Preventing Schism in the Church of England
by James Oakley:
Is schism the biggest, or even the only, heresy in today’s church?
It can seem so. The anonymous Twitter account, operated under the handle @thechurchmouse, recently mused: “Considering whether the heresy of division and disunity is the most prevalent heresy in the church today.”
Someone in our church expressed concern to me about the state of our country. We’re living in a post-Christian Britain, with alarmingly frequent terrorist attacks on home soil, perpetuated in the name of Allah. In such a world, this person said, we need to work together for evangelism and stop having all these schisms.
Quite so. The trouble is, it’s easier said than done. Schism takes (at least) two different parties or viewpoints. As in any relationship breakdown, it’s always possible to point the finger at either party as having caused it. Whilst there may be fault on both sides, care is needed to work out clearly who is at fault.
Recent events in the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) have led to big cracks opening up in the wider Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has, rightly, regarded unity as vital to pursue. A house divided against itself cannot stand. He wants the Anglican Communion to stay together, walk together, in spite of profound disagreement. However, latest events have left him having to work frantically to keep the Anglican Communion together.
More troublingly, Scotland is very close to England. Once fabric starts to tear, it’s hard to stop the tear from spreading. So he’s also frantically paddling to stop the Church of England ship from cascading over the waterfall of outright division and schism.
In this post, I’m going to do three things. First, I’ll review those recent events (in SEC, and then the response from GAFCON). Second, I’ll look at how the Archbishop has responded to those events (both in person, and through Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, with whom he works closely), and show how those responses shed important light on the outcome he’s working towards. Third, I’ll make some tentative suggestions as to how the Archbishop can, even now, steer the ship away from outright schism.
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