Mission as Theological Education in Africa: 2. The Healthy Church, Growth, and Ministerial Training

Introduction

The changing demographic of the Church in Western countries is a microcosm of the changing demographic of the global Church itself.  Mainline denominations in the West have been in serious decline in the West since the 1960s, but that does not mean that the Church is in decline in the West.  As David Goodhew and others point out, churches are multiplying and growing most everywhere.  Generally speaking, much of the decline, where it is happening, is due to a lack of health. The question to ask is, 'What makes for a healthy church, whether in the West or Africa, and what ministerial training will contribute to it?'

Church Growth and Decline in Britain

What is happening in, say, Britain is not simply a story of secularization and Church decline but rather a changing of the guard for the Church.  The mainline denominations are declining (with Baptists the exception): it was announced this year that attendance at worship in the Church of England has fallen to below 1 million—to 760,000, which is less than 2% of the population of England.[1]  The Diocese of Rochester has recently been declared insolvent.[2]  The castle is clearly crumbling.  While such statistics enflame the arthritic pains of oldline denominations, new churches (i.e., fellowships and denominations started within the past 100 years) are growing in certain areas.  

The real story, David Goodhew argues, is that one has to stop focusing on a narrative of secularization in the West and start focusing on what sorts of churches are growing and show health.  In my view, both seem to be true: ‘secularization’ seems, in fact, far too mild a term for what is taking place in the West, but surely Goodhew is correct to argue that there is an alternative story of healthy churches and growth in the West.  Where oldline churches became increasingly part of the establishment, they became perpetrators of the culture.  Then, when the culture became post-Christian in its morality and convictions, so did the oldline churches: they were agents of culture rather than Christian faith.  The new churches, on the other hand, are becoming the real ‘Church of England’ even as the Church of England is increasingly becoming a division of English Heritage[3]--a relic of English culture.  These ‘new churches’ share features in common with the growing Church in Africa; indeed, some of the growth in England is directly attributable to ‘African’ (often by way of the Caribbean Islands) immigration.

A forthcoming book edited by David Goodhew will explore trends of growth and decline in Anglicanism overall—a denomination of some 80 million in the world: Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion, 1980 to the Present (Routledge).  This follows an earlier publication edited by Goodhew on Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present.[4]  The major thesis of the latter work is that one should not associate the decline of mainline denominations in the West with the decline of Christianity in the West.  There are even some areas of growth within the Church of England despite how church attendance overall is in rapid free fall.  In particular, the diocese of London grew over 70% since 1990.[5]  Outside the Church of England, black majority churches and new churches are growing.  Some 2 950 new churches were started between 1989 and 2005.  Several denominations have been growing, such as the Baptists—although growth has slowed since 2002.  Goodhew’s conclusion is that the real shift in church attendance has to do with a shift from obligation or duty to choice, a distinction that also separates classes: the elite once associated with the Church of England as part of their duty as Englishmen, whereas the commoner more likely associates with a church by choice.

The story of church growth in England tells the story of church growth in the 2/3rds world: healthy, growing churches share common features wherever they are to be found.  Health is not the only feature leading to Church growth, as the Prosperity Gospel churches and Mormonism, for example, quickly demonstrate.  Church growth can also be attributed to immigration (hence the growth in black churches) and population growth in London and areas of economic growth (the more people, the more churches).  One should not forget that every country in Europe has a negative population growth for its natural citizens when examining Church statistics: immigration accounts for various factors of growth in such contexts.  More to our point, however, the Church is growing where the Church has life.  Where it is dying in structures and attendance is where it is already dead in spirituality, ministry, and mission.

Some Factors of Health for Growing Churches

In ‘A History of Fresh Expressions and Church Planting in the Church of England,’ George Lings makes some very helpful observations about how this old, traditional denomination has found possible renewal and growth. He identifies six developments prior to 1980 that contributed to this:[6]

1.       The Ecumenical Movement—a sense that we belong to something bigger

2.       The small group movement, rising from the base communities of the 50s in S. America, expanding into cell groups—communal learning/discipleship, lived outside the control of the clergy

3.       The Lay Leadership movement—lay leaders planted churches

4.       The Charismatic movement, 1964 onwards, and the recovery of ‘body ministry’

5.       Liturgical revision in the 60s, moving us beyond individualism

6.       The Church Growth movement, coming from the US through the Bible Society and being Anglicized by Eddie Gibbs

Lings identifies two insights from David Wasdell in 1974/5 that contributed to an understanding of church planting and fresh expressions of the church.[7]  First, a minister can only minister adequately to, at most, 180 persons.  Therefore, development of lay leadership for smaller units within a parish is necessary.  Second, multiplication (the ‘missional church’) rather than addition (the ‘church growth’ paradigm) is the healthy way to pursue church growth.  Lings identifies five marks of a missional churches: they are Trinitarian, relational, incarnational, disciplemaking, and transformational.

