What does it mean to be an evangelical Anglican today?

 

Historically…

The evangelical movement in the Anglican Communion traces its roots back more than 250 years, to the era of the famous brothers, John and Charles Wesley in the middle to late 1700s. By that time, for more than a century the church had been falling into increasing corruption, doctrinal error and spiritual torpor. There were bishops and clergy who rarely or never set foot in their dioceses or parishes, choosing to indulge in a life of idle luxury. Socinianism (or what we now call Unitarianism—the denial of Christ’s divinity and the power of the Holy Spirit) was becoming increasingly commonplace in the pulpits. The poor and working classes were at best ignored if not despised. And (little surprise!) church attendance had sunk to abysmal levels.

Into this dark and seemingly hopeless scene stepped men such as the Wesleys, with their fiery preaching of a message of salvation through repentance and personal faith in Christ. But they were not alone. Though not nearly as famous, there were others such as George Whitefield, who is estimated to have brought the message of the Great Awakening to more than ten million hearers in the British Isles and the American colonies. There was John Newton, the former slave ship captain turned hymn writer; Charles Simeon, who influenced hundreds of future church leaders through his fifty-three-year ministry at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge; the father and son Henry and John Venn, who together with William Wilberforce, Hannah More, Granville Sharp and others worked to abolish the slave trade, reform the penal system and establish child labour legislation, to mention only a few of their endeavours.

In the course of their lifetime they also witnessed the transformation of the Church of England. Through practical biblical preaching, the introduction of lively hymns and consistent pastoral care, the people came back. And Christian faith and values permeated society in a way they had not for generations. From its beginnings the movement was not limited to the British Isles. Through organizations such as the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society the message was taken abroad—not least to Canada, where many of our western and northern dioceses find their roots in the evangelical movement.

Sadly, within the space of a couple of generations the movement began to harden. In the 1850s a new spirit had begun to arise within the church that came to be known as Anglo-Catholicism. With it came the introduction of customs and practices that had not been seen in the Church of England since the Reformation: candles, coloured stoles and vestments, incense and processionals, to name a few. Evangelicals saw these novelties as a dangerous distraction from the gospel.

Coincidentally another challenge was coming from a different direction. We could summarize it as Darwinism, although it was much broader than that. Suffice it to say that there were those who thought they could use the findings of contemporary scientific research to undermine the credibility of the Bible.

As though that were not enough, there was a third challenge in what came to be known as the “social gospel”, which saw the emphasis move away from personal transformation to concentrate on societal change (both of which had been emphases of the original evangelicals of en earlier generation). The result was that by the beginning of the twentieth century it seemed as though evangelicalism had taken a purely defensive posture. Evangelicals became defined more by what they didn’t do than by the vigorous proclamation of a life-saving, world-changing gospel.

Today the situation has become even worse, where in the United States and increasingly in some other parts of the world, the once honourable name “evangelical” has come to be associated with a particular narrow, mean-spirited and negative political ideology—to the point where some are asking, Have we reached the point where we need to toss it out altogether and find another name for ourselves?

To strike a more positive note, on the other hand, the negativity and insularity of some evangelicals is balanced by a refreshing openness and desire to work together for the gospel on the part of others. Ministries such as Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and Scripture Union and missions like the Overseas Missionary Fellowship and World Vision have always involved evangelicals from a wide variety of backgrounds, with evangelical Anglicans not least among them. And it is now twenty-five years since a group of leading evangelical and Roman Catholic scholars in the United States came together to produce a document entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”. I see these as hopeful signs.

Theologically…

So what do we mean by “evangelical”? It’s important to realize that the name traces its lineage back to the New Testament, to two Greek words: eu, which brings with it the meaning of “good” or “excellent”, and angelia, which means a message or an announcement. Put them together and you get the word euangelion or evangel, meaning “good news” or “gospel”. So who are evangelicals? At heart we are gospel people, women and men and children with good news to share. We think of the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”

Where does this take us in practical terms? Here is where the four hallmarks or pillars of evangelicalism come in, and they are these:

First among them is the need for a personal relationship with Christ through repentance and faith. This relationship can come by many different means and take many different forms, depending on our background, culture, upbringing, education and a host of other factors. Yet at the core there is that personal walk with Jesus. With Paul once again we affirm, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him…” (Philippians 3:10). And so evangelicalism is not following a tradition (although traditions are important). It is not being a member of an organization (although participation in the Christian community is vital). More than anything else it is my personal decision to trust in Jesus as my Saviour and to live my life in obedient response to him as my Lord.

