The negative reaction to the gay blessings decision by the English House of Bishops on the part of orthodox Evangelical Anglicans has been entirely predictable. One would never have expected to see the Reform/Renew/Church Society axis responding any other way. They have until now been alone in publicly defending the authoritative truth of the Holy Scriptures, while Evangelicals of a more broad minded viewpoint have quietly drifted along with the liberal zeitgeist, probably hoping that nothing very serious to disturb their consciences would happen along the way. Catholics were willing to fight hard and long to obtain a separate episcopate and thereby ensure they were not forced into having women priests, but they have been strangely silent on this issue, which is arguably a far greater threat to Catholic truth. After all, in their eyes Holy Matrimony is not just a state of grace, but one of the Seven Sacraments.
However, things have turned out very differently. All the Evangelical tribes in the Church of England have finally been willing to swallow their differences and unite under the umbrella of the Church of England Evangelical Council, including the New Wine charismatics and Holy Trinity Brompton with its many satellite churches. Presumably they all now subscribe to Biblical truth and realise the importance of marriage as not merely the Divine blueprint for successful human sexual relationships, bur also as a visual expression of the precious relationship Jesus has with His Church here on earth. The 1662 Marriage rite makes this point very clearly
A few brave Catholics have stood alongside the Evangelicals in their stand on this vital issue, but it looks increasingly as if the Society of St. Wilfrid and St. Hilda has become just a one-trick pony. One suspects that the majority of genuine Catholics went off to Rome, to the Orthodox or to the Ordinariate, leaving the remaining followers of Fathers Dolling, Stanton and Wainwright to lose themselves among the noisier Affirming Catholics, who seem to be more and more like agnostics who delight in dressing up and gorgeous ceremonial, which has become the staple fare of nearly all our cathedrals these days. The shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham is now nothing like the place it was in the days of Father Alfred Hope-Patten, its altars increasingly patronised by women priests.
The massive influence of the Church Missionary Society and other Evangelical missionary societies in taking the Gospel of Christ’s redeeming love around the world over the past 220 odd years still shows itself in the spiritual vitality of the provinces of East and West Africa, even after all these years still being augmented by the miraculous effects of the East African Revival of the 1930s. However, it is now becoming clearer that much of the Catholic missionary work over the last century and a half has had similarly beneficial effects in keeping orthodox faith alive in Central Africa and the scattered territories of the Far East and the Pacific. All this has recently expressed itself in the creation of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, bringing together Evangelicals and Catholics in a clear stand against all this error and confusion. GFSA represents some 85 percent of the world’s Anglicans. It is now even considering electing its own replacement of the present Archbishop of Canterbury to lead the modern world-wide Communion.
However, a similar thing has been quietly happening in Rome. The Pope has recently made an ambiguous provision for blessing gay relationships in much the same way as has the Church of England. This has led to an avalanche of objections, nearly all from archbishops in the Global South, mirroring almost exactly those provinces of the Anglican Communion who objected to the English General Synod’s decision. This is a momentous happening because it shows that beneath all the superficial veneer of doctrinal divisions, a common link of faith and obedience to the Lord’s commands has been developing among Catholic Christians of both Anglican and Roman varieties in precisely those places where believing and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ costs the most.. This has to be the cause of much rejoicing, because it points to one of the Lord’s final wishes that believing Christians should all be one – in fellowship and evangelism – if no longer in loyalty to irreparably damaged and compromised ecclesiastical institutions.
The Wise Men were warned by God to avoid the evil intentions of Herod by going home by another route. There are quite a few Herods outside the Church who seem to be working towards removing Jesus Christ and his loyal followers from the face of the earth. Alas, they also have all too many fellow travellers within the Church. Maybe what we are seeing happening across the Christian world today is the first sign – maybe no bigger than a man’s hand - that we too, like the Magi, should be looking for another way home to avoid their destructive intentions.