The Church in Africa (Broadly Speaking)

Church decline in the West is not as much a feature of growing secularism as we might think.  Churches can and do grow in very secularized countries such as England.  What better explains church growth or decline is the health of the church, characterized by, if we might so summarize points brought out by George Lings: a Kingdom versus institutional perspective, life on life discipleship, development of lay ministers, Spirit-filled churches and gift-exercising laity, a communal rather than individualistic focus in worship, and an emphasis not on maintaining and growing large churches but on mission and multiplication (planting more churches).

The Church in Africa has certain cultural or contextual advantages.  It is not part of a national identity but still stands over against tribal religions: it has a healthy distinction from culture rather than being a feature of culture.[8]  Poorer communities are naturally more relational and holistic.  The culture is far more communal.  The Church has not been beaten down by a materialistic, Enlightenment history; Africa is very aware of spiritual forces and the miraculous.  Worship is not dominated by aesthetics, whether buildings or professional music.  It is in the hearts of the people rather than being a performance by some professional band on a stage.  Large churches are only options in cities with transportation—and Africa has its share of them, with all the problems of large churches in the West.  Africa is probably more susceptible to ‘big man’ leadership and personal power politics than the West.  Yet many, smaller churches that have a great deal of life can be found.  The church is also missional, being the recent product of missions.  This may be less so in more developed parts of Africa, particularly in South Africa.  In East Africa, however, the revival of the 1920s and 1930s is still bearing fruit.  The Anglican Church in Africa numbers about 55 million—out of 80 million worldwide.  It has grown from about 8 million in the 1970s.  The vibrancy of Spirit-filled worship, moreover, can be found in Pentecostal (the major example of ‘new churches’) and Anglican churches alike.

Conclusion: Toward Ministerial Training for the African Church

All this relates to ministerial training in Africa.  How we understand the healthy church will affect what we consider to be good training for ministers—including lay ministers.  Theological education must not simply train according to the academic disciplines: it must also train for the healthy church.  

A theological education that has produced a dying Church in the West is hardly something the Church in Africa should want to develop for itself.  The African Church faces many problems of its own, and yet it has certain characteristics of a healthy Church that must not be undercut by introducing aspects of Western models of ministerial training that favour professionalization of ministry, institutionalization of the Church, cultural distortion of the Gospel, and secularization of the faith.  It must train ministers that engage and develop the community of faith, not scholar-pastors who spend more time on their weekly sermon than around the kitchen tables of parishioners.  It must not become training in Academia but use academic study for the purpose of ministering the faith once for all delivered to the saints by the apostles.  It must not focus on liberation ideologies addressing merely the socio-political concerns on the continent but rather focus on orthodox theology that challenges and undercuts every human institution with the message of the Kingdom of God.

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[1] Harriet Sherwood, ‘Church of England Weekly Attendance Falls Below 1m for First Time,’ The Guardian (12 January, 2016); online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/church-of-england-attendance-falls-below-million-first-time (accessed 30 July, 2016).

[2] Cf. George Conger, ‘Diocese of Rochester Insolvent,’ Anglican Ink (8 July, 2016); online at: http://www.anglican.ink/article/diocese-rochester-insolvent (accessed 30 July, 2016).

[3] Cf. Ruth Gledhill, ‘Millions of Pounds Given to England’s Flourishing Christian Cathedrals,’ Christian Today (22 July, 2016); online at: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/millions.of.pounds.given.to.englands.flourishing.christian.cathedrals/91182.htm (accessed 30 July, 2016).  The story is about how the English Heritage, which protects cultural buildings in the UK such as castles, has given 14 and a half million pounds to over 30 cathedrals for renovation.  While the story also notes that cathedrals tend to have growing congregations, the relationship with the Heritage Foundation is an acknowledgement that the buildings attract international visitors (some 11 million annually) to the point of contributing 220 million pounds annually to the national economy.  With some 16,000 Church of England churches in England, an average worship service would comprise 47-48 people on Sunday morning.

[4] David Goodhew, ed.  Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present (Ashgate Pub., 2012).

[5] Alison Morgan’s review of David Goodhew’s (editor) Church Growth in Britain 1980 to the Present, in Fulcrum (March 30, 2013) (online: https://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/articles/david-goodhew-ed-church-growth-in-britain-1980-to-the-present-ashgate-publishing-2012/; accessed 30 July, 2016).

[6] Ibid.

