Unity and Truth – An ecclesiological approach to the Church of England’s debate about human sexuality. Part I
Introduction The paper on the LLF process from the House of Bishops for this month's meeting of the General Synod (GS 2358) has been published under the title LLF: Moving Forward as One Church.[1] In this study, which I shall publish in four par…
The paper on the LLF process from the House of Bishops for this month's meeting of the General Synod (GS 2358) has been published under the title LLF: Moving Forward as One Church.[1]
In this study, which I shall publish in four parts because of its length, I shall not undertake a detailed analysis of the contents of the House of Bishop's document. This task has already been undertaken by Andrew Goddard in his excellent paper 'What is now being proposed for Living in Love and Faith?' which is available on the Psephizo website.[2]
What I shall do instead is review what is being proposed by the House of Bishops as the way forward for the Church of England in the light of what is said by Bishop Martyn Snow in the Preface to the bishops' document, namely, 'Unity matters – it really matters.'[3]
That the bishops as a whole agree with him is shown by the fact that these words are included in the Preface and by the fact that the title of the whole paper is LFF: Moving Forward as One Church. The word 'one' indicates that the bishops desire the Church of England to remain united as one church and are presenting their new proposals as a way to achieve this.
What I shall argue in this study is two things.
First, what the bishops are proposing as the way forward for the Church of England on the issue of human sexuality is not compatible with a proper theological understanding of what the unity of the Church requires.
Secondly, because this is the case, should the Church of England continue to move in the direction that the bishops are proposing conservative Christians in the Church of England will have no alternative, but to seek to establish an orthodox third province within the Church of England, precisely as a way to preserve as much unity as possible.
Part I: What do we mean by the Church?
The various meaning of the word 'church.'
In order to understand what sort of unity the Church requires it is first of all necessary to be clear what the term 'church' means.
Writing in the mid- nineteenth century, the Evangelical Anglican writer J C Ryle noted that the term 'Church' is one that:
'…. different people use …in different senses. The English politician in our days talks of 'The Church.' What does he mean? You will generally find he means the Episcopal Church established in his own country. - The Roman Catholic talks of 'the Church.' What does he mean? He means the Church of Rome and tells you that there is no other Church in the world except his own. – The Dissenter talks of 'the Church.' What does he mean? He means the communicants of that chapel of which he is a member. - The members of the Church of England talk of 'the Church.' What do they mean? One means the building in which he worships on a Sunday. Another means the clergy, -and when anyone is ordained, tells you that he has gone into the Church! A third has some vague notions about what he is pleased to call apostolical succession and hints mysteriously that the Church is made-up of Christians who are governed by Bishops, and of none beside.' [4]
The kind of linguistic confusion to which Ryle refers in this quotation persists to this day. However, it can begin to be alleviated if we are clear that although the word church is used today to refer to a building used for Christian worship and for the various Christian denominations that have emerged over the centuries since the day of Pentecost, neither of these senses is found in the New Testament. Rather, in the New Testament the term church refers to three overlapping sets of people, the Christians who meet together for worship (as in the church meeting in the house of Prisca and Aquila, Romans 16:5), the Christians in a particular geographical location (as in the 'church in Jerusalem,' Acts 8:1), and the whole body of Christians throughout the world (as in 1 Corinthians 12:28) which is the Church properly so called (what Christian linguistic convention has referred to as the Church with a capital C).
Put into Church of England terms this New Testament usage means that the term 'church' covers the various local Church of England congregations, the forty-two dioceses of the Church of England, the two Church of England provinces of Canterbury and York, and the Church of England as the single national body made up of these two provinces. All of these are different manifestations of the 'one Catholic and Apostolic Church' referred to in the Nicene Creed. Just as two slices of cheese cut from the same piece of Wensleydale are both pieces of cheese in spite of the difference in size between them, so likewise all these different manifestations of the Church of England are parts equally parts of the Church.
