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NEWSLINK December 2005 Contents Chairman’s letter 2
FWS Chairman’s Letter, December 2005 Dear Friends This Newslink includes a few pieces of important information for you about some of things which are coming up in the near future, articles by Jim Rushton and Clare Hendry, and, below, a comment about recent events in my own Diocese, Southwark. First, please don’t forget to sign up for our Spring Conference: “Proclaiming the Lord’s Death”. We are fortunate in having a line-up of three excellent speakers: Wallace Benn, Gavin McGrath and Mark Meynell. The dates: 16th – 18th January at High Leigh. Please do not wait until the New Year to sign up. If you haven’t done so already, let us have your booking form as soon as possible. Secondly, we shall send out another mailing early in the New Year in which we anticipate you will receive a copy of our Orthos A Way Forward containing contributions from Wallace Benn, Gerald Bray, Roger Beckwith and Mike Ovey outlining positive and helpful ways forward suggested in the light of the Rochester Report. The Orthos shows ways in which Synod may be encouraged to make permanent provision for those of us who would be unable to recognise the headship of a female Bishop. In this vein, may I also encourage you to sign the petition (outlined in the previous Newslink). Whilst we have sent several hundred clergy names in, we are convinced that there are others who would still wish to sign but missed the first deadline. More at www.fows.org. Finally, the Trustees have asked me to make clear – and I am happy to do so – that my presence at the Ordination of 3 men from Co-Mission in South London last month was not in an official FWS capacity (as the CEN and EN articles imply), but rather as a fellow clergyman in the diocese. What follows is more than necessary to correct that simple mistake in the Church press, but are my musings so far. I was happy to be at the irregular ordinations, mainly because I have spent considerable time, along with a couple of other leading evangelical members of the diocese, in trying to find a formal way of recognising Richard Coekin’s ministry and church plants, and regret that this has not happened. I do agree with those who would caution that such an event should not be seen as a precedent, nor a model for anarchy in our Episcopal Denomination. However, I regret that Co-Mission felt that the only way to formally recognize the ministry of three of their men on 2nd November was to invite a bishop from CESA to perform the ordination. I also regret that, as a result, Richard Coekin has lost his licence in the Diocese. My hope is that over time there may be some measure of healing of the divisions which have arisen as a result of these actions, both within the evangelical community and within the diocese, and that in due course the diocese will find a way to recognize the health and vitality of Co-Mission. I realise that this will require patience, prayer and goodwill on all sides. In the days of Mission Shaped Church, though, I would hope that a way will be found to regularise their ministry and to keep the health and vitality of Co-Mission within the diocese. I also recognise the enormous challenges which have been thrown up by the Civil Partnerships Act, and the current cultural climate in which we are called to be the conscience to the nation. I am deeply concerned about the way in which the House of Bishops Statement will be used by the active homosexual lobby to promote same-gender sexual relationships in my own diocese. I strongly hope that our Bishops will to continue to uphold the 1987 General Synod resolution and take the advice of Issues in Human Sexuality, Lambeth Resolution 1.10 and Some Issues in seeking to maintain clergy discipline, which includes requiring clergy to uphold the appropriate place for sexual relationships as dictated by Scripture, namely, within life long heterosexual marriage. In these difficult days I will continue to pray for the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, and Richard Coekin and his plants, and do all I can to promote Gospel unity across the breadth of evangelical life. Yours in the cause of Gospel truth Simon Vibert Chairman Fellowship of Word and Spirit
From the Chairman of Trustees Last month’s annual Trustees’ meeting was significant for many reasons, but the greatest was to record the resignations of two of our longest serving members. Hazel Bidewell was first a council member, and then Treasurer, before being appointed. It is with real sadness, though with complete understanding, that we accepted that for her and Lance the march of time had forced the decision upon her. Paul Gardner in a very real sense created and epitomised everything that Word and Spirit stands for. His call to serve in Atlanta, leaving everything he was involved with in the U.K., led to his inevitable departure from the Trustees. I feel it is important for me to say something, on all our behalf, with regard to Paul, as his loss to us is greater than words can express. He was a vicarage kid who was taken by his family to Chile and the States as a result of his father’s principled resignation from Anglican ministry. His theological education was mainly at King’s, London, but significantly also at Reformed Seminary in Jacksonville. He completed a Cambridge Ph.D in 1989. With this background he was able to review the Anglican Evangelical scene as an ordinand in Ridley Hall in 1979. It was a time of much internal conflict in the Evangelical world. The Nottingham NEAC did not unite the Evangelical Party, Church Society was taking a distinctive Protestant position under David Samuel, and a new younger Eclectic group was developing with radical ideas. What struck Paul at the time was the lack of an overall Anglican Evangelical theology. This hit me hard when he once spoke of Evangelicals who didn’t know the difference between Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology. My generation felt proud that we had discovered Berkhov, graduating from T.C. Hammond! I never heard of Biblical Theology in my training! This led to Paul feeling that there was no one grouping in the late 1970’s that quite fitted his longings. At the same time others were groping for a way forward, and a series of informal meetings took place, some in London, and others at Cheadle Hulme. Out of this developed the Fellowship of Word and Spirit. It was