To be frank, not a lot this week is motivating me to blog Anglicanly (though see further below). Next week might be better, I think the ACC meeting in Belfast starts later this week. But my ranging eye never ceases to keep an eye on "ecclesial things", and among other things I notice, is continuing attempts to find or make the "true church".
If we head over to the Southern Baptist world, for one example, we can see a recent definitive decision to exclude women from church leadership. The true church has no place for women in leadership.
Much more locally, a few days ago there was further news of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, an order out of communion with Rome, with branches in Scotland and here in Canterbury, New Zealand: their lead priest here, Fr Michael Mary, is to be ordained a bishop - an "illicit bishop" according to The Press. Interestingly that bishop, Pierre Roy started life as an SSPX priest - SSPX has also been in the news recently, threatening to proceed with ordinations of bishops not approved by Rome - but fell out with SSPX due to his view that SSPX was compromised because it wished to find a way to stay in Communion with Rome. The gist of the story here is that the Roman Catholic church has not been the true church of God since the time of John XXIII.
Of course, looking ahead to ACC in Belfast, and its discussion of the so called Nairobi Cairo Proposals, we might consider a few moments spent reading three closing opinions published at The Living Church, answering the question, "Should the ACC endorse the Nairobi Cairo Proposals?": by Paul Avis, Glenn Davies and Graham Tomlin/Sarah Rowland Jones/Andrew Khoo. None are proposing the true church is the Anglican Communion in any of the particular forms it presently thinks it is or imminently might become, but each are acknowledging that there are motivations within the Communion that robustly propose where the true church might lie and consequently who among the Anglicans of this globe are falsely claiming to be church.
Oh, well!
For what it is worth, I continue to think, as I survey the scattered and fragmented landscape of global Christianity in 2026, that the true church is the church of Jesus Christ, by which I mean, the people who keep coming to Jesus, to his teaching, and ask of themselves, am I living the way of Christ, the way of the Beatitudes, the way of the cross, the way of service and of love for neighbour and for one another as a concrete expression of love for God.
That church is everywhere and has no single name on its letterheads.
Here's a local Anglican "true church" view I find very difficult to understand:
ReplyDeleteThe Bishop of Nelson, no less, Steve Maina, stating that "The Bible alone is the sole authority for all matters of faith and conduct."
https://www.nelsonanglican.nz/korero/why-am-i-an-anglican
I don't understand how that is an Anglican understanding. Please help. I can understand that being a Gafcon understanding.
The sixth "article of religion" states that scripture contains "all things necessary for salvation." Within the 'three legged stool' of scripture, tradition, and reason, scripture has often been regarded as supreme.
But all of these are a long way from the view that the Bible alone (sola scriptura) is the sole source of authority. Is not Anglicanism a rejection of that Puritan view?
Another take on this theme: More recently, as I work with my deep disappointment, at times, with all forms of religion and religious community (Quakers and Anglicans being the ones I am most involved with), I have wondered if religion failing - failing to be the true church, as it were - is part of the reality of religion, of being religious. Speaking personally, I know I have such a longing for connection with God, with transcendence...how can any human form adequately meet this? No church is ever enough and that "lack", that "wound", is why we seek God in a way, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSt Augustine and the restless heart.
This Sunday, at Morning Prayer, we read from Psalm 69:
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.
Hi Mark
ReplyDeleteIn the end, +Steve would need to offer his understanding of the authority of Scripture in the life of the Anglican church.
I myself, in times past, as an Anglican evangelical and evangelical Anglican, have signed statements of belief re involvement in Christian organisations, which more or less say the same thing. I might or might not be so willing to sign up these days - it might depend on whether emphasis was being placed on this or that word. But what I am happy to say is that the Bible is supreme as authority in the life of the Anglican church because we do not permit reason alone to be the highest authority, nor tradition, nor the decisions of Synod - all such contributors to decision-making are bound to be coherent with Scripture (at a minimum) and (at a maximum) to be supported by Scripture. Nevertheless, the invocation of Scripture as authority always carries with it the challenge of what we mean by "Scripture" - the words themselves taken in some "plain" sense? The words subject to interpretation (which, in turn, is influenced by reason, experience, tradition (albeit, "tradition" is often "the way in which Scripture has been understood through the centuries)? We all invoke the authority of Scripture when we want people to love one another ... and nearly all invoke the authority of Scripture-with-interpretation when explaining that (say) Genesis 1 and 2 are not literal accounts of the origins of life/the universe; or that Revelation is not a simple account of the future of the world. ... etc ... longer discussions required :).