The mixed nature of the Church
A further point that that is also important to note is that the witness of the New Testament in passages such as Matthew 13: 24-30 and 36-43, Matthew 25:14-30 and Revelation 2:18-3:6 further tells us that whether we are talking about a particular worshipping community, or a group of Christians in a particular geographical area, or the Church throughout the world, we need to be aware that the group of people concerned will contain both those who are genuine Christian believers and those who are not.
The distinction between these two forms of the Church is not one that is generally talked about much today. However, it is a very important distinction if we are to think rightly about the nature of the Church because it forces us to think carefully about what the word 'Church' actually means.
The truth that the Church has these two forms was emphasised by Augustine in the fifth century in his book the City of God. In this book Augustine uses the term 'City of God' to refer to the body of true Christian believers, and he explains that among her current enemies are those who will in due course become her citizens and, conversely, that there are those who currently appear to be her members who will not be part of God's people in the world to come because in reality they do not belong to the City of God, but to what Augustine elsewhere calls the 'earthly city.'
Augustine writes as follows:
'She [the City of God] must bear in mind that among these very enemies are hidden her future citizens; and when confronted with them she must not think it a fruitless task to bear with their hostility until she finds them confessing the faith. In the same way, while the City of God is on pilgrimage in this world, she has in her midst some who are united with her in participation in the sacraments, but who will not join with her in the eternal destiny of the saints. Some of these are hidden; some are well known, for they do not hesitate to murmur against God, whose sacramentals sign they bear, even in the company of his acknowledged enemies. At one time they join his enemies in filling the theatres,[5] at another time they join with us in filling the churches.
But such as they are, we have less right to despair of the reformation of some of them, when some predestined friends, as yet unknown even to themselves, are concealed among our most open enemies. In truth, these those two cities are interwoven and intermixed in this era, and await separation at the last judgement.' [6]
What Augustine teaches us here is that the distinction between those who belong to God and will share life with him in eternity cuts across the distinction between the Christian Church as an observable religious community and the wider world. There are those in the Church who belong to God's people , those in the Church who do not belong to God's people, and those in the world who do not currently belong to God's people, but who one day will.
The Church visible and invisible
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Protestant theologians used the terms the 'visible church' and the 'invisible church' to distinguish between the mixed religious community consisting of both genuine and merely nominal Christians, and the community, whose precise membership cannot be perceived by us, and which consists of those who currently belong to God's people[7] or who will do so in the future.
Three examples will illustrate this point.
In his 1531 Exposition of the Christian Faith Ulrich Zwingli writes:
'I believe also that there is one holy Catholic, that is, universal Church, and that this is either visible or invisible. The invisible, as Paul teaches [Philippians 3;20] is that which comes down from heaven, that is, which recognizes and embraces God through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. To this Church belong all those that believe throughout the whole world. And it is called invisible not as if they that believe were invisible, but because it is not evident to human eyes who do believe. The faithful are known to God and themselves alone. And the visible Church is not the Roman pontiff and the rest of them that wear the tiara, but all throughout the whole world who have enrolled themselves under Christ [through baptism]. Among these are all who are called Christians, even though falsely, seeing that they have no faith within. There are, therefore, in the visible Church some who are not members of the elect and invisible Church. For some men eat and drink judgment unto themselves in the Supper, yet all the brethren know them not.'[8]
In the Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin likewise declares:
'… the Scriptures speak of the Church in two ways. Sometimes when they speak of the Church they mean the Church as it really is before God - the Church into which none are admitted but those who by the gift of adoption are sons of God, and by the sanctification of the Spirit true members of Christ. In this case it not only comprehends the saints who dwell on the earth, but all the elect who have existed from the beginning of the world. Often, too, by the name of Church is designated the whole body of mankind scattered throughout the world, who profess to worship one God and Christ, who by baptism are initiated into the faith; by partaking of the Lord's Supper profess unity in true doctrine and charity, agree in holding the word of the Lord, and observe the ministry which Christ has appointed for the preaching of it. In this Church there is a very large mixture of hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance: of ambitious avaricious, envious, evil-speaking men, some also of impure lives, who are tolerated for a time, either because their guilt cannot be legally established, or because due strictness of discipline is not always observed. Hence, as it is necessary to believe the invisible Church, which is manifest to the eye of God only, so we are also enjoined to regard this Church which is so called with reference to man, and to cultivate its communion.'[9]
Finally, Chapter XXV of the Westminster Confession of 1646 declares:
'I. The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all
II. The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law) consists of all those, throughout the world, that profess the true religion, and of their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.'[10]
In the same period, we also find Church of England of England theologians making the visible church/invisible church distinction. Three further examples illustrate this.
