Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Evangelicals and History: Anglicans

One of the finest articles on the streets about John Stott's capitulation...which is akin to Jim Packer's as well, although the latter is not named in the article. It is written by Dr. Samuel's, one of the sharpest minds on Anglican Evangelical history. Dr. Samuel is spot-on re: Keele 67' and subsequent conferences, NEAC 1 and NEAC 11. Dr. Samuel deals with Keele 67' although NEAC 1 & 2 were as disastrous. Stott and Packer have not been Anglican's best statesmen, although they are widely published and many evangelicals think them the finest. They are "technicians" in the engine room, not "Commanders" on the bridge--especially Packer.

We intend to run down, or, pursue, Jim's writings--all of them--as well as his bio by McGrath.

(Packer calls "justification by faith alone" the "small print," an inessential, on salvation when defending ECT 1 and 11 and then--laughably--writes a book on the 39 Articles, the necessary guideposts of Anglicanism. Without discerning the Herculean charlie horse between his ears. Spare us, Jim.)

We do not believe that Stott or Packer have favourably appreciated the contributions and wisdom of Evangelical Anglicans from 1900-1950. The Rev. Dr. Philip Edcumbe Hughes, however, did.

www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_106_3_Samuel.pdf

Evangelicals and History
Churchman 106/3 1992
David Samuel

In recent years, something has happened to cut off evangelicals, particularly in the Church of England, from their historical roots. This has done enormous harm to the cause of evangelicalism, and made it particularly weak and vulnerable in the face of some modern movements and deviations, such as, liberalism, ecumenism and the charismatic movement.

The renunciation of our history took place at Keele in 1967 and the significance of it has been brought home to me afresh by my recent reading of the biography of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones published in 1990.In writing of the Keele congress John Stott stated:

"Keele expressed the formal public, penitent, renunciation by evangelical Anglicans of that pietism which for too long had marred our life and our testimony. And by pietism, I mean an exaggerated religious individualism, a withdrawal from both the church on the one hand and the world on the other, into a personal godliness and a tight-closed ecclesiastical ‘in’ group, a retirement into a self-made security with God and with one another, a contracting out of our responsibility both to the visible church and to the world…Pietism is an immature protective attitude of those who have not yet attained their majority. I don’t think therefore it is an exaggeration to say that the Keele Congress marked the coming of age of the current generation of evangelicals. Keele was the conscious emergence of evangelical Anglicans into maturity in the wider life of the church and the world. Keele marked for many of us our conversion from the negative and the defensive…The opposite of pietism is involvement. We must say, therefore, that pietism is not the hallmark of true evangelicalism but rather a denial of it. Historically evangelicals have often been pietists but when they have been pietists they have not been true to their nature and calling.1 "

There are two things to be said about this statement. The first is that I believe it to be a misreading of earlier Evangelicalism. It was not cut-off from the life of the Church of England in the way described. Evangelicals were involved in its structures, and involved deeply. I am reminded of a leading Evangelical who said to me, that he was unable to attend the Keele Congress because that week he had to attend a meeting of the standing committee of the Church Assembly. Others could have testified to similar commitments. The supposed isolation was largely imaginary.

Secondly, this is a classical case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. By the renunciation of the so-called pietism of the past evangelicals were, in fact, writing off evangelical history as well. To describe all evangelicalism prior to
Keele as pietist was both unjust and untrue. Such a rash judgment was bound to set up an alienation of contemporary evangelicals from their heritage and a separation from their history, which was to have the most serious and damaging results.

Martin Lloyd-Jones had himself used occasionally the word ‘pietism’ to describe a certain type of evangelicalism of the quietistic type, associated with Keswick, but he regarded the application of the word in a pejorative sense to all earlier Anglican evangelicals as a confusion of the issue now in controversy.2

If we think about it, it is a total and utter confusion to write off Ryle and Griffith Thomas, the activities of the Church Association and the National Church League, and the formation of the Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society, and so forth as ‘pietistic’. The men who championed classical evangelicalism inhabited no ‘ghettos’. They were in the main stream of the Church’s life. But what stuck in the throats of the New Evangelicals, which made them want to dissociate themselves from that kind of evangelicalism, and to begin again de novo, was that it championed an understanding of the Church of England which they considered was no longer acceptable or tenable. The arguments of the older evangelical constitutionalists
was that the Church of England was limited by her own standards to a Biblical and Protestant religion. John Stott had himself formerly taken that position and had appealed to it as late as October 1966, when he had spoken at the Westminster Central Hall meeting of the Evangelical Alliance. But the old position of such men as Bishop Ryle and, indeed, allthinking men that would not allow commitment to ecumenical fellowship, was now considered ‘pietism’. That was how the harm was done.

