Evangelicals Now reports that the rector at All Souls, Langham Place, Charlie Skrine has said in a speech in Sydney that “Justin Welby” is not his friend. Looking on as an outsider to the Anglican scene, this strikes me as yet another example of why the internal Anglican debate and even more so the debate among Anglican Evangelicals is so bewildering.
A friend is defined as
a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations.”[1]
On that basis, Justin Welby isn’t really the friend of many of us because we don’t know him. There are people in national Christian leadership who I know to some extent, in that sense I might refer to them as friends. I know them to say hello to at conferences and may have corresponded with them. However, I don’t really know them that well. They are friends in the loosest sense. But when it comes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he isn’t even my face-book friend. I don’t know if Charlie Skrine and Justin Welby are friends under that definition. I don’t know how often they see each other and if they get on or not. I know that Charlie Skrine isn’t my friend by that kind of definition either.
I know that both Justin and Charlie are my brothers in Christ. That would be the basis for any form of friendship, close or passing that we would have should we ever be in contact. So, the first concern I have as someone looking on, slightly from the outside is that this doesn’t seem to be the starting point. Surely of greater importance to church relationships are “is he my brother in Christ?” I can be friends of someone who is not a believer in Jesus. I can be friends with someone who takes sharply different views to me on significant theological issues but if they are not my brother or sister in Christ, then how can we be part of the same church without that raising serious questions for me?
So, more important than “are they my friend?” is “are they my brother or sister?” This is the question that church leaders have had to ask when making decisions about whether to remain part of a church or denomination. This is the crunch matter. We have denominations and groupings who have been happy to promote into positions of authority those who deny that Scripture is God’s authoritative word, the historicity of the incarnation, including the virgin birth, miracles and the resurrection and the nature of the Gospel. Now, either those people have become seriously muddled that their thinking is divergent with their own experience or they really do not believe the Gospel and have not truly experienced its saving power. We have to realistically assess the possibility that whilst we may or may not be friends with them, that they are not our brothers.
To be clear, there are people in those denominations, including the CofE who I disagree with significantly on important issues. However, whilst I may find their views troubling and I may not think they should be teaching and leading in the church, I still can recognise them as brothers and sisters in Christ. This should surely affect how I talk to them and about them. In other words, because the Archbishop of Canterbury is my brother, doesn’t mean I won’t disagree with him but it does mean that there should be a graciousness to how I speak of him.
However, just because I get on well with someone and just because I consider them my brother doesn’t mean that it is always right and helpful for me to partner with them. Our differences on belief and practice will be significant enough to make it impossible. There are of course different levels of partnership and fellowship, these might range from:
- Staying in touch, being willing to hear from and pray for brothers and sisters. We may struggle to work together but surely we can wish them well and pray for them.
- Meeting up to learn from and share with each other.
- Working occasionally on specific events, projects and issues (sharing a platform).
- Being part of longer term partnerships.
- Uniting together in a church/fellowship/denomination.
Yet the language of “is x or y significant person my friend?” actually prevents us from asking those honest questions. Surely the evidence is in place that whilst we can call the current Archbishop of Canterbury “brother” this offers no guarantee that future successors will be or that others in leadership within the Church of England are. Similarly, there remain serious issues within the church of England which should make it difficult for evangelicals to be in genuine formal partnership with those who differ so sharply on things that matter.
But what doesn’t seem to be picked up on, is the level of forbearance and patience that there has been from those who have already reached those conclusions about the CofE and other denominations. I mention Charlie’s predecessor in the title. It’s coming up to 60 years since Stott and Lloyd Jones famously fell out over whether evangelicals should leave the denominations. They both chose different courses of action. They remained brothers in Christ. I don’t know what it did for their friendship but it did affect fellowship/partnership between then and others in the two camps.
That the shadow of 1966 hangs over any discussion about Evangelical Unity today should deal firmly with the misconception that we are dealing with a recent problem. What this means is that the question is not about whether or not liberals within the CofE will or have crossed a line which requires sanction. Rather, the line had already been crossed long ago. That’s the point Martyn Lloyd Jones was making. The natural consequences of that line being crossed are already being experienced today and it includes the inability of members of the Anglican Communion to talk with instead of past each other because they do not have a shared foundation for conversation, for good disagreement as well as healthy agreement. That is the point that those who did seperate have been making for many years.
Yet at the same time, there has been a persistent willingness among those who stepped away from or never were part of the denominations, a willingness to maintain a level of fellowship and partnership with our brothers and sisters, including many good friends who stayed in. Yet it seems consistently that our brothers and sisters are more concerned about maintaining that formal fellowship/partnership with those whom you would consider them to have less in common with, even as those others within their denominations test and try their patience. And they seem at times more concerned with that “is x or y person my friend” which doesn’t seem to be a relevant question.
However, things cannot keep on like this for ever. There is of course another definition of a friend. Proverbs 27:6 offers it
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
I am not sure that my friends in the CofE will like what I’m saying in this article. They may find it wounding. I may risk even losing friends over this kind of challenge. Yet, the Bible tells me that if I am to be a good friend to them, then I need to be willing to seek out the difficult conversation and challenge them.
So, this is the challenge to Charlie and others. You do have brothers, partners and yes friends outside of the Church of England. Will you prioritise them?
Faithroots 