The first is what is said by Thomas Cranmer in his Thirteen Articles of 1538.
The Thirteen Articles were a set of doctrinal articles drawn up by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in connection with discussions that took place between representatives of the German Lutheran Princes and representatives of the Church of England to see if it would be possible to achieve doctrinal agreement between the Lutherans of the Augsburg Confession and the Church of England.
Article 5 of these articles is on 'The Church.' In this article Cranmer writes:
'In the Scriptures the word 'Church' has two main meanings apart from others; one of which means the congregation of all the saints and true believers, who really believe in Christ the Head and are sanctified by his Spirit. This is the living and truly holy mystical body of Christ, but known only to God, who alone knows the hearts of men. The second meaning is that of the congregation of all who are baptized in Christ, who have not openly denied him or been justly and by his word excommunicated. This meaning of 'Church' fits its position in this life in that in it the good are mixed with evil. It must be recognized in order to be heard, as it is written 'Whoever does not listen to the Church', etc. it is discerned by the preaching of the Gospel and the fellowship of the sacraments. This is the Catholic and Apostolic Church which is not limited to the see of Rome or of any other church, but includes all the churches of Christendom, which together make up the one Catholic (Church).' [11]
Cranmer does not use the term visible' and 'invisible church' here,[12] but the distinction that he makes in this quotation is in fact between these two forms of the Church.
The second example is the words of Alexander Nowell in his Larger Catechism of 1571, a work which was authorised for educational use by the Church of England.
Nowell distinguishes between the invisible and visible Church as follows. The invisible church, which is the Church principally referred to in the Creed, is:
'…. the congregation of those whom God by his secret election hath adopted to himself through Christ : which church can neither be seen with eyes, nor can continually be known by signs.' [13]
By contrast, the visible church:
'… is nothing else but a certain multitude of men, which in what place soever they be, do profess the doctrine of Christ, pure and sincere, even the same which the evangelists and apostles have, in the everlasting monuments of holy scriptures, faithfully disclosed to memory, and which do truly call upon God the Father in the name of Christ, and more- over do use his mysteries, commonly called sacraments, with the same pureness and simplicity which the apostles of Christ used and have put in writing.'[14]
The third example is Richard Hooker's statements about the invisible and visible Church in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker begins Book III of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, which was published in 1594, by considering the nature of the Church, and he starts by describing the invisible Church, which he describes as the Church 'mystical':
'That Church of Christ, which we properly term his body mystical can be but one; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, in as much as the parts there of our so in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not discern under this property, whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend, that such a real body there is, a body collective, because it containeth a huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense. Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth toward his Church, the only proper subject thereof is this Church. Concerning this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised, 'I give then eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hands'[John 10:28]. They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others, as are not object unto our sense; only unto God, who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations, unto him they are clear and manifest. All men knew Nathanael to be an Israelite. But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further testimony than men could have done with such certainty as he did: 'Behold indeed an Israelite in whom is no guile' [John 1:47]. If we profess as Peter did [John 21:15], that we love the Lord, and profess it in the hearing of men, charity is prone to believe all things, and therefore charitable men are likely to think we do so, as long as they see no proof to the contrary. But that our love is sound and sincere, that it cometh from 'a pure heart and a good conscience and love unfeigned' [1 Timothy 1:5], who can pronounce, saving only the Searcher of all men's hearts, who alone intuitively know who in this kind are his?'[15]
Hooker then moves on to describe the visible Church, concerning which he writes:
'And as those everlasting promises of love, mercy, and blessedness belong to the mystical Church ; even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto, the Church whom this doth concern is a sensibly known company. And this visible Church in like sort is but one, continued from the first beginning of the world to the last end. Which company being divided into two moieties, the one before, the other since the coming of Christ ; that part, which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion, we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian that be they Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, they are all incorporated into one company, they all make but one body [Ephesians 2:16, 3:6]. The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have, by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves, that one Faith which they all acknowledge, that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated [Ephesians 4:5].' [16]
The presence of the visible and invisible Church in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer.