[7] David Wasdell, ‘Let My People Grow’ (London: UCP, 1974) and ‘Divide and Conquer’ (London: UCP, 1975).  A presentation of his arguments may be found at http://slideplayer.com/slide/4881102/ (accessed 30 July, 2016).  The reader might compare some of the same concerns in church planting stated by the New Anglican Mission Society (see: http://www.namsnetwork.com/).

[8] This is not to say that there are examples to the contrary, but enculturation motivated not by the concern to make the Gospel understood but to transform the Gospel to support African culture over against colonialism is not a prescription for a healthy Church.

Mission as Theological Education in Africa: 1. The Growth of the Church in Africa and Its Need for Theological Education

Introduction

In several posts, I intend to explore aspects of mission as theological education in Africa.  I begin here with the simple observation that the Church is growing in Africa and that this is one reason to keep mission activity focussed, among other things, on theological education in the decades to come.

The Growth of the Church in Africa

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, one of the great and growing challenges needing our attention in missions is theological education in Africa.  This is because the Church is growing in Africa more than anywhere else in the world, Africa faces greater academic challenges more than anywhere else in the world, and Africa has a growing responsibility to provide leadership in the Church worldwide.

Perhaps the most well-known statistic on Christianity in the world in our day is that the centre of Christianity has shifted south and into Africa.  This centre (it is located in the region of Timbuktu!) is symbolic, showing where the average number of Christians moves on the world map as those professing the faith wax or wane in different parts of the world.  The shift into Africa shows that Christianity has slowed in the West and has grown elsewhere, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  In Africa, Christianity will grow from 142,609,000 in 1970 to 630,644,000 in 2020; given population growth, this means an increase from 38.7% to 49.3% of the population.  Christians in Northern America, on the other hand, will move from constituting 91.2% of the population to 76.9%.[1]  (Such broad statistics, note, do not include a much needed assessment of what passes as Christian—many ‘Christians’ need evangelization themselves.)  The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell publishes the following trends by region for the growth of Christianity by continent.

Status of Global Christianity, 2015, in the Context of 1900–2050[2]

	1900	1970	2000	trend (%)	mid-2015	2025	2050
Africa	8,736,000	114,785,000	359,245,000	2.78	541,816,000	704,003,000	1,207,833,000
Asia	20,774,000	91,585,000	271,420,000	2.19	375,905,000	464,797,000	598,589,000
Europe (including Russia)	368,254,000	467,266,000	546,448,000	0.16	559,900,000	546,065,000	501,488,000
Latin America	60,027,000	262,919,000	481,355,000	1.20	575,464,000	628,336,000	702,896,000
Northern America	59,570,000	168,472,000	209,585,000	0.67	231,499,000	239,501,000	266,038,000
Oceania	4,323,000	14,463,000	21,178,000	1.08	24,892,000	27,459,000	33,654,000

Missiologists use statistics to discussion mission strategies.  We should be cautious about this, since mission work is not a social science but a spiritual calling.  For instance, the fact that the Church is growing in Africa should not lead us to stop evangelizing and church planting on the continent so as to focus on areas of supposed greater need.  Harvesters do not stop harvesting because the planting and growing seasons were successful.  However, this statistic of Christian growth on the continent versus that in the West does raise an important concern for mission strategy: the ever increasing need for theological education in Africa.

The Need for Theological Education

Where the church is growing, there is inevitably a need for teaching at every level—Biblical literacy and instruction in the faith for laity and ministerial training for those entering into various roles in ministry.  Where there is fast growth, there is always the challenge of syncretism and shallow theology.  And where the church is growing, there are special concerns related to those contexts that need to be addressed.  In Africa, these might include theological and ministerial training where there is social and political unrest, the unique politics of certain denominations or fellowships, challenges posed by other religions, and unorthodox teachings from the West or that are home-grown.  Finally, where the Church is growing most in the world is where influential persons are likely to arise, including theologians for the Church.  Thus, not only Africa but also the worldwide Church needs good, well-educated, and orthodox African theologians.

Conclusion

In a word, theological education is mission, and the Church's mission must focus on theological education in Africa.  This is not an exclusive statement, as though other concerns should be ignored.  Yet the needs in Africa for good theological education at every level and for the development of centres for theological education of a high quality are monumental.

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[1] See statistics at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (2013) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; online at: http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/documents/2ChristianityinitsGlobalContext.pdf (accessed 27 July, 2016).

[2] See: http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/documents/1IBMR2015.pdf (accessed 27 July, 2016).

The Church: 18f. The Pastoral Care of Sinners and False Teachers

Introduction 

The past few weeks have entrenched immoral practices and the teaching of error in whole provinces of the Anglican Communion.  The affirmation of same-sex unions for laity and clergy in the Scottish Episcopal Church (and the Church of Scotland, with whom the Church of England has a relationship) and the Anglican Church of Canada have so compromised the Gospel at many levels that the mission of these 'Churches' is no longer viable.  The Church of England may well be on the same trajectory. 

