Grab the feed below for the latest CHN, The Longing, and Briefing Issue updates.
If you prefer the full text of the article to be included use the following feed.
An online survey of issues, events and ideas
Groucho, that is, not Karl. Working for a book publisher, I love this quote:
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” Or this:
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
This comment from a CHN reader:
It's worse than you've made it seem. In the introduction to the report, the Bishop of Winchester disallows extraneous issues from both sides (complaints against liberal theology by Richard Coekin, complaints about church planting by Bishop Butler). The report concludes in this narrow field, that Bishop Butler failed to administer justice. But it recommends a condition for the restoration of the license: that Richard Coekin submit to Bishop Butler concerning church planting. So a disallowed issue is reintroduced against the victim of injustice. Thankfully the Archbishop of Canterbury removed these conditions.
The reader is quite right. It wasn't just that the report failed to deal with the real issues. It actually attempted to satisfy Bishop Butler's complaint without a fair and complete hearing.
In fact, if the Bishop of Winchester had had his way, Bishop Butler would perhaps have had more power after the decision than before over what Richard Coekin could and couldn't do in the realm of church planting. Yet the Bishop of Winchester had expressly said that he refused to consider the church planting issue.
Perhaps Bishop Butler isn't the only Church of England Bishop who needs to learn some principles of justice and fairness.
Here at Matthias Media, we're proud to bring Australian World Cup watchers your evangelistic workplace opening line for the day:
Did you see the game last night? ... Wasn't it a great come-from-behind? ...
But I thought you didn't believe in resurrection from the dead ...
There is a remarkable insight into the way the Anglican Church works (or doesn't work) in the judgment of the Bishop of Winchester in the Richard Coekin case.
At the heart of the matter was Richard Coekin's statement to his Bishop that he considered he was in “temporary impaired communion” with him, and unable to accept his oversight. This was over significant doctrinal differences. In reality, the matter of the “irregular ordination” of some of Richard's ministry staff by a Bishop from outside of the Church of England, was of very little practical consequence for the Church of England, and, whilst annoying to Bishop Butler, was a side issue.
The key issue was doctrinal differences, and what to do when a Bishop and a minister in his Diocese disagree on fundamental issues—issues of such importance that without agreement, the church's work must be seriously impaired. (As indeed, was proving to be the case.)
But the ‘judge’ (the Bishop of Winchester) refused to consider these issues:
A preliminary assessment of the parties' pleadings convinced me that both sides had strayed into areas of dispute which had no immediate relevance to the appeal. For his part the Appellant sought to embark upon a challenge, from the standpoint of evangelical theology, to the House of Bishops' Pastoral Statement concerning Civil Partnerships. The revocation of his licence was, he alleged, the result of the principled stand which he has taken against the teaching contained in that document. An appeal in respect of the summary revocation of a licence is, however, a wholly inappropriate forum for testing matters of this nature. Furthermore, in conduct proceedings under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 it was well established that a doctrinal motive could not be invoked to justify a breach of the law.
In other words, if when a Minister is being brought to task for failing to obey his Bishop, the Minister raises an underlying concern of doctrinal failure on the part of his Bishop—a failure which makes his submission to that Bishop untenable—Anglican officials will shut their eyes to the real issues. They will instead focus on the application of the finer points of canon law and procedural fairness to a relatively trivial side issue.
Such a head-in-the-sand approach—to suggest that Ministers must continue to obey their bishops no matter how far those bishops may have strayed from traditional Anglican belief and practice—will only serve to hasten the inevitability of Ministers seeking alternative Episcopal oversight, and the breaking down of the facade that is Anglican unity.
Back on 30 November 2005, we noted in CHN the revocation of the Church of England minister's license held by Richard Coekin—one of British evangelicalism's young leaders—by his Diocesan Bishop, Tom Butler.
We are very pleased to hear that Richard's appeal has been upheld, and his license reinstated.
To cut a very long story short, the Bishop of Winchester, who was charged with hearing the appeal, recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the revocation of the license be cancelled. The Archbishop accepted this recommendation.
The Bishop of Winchester found that, not only did the Bishop of Southwark deny Richard Coekin the most rudimentary elements of the principles of natural justice in the procedures he adopted, but, even if he had followed a fairer procedure, there were not sufficient grounds for revoking the license.
But somehow I doubt whether this will be the last we hear of this matter. All this flurry of legal posturing—with QCs and solicitors—has failed to resolve the underlying problem: that Richard Coekin wants to keep proclaiming Christ and successfully planting churches, and his Bishop seems to want him to stop; Richard Coekin asks his Bishop to publicly stand up for biblical truth and traditional Anglican belief, and his Bishop refuses to do so.
Perhaps there will be reconciliation. In God's sovereignty, perhaps this decision will bring the two men together in a way that allows the continued progress of the gospel in that Diocese. That certainly is what Richard Coekin is hoping and praying for:
As the Archbishop has asked, we will want to move on to seek reconciliation with the Bishop of Southwark and all caught up in these events. We continue to pray for them and for the possibility of closer co-operation in the spread of the good news of Jesus.
We can only pray for the same thing.