That brings us to the second hallmark, which is the centrality of the cross. We believe that by his death and resurrection Jesus has once and for all, unequivocally and irrevocably defeated the powers of evil and death. Nothing that you or I can do can add to that or take the place of it. Jesus has done it all. The old Prayer Book put it well when it referred to Jesus’ “full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world”. It is because of Jesus’ sacrifice and Jesus’ sacrifice alone that we can come to the Father and receive the life that he has to offer.

Thirdly, there is the unique, divine authority of Scripture. That is, that through the prophets and apostles of the Old and New Testaments God has uniquely spoken—and continues to address us today. Some people like to refer to the three-legged stool of Scripture, reason and tradition as the basis for our authority. For evangelicals it is more like a tricycle, with Scripture as the front wheel with the pedals. It is Scripture that is always the final arbiter and that provides both the power and the direction to the other two. But there is more to it than that. Evangelicalism involves not just an acknowledgement of the authority of Scripture. It also involves a love of Scripture. Evangelicals aren’t people who merely own Bibles. They are people who, in the words of the Prayer Book, “hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them”. They study them, ponder and discuss them because there they find the words of life.

Finally, but far from least, there is engagement in mission. This is an act of obedience to Jesus’ great commission to be his witnesses and to make disciples (Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:20). Just as much, however, it arises from an unquenchable desire to share the good news of what God has done for us in Christ and is doing in our lives. In the words of the great Sri Lankan preacher, D.T. Niles, it is “one beggar telling another where to find bread”. Of course mission is far more than words. It is seeking to be as Jesus in the world, in whatever context to live out his command, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21).

Currently…

This brings us to evangelicalism in the world today—and I’d like to give specific attention to our Anglican setting. First of all, although we may not see much evidence of it in our little corner of the world, we need to recognize that we are the exception. The Anglican Church of Canada, along with most other Anglican bodies in the western world, is declining at an alarming rate. A recent report commissioned by our House of Bishops suggests that if the current trajectory continues, there will be no Anglicans left in Canada by the year 2040.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, where Anglicanism is fired by an evangelical spirit, there is exponential growth. Where is the largest Anglican population by attendance in the world? Nigeria, with more than twenty million members. Nigeria is followed by Uganda, with eight million, and then Kenya, Sudan and India, each numbering five million. More than half the world’s Anglicans live in Africa—and with few exceptions they are evangelical. In many cases, particularly where they border with Islam and in countries where corruption and violence are endemic, theirs can be a costly faith. Yet the church grows—and they look with sadness and horror at what they see as the spiritual deadness of the church in the west.

However, there are signs of hope, even here. Allow me to name a couple. One of them is the Alpha Course. That ten-week programme, which continues to bring faith and renewal to a widespread constituency, began in an Anglican congregation, Holy Trinity Brompton, just over forty years ago. By the latest count it has engaged more than twenty-four million people around the world. Curiously, it has been taken up with enthusiasm by the Roman Catholic Church in Nova Scotia, where it has been the source of powerful renewal. Yet it is largely unknown or ignored by Anglicans.

Secondly we need to recognize evangelical Anglican scholars and writers. A generation ago men like John Stott, J.I. Packer and Michael Green were among the best-selling Christian authors in the world. Through their books and their teaching they called their readers to a serious engagement with an intellectually honest, spiritually challenging evangelical faith. Today their place has been taken by people such as N.T. Wright, Alister McGrath and Fleming Rutledge. We should be grateful for Wycliffe College in Toronto, too. It has an international reputation for academic excellence and is the largest Anglican seminary in North America.

