ENGLAND: ST ALBAN'S APPOINTMENT UNDERMINES THE CHURCH

July 1, 2004

The installation of Dr Jeffrey John as Dean of St Albans marks a significant and regrettable step for the Church of England. It demonstrates that there are many who will not abide by the teaching of Scripture and will not stop until they have changed the teaching of the Church on sexual ethics.

All the evidence is that the liberalisation of the Church is destroying it. A liberal church, having abandoned the standards and message given by God in Scripture, has nothing to say to the world and no power to transform lives. Decline has been and will be the inevitable result.

Church Society and others have consistently argued that it is unacceptable for someone who teaches the acceptability of same sex sexual practice to be a minister in the Church of England.

The teaching of Holy Scripture is plain on this issue that sexual intercourse belongs solely within heterosexual marriage. This teaching has been consistently upheld by the Christian Church throughout history, it was reiterated by the General Synod in 1987 and by the Lambeth Bishops in 1998. The failure of many leaders to uphold this position today is undermining the credibility and mission of the Church of England.

This appointment flies in the face of the teaching of the Church.

The teaching of the Church of England is that homosexual practice falls short of God's standards and should be met with a call to repentance (General Synod resolution of 1987). To appoint to a prominent position someone who, whilst claiming to be celibate, is apparently unrepentant for past behaviour and actually teaches the acceptability of such behaviour, destroys the Christian teaching on repentance. The Bishop of St. Albans and the Archbishop of Canterbury by agreeing to this appointment are themselves contravening the specific decisions of the Church in their desire to pursue their own agenda.

Church Society exists to uphold biblical teaching and to promote and defend the character of the Church of England as a reformed and national Church.

END