Asleep in the cavern of enchantment: The Church of England in 2023
by Nigel Atkinson, Anglican Ink:
An address to the Chester Association.
Good Morning. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. And I as I do so I am very conscious that I am doing so in a time of great crisis. Now it should be admitted that we as Reformed Catholics in the Church of England have been in a crisis for generations. In fact we have been in a crisis for so long that I suspect many of us have simply become used to it so that this new crisis that has been visited upon us can simply be regarded as just one more crisis that has come our way. After all during my own 34 years as Presbyter in the Church of England I have become increasing aware of
- The continual downgrade of Scriptural authority.
- The silencing and relegation of the 39 Articles of Religion to the extent that the Church of England’s own commitment to her own doctrinal first principles is an open question; thereby rendering the Articles a dead letter.
- The denial of fundamental doctrines by the hierarchy or if not open denial a refusal to uphold and defend them; often hidden under the pretence that to do so would weaken the Church’s evangelistic cutting edge and in so doing elevating John 3:16 above the proclamation and declaration of the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).
And this is serious. It is serious because what it has done is to fragment and compartmentalise the single Church, the one Church of England which was, until recently an ecclesial body, happy to be simply a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and having no doctrines of her own or ministry of her own holding only to the doctrines and ministry of the Universal Church.
Nevertheless within the one Church of England disparate groups have now sprung up that that have little to do with each other. Which means that we now have Liberals, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals but in recent years, although it seems to me the Liberals, (being theologically lazy and parasitic) have remained united as a revolutionary school of thought, the Anglo-Catholics have split into two groups; Affirming Catholics and Forward in Faith, as have the Evangelicals who have splintered into those who regard themselves as Open Evangelicals and those who do not.
But an even worse situation was to make itself felt. And that was with the advent of women presbyters and bishops the Orders of the Church herself were fractured so the Ministry was no longer an interchangeable ministry and as such could longer function as a principle bond by which believers were held together in a single body.
Now I say all this as the background to our most recent crisis which has been brought upon us by the recent decision of the General Synod to authorise prayers and blessings for those living in various types of relationship sexual or otherwise. Of course this is again incredibly serious. But I want you to see that this most recent step is not a step that has been taken, as it were, out of the blue but is a step and I think I could say, a necessary step, in keeping with all the previous baby steps, that have led to this last step. And we should not kid ourselves that in the future there will not be further steps along the road.
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