Fundamentalism (Part II) Message by Apb. Jensen

[David Virtue]

FUNDAMENTALISM (Part II)

OUR MISSION

Do we care? In the face of this sort of world, what sort of Diocese do
we propose to be? Most of us would identify ourselves as classical
Christians, most indeed as evangelical Christians; neither
fundamentalist or liberal. The question for us is, are we merely an
establishment church, or do we propose also to be a missionary church?
Allow me to repeat what I said at the Deep Impact rally in August:

'Church-going Anglicans in Sydney are about 1% of the population. We
are becoming invisible. It is almost as unusual to have a friend who is
a churchgoing Anglican, as it is to have one who is an animal-keeper in
the zoo. We are poised to become exotic. Most people will never meet or
know one of us; it is hard for our children to have sufficient friends
to support them. How will our neighbours hear the gospel from us? 'If
we wish to have a deep impact on our society - humanly speaking - we
need to aim in the next decade to have at least 10% of the population
who are committed, equipped and bold to speak in the name of Christ.
Whether God will so bless us, is in his hands. But this ought to be our
aim. There will need to be more of us, and the more of us will need to
be more deeply committed, more constantly prayerful, more missionary-
minded, more confident in God, better equipped, better educated in the
Bible and more prepared to sacrifice time and money and worldly
happiness than ever before.'

I do not believe that I have been brought to this position of
Archbishop in order to acquiesce silently in the passing away of
Anglican Christianity in this region. I cannot look out in satisfaction
and complacency at our past achievements. I cannot compare us with
Christians elsewhere and draw comfort. I can say that, given the events
of the last decades, we have done well in various ways. I can say that
there are elements of the present situation which give us cause for
hope and joy. I can say that all is not lost. But we need to recognise
that we live in days of crisis, in days of decision, for our Anglican
Church in Australia and for the evangelical movement in this land and
for our Diocese in particular. Choices lie before us - difficult
choices. It is no accident that Bishop Spong says that Australia is his
most fruitful mission field, that he expects his sort of Christianity
to flourish here. He is right. Crowds flock to hear him and some
churches even support him - they are like turkeys voting for an early
Christmas.

That is the point at which we have arrived. And that is why I have
proposed that we make this the mission statement for our Diocese and to
follow out the consequences by acting on it:

'To glorify God by proclaiming our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in
prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit, so that everyone will hear his
call to repent, trust and serve Christ in love, and be established in
the fellowship of his disciples while they await his return.'

Why have this statement? It aims to bring God's word home to us just as
and where we are. It is not intended to be a complete statement of
theology - it is trinitarian in shape, but there is nothing explicit
here about sin, atonement, or the scriptures, for example. It is not
intended to include or justify all the valid activities which we may
engage in on behalf of Christ. At another time it is possible that a
different mission statement may emerge. It is not intended to be
compulsory. In no way will parishes or individuals be forced to
subscribe to it. I do not mind much that some will look for a more
pithy and memorable statement. I am more concerned that it be
recognised for what I trust it is, a prophetic application of God's
word to our present situation. And, if it is the application of God's
word, it will persuade us to make decisions, show faith and enter
commitments.

What do I mean by the claim that the mission statement is the
application of God's word to our situation? It means this. We are not
content to be a hobby organisation; we believe that we have a message
of salvation for the world; we are bound to accept the immense
challenge to share the knowledge of God. Let me now explain why I think
that this is God's challenge for us at this time. In brief, I believe
it is, because what I have said is so firmly rooted in scripture.

It is precisely from within the missionary situation of his own time
that the Apostle Paul speaks to us about this: 'So whatever you eat or
drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause
anyone to stumble, whether Jews or Greeks or the church of God - even
as I try to please everyone in every way, For I am not seeking my own
good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my
example, as I follow the example of Christ.' (1 Cor 10:31-11:1). What
is our purpose in life? More specifically what is the purpose of our
behaviour towards others? 'do it all for the glory of God.'

Even our love for others comes second to our love for God. We who
belong to him, wish to see him receive the glory that is due to him; we
wish his reputation to be high over all; we wish that every knee would
bend before him; we wish that the songs of all the redeemed would echo
his praise; we pray that God would hallow his own name. The glory of
God and the salvation of his people are united. Salvation reveals his
glory and creates a people who glorify him as their goal in life.
Ezekiel teaches us that the hallowing of God's name is something which
he himself does as he saves his disobedient people and restores them
(Ez 36:16-23). In the end, human beings are mere creatures, and our
greatest good is found when God is glorified, when he is given his
rightful place as the centre of all things. That is the goal of
creation; the moment is going to arrive when 'the Son himself will be
made subject to him1/4so that God may be all in all' (1 Cor 15:28).