It is sometimes suggested that the distinction between the visible and invisible Church is not one that is found in the Thirty-Nine Article, the Book of Common Prayer, or the 1662 Ordinal. However, this suggestion is mistaken.
In his book On the Thirty Nine Articles Oliver O' Donovan laments what he describes as: 'The disappearance of the invisible church' from the Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles.[17] He notes that Article XIX of the Articles: 'begins, 'the visible church of Christ…' but never goes on to say anything about the invisible church,'[18] and he contrasts this lacuna in the Articles:
'…with the Westminster Confession, representing the Augustinian mainstream of Protestant thought. Chapter 25 of the Confession begins with a statement about 'the catholic or universal Church, which is invisible,' and then continues in § 2 with a further statement about 'the visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel.' [19]
At first glance, the contrast which O'Donovan draws between the presence of the invisible church in the Westminster confession and its absence in the Thirty-Nine Articles seems convincing. However, the issue is not as simple as he suggests.
First, the very fact that Article XIX refers to 'the visible church of Christ' rather than simply to 'the church of Christ' implies the existence of an invisible church of Christ. Otherwise, why add the qualifying adjective?
Secondly, O'Donovan fails to note the significance of what is said in Article XVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles.
This article begins with the words:
'Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.'
The existence of the group of people described in these words, the elect 'chosen in Christ out of mankind' is what the Westminster Confession is talking about when it refers to the invisible church. We know this because as we have seen, Chapter XXV of the Confession declares that the invisible church 'consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof.' What this means is that, just like the Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles do describe the invisible church, but they do so in a separate Article from that referring to the visible church, and they describe it without using the actual term 'invisible church.'
In similar fashion, the Book of Common Prayer describes the invisible church without using the term
It does this in in the collect for All Saints' Day which refers to the fact that God 'hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord.'
It likewise does this in the Communion Service in which the third prayer following the reception of communion begins with the words:
'Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son.'
The need to take both forms of the Church seriously
When thinking about the Church we need to take both forms of the Church equally seriously.
We need to understand that merely belonging to the visible Church is no guarantee that we are rightly related to God and therefore belong to the Church invisible. This is only the case if we truly believe in Christ and take seriously both the grace given to us at our baptism and the promises made at our baptism, thanking God for adopting us as his children in Christ, acknowledging and repenting of our sins, and seeking God's help to live more fully in obedience to him in the future in the power given to us by the Holy Spirit and received sacramentally at Holy Communion.
However, we also need to understand the importance of the visible Church in enabling both we ourselves and others likewise to become and remain members of the Church invisible. The reason for its importance is explained by Chapter XXV of the Westminster Confession when it declares that:
'Unto this Catholic visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world; and doth by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.' [20]
The point being made in this quotation is that means by which people are gathered into, and perfected as members of, the invisible Church during their life on earth is through the 'oracles and ordinances of God' what Article XIX of the Thirty-Nine Articles calls the 'pure Word of God' being preached and the 'Sacraments' being 'duly ministered.' It is as the pure Word of God in the Scriptures is preached and Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are duly ministered, that we learn who God is, what he has done for us, and how should live in return, and receive the spiritual strength we need to live in this way. Furthermore, for the Word to be preached and the Sacraments administered there need to be ministers raised up by God to do both. The visible Church matters because it where all these things happen. It is the community by means of which the saving work of God in Christ becomes efficacious in this world.
Tomorrow - Part II: The unity of the Church
[1] The House of Bishops, GS 2358, LLF: Moving Forward as one Church:
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