The only way to regain the ministry of pastoral care for sinners is to pursue with all diligence a movement of God's Kingdom and its righteousness outside the Church of Men and Women.  True pastoral care involves the shepherd's crook and the shepherd's rod, not the false unity of a sheep pen for sheep and wolves.  The ministration of divine mercy in pastoral care--particularly in the Church's mission in the West--requires the merciful call to repentance rather than toleration of sin, the merciful practice of judgement for the sake of restoration, and the merciful practice of separation for the sake of unity.

Pastors as Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord

The Church is not a depository for theological and moral diversity but a discipleship community devoted to God: ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD’ (Joshua 24:15).  The voice of love is not toleration of error but obedience to truth: ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart' (Deuteronomy 6:5-6).  Mercy is not indifference to error but forgiveness of error: ‘Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD! Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way’ (Psalm 25:6-8).  Confusion over such basic truths inevitably means pastoral abuse, not care.

The Anglican service for the ordination of priests has the bishop charge the ordinands, who have earlier been reminded that Scripture is the ultimate authority for their ministry, as follows:

In the name of our Lord we bid you remember the greatness of the trust now to be committed to your charge, about which you have been taught in your preparation for this ministry.  You are to be messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord; you are to teach and to admonish, to feed and to provide for the Lord’s family, to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations and to guide them through its confusions, so that they may be saved through Christ for ever.[1]

Indeed, pastoral care is an administration of the Word of God to wounded souls: pastors are messengers of His Word, watchmen of error contradicting His Word, and stewards of the grace taught in His Word.  The Anglican Communion, however, is being torn apart by unworthy shepherds, instructed by false teachers denying the clear teaching in God’s Word, tended to by quacks perpetrating errors contracted from the culture, and abused by leaders perverting the grace of our Lord by licensing immorality in the Church.

Just how might pastors be faithful to their calling in such a dire situation?  Some have suggested unity over against truth, as though unity is some mere social practice for people to pursue instead of a unity in truth.  Others have suggested a pastoral accommodation to minister to all with a form of love that disregards the truth.  Still others have called for an obedience to the truth as the practical expression of godly love, calling for pastors to be messengers of mercy and watchmen against wolves.  Indeed, as shepherds carrying both a staff to guide the sheep and a rod to fend off wolves, pastors are called to exercise both forms of care.

Two Stories of Pastoral Care

Two stories of the Apostle John’s pastoral care circulated in the second century.  Both are aspects of pastoral care.  The first story was told by Clement of Alexandria and demonstrates the pastor’s unwavering ministry of mercy to sinners.[2]  While visiting churches in Asia Minor, John entrusted a particular boy to a bishop’s care.  The bishop agreed and raised the child in the Christian faith.  However, once the boy had matured into a young man, he came under the corrupting influence of other young men who knew nothing of the faith.  He took up a life of self-indulgence and luxury, and, with his new friends, engaged in highway robbery.  The young man rose through the ranks of his gang, outdoing all in violence and cruelty.  The gang recognized him as their leader. 

Some years later, John visited the bishop and asked him to return the ‘deposit’ that he had left with him on the previous visit years earlier.  The bishop eventually realised that John meant the deposit of that boy’s soul, left in the charge of the overseer of the church.  He said that the young man had ‘died,’ that is, that he had turned his back on the Christian faith and entered upon a life of sin.  The apostle John thereupon reprimanded the bishop, called for a horse, and made his way to the gang’s hideout in the hills.  The gang captured John and brought him to their captain.

When the captain saw John, he began to run away—to the astonishment of everyone else.  John, though a very old man, ran after him.  He called after him that he should not be afraid as there was yet hope for his soul, that he, John, had a duty to give an account to Christ for the young man’s life, and that Christ had sent him to extend mercy.  The young man stopped running, flung himself into the apostle’s arms, and wept bitterly in repentance for his sins.  John assured the young man that the Saviour forgave him, and the two returned to the church.  The young man was then encouraged to follow a discipline of repentance, a contrition for sins that included much prayer, frequent fasting, and the subduing his mind by hearing the Scriptures and words of the apostles.

Another story is told of John.  One of his disciples, Polycarp, recalled a story about John’s encounter with a heretical teacher, Cerinthus.  On this occasion, John was in a bathhouse in Ephesus when he learned that the false teacher, a theologian altering orthodox theology by reinterpreting it with the philosophy of his day, was also present.  Rushing out of the bathhouse before bathing, John exclaimed to his own followers, ‘Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within’ (Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.3.4).  John thereby taught his followers to have nothing to do with false teaching, to give it no voice, and to expect God’s judgement on all such purveyors of error.