To commit ourselves to the glory of God is an entirely fitting aim for
human beings; but it is also a proper introduction for what follows. In
fact, if you just wish to have as your mission statement 'to glorify
God', all else will follow, for the salvation of the world is his
glory. That is why Paul says in this very context, 'For I am not
seeking my own good, but the good of many that they may be saved.' And
that is why the next words have to isolate the proclamation of the
gospel as the way by which people are saved.

The scriptures emphasise the importance of the godly life in the
process of proclaiming the gospel (eg 1 Peter 3:2). Indeed that is
Paul's point in this very passage. But although the godly life adorns
and commends the message, it does not take the place of the message. In
God's economy of salvation, it is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
which is the saving instrument. It is the word, but not merely any
word, or indeed any word about God: it is the word that Jesus Christ is
Saviour and Lord: 'we preach Christ crucified1/4to those whom God has
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
God' (1 Cor 1:22-23).

Now let me give two provisos in saying this. The first arises because I
isolate the word of God as the special means of God's saving work. I am
not saying, that all of us are involved in proclaiming the word in the
same way. We ought all to be prepared to 'give a reason for the hope
that you have' (1 Peter 3:15), but opportunities, gifts and training
differ from person to person. In the body there are many gifts.
Secondly, however, we all retain our responsibilities to support the
proclamation of the word, and to give it the highest priority in our
support. After all, the hallowing of God's name is the first petition
of the Lord's prayer, and his name is hallowed in the salvation of his
people. You do not have to be a missionary to be an extremely active
supporter of missionaries.

When we see the mission statement and the goal together we may think
that we are being invited to solve all the world's problems with one
answer and in our own strength. But God does his own far wider work in
the world without our co-operation at all, and the gospel of Jesus does
not need us in order to make progress. Immediately, therefore, the
mission statement goes on to say that we are to proclaim the gospel of
Jesus 'in prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit'. Salvation and the
application of salvation to the human heart are the business of God; he
graciously allows us to be involved, but he is the one who must do
these things. All our efforts will be quite fruitless, without trust in
God expressed especially in prayer. One of the immediate consequences
of accepting this mission statement would be the notable multiplication
of prayer for its fulfilment.

Paul told the people of Athens 'God commands all people everywhere to
repent' (Acts 17:31; also Mk 1:14,15). The gospel is universal, it does
not discriminate between races or language groups or any other human
diversities. If we wish to be involved in God's gospel ministry, we too
need to be universal in our outlook and not restricted to people of our
own kind, race or class. We cannot be satisfied with the penetration
achieved by the gospel in this Diocese. There are too few people; we
are too restricted to the professional and middle class; we are too
limited to European and English speaking tribes. A commitment by us to
this mission is a commitment to all people that they will at least hear
the gospel in its true form. The repentance that Paul and Jesus speak
of first in these texts is the repentance of faith. That is, its first
action is to put trust and confidence in our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, the one mediator between God and humankind.

One of the most important theological truths to get right is the
connection between saving faith and obedience. We are not saved by good
works, by obedience. But salvation leads to good works; faith is the
mother of obedience. The rest of the mission statement tells us of the
powerful effects of the gospel of Jesus. By receiving him as Lord, we
commit ourselves to walking with him by faith and in love. On hearing
of the mission statement a number of people have expressed concern lest
the good works that we do as individuals and in churches and
organisations such as Anglicare and the Retirement Villages are
omitted. Nothing can be further from the truth. We are to serve Christ
in love; this means that we are to love our neighbours and to be
involved in works of love in the community in which our lives are set.
Indeed holy living itself attracts people to the Lord.

But the holiness is a fruit of the gospel, and if we fail to get the
order right, we will confuse the means of salvation with its
consequences. If we wish our lives to be productive with the good works
of God, we must give the proclamation of the gospel a priority of place
and a uniqueness of effect. That done, we must serve Christ in the
community and in the home and in the church with all our hearts. Our
goals as churches and Christians are multiple not single. If we fail to
get this right our good works will be done for the wrong reason, they
will be the wrong good works, and unregenerate people will be doing
them. The very soul of our denomination is at stake in getting this
matter right.

