Lessons from Little Rock

By Charles Raven
SPREAD
http://www.anglicanspread.org/?page_id=49
March 12, 2009

On the 6th April 1998 TJ Johnston, an Episcopal priest and senior pastor of an unofficial church plant in Little Rock, Arkansas, became a missionary priest of the Province of Rwanda under the oversight of John K. Rucyahana, Bishop of Shyira. St Andrew's Little Rock had been formed only some two years previously out of a sense of calling to start a faithful missionary congregation in a revisionist diocese and now Johnston was within days of being deposed by Larry Maze, the Bishop of Arkansas.

Though growing, the church was small and did not have much in the way of financial or social muscle, but this courageous stand set off a chain of events which was to lead to the formation of the Anglican Mission in America and create the precedent for other African jurisdictions which are now coming together in the emergent Province of the Anglican Church in North America with over 100,000 regular Sunday worshippers. At an early stage, Chuck Murphy, later to become the lead bishop of the Anglican Mission in America, saw clearly what was unfolding, saying "David took on Goliath with - a little rock. In God's hand, that little rock was all he needed." (1)

It is now increasingly clear that the same struggle for the gospel is being played out on the other side of the Atlantic, in England itself. In a recent post 'Suddenly it's all over for the Anglican Communion' John Richardson has persuasively argued that the old Lambeth based Communion is essentially finished and the main question still to be resolved is which way the Church of England will go. Will it, like Wales and Scotland, move towards TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada, or does it have an orthodox future?

Unlike John Richardson, I think the answer to that question is important for more than just England itself. The fact that the old Anglican Lambeth based Communion is clearly dying on its feet could more optimistically be seen as a necessary stage in the transition to a confessionally based Communion and the moral momentum of history means that what happens here in England can very significantly help or hinder that transformation.

It is highly unlikely that an orthodox future for Anglicans in England will be achieved without some boundary crossing by overseas Primates, at least as a short term measure. The need for alternative oversight is becoming more pressing as missionary congregations outside official structures continue to grow yet not infrequently find themselves aggressively opposed at parish and diocesan level, often by clergy and bishops who have succumbed to the prevailing cultural drift from orthodox Christian doctrine and morality.

While the most obvious and positive lesson of Little Rock is the great potential under God of the obedient action of a small number of people, there was also an early warning of the darker side of the Anglican Communion. Larry Maze accused St Andrew's and the Rwandans of politically motivated ecclesiastical trespass, as if the only issue was one of power. He seemed unable or unwilling to understand that the integrity of ecclesiastical boundaries ultimately depends on the maintenance of spiritual boundaries, of faithfulness to biblical doctrine and morality.

The real politicisation of ecclesiastical authority occurs when it is no longer subject to God's Word, but is pressed into the service of merely human authority. In such a Church, sooner or later those who uphold the apostolic faith will be presented with the same challenge to which the apostles replied 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29).

This institutional mindset had become deeply entrenched even amongst those considered orthodox. Bishop Rucyahana was shocked to find himself being told to 'quickly disentangle yourself' (2) from Little Rock by none other than the then Archbishop of Canterbury himself, George Carey, despite his reputation as an evangelical.

Although closely identified with the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 which reaffirmed biblical teaching on sexuality, the Archbishop maintained a pragmatic attitude towards doctrine when institutional unity was threatened, encouraging revisionists at Lambeth by commending further debate on homosexuality with reference to the commitment to 'listen to the experience of homosexual persons' phrase in the resolution.

More recently, Dr Carey has said "A more pragmatic approach would say at the moment it is clear [that] to ordain practicing homosexuals would divide the church greatly, so let's wait and see. In a way I take the pragmatic approach on this ... we simply have to wait and see how the Holy Spirit is going to lead the Church in this."

So when the point is reached at which principled unity in the truth is no longer sustainable, the reality of evangelical commitment is tested. It will separate those whose 'evangelicalism' is primarily sociological - about relationships and personal history - from those whose evangelicalism is primarily theological, a passion for truth, as it should properly be.

Of course, the great difference between the 1998 and 2009 is that the principle which Bishop John Rucyahana acted upon - that the Anglican Communion's integrity rests ultimately on its confession of biblical faith, not on institutional allegiances - has now been embodied in the GAFCON Jerusalem Statement and Declaration.

Dr Carey's successor is also a pragmatist, albeit in a more sophisticated form, and the lessons from Little Rock warn of the challenges ahead in England, but we also have the huge encouragement of seeing how much, by God's grace, can be achieved through the stand of a few.


---The Rev. Charles Raven is Senior Minister of Christ Church Wyre Forest which is an independent Anglican congregation but located within Worcester Diocese