Article (Anglican Mainstream): A Covenant for a Confused Church

[The Bishop of Durham] NTW wants to downplay the difficulties of the present situation, and claims it was worse a generation ago. But his argument is from the position of hegemony – this gives special status to a way of talking about a problem. Every challenge to the way the problem is discussed is considered to be merely political, not theological. NTW tends to dismiss the many views he has in common with the CCE, and regards the CCE challenge as basically insubordination. He applies far more criticism to the evangelicals he agrees with than the incoherent liberals with whom we both disagree. But the incoherent liberals are his colleagues in the house of bishops. This is the culture of the prefects’ room at an English public school. The prefects may hate each others guts, but they collectively hate the guts of the pesky lower fifth more.

In some ways Evangelicals have never been as strong on the ground in the C of E as now, with over 34% in churches self-identifying as evangelical. But strength on the ground is not matched by strength in visible and vocal leadership. In the Civil Partnership Guidelines from the House of Bishops, evangelical bishops did not speak up for orthodox causes.

There is a serious inbuilt imbalance of power and representation. We need procedures that address the imbalance of power between a bishop who uses his office to try out interesting innovations, and congregations who find themselves embarrassed, their consciences seared, their mission hindered and their members dispersed by Episcopal indiscipline. Read more