The church is not incidental to salvation. God saves individuals, but
he adds them to his people, and he often saves them in the midst of his
people. We cannot be content to see individuals won to Christ without
also seeing them established in the Christian fellowship. In the
future, that fellowship may not look much like the standard Sunday
church which we may be used to. Its timing, form, location, size and
membership may be very different. But the fact of fellowship around the
Lord Jesus Christ cannot be different; in particular, like him, we are
looking for fellowships made up of disciples, of learners who seek to
obey him and walk in love. I am saying that as a missionary strategy
the mission statement is calling on us to multiply Christian
fellowships, not to be content with a parish-based Anglicanism alone,
but to insist on a spiritually based Anglicanism in which the reality
of the church is more important than its outward shape. I am saying
that the quality of our churches as nurturing communities must be
strong if we are to survive and grow.

The fellowship of Christ's disciples will be marked by faith and they
will be marked by love. They will also be fellowships of hope. They
will not be so caught up in this world as to forget the world to come
and the coming Saviour. When Paul spoke of his early converts in
Thessalonica, he praised them for their faith and for their love and
then he refers to the fact that 'you turned from idols to serve the
living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he
raised form the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath' (1
Thess 1:9-10). This will be one of the chief ways in which these
Anglican fellowships are going to differ from the world around, for the
sake of the world around.

'The coming wrath' is a phrase that brings home to us the significance
of the issues of which I am speaking. There is a day of judgement;
there is eternal life and there is eternal condemnation; the issues of
judgement are worked out in this life; there is a Saviour and his name
is Jesus. That men and women are in need of salvation from the coming
wrath; that this, indeed, is their most desperate need. These are so
clearly, so plainly the teachings of the Bible that it is scarcely
necessary to recite them. But what are we doing about them? I trust
that all persons here have turned to Christ as their only hope of
salvation from the coming wrath. I trust that this is your position as
I speak to you. But if it is - what should you be prepared to do to
forward the work of salvation for others?

I realise, of course, that in saying this I have come to one of the
chief 'rocks of offence' for the post-modern world: the fact that there
is a coming wrath, a day of judgement. The compulsive relativism of our
contemporary world cannot cope with this fixed and immovable future
point, this moment of absolute truth, when the secrets of all hearts
will be disclosed. And, unfortunately, this is precisely where the
contemporary church has shown itself to be pitifully weak. It will not
preach the coming wrath, and it will not announce Jesus as the one true
Saviour of humanity. September 11th was one of those days when the
world changed. We all knew that it was possible for wicked and
desperate men to do fearful damage in the great cities of the world. We
knew it, and yet the fact that no such thing had ever happened made us
confident that no matter how desperate and wicked men are, they would
not be party to such a slaughter of the innocents. Now we know better,
and without wishing to be alarmist I have to say that if such a deed
can be perpetrated, there is no reason whatever why far worse and more
horrible things may not be done. Indeed the faces of the innocent in
Afghanistan are beginning to haunt us also as terror begets terror. On
that day, surely, postmodernism died and we had to readmit the words
'absolute evil' to the language. In the face of realistic human fears,
hope, the forgotten virtue, may be one of the great distinguishing
marks of the Christian fellowships. But it won't be a hope of the
kingdom of God on this earth; it will be a hope of the coming of Jesus,
and of his capacity to save us from the wrath to come. And yet this
hope will be particularly important for the quality of life here on
earth. Let me apply this to a less apocalyptic, more mundane
contemporary matter. In a short time we will be voting at a federal
election. You may think that with my strong emphasis on the future
matters like elections should be of little consequence to us. On the
contrary, it is our gospel of the coming wrath which makes us intensely
interested in all that goes on in our world, not least the issue of
government. Our judgment in elections will be of significance in the
final judgement. One of the elements of the political process which
should especially concern us is the quality of candidates. I am told
that there has been a very significant decline in the last thirty years
in the number of people offering for pre-selection in all the major
parties. The numbers have been slashed; the question now is - are there
sufficient people of quality offering?

I fear that a major factor in all this is the contempt which is
expressed about politicians almost universally in the community. Who
would want to join the ranks of such a despised cohort? Cynicism has
swallowed up intelligent political commentary; it is in danger of
making the good work that our political leaders do, invisible. There is
not much encouragement to be a committed servant of the people; on the
contrary we have a tendency to reward politicians and parties who
reflect some of the worst features of our national life, not least our
selfishness and lack of generosity to those in need. I believe that the
bi-partisan policy on refugees is not something of which we should be
proud.