Yes Mark, it's an ongoing struggle wrestling with religious community! This is probably unsurprising given the huge changes that've taken place over my life-time.
ReplyDeleteI've just re-read an article from Feb this year, re-found in my Bookmarks, and then saw your comments. It's about the church in America and overviews those huge changes I'm referring to.
You might like to have a look. It's mostly built around the perspective of Ryan Burge but also includes some points from Brian Kaylor. I've selected one paragraph, will add the link.
As Burge writes, today “there are huge geographic swaths of America where the only place a Protestant can worship on a Sunday morning is an evangelical church that takes a literalist view of the Bible and believes that women have no role in spiritual leadership.” America’s religious marketplace has largely been reduced, he continues, to a form of faith that is “objectionable, if not downright repulsive, to a significant number of Americans.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/205121/american-religious-polarization-missing-middle
That’s a very disturbing article, Elizabeth! So sad too. I wonder if it’s happening here?
DeleteI wonder if a search for the true church is a matter of the head and a desire for transcendence is a matter of the heart? Religion is what we come up with in an attempt to capture something of who or what God is. But the psalms bear witness to an experience of the presence or absence of God, which is essentially a heart’s desire. No wonder we struggle!
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter, but I'm not sure why you can't be more unequivocal that *prima scriptura* ("scripture first"), not *sola scriptura*, is the historic Anglican view - that that there is nothing *via media* about sola scriptura, and that Anglican theology is marked by, in Michael Ramsey's words, "a strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning"?
ReplyDeleteI just don't get it. Did this balance/clarity become confused in the 18/19th century evangelical revival, or more recently?
Surely *prima scriptura* allows you more than enough ground to have a very decent evangelicalism.
But of course "scripture" is not without church tradition, personal experience, or reason, but partly constituted by it (creation of canons, hermeneutics) in a real way. So "sola" anything just doesn't work, isn't human/real world.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or "gotcha", I just don't get it in terms of being Anglican. How can a bishop of the Anglican Church (not you!) be so un-Anglican about this?
This question is also rather central to current global discussions about what constitutes the True Anglican Church.
I think that is so, Moya, but wonder if we might also say, alongside that, that the search for the true church may reflect a state of mind, a psychology if you like, in which some need within ourselves is met by knowing we are part of the true church (whatever "true church" may mean for us).
ReplyDeleteHi Mark
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it would be fair to say that I am "prima scriptura" rather than "sola scriptura."
But whether another Anglican (bishop or not) subscribes to a "sola scriptura" view might be best for that person to make further elucidation on, than I make a judgment call ... in important part that is because sometimes (in my reading various comments here and there) "sola scriptura" will be applied to a Protestant dismissively (e.g. by a Roman Catholic commenter) and then the Protestant comes back to deny that what the dismisser means by "sola scriptura" is what the Protestant means by it ... hence my caution/openness to hearing further.
I wonder if I/we are best to understand sola scriptura historically, rhetorically even, as a correction to certain tendencies within the history of the church - when church power, law, and theologizing are perceived to be covering over the Gospel message, rather than an eternal abstract principle for how to do theology/foundation for "the true church."
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, that's a fascinating and disturbing article from Burge. I know someone currently living in Texas who feels these church dynamics keenly right now. It seems to me that polarization is less present in NZ Christian life, but American theology is very influential here I guess. In the Anglican church in NZ, as I've expressed to Peter before, many of us have been concerned with the decline of liberal clergy and churches, and perhaps the decline in support for them from our dioceses and major theological training pathways too. For example, I know a woman academic theologian who despairs in getting her theology students at Otago to use humankind instead of mankind, and God instead of He and Him.
ReplyDeleteMoya, I agree, but our head can get very involved in our longing for God atvtimes - in ways both helpful and deadening - and our hearts do long for, well, perhaps not a "true church" - to be identified with a "true church" is more of a narcissistic fantasy and need - but a church that perfectly meets our various longings - for sure.
I am enjoying playing with the idea that - within reason - a church needs to fail, or we need to experience a certain disillusionment with the perfect or most true church, in order for us (read, me) to have a more grounded, mature, real-world faith, and for our longing to not be entirely soaked up in obsessively creating/worshiping the ideal church, or bemoaning it (me), in order for there to be a sort of holy excess of longing that alone can be satisfied by God. The church must "optimally" fail us.