Thirdly, while there are numerous thriving evangelical Anglican congregations across the country, you need to look to the north if you want to see a whole evangelical culture—to dioceses like Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Caledonia and the Arctic. I have been privileged to visit a couple of them and I have been humbled by the depth and sincerity of evangelical faith that I have found there.

Yet let me say that I think that the battles that once raged over stoles and candles have only served to divert us from what it means at heart to be evangelical—and I am grateful that by and large those issues are in the past. If we are to be true to our evangelical heritage (and far more importantly, true to Jesus and his mission) then we need to go back to those four pillars: to engage in a daily walk with Jesus, to recognize that our only hope is through what he has accomplished for us through his cross, to absorb his word into our practical everyday lives, and to engage in his mission, seeking to live as Jesus in the world.

“He’s dead but he won’t lie down” (Romans 7:15-25a)

“He’s dead, but he won’t lie down.” These are the introductory words to George Orwell’s novel Coming Up for Air. Orwell was quoting from a humorous song popular at the time, recorded by English entertainer Gracie Fields. The first verse goes like this: 

 

My sister’s young man is a hundred and three,
Yes, a hundred and three is he,
And he’s real cold storage meat
From his head right to his feet.
He’s dead, but he won't lie down.

The words seemed an appropriate way to begin my remarks this morning, as we look at the inner struggle that Paul has laid before us in the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans. In chapter 6 he has written, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” Yet now in chapter 7 it appears that the old self is not entirely dead—or at least it won’t lie down!

Indeed, far from it. In the verses we read this morning Paul reveals a desperate struggle. It is not unlike what we see in an action-adventure flick. Our hero has just engaged in five minutes of nerve-wracking hand-to-hand combat with the villain. Finally, with one last thrust of his knife he stabs him, mortally wounding him, and and knocks him bleeding to the ground. Then he turns to rescue the maiden in distress. As he is busy unbinding her, his enemy, hollow-eyed and still bleeding profusely, hoists himself to his feet. Regaining his brute-like strength, he staggers across and murderously attacks him from behind—and the struggle begins again.

Listen again to Paul’s words.

I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

The Identity of “I”

It is a vivid scene as Paul describes it. But the question that people have asked again and again, practically since the ink had dried on the parchment, has been, whom is Paul describing here? Origen was a prolific scholar and writer who lived just a century and a half after Paul. He could not bring himself to believe that Paul was writing about his own current experience. Rather, he proposed that Paul was looking back on his past life, on his former self before his conversion. And this has been the position of many since, right down to our present day.

Surely, they insist, what Paul is depicting here is not the experience of one who has been born again in Christ. For them Paul’s desperate plea in verse 24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” cannot possibly be the cry of someone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Rather it is the prayer of one who has become aware of his sin for the first time and is perhaps on the brink of conversion.

More recently there are theologians who have begun to propose that the “I” of these verses is not any individual at all. Rather, what we have in this passage is a personalization of the whole nation of Israel and its repeated and dismal failure to live up to the standards set by the Old Testament Law.

There are numerous other perspectives on whom Paul is describing in this passage, perhaps almost as numerous as the serious scholars who have studied it, puzzled over it and written about it down through the centuries. For what it is worth, my own view falls into line with that of Augustine and Luther and Calvin: that the individual Paul is describing here is indeed himself—not his pre-conversion self, but his current experience at the time of writing. It is a shockingly candid exposure of Paul’s own inner spiritual struggles. Martin Luther could never be accused of dull writing. Here is how he put it:

Paul … longed to be without sin, but to it he was chained. I too, in common with many others, long to stand outside it, but this cannot be. We belch forth the vapors of sin; we fall into it, rise up again, buffet and torment ourselves night and day; but, since we are confined in this flesh, since we have to bear about with us everywhere this stinking sack, we cannot rid ourselves completely of it, or even knock it senseless. We make vigorous attempts to do so, but the old Adam retains his power until he is deposited in the grave… There is no sinless Christian… Sin stands in the midst of the kingdom of Christ…[1]

The Reality of the Old Self

Let’s stop for a moment and think about what we are saying here. Does this mean that, even having given our lives to Christ, we are doomed to live a life dominated and enslaved by sin? What about those verses in the Bible that speak about victory over sin? What about the transforming power of the Holy Spirit?