As those committed to classic Christianity we ought to think very hard
about this. In the first place, our biblical view of sin should leave
us with no illusions: political - and church - leaders are sinful and
will often let us down. Secondly, we are right to ask for the highest
standards of probity and integrity in public life and be disappointed
when less is offered. Thirdly, we are also able to point the way to
repentance and forgiveness through Jesus; we know what it is to admit a
mistake or failing and then take appropriate action. When a political
leader would admit to a false judgment or even an unworthy action, he
or she is rarely forgiven. No wonder they are so inflexible and
combative in public; how different things could be. Would we forgive a
political leader who said, for example, "My policy on tax, on
education, on refugees is wrong and I am going to change it." In other
words, the gospel of judgement is sharply relevant to key issues of
political and community life.

That is the mission statement and something of its biblical basis and
the reach of its application. It calls us to evangelistic mission as
our chief priority. But it does not stop there; for evangelism must
lead to conversion of life and heart, and to the life of justice and
love in the community, and to the creation of rich and nurturing
Christian fellowships, to strong churches. And this is not to pull us
out of the community; on the contrary, voluntary associations such as
ours are vital to the good health of the Australian community. For
example, people whose lives are nourished by God in these fellowships
should offer for community leadership.

Am I advancing novel ideas in saying all this? At the end of this year
we farewell three of our most respected senior brothers, Ray Smith and
Paul Barnett from their role as regional bishops, and Peter Smart as
Registrar. There have been and will be other occasions in which more
will be said by way of thanks for their service. Suffice to say that
all of them lay down their tasks with our esteem and deep gratitude. As
you know I am delighted that Glenn Davies, Peter Tasker and Philip
Selden have agreed to succeed them. But, despite any differences in
gifts and personalities between those who retire and those who succeed,
there is no difference in commitment to this mission. They exemplify it
in their lives. Furthermore, Ray and Paul were part of the committee
that laboured hard to produce the mission statement and the document on
strategic spending, and Peter and Glenn are members of the Standing
Committee who present it to you for your consideration. What a great
tradition we are able to unfold in this succession. I praise God for
his provision!

OUR RESOLVE

The key question before us is this: How do we evangelise the area we
know of as the Diocese of Sydney? You may be sure, by the way that we
will not do it by neglecting our mission responsibilities in the rest
of Australia and the world. But nor will it be done through
uninterrupted drift. Let me make the following five observations.

First, the talk of 10% is a mission strategy. We must be clear that we
are not talking of a 10% increase in our churches, but 10% of the
5,000,000 people who make up our region. Humanly speaking, our aim is
to reach the important base point of 10%, so that we may have some hope
of effectively evangelising the other 90%. It is our necessary first
stage.

We need to encourage innovation and adjust our approach as we began our
analysis, three necessary elements of mission planning became clear. We
must:

- Look at the end-point

If we did see very significant increase in numbers of people, what
changes would we need to make in order to cope? How many ministers? How
many in training? How many buildings? How many regions? What would
happen to Synod? What about Diocesan services?

- Look the process

In the first place we are going to have to consult our people, motivate
and train them. What steps need to be taken now to accomplish this? Who
is going to do this? What about the organisations? We began to look at
some tough propositions; for example 'For the mission to succeed it
will have to become the all consuming feature of diocesan life
involving a top down change in diocesan organisation as each relevant
part reviews and adjusts to fit into the mission strategy'. We began to
isolate six phases that need to be passed through by this time next
year.

- Look to the strategies

Here is the making of a list (may I stress again that this list has no
status - it serves us here as a way of getting you involved in mission
planning):

We intend to multiply congregations, not merely grow big churches.

Therefore... We intend to encourage specialist churches, not merely
concentrate on generalist ones.

Therefore... We intend to make church attendance consistent and
faithful, not episodic and uncommitted.

Therefore... We intend to recruit and train as many as possible skilled
persons for mission and ministry and not wait passively for candidates
to identify themselves.

Therefore... We intend to put in place spiritual, legal and theological
foundations so the new believers will be secure and not allow the
diocese to lose its way.

The second is the commitment of this Synod to lay administration. I
have been astonished at the suggestions that have been made in various
quarters that we wish to adopt this course as a sort of adolescent pay
back aimed at the National Church for ordaining women. We have been
talking about this for over twenty years. The theology of lay
administration is linked to lay ministry and especially lay preaching,
and flows naturally and properly from the theology of the Bible and our
reformed heritage as it applies to the contemporary world. But more
than that. The theological importance of the congregation and its
significance as an agent for mission also calls for this development.
In this Diocese we expect lay people to minister and to offer spiritual
leadership in the congregation. It is strange not to allow for this
ministry in an ordered way. Other dioceses have developed novelties
such as local priests and extended communion to help with ministry. Lay
administration, should it be legal, would be a contribution to the
common task of bringing the gospel to Australia.

END