A variation on "true church": "rotten religion". A gem I've just found from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, they had their annual meeting the week after SBC's meeting. This is from Black preacher Rev. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia:
ReplyDelete“One of the very first signs of rotten religion is that it quotes a whole lot of Scripture, but very little of it is in red. It knows law, but it can’t quote grace. It’s heavy in Moses and in Paul, but it is light in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is good in the laws of who’s going to hell, but it does not embrace the teachings of grace that encourage us all to live right in the eyes of God. It is heavy in Scripture that’s light on Jesus,” he argued. “This is one sign of rotten religion in America: when Scripture has been weaponized to hurt and not to help, to deport and not to deliver, as a bullet and not a balm. There is something wrong when you only use Scripture to justify who you hate.”
As reported by Brian Kaylor (23-June)
https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/cooperative-baptists-challenge-christian
I do really like Peter's definition:
ReplyDelete"...the true church is the church of Jesus Christ, by which I mean, the people who keep coming to Jesus, to his teaching, and ask of themselves, am I living the way of Christ, the way of the Beatitudes, the way of the cross, the way of service and of love for neighbour and for one another as a concrete expression of love for God."
I'd like to add - the way of a Spirit-centred life, a life full of the Spirit.
I wonder if Peter's "definition" is also a description of the *good* church.
Plato famously spoke of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful as core attributes of divinity, and this wisdom was taken into Catholic Christianity by Thomas Aquinas.
Do those of us in the Western and especially Protestant tradition focus too much on 'the true" part of this?
"The true church is hard to find"... [my addition] when rotten religion gets into the driving seat of government.
ReplyDeleteHow could I resist reading this article? - it bears my name! It also reveals another aspect of church decline in America - how the Church is being diminished and sorely beset by the actions of this current Administration.
A story both beautiful and sad from a TEC church in New Jersey:
"With the Supreme Court set to rule on whether Haitians will lose Temporary Protected Status, fear is emptying church pews. At St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the Haitian immigrants who brought life to the congregation are gone."
https://religionnews.com/2026/06/22/the-biggest-blow-to-my-ministry-a-pastor-watches-as-fearful-haitian-immigrants-flee-church/
It occurs to me that it’s only the church hierarchy who are concerned to be (or not be) the ‘true church’. When I look back at churches in my life, Baptist, Anglican, United, Pentecostal, Baptist, and then settled in Anglican, it was mostly owing to who I was with and where I was living. People move churches to provide for children, or because it is the nearest, or a friend recommended it or all sorts of reasons, other than ‘true church’. Certainly some people go because the church teaches what they believe is important. But if a church community is following Jesus as Lord in the way +Peter described, and is enlivened by the Spirit, all else can be held lightly, I think.
ReplyDeletePS there is a Chinese church in Christchurch that is called ‘True Jesus Church’. I wonder what similar difficulties the Chinese church has had that led to such a self-definition? The search for the true church is obviously worldwide!
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of your wisdom here, Moya. I used to say I came back into church life and into an "Anglican" church (St Luke's in the City) because it was the best Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church on the block. In a way, that's quite an Anglican (or maybe Anglo-Catholic) answer - the Anglican Church not as a new Protestant denomination, but as the ongoing Catholic Church in its local (English) form.
ReplyDeleteArchbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher once remarked: “The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning.”
Many pragmatic and local reasons are involved in our church-going choices, especially as a parent. When I became attracted to Quakerism I can't even say I chose that because it was something quite spontaneous and unexpected emerging from within. In other words, it came from the Spirit.
Isn't it a peculiar thing to say "I am a Quaker, or Anglican, or Baptist" - as if our soul and the Jesus movement can be neatly packaged into a little box?
Instead of being "the true church", maybe it's better to think of all churches as *experiments in Christianity*.
Church is a process, a river - we might also look to a time when we dissolve back into a great stream, or the ocean. Maybe churches, including odd tiny ones, such as the Society of Friends, and giant mega-tankers, such as the Roman Catholic Church, are all just little boats bobbing on the great stream of Catholic Christianity.
I think there's a lot to be said for the Anglican Church as an experiment in Christianity. I find it a meaningful form, a grace, alongside Quaker spirituality. It has allowed me to keep practicing my Catholic faith (when my wife and kids and queers friends and women priest friends would otherwise be severely limited from participating in the Roman church). It has supported me, challenged me, to become more conscious and appreciative of Catholic and worship forms (often because they are under threat parts of the Anglican Church that as more muscularly evangelical, such as NZ), and to be appreciative of the freedom to wisely update and evolve these.
It has also challenged me, in a good way, with the sheer amount of scripture that is part of the beliefs and poetry of Anglican liturgy and devotion. I don't think I ever asked for this, but it is a good challenge for me.
Perhaps we don't always get the 'true church' that we asked for, but the one that we, in some sense, need.