Two Lessons for Pastors

These two stories teach us two important lessons about error in the Church.  The first reminds us to continue to hold out the grace of God to all sinners.  As Jude says, believers are to snatch persons in error as though from the fire (verse 23).  James, too, says,

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins (5:19-20).

In so saying, Jude and James affirm Jesus’ teaching of pastoral care through his parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14).  Jesus instructed his disciples to leave the ninety-nine safe sheep and pursue that one, lost sheep on the mountains because God rejoices over the sheep that is found and does not will that any one of His little ones should perish.

Regarding the person disobeying his teaching in the Church, Paul says:

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15   If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.  Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

With this, we see both the continuing message of mercy and the need for discipline—both aspects of pastoral care.  Similarly, in the case of the man sleeping with his father’s wife in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul calls for a discipline that cares for the whole church while also extending mercy to an unrepentant sinner.  First, Paul reminds the church that they are to have nothing to do with sexually immoral persons in their community:

1 Corinthians 5:9  I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people….

The church’s correct response is not mercy expressed in toleration of immoral relationships but mercy expressed through a pastoral and congregational process of exclusion from the community, recognition of error, repentance from sin, reformation of conduct, and restoration to community.  They are not taking the morally high ground in continuing to accommodate the openly sinful person in their midst who will not change his ways or to tolerate a diverse spectrum of views on sexual morality.  This is not Christian mercy but certain destruction.  The person desperately needs to be excluded from the church to learn a lesson and be warned of what will inevitably be a more serious exclusion when God’s judgement of sinners brings a final verdict, after which there is no further opportunity to repent.  Paul says,

1 Corinthians 5:4-5  When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,  ⁵ you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

In this, Paul picks up language from the Holiness Code in Leviticus 20.11: a person who ‘lies with his father’s wife’ is to be ‘put to death.’  Yet Paul does not apply the punishment called for in Leviticus literally, for he transfers the meaning of a negative, literal death penalty to a positive, spiritual purification from sin.  The ‘flesh’ to be destroyed is not the person’s body but the ‘flesh’ in the moral sense of his sinful life.  Only by turning the person over to Satan—that is, putting the person out of the church and into the arena of Satan—will the person appreciate that he is, indeed, no longer part of the church.  Only then is it possible that he will repent and return to the church.  Not turning the person out of the church will only encourage him to continue to live a sinful life that will ultimately lead to God’s condemnation, an exclusion from the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).  It also destroys the church as ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’ (1 Corinthians 5:6).  The church is not to pass judgement on unbelievers outside the church but to purge the evil from its own midst (1 Corinthians 5:13).  Far from being a way to unify the church in holiness, toleration of sexual immorality only brings further division as others are encouraged to pursue the same path of destruction (cf. Jude 12).

The second story of the Apostle John’s pastoral care, however, addresses not those who have fallen into error but those who teach error—the false prophets and false teachers leading others into error.  In this case, the Church is hard-pressed to take swift action against falsehood.  As Paul says,

Titus 3:10-11  As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

The case of false teachers is more serious, potentially reaping great destruction in the Church.  James warns, ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness’ (James 3:1).

Paul does not entertain the mistaken notion that such differences call for ‘shared conversations,’ as the Church of England has done over the heretical teachings on sexuality in the past few years.  Regarding the false teachers who misled the Galatian churches, Paul minces no words—this is no time for politically correct tones of civility:

Galatians 1:8-9  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Indeed, he later says, ‘I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!’ (Galatians 5:12).

John, moreover, writes to the church at Thyatira:

Revelation 2:20  I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Merciful Care: Not Toleration of Sin but Judgement Leading to Repentance

Diversity is not something to celebrate if it is a diversity that deviates from the truth proclaimed by the apostles (i.e., what we would now refer to as the New Testament).  Mercy is not about toleration of error; on the contrary, mercy is expressed in judging and shaming the person in order to lead to hope for repentance and restoration.  Exclusion is an important process for a community to use in order to warn a person bent on error that his or her views or practices are wrong and dangerous: only then is there hope that the person will repent and return to the truth.  Ongoing toleration sends the wrong message that the error is not really that significant—a matter of indifference—and will not be judged by God.  Rather, the church’s judgement of a person persistent in sin is the first step in sincere pastoral care for recalcitrant sinners. As Paul says, ‘have nothing to do with him’ and ‘warn him as a brother’ (2 Thessalonians 3:15). 

This is not only true for the sheep.  It is also true for false shepherds: even with false teachers, Paul holds out hope that discipline will lead to repentance.  He says that he hands over two such false teachers ‘to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme’ (1 Timothy 1:20).