a privilege for me to be a part of those early discussions. Perhaps it is timely then that something should be said about the distinctive qualities of our fellowship. REFORMED The title Word and Spirit is lifted directly from John Calvin. We recognise that the people of God are those who possess the unique self-revelation of Almighty God, as contained in the Holy Scriptures. It was the Reformers’ re-discovery of the Bible that led to probably the greatest revival since the days of Acts, an event that we now call the Reformation. But Calvin was clear that it was not simply the Word that made the people of God what they were. It was God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, working through the Word in them, that created, transformed, and equipped His army on earth to live and work for His kingdom. Word and Spirit is at the heart of all true spirituality. TRINITARIAN By this I mean more than being credally orthodox. The Reformers’ discovery was of God’s true nature, holy, almighty and sovereign in all His acts. Our Fellowship set out to eschew the pragmatism that has so often characterised Anglican Evangelicalism. We believed that only God could meet the need of His church, and we would only be safe when we put His honour before anything else. WORLD AND LIFE VIEW Paul Gardner’s first publication for FWS was on the Kingdom of God. It sets out the radical agenda that a truly reformed understanding has of the whole of life. We are hoping to republish this in an expanded form in the near future. It rejected a dualistic view of life, where some areas were ‘spiritual’ and others outside of God’s sovereignty. It brought the whole of life within the compass of Christian discipleship, bringing liberty from legalist attitudes and greater responsibility towards the creation and all the creatures that God has made. In this Paul was indebted to Francis Schaeffer and L’Abri, as indeed I had been. We found in R.C. Sproul a wonderful exponent of this understanding of the whole of life, and were able to obtain videos for members to experience as we tried to embrace this World and Life outlook. NON POLITICAL It was agreed that, in an Anglican Evangelical world where politics was rife, the Fellowship should be distinct from it all. All our writings, conferences and informal meetings, were for the encouragement of a good understanding of God’s revealed truth with the endeavour to work it out in personal life and public ministry. As Paul was at the outset of his ministry when FWS started, there was a particular desire to encourage those at a similar stage. There was a vision to place our Orthos booklets in theological colleges. There was also another side to this apolitical stance. We wished to welcome anyone to share in our programme whatever their theological understanding. We didn’t want anyone to feel that they could not express themselves, or share their doubts. The Fellowship existed so that real fresh thinking could take place within the parameters set out in our understanding of what true reformed theology is. For this reason, all our conferences have been marked by a high degree of inter-action with speakers, as well with good expository preaching from within our own membership. This outlook owed a great deal to the Crieff Fellowship pioneered by the invincible Willie Still of fond memory. With these four markers in view it is possible to understand why FWS works as it does. The Trustees began with the original founders, and a constitution was agreed in which it was said that they should always be self-appointing. Those Trustees were responsible for appointing a Council. To put it bluntly, there is nothing democratic in FWS! The Trustees feel a responsibility to affirm and promote that understanding, common to our reforming forefathers, as set out in this article. You will now be able to appreciate just how fundamental was Paul Gardner’s contribution to this. As he has left the U.K. to work as a Presbyterian Minister in the States it is his legacy within the Anglican Evangelical world today. Our prayers go with him, Sharon and all their family. We are sure we haven’t seen the last of them. In fact we look forward to seeing them next summer, and many more times in the future. Jim Rushton
The Diamond Marriage - Simon Vibert (Christian Focus 2005) What another book on Christian marriage? After lecturing for nearly twenty years in marriage counselling, my bookshelves have a pretty wide range of marriage books so why buy another one? Books on Christian marriage seem to normally fall in to one of two categories. Some are really practical ‘self-help’ manuals with the odd biblical passage thrown in to help ‘fix’ the relationship. Others are more heavy weight theological treatments of marriage but may not offer such sensible help with day to day issues. Simon in The Diamond Marriage has managed to combine both. The book challenges you to think about marriage from a theological perspective, looking at marriage in a fuller context in relation to God and his purposes for marriage. It helpfully applies those insights into the practicalities of married life. The book is based on a course that Simon runs in at St Luke’s Wimbledon. It is divided into three section, which focuses on building the horizontal relationship between husband and wife. It then goes on to look at how the vertical relationship is built between the couple and God and finally how the relationship is built between the couple God and the world. It would have been great if Christian Focus could have produced a course book for couples to go alongside this. If you were interested in running the actual course you need to turn to the appendix book, which looks at running the course. You would need to look at the related website to see how you can turn the material from the book in to the course.. The website has the text, which can be used to teach this course. Even if you are not likely to be teaching a marriage course in the near future I would recommend adding the book to your collection and even reading it! Here is a great challenge to living marriage as God intended it to be – joyfully and honouring to God, and not to be content with merely doing our duty. Very readable with great touches of humour – well worth adding to the bookshelves! Clare Hendry Minister of Pastoral Care – St James Muswell Hill Visiting Lecturer in Pastoral Counselling – Oak Hill
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