Friday 9 July 2010

Reform

Previous blogs have referred to the organisation named Reform which has a membership of people in the Church of England with a conservative Evangelical agenda.

In today's Daily Telegraph, the Revd. Stephen Griffith , Christ Church, London SW14 writes:

Jeffery John is well known in this middle-of-the-road parish, and admired for his Christian virtues, his intelligence and his kindness.

No such description can be used for Reform, an extremist movement which seeks to do what the Puritans failed to do 400 years ago.

Some at the top of the Church of England need to tell them to be quiet and learn to be intelligent and loving.

Strong stuff. The Church of England used to be a very broad church: evangelicals, liberals, traditionalists, low church, high church, Anglo-Catholics all rubbing along. Yes, there was friction but the greater cause kept them together. This was underpinned by Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, a masterpiece of ambiguity which kept Protestant and Catholic theology in tension.

The last major attempt by the Puritans to move the Church of England totally from its Catholic roots was the Savoy Conference in 1661, although sporadic forays were made by Protestants in the courts against Anglo-Catholic ritual following the emergence of the Oxford Movement. The Oxford Movement was more high church than Anglo-Catholic.

Deep down the real cause of argument is one of the authority of the Bible. Is it the once and for all revealed Word of God or is it a document which needs reinterpreting from generation to generation? Indeed, some Christians argue the Bible is entirely an human construct.

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