Theologian Kenneth Berding helpfully reminisces about his puzzlement over this apparent conflict, which led to a conversation with J.I. Packer. In his wonderfully pastoral but profoundly rooted way, Packer told him,

Paul wasn’t struggling with sin because he was such a sinner. Paul was struggling because he was such a saint. Sin makes you numb. People who sin over and over again become desensitized to sin. The reason Paul’s “struggle” was so intense was not because he was caught in a web of sin, or because he thought of himself as hopelessly doomed to giving into the temptations that he faced. Rather, it was because Paul lived a life so sensitive to the Holy Spirit and passionate about the glory of God that he intensely felt his sins whenever he became aware that he had committed a sin.[2]

Elsewhere in the New Testament John describes living in relationship with God as walking in the light. One of the effects of that light is to reveal the imperfections and the sins, not to mention the glaring inconsistencies, in our lives. To claim that we have rid ourselves entirely of sin, John states, is not to live in the light at all, but in darkness and self-deception. The closer we draw to the light, the more we become aware of our need for the Father’s forgiveness, for Jesus’ cleansing and for the Holy Spirit’s power to renew us.

We can see this biographically unfolding in Paul’s own life. In one of the earliest of his letters, he describes himself humbly as “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle”. Later in his ministry he writes of himself as “the very least of the saints”. Then, finally, as he anticipates martyrdom and his life is nearing its close, he confesses that he is “the foremost of sinners” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15).

Thus New Testament scholar C.E.B. Cranfield can write,

[These verses] depict vividly the inner conflict characteristic of the true Christian, a conflict such as is possible only in the man, in whom the Holy Spirit is active and whose mind is being renewed under the discipline of the gospel… The more he is renewed by God’s Spirit, the more sensitive he becomes to the continuing power of sin over his life and the fact that even his very best activities are marred by the egotism still entrenched within him.

“In fact,” he concludes, “a struggle as serious as that which is here described, can only take place where the Spirit of God is present and active.”[3] For this reason we find Paul depicting the life of discipleship in Romans and elsewhere in terms of a fierce mortal combat.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you desire. (Galatians 5:16,17)

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)… You must get rid of all such things… (Colossians 3:5,8a)

The Path of Continuous Repentance

So where does all this lead us in terms of our daily living? Two things. The first is that an essential component of our walk with Christ is continuous repentance. “Repent and be baptized,” the apostle Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “so that your sins may be forgiven.” What Peter was declaring was not only a first step into the kingdom of God but also a way of life. That is why our Anglican worship regularly includes a confession of sin. That is why confession also needs to be a daily component of our personal life of prayer.

Now I am not advocating what someone has called “worm theology”, the notion that we should think of ourselves as worthless, that to have any shred of self-esteem or pride in our work is sinful and arrogant. That may seem like a characterization, but there are people who think about themselves that way—or even worse feel guilty that they don’t. Such self-lacerating attitudes do not come from Scripture or from the God of Scripture, who created us good and whose image we bear. No, they come from the father of lies, the accuser, whose only desire is to bring us down and cause us to wallow in self-loathing and defeat.

And that brings me to my second point. For those who are tempted to see themselves that way (and occasionally I find myself sliding into those feelings), there is a wonderful pair of verses in Scripture. They are 1 John 3:19,20: “And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” In those times when we do slip and fall into sin we do not need to sink into despair, for we have a God who is infinitely more ready to forgive us than we are to forgive ourselves. And in Jesus we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, one who in every respect has been tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15,16). What is more, in the words of Peter, who well knew the pain of failure, he is able to “restore, establish and strengthen us” (1 Peter 5:10).

So it is that even as he struggles with the power of sin Paul can exclaim, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And we can echo his cry. For we know that by his death and resurrection Jesus has won the victory. And while much of the time we trip and stumble through this life, it is Jesus and not sin that will have the final word. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

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[1]     Quoted by Karl Barth in The Epistle to the Romans, 263

[2]     Kenneth Berding, reminiscing on a conversation with J.I. Packer,   

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[3]     Romans, A Shorter Commentary, 155,158