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[1] ‘The Ordination of Priests,’ The Alternative Service Book (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 356.

[2] Clement of Alexandria, ‘Who is the rich man that shall be saved?’ (XLII). Clement lived in Egypt towards the end of the 2^nd century and was a teacher of the Christian faith.

The Church: 18e. Pastoral Care and the Mission of the Triune God (V)

The Pastoral Care of God the Holy Spirit

Introduction

This is the fifth and final post on the pastoral care of sinners in light of the Church of England’s present crisis over the proposal to accept the practice of same-sex relationships through a so-called ‘pastoral accommodation.’  Earlier posts have countered that what is needed is ‘pastoral care,’ and that this care must be understood as pastoral care for sinners.  They have, further, suggested that the Church is ably instructed in such care by the mission of the Triune God toward a sinful world. 

In this post, we begin with some words about the pastoral care of God the Holy Spirit.  Then we turn to examine the close parallels that the early Church (particularly in the General and Pastoral Epistles) faced to what the Church faces today: false teachers seeking an accommodation of Christian faith to the sexual culture of the Greek and Roman world of the first century.  Finally, we conclude with a comment on present proposals about pastoral accommodation that, instead of healing the Church, actually substantiate the need for a truly Christian, Anglican mission in England in light of the present-day heresy.

The Pastoral Roles of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit’s pastoral role, according to the Scriptures, is evident in a great variety of ways.  Indeed, the Spirit functions as God’s abiding presence in the life of the believer and Christian community.  The Spirit is the giver of life at the time of creation (Genesis 1.2 and 2.7) just as the Spirit gives spiritual life to God’s redeemed people (Ezekiel 37.10-14; John 6.63; 20.22).[1]  The Spirit is the source of divine revelation in prophecy and Scripture (1 Peter 1.11-12; 2 Peter 1.21; 2 Timothy 3.16).  The Spirit is the ‘Paraklētos’—translated as Advocate (NRSV), Counselor (NIV), and ‘Helper’ (ESV) (John 14.6; 15.26)—for the disciples.  The Spirit intercedes for the saints (Romans 8.27).  He is the ‘Spirit of truth’ (John 14.17; 15.26; 16.13).  He is the power by which Jesus lived His earthly ministry (Matthew 12.18; Luke 4.18) and the Church lives out its missionary purpose (Acts 1.8).  In such ways, and more, the Holy Spirit of God is said to be the divine presence that reveals God (cf. Ezekiel 39.29) and empowers God’s people to live for Him (cf. Ezekiel 36.27).

A counsellor may offer wisdom.  A pastor may give divine guidance.  But the Holy Spirit does both and empowers a person to live according to God’s commandments—to live the spiritual life.  As John says,

Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us (1 John 3.24).

Indeed, the Spirit restores the sinner and returns him from the brink of death to a renewed ‘Spiritual’ life (Psalm 51.11).  This is the imagery for Israel’s being restored from death in the transgression of the Law and captivity due to their sins in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones being resurrected by God’s Spirit (ch. 37).  It is also what Paul says of the Christian life that is not lived in the power of the flesh and by means of the (powerless) Law—which can only lead to sin—but that is lived in the power of the Spirit (Romans 7.5-8.17).

The Christian life is a life turned over to the indwelling Spirit of God.  One is not so ‘possessed’ by the Spirit, as it were, that one loses control and can no longer sin.  Rather, believers discover the power of God at work within (Ephesians 3.20), experience the freedom of the Spirit of life (Romans 8.2), willingly yield to the Spirit (unlike Israel—Acts 7.51), and walk in step with the Spirit, setting their minds on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8.4-6).  Indeed, the Spirit is the life-giving power of God living within believers that overcomes the sinful flesh and makes it possible to live righteously before God (Romans 8.9-11).  The Christian life is a Spirit-filled life.  Paul can say of the work of Christ and the Spirit that ‘you were washed, you were set apart for holy use, you were made righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God’ (1 Corinthians 6.11, my translation).  Thus, the believers ‘Spiritual’ worship is to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12.1).  Believers are to ‘sow to the Spirit,’ not the flesh, and so reap eternal life from the Spirit (Galatians 6.8).  Or, as Paul elsewhere says, the body of believers is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6.19).  The promises of the Spirit restoring sinful Israel from captivity in their sins (Isaiah 59.21; Ezekiel 36.26-27) are thus fulfilled in the lives of believers through the work of Jesus Christ, who gives us the Spirit (Matthew 3.11; Luke 3.16; Acts 1.5; 11.16; 19.4-6).  The Church is a holy people on whom God has poured out His Spirit (Joel 2.28-29; Acts 2.17-18, 33; Titus 3.6).

