From the Press

Ghettos, Clubs and Freedom

This article first appeared in the Church of England Newspaper on Thursday 14 August 2003 and is reproduced with their permission.

By Bob Key

Oh for the golden days of evangelical Anglicanism! Those far-off times when you knew who was evangelical by the depth of their clerical-collar, their North-end position at the Lord's Supper, the width of their black scarf and the length of their preaching bands. We were an oppressed minority. No self-respecting bishop would have dreamed of calling himself evangelical and, secure in our ghetto, we did our own thing safe in the knowledge that we were right and we didn't have to interact with all those parishes and people who had got it wrong. We knew the rules of the game and we played it well.

Then the world changed. Theological liberalism and state-sponsored secularism emptied many churches and theological colleges. As one Anglo-Catholic archdeacon remarked to a liberal professor of theology: "It's all very well, but who wants to come to the cathedral to hear your doubts?"

Gradually evangelicals not only grew numerically but began to take charge of non-evangelical parishes, sometimes providing the first Bible-based gospel ministry for generations. A few even changed the colour of their shirts to episcopal magenta and began to grasp the opportunities of wider leadership. So everything is wonderful? Well, not quite.

The story is told of a team of six-foot plus male basketball players taking on a female netball team. Basketball rules for the first half. Netball rules for the second. Predictably the guys trounced the girls in the first period but were forced to watch amazed as they were roundly beaten in the second half. They simply couldn't play their game when the rules changed.

We evangelical Anglicans are like that. When the rules changed we were so used to being an oppressed minority that we were not sure how to play in a new game.

It is tempting to swap the ghetto for the club instead of engaging in risk-taking obedience to the Lord's command to take his gospel to the world NEAC this year gives every evangelical Anglican the chance to unite around the Bible and the cross to take that mission forward.

I once took my younger daughter on a last-minute, bargain basement trip to Disneyworld Florida. (If you want to get your church 'customer focused', it' s a great place to go.) I noticed a church group walking around in bright orange tee-shirts, all with the same logo: 'God says it. I believe it. That settles it!' That's where I stand on Scripture.

I was once asked on a radio talk show, "Are you a fundamentalist?" I guess I am. Not in the literalist, 'flat-earth' sense, but rather believing that God means what he says in Scripture. And he isn't going to change his mind because of the cultural fads of today's world.

In his comedy hit Other People's Money, Danny DeVito plays Larry the Liquidator, a sharp money-hungry asset-stripper with designs on a family business in New England. To make them think their days are numbered he tells them: "You have a growing share of a declining market." In many of our churches that's exactly what we have and we need to hear the Lord's call to mission all over again.

Join me and CPAS at NEAC. Let's show that we can unite over more than inappropriate episcopal appointments. Let's unite at his word and at his cross so that we can unite in his mission.

Robert Key is General Director of CPAS