Dear St Luke’s | On Being the Body - Matt Way

Dear St Luke’s,

Oddly enough, today on the blog I get to be the bearer of breaking international news. Not because our blog happens to be publishing at the decisive moment, or because I have some exclusive scoop, but because in the last week the Anglican church worldwide has been undergoing seismic shifts and it seems that no major news outlet has even sought to comment.

If indeed you haven’t heard, the news is that last Friday (October 17) a major rupture occurred in the Anglican Church worldwide. The Anglican Communion, as it is known, is a global fellowship of 47 member churches across the world. Many of the provinces are comparable in size to the Church of England, and each has their own congregations, clergy, bishops, and archbishops. While they are autonomous they’ve historically been joined by a common (sometimes worryingly colonial) heritage, as well as  a set of unifying  structures: most notably, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as a symbolic “first among equals,” and various councils and conferences designed to guide theological unity.

The total membership of the Anglican communion is somewhere around 100 million people, that is, until last Friday, when a conservative coalition within the Anglican Communion, known as GAFCON (the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) published a statement rejecting these long-standing structures. In their view, the Communion’s leadership no longer reflects biblical faithfulness.

To be clear, this move didn’t come out of nowhere. GAFCON was formed in 2008, primarily in response to what they saw as theological drift within parts of the Anglican Church, and it is no small deal- GAFCON claim to represent 85% of the Anglican communion, and though this figure is contested, even more conservative estimates suggest that they represent more than half of global Anglicans. GAFCON place a strong emphasis on resisting “revisionist” theologies. In particular they are concerned by the changing stance on issues of human sexuality and, to a lesser but still meaningful extent, the ordination of women.

With that in mind, and in light of the recent appointment of the first female archbishop, Dame Sarah Mullally (who has expressed more open views with regard to the blessing of same-sex couples), it’s not so surprising that GAFCON have chosen to act now more decisively- perhaps it was even inevitable.

Now, I’m not writing here to take sides in this particular argument, or to ask you to; but to reflect with deep sadness on the news that once again the church is facing fracture. GAFCON are due to hold their first alternative conference in March next year, and we’re yet to see how many of its member churches follow through on the division, but regardless, it marks a significant moment of disunity.

This development grieves my heart, and in my view undermines the church’s claim to relevance in the world. What good is a divided church to a divided world? What hope does the gospel possess if it cannot even unite us in the midst of diverse opinions? The hope for the world surely cannot be that we will all think the same, and then everything will be ok? Unity was never supposed to mean uniformity!

I may seem a little hopeless, yet even (and perhaps especially) in this moment I am reminded once again of Christianity’s central claim: that life can come even from death. In the midst of this death, St Luke’s, are we not called to step into a new kind of life?

This Sunday we are celebrating together for our All-In service, and the topic, chosen literally months ago, is the body of Christ. You know? That famous passage from 1 Corinthians in which Paul likens the church to a human body: many parts, distinct diverse, yet united in one life. He says: if one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part shares in its joy.

It seems to me that the challenge and invitation before us is to be reconnected!   

I’m really looking forward to hearing what you make of that, come Sunday. But that is only the beginning. Having spent the last 6 weeks thinking about our logo and identity- what it means to see St Luke’s, in quite abstract terms;  this Sunday ushers in  a new mini-series that will take us through to advent,  asking us to consider in more concrete and practical ways what it means to be St Luke’s.

As we think about what we should do, we will be guided by three of the most repeated commands in all of Scripture: to love (Nov 2), to sing (Nov 9), and not to fear (Nov 16). These may be three short weeks, but the invitation is huge.

In this moment of uncertainty for the global Anglican Church, may we be led into life anew. And let us go there together.

As former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has said: ‘the whole truth requires the whole church.’ We need your voice. Please, consider this your invitation to join the conversation.