Anglican Perspectives

5 Takeaways from 2016—and their implications for 2017

As we approach 2017, what opportunities and challenges will carry over from 2016 for Anglican followers of Jesus Christ?  I’d like to suggest that there are five “takeaways” from 2016 that we can reflect upon, five challenges that will shape our mission and ministries for Christ as we move into the New Year:

 

  1. Reaffirm the limits of Anglican Diversity

 

Emboldened by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s failure to uphold the January 2016 Primates’ recommendation for discipline of The Episcopal Church (TEC), Anglican leaders in the largely Western “global north” churches will continue to abandon Biblical, apostolic and catholic doctrine and practice in favor of what is politically and culturally correct.  These Churches will stretch to bless whatever the culture blesses in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation and changes to the definition of marriage. This was already the case for TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada, and we have seen such changes accelerate in Scotland, Wales and New Zealand.

 

But as I wrote previously, there are Limits to Anglican Diversity.  We find these “guardrails” in the Bible, the creeds, and the doctrinal expressions of the Councils of the Ancient Church. These Christian essentials are what define Anglicans, rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury’s mailing list.  I’ve written an essay on this confessional identity of Anglicanism which concludes with this observation:

 

If anything, it appears that increasing numbers of Anglicans are turning away from elusive identities based on relationships, “spirit and ethos” and returning to what Avis calls a “content-based,” doctrinal identity, a confessional identity–one that is rooted and grounded in Scripture, the Creeds and the Historic Formularies of the Church, including the Thirty-Nine Articles.  As a result, communion with the See of Canterbury is a waning factor for Anglican identity.”

 

You can download whole essay, The Confessional Identity of Anglicanism A Canonical-Doctrinal Approach here. Or you can watch our Anglican Perspective videos on the Thirty-Nine Articles here.  The American Anglican Council will continue to make resources available to everyday Anglicans to help understand the Christian essentials that make Anglicanism a Biblical, catholic and confessional Church for the 21st century.

 

  1. Prepare for further fractures in the Anglican Communion

 

The Church of England appears to be on an irrevocable course to bless same sex unions—either civil partnerships, same-sex marriages or both.  This follows the recommendations of the Pilling Report and the “facilitated discussions” throughout the Church of England around these recommendations.  As the Rev. Dr. Steve Noll observed, the letter from the Archbishops Council represents the position of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.  This letter “deconstructs” the plain prohibitions against same sex marriage in Lambeth Resolution I.10 (1998), and prepares the way for acceptance of same sex blessings in the Church of England, apparently with the blessing of Canterbury and York. As Noll also observes, this flies in the face of the specific warnings issued by Global South Anglicans meeting in October in Cairo Egypt—that such blessings would breach irrevocably the doctrine and discipline of the Communion.

 

The Church of England General Synod will be meeting in early 2017.  It seems unlikely that Biblical teaching will be upheld.  Already the Church of England Evangelical Council has issued a paper to the Bishops outlining the options for fracturing the Church of England—from mild to severe. And further fractures likely will occur in the Communion between the West/North and Global South. Will a sudden influx of cash to Global South Churches from TEC, Trinity Wall Street and the Anglican Communion Office postpone the fractures?  For how long?  How will GAFCON and the Global South Churches take action to replace the dysfunctional “Instruments of Communion” and take “enhanced ecclesial responsibility for the doctrine, discipline and order of the Anglican Communion?

 

In 2017, The American Anglican Council will be there to help them find a way forward that is both confessionally based and classically conciliar.

 

  1. Seize every opportunity to point people to Jesus Christ

 

I was surprised to get a call from CNN to talk about “A Christmas message for fearful people in 2016.”  But I am grateful that the LORD orchestrated all of it, and gave me the opportunity to point the conversation, and the audience, to Jesus Christ.  Without Christ in us, promises of “peace on earth and good will for all” are unlikely ever to be fulfilled.

 

Through my college age children, I’ve come to listen to and understand the reasons why so many of their friends reject religion, the institutional church, politics and anything that lacks “authenticity.”  I may not agree with their reasons, but seldom have I made any headway talking politics and religion.  But I have always found a curiosity and openness in their friends, and others, to talk about Jesus.

 

We never know when such an opportunity will arise to point people past their fears, hurts and hang-ups to Jesus.  That’s why we must be ready to seize those opportunities whenever they come our way.  So in 2017 the American Anglican Council will continue to work with and coach local churches, lay leaders and clergy through our ReVive! Workshops to reach their immediate communities and networks with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

 

  1. Face increasingly aggressive secularism in North American culture

 

In his keynote address to the 2016 Christian Legal Society Annual Meeting, Dr. Albert Mohler described four stages in the development of a secular culture.  In North America, we are currently in the second stage, an increasingly aggressive secularism. A New York Times op-ed described religious liberty as “the freedom to believe what you want to believe in your heart, in your home, or in your pews.”  That’s it.  There is no freedom to believe or express your Christian faith in the public arena.  Already, individual Christians, non-profits, churches and schools are being targeted by sexual orientation/gender identity laws, Executive Orders, litigation and other threats for expressing their faith and seeking to operate by a Christian world view in public.

 

If we want to seize every opportunity to point people to Jesus Christ, we need to preserve and protect the range of those opportunities while we have them.  Our founders did not intend to remove Christian faith from the public marketplace; their intent was to not “establish” or prefer any one Christian expression over another.  For this missional reason, the American Anglican Council has launched the Anglican Lawyers Network to help defend our religious liberties, and especially those of the local church. For this missional reason, we will continue in 2017 to work with like-minded, Biblically faithful Christians in The Common Ground Christian Network to exercise our religious freedom together as we engage our culture with the vision of the good life in Christ.

 

  1. Offer refugees of exhausted secularism an alternative vision of the good life—The Kingdom of God

 

We know that the new metaphysical-sexual expression regime in our culture cannot keep its promises of fulfillment and happiness.  Sexual and relational brokenness, spiritual and emotional wounds will accelerate with the ever-accelerating sexual revolution blessed by the Supreme Court as “fundamental liberties of the individual.”  But more than that, secularism is a world view that begins with nothing and ends with nothing.  It can never satisfy the needs of the human soul.  As secularism accelerates in our culture, its exhausted refugees will be searching for answers.

 

But as Russell Moore observes in “The sexual revolution’s coming refugee crisis” (See the whole article here, refugees, present and future, will not be attracted to churches gripped by fear—either the fear that shuns those refugees, or the fear that renders the Church embarrassed and silent.

 

More than ever, we need to build up an Anglican Church in North America that is ready for the refugees!  We need to offer them an alternative vision of the good life. We need to offer them the Biblical vision of “The Kingdom of God”—the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done IS done.  We do this by inspired preaching and teaching.  We do this by authentic acts of loving service that witness to the goodness, mercy and justice of God and his Kingdom.  We do this by making disciples of Jesus Christ.  In 2017, the American Anglican Council will continue to develop faithful leaders who are committed and equipped to cast such a vision, through our Leadership Training Institutes and Summits, at every level of the Church.

 

But we are also convinced that we need the power of God to meet each of these challenges I have described.  “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”  (I Cor. 4:20).  As Anglicans in North America, how can we call upon and appropriate the supernatural power of God, the Holy Spirit, for our witness and ministry?  How can we find ways to allow God to move sovereignly to open opportunities for us to point people to Jesus, and to witness in word AND deed to the Kingdom of God?

 

So in 2017 the American Anglican Council will commit itself to helping our Province address that question—because more than ever, we need a fresh Pentecost, in 2017 and beyond!

 

The Rev Canon Phil Ashey is President and CEO of the American Anglican Council.

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