cup because they share in the one body, so too I believe the day is coming when Christians who equally profoundly disagree about the consonancy of same gender love with the discipleship of Christ will, in spite of their disagreement, drink openly from the same cup of salvation.

Your new churchwarden - your only one this year because of the shortage of volunteers - goes up to take to take Holy Communion. What do you do?

Then comes the clergy chapter retreat with the senior staff to be briefed on the deanery review. Again, no problem for the boys from the big net-giving churches to diocesan funds. They can boycott it with virtual impunity. But again that is so much harder for the little guys. What do you do when it comes to the Communion service?

Ministry reviews with a member of the senior staff are a requirement under the new clergy terms of service. This in fact presents a dilemma for both big church and small church Evangelicals. Can you in conscience undergo a ministry review with a false teacher?

For those who decide that they cannot there will be a price to be paid and possible repercussions under the Clergy Discipline Measure. But it is clearly so much easier for ministers in large net-giving churches to negotiate a way round this.

Whatever stance is taken over the ministry review, it is surely the right thing to refuse to take Holy Communion with false teachers. But the price of faithfulness to Christ is going to be so much higher for small church ministers in turnaround churches.

The 'inside strategy' has in the past allowed Evangelicals to become ministers of non-Evangelical parish churches in the Church of England and turn them around by God's grace. But that strategy is now coming under severe strain. There are no easy answers for Evangelicals who want to move out of the bourgeois comfort-zone of big-church, suburban Evangelicalism in order to minister within the parochial system of the Church of the nation, which does allow for mission in a variety of socio-economic contexts.

The future is very uncertain, but as a small church minister in the, for Evangelicals, unfashionable north of England I am inspired by the passage from Hebrews I am preaching on, God willing, on Sunday - 'Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted' (12v3 - RSV).