The General Epistles (especially Jude) and the Crisis of Accommodation to Culture

How blasphemous, then, those who claim to know the Spirit and yet live profligate lives indulgent of the sinful flesh!  In our day, the message of the General Epistles (Hebrews through Revelation) is increasingly becoming relevant precisely because these New Testament books focus on the two challenges facing the Church in the West today: persecution of a minority Church from outside and false teaching from inside.  Increasingly, the false teaching that the early Church faced came from teachers distorting the Christian faith by letting the non-Jewish and non-Christian culture and its practices seep—even pour—into the Church.  This expressed itself especially in the Graeco-Roman sexual ethic.

By way of example, consider the little letter of Jude.  It might just as well have been written to the Church of England today, which is also allowing the neo-pagan culture of a post-Christian world into the Church and celebrating it as some sort of experience of divine grace.  Hear, then, the words of Jude to his compromised Church.

First, Jude is distracted from writing about Christian salvation because of the error he must address, an error that has entered into the Church.  He finds that he has to contend for the Christian faith even within the Church, a faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints before a Church intent on revising that faith.  This Church has allowed intruders to steal in among them, who preach a perversion of the Christian faith.  They teach that God’s graciousness gives them the freedom they desire to live according to their own sexual perversions instead of according to their Sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ.  Jude then warns these false Christians directly, saying that God is ready and willing to destroy the likes of them, for he did so in the past to the Israelites who did not believe, to angels who did not keep their proper positions, and to Sodom and Gomorrah, cities that chose to depart from natural desires and instead pursue ‘other flesh’ from what God intended in creation—unnatural, homosexual unions.[2]  Such people are grumbling and malcontent persons who divide the Church and indulge their own lusts.  They are loud-mouthed boasters who do favours for others in order to gain an advantage for themselves.  They are, in fact, the people that the apostles themselves had earlier warned the Church about: scoffers who would arise in the last times and indulge their own ungodly lusts.  Note that Jude says that they are devoid of the Spirit and cause divisions in the Church.

Jude also gives a word to the faithful believers caught in this terrible situation in the Church.  They are to do several things, including:

• Find strength in the orthodox faith: ‘Build yourselves up on your most holy faith’;
•  Seek help from God’s empowering Spirit: ‘Pray in the Holy Spirit’;
• Persevere in God’s love, knowing that they will receive mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life;
• Show mercy to those wavering in the faith as though snatching them from the fire but hating even the undergarment soiled by the flesh.

In this most pertinent letter for our own day, we specifically hear Jude distinguish the two parties in this divided Church: one is devoid of the Spirit and lives a filthy life of sexual debauchery, while the other prays in the Holy Spirit.  Jude has more to say about the false Christians: they are blemishes at their love feasts, fearless, fruitless, creating chaos, and destined to deepest darkness.  He minces no words.

A Pastoral Accommodation?

This brings us, then, to the proposal for the Church of England that a ‘pastoral accommodation’ be sought in the current crisis.  The current crisis dividing the Church, as in Jude’s time, is a revisionist interpretation of the orthodox faith that ‘perverts the grace of our God into licentiousness,’ a culturally determined sexual ethic that rejects Biblical sexuality.  Permitting homosexual relationships within the Church, blessing these false unions, and even going so far as to propose that same-sex couples marry with the Church’s blessing have been ways to twist the faith once for all delivered to the saints about God’s grace and mercy into a sanctioning of sins of the flesh advocated by our culture.

What is the so-called pastoral accommodation for the current crisis?  According to the proposal in ‘Grace and Disagreement: Shared Conversations on Scripture, Mission and Human Sexuality,’ a

pastoral accommodation is a way of recognising that not every situation resolves itself into a clear delineation between virtue and vice – people often find themselves caught up in circumstances which fall short of God’s intentions and have to make choices which minimise harm or which rescue as much as possible that is good. In such circumstances, the church’s pastoral obligations come into play, offering support, prayer and love. A pastoral accommodation is a way of making that pastoral offering without endorsing the circumstances through which the situation arose or giving moral approval to every element in a messy state of affairs.[3]

Applied to matters of moral indifference and religious devotion, such as food laws, celebration of special days, particular practices such as circumcision, a pastoral accommodation makes sense.  We see this in Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.  ² Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.  ³ Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.  ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.  ⁵ Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds.  ⁶ Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.  ⁷ We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's (Romans 14.1-8).