By arbitrarily drawing a line, and denominating all evangelicalism prior to Keele, and which adhered to a classical position ‘pietism’, a watershed was created of pre- and post-Keele evangelicalism, which effectively cut evangelicals off from their history.

Consequences

This had two consequences which were foreseen and intended by the architects of Keele.

1. To give evangelicalism a clean slate to begin all over again. There was a great deal of that kind of thinking and jargon about at that time in the 1960s. There was an essay in Soundings,a symposium edited by Alec Vidler, published in 1962 which had the pretentious title ‘Beginning all over again’. The phrase ‘coming of age’ was popularized by the publication around that time of the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and people generally were thinking that they had a mandate for breaking the mould and starting afresh, both socially and theologically. Some of that naive optimism seemed to be present at Keele. One of the consequences of such a serious break with past evangelicalism was to create a problem of evangelical identity, with which we have wrestled throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and which is still with us today. It is a question which has not, and indeed cannot, be resolved, as long as there is an unwillingness to recognize evangelical history for what it is. The
significance of Keele was to cut evangelical moorings and cast evangelicalism afloat on a sea of modernity without any shore in sight. Ever since then the shipmen have been taking soundings and surmizing that they might be drawing near to land, but none has yet set foot upon it. The result is that contemporary evangelicalism has presented a picture of flux and uncertainty, unable to define itself over against other traditions.

2. The second consequence of Keele has been to leave evangelicalism in the Church of
England exposed and at the mercy of fashionable movements and theologies which have little Scriptural warrant about them. Historical waymarks are of great assistance in determining the right road to follow, but these were swept away by those who were intolerant of history. We have no need of them, was the cry; we have no need of the Thirty-nine Articles, we have the Bible and that is enough. But Bishop Ryle in his wisdom thought differently and warned many years ago of the danger of taking such a position. In his paper ‘The Importance of Dogma’ he wrote:

"It is not enough to say, ‘We believe the Bible’. We must distinctly understand what the leading facts and doctrines of the Bible are; and this is exactly the point where Creeds and Confessions are useful. Those who care to study this subject will find it admirably handled in a Scotch book, entitled ‘Dunlop’s uses of Creeds and confessions of faith’. Burke’s speech in the House of Commons, on Archdeacon Blackburn’s petition, is also well worth reading. He truly says, Subscription to Scripture alone is the most astonishing idea I ever heard, and will amount to no
subscription at all."3

It seems to me that Bishop Ryle was clearly right and that, paradoxically, the appeal to the Bible apart from the Confessions really represents a flight from the teaching of the Bible.

That was so in the case of Archdeacon Blackburn’s petition, which was opposed by Burke in the House of Commons. That petition was presented on behalf of the Arian clergy who objected to the orthodox Trinitarian doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles. They did not want to be bound by such teaching and so they wished to replace subscription to the Articles with subscription simply to the Bible. In this way they thought they would be free to follow their own beliefs. That was true of the Arian clergy of the eighteenth century, but why should evangelicals adopt a similar plea in the twentieth century? It seems to me that if you say you
believe the Bible, sooner or later you must state what you believe the Bible teaches on God, man, sin, salvation and so forth. If you do that you will surely come up with something very much like the Thirty-nine Articles and the other Protestant Confessions of Faith. Why then should anyone seek to divide the confessions from Scripture unless in fact they are seeking to escape from the doctrines of Scripture, which are those of historical evangelicalism? By thus sweeping away those historical waymarks of evangelicalism the right path for contemporary evangelicals has been obliterated and the movement has been made vulnerable to the incursion of teaching from sects and heresies. I shall return to this matter later and mention more specifically what those dangers are, but I wish now to give my reasons for believing
that as evangelicals we must take history seriously.


For the rest, see:
www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_106_3_Samuel.pdf

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