In no instance, however, do New Testament writers apply such a pastoral accommodation to matters of sexual ethics.  On the contrary, laxity towards sexual ethics is always opposed.  Indeed, God’s transforming grace can be seen precisely in an area such as this.  To continue in sexual sin is to be in danger of eternal damnation (cf. 1 Corinthians 6.9-11; Ephesians 5.5; Matthew 5.29).  Specifically, same-sex relations are condemned as sinful and leading to eternal separation from God in the Old and New Testaments and throughout Church history everywhere, always, and by all.[4]

The document continues:

Yet the concept of pastoral accommodation was intended by the Pilling group[5] to reflect the enduring nature of the church’s teaching whilst recognising that some Christians, in conscience, do not believe that this teaching reflects adequately the love of God in the context of same sex relationships. In other words, pastoral accommodation was intended to maintain the tension between the authority of the church and the demands of conscience.[6]

Rather than seeking a pastoral accommodation with those unwilling to listen to the authoritative teaching of Scripture and the clear affirmation of the Church through the centuries, the Church needs to recognise that there are persons about whom it must be said:

overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires,  ⁷ [they] are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.  ⁸ As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth (2 Timothy 3.6-8).

Citing such passages from the Pastoral or General Epistles is really not an application of Biblical texts to a new situation in our day: the present situation is of essential similarity to that faced then, with pagan culture in both contexts pressing in on the orthodox faith.  The whole purpose of a pastoral accommodation is to side-step moral judgements where there is ambiguity.  The problem the Church faces, however, is not one of ambiguity but of obedience to Scripture.  Consciences may, and often are, rejected and distorted and not a reliable basis for moral judgement (1 Timothy 1.19; 4.2; Titus 1.15; Hebrews 10.22).  Nor is the solution remotely pastoral if the consequence of continuing in such sin is eternal damnation.  Would it be pastoral to support someone’s decision to get onto a plane with a terrorist because one did not want to appear judgemental and wanted to support a person whatever his or her decision?  Would it not rather be pastoral to warn the person of impending doom should the wrong decision be made?

Any Church refusing to affirm its faith in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church cannot go about representing itself as the Church.  It is, rather, divisive, unholy, factional, and dismissive of apostolic teaching.  It is a false Church.  The so-called ‘pastoral accommodation’ is an attempt to try to hold these two, diametrically opposed Churches together to no good end.

Conclusion

In these five posts on the subject of a ‘pastoral accommodation’ of same sex relationships in the Church of England—and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion—we have sought to identify the lie in the political arrangement being proposed, which only undermines the Christian faith and offers nothing in the least pastoral.  It amounts only to an accommodation of heresy. 

Yet we have also been somewhat able to explore a truly pastoral care of persons struggling with besetting sins.  Such care can only begin by acknowledging that the care needed from the Church is for sinners.  It is a care that the Church learns from the Triune God’s own mission among us to, as Paul says in Colossians, reconcile to himself all things through Jesus Christ (1.20).  Thanks be to God, it is a care that includes not only God’s direction and grace but also His empowering presence in the Holy Spirit to transform us into a cleansed, holy, and righteous people.

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[1] In both Hebrew and Greek, unlike English, the same word is used for ‘spirit,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘wind’—the NRSV translates Gen. 1.2 with ‘wind’ instead of ‘Spirit,’ as in the ESV and NIV.  In Gen. 2.7, all three translations rightly translate that God ‘breathed’ into the man, but note that the same verb for ‘breathed’ in the Greek (emphysēsen) is used in John 20.22 (enephysēsen), where Jesus ‘breathes’ on His disciples for them to receive the Holy Spirit.

[2] While some interpreters suggest that ‘other flesh’ means non-humans, i.e., the two angels of the story of Genesis 19, this seems to us impossible.  The focus here is on sexual irregularity, not wrongfully desiring angels.  Moreover, 2 Peter 2 uses Jude in such a way as to focus on sexuality, not angels.  Finally, angels do not have ‘flesh.’  Readers will find various interpretations of the phrase ‘other flesh’ in translations, but we take the reference to mean, as the story of Genesis 19 suggests, homosexual practice.

[3] ‘Grace and Disagreement: Shared Conversations on Scripture, Mission and Human Sexuality’ (p. 19) [online: https://churchofengland.org/media/2165235/grace1.pdf]

[4] Through numerous primary source quotations and analysis, S. Donald Fortson and I have demonstrated this in Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Church Tradition (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016).

[5] See this 224 page report of the ‘House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality,’' produced in 2013, online: https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1891063/pilling_report_gs_1929_web.pdf.  Professor Oliver O’Donovan proposed a pastoral accommodation to the group, which is really a political accommodation.  Thankfully, Bishop Birkenhead offered a dissenting opinion, starting on p. 119, but his solitary dissention from the working group’s rejection of orthodoxy is sadly telling on the state and direction of the Church of England.  Indeed, as this commitment to falsehood continues, the need for a new and truly Christian Anglican mission in England becomes increasingly urgent.

[6] ‘Grace and Disagreement,’ p. 20.