J.I. Packer on the Anglican split

We’re back from holidays feeling relativley refreshed despite the record heat wave Adelaide suffered through.

It seems much has happened in our time away – news has filtered into my inbox that J.I Packer is being threatned with sanctions and is being suspended from any ministry in Canadian Anglican Churches. Why?

If you haven’t been paying attention to some of the current woes of the Anglican Church worldwide here’s a (very) brief summary.

• The Anglican world-wide body met together in 1998 at the Lambeth Conference to discusss many issues – probably the most primary one was the growing concern of the move of the church towards liberalism and acceptance of homosexual behaviour as a valid lifestyle choice. A large document of the minutes was produced which essentially upheld the current biblical position and put a moratorium on any ordination of candidates who were practicising homosexuals.
• In 2003 the Episcopal Church of America went against the Lambeth recommendation and ordained a practicising homosexual – Gene Robinson – as Bishop of New Hampshire.
• Since that time there have been simmering tensions between the Episcopal Church and some of it’s Evangelical congregations.
• In 2006 the Episcopal Church appointed Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Her appointment was seen as highly controversial.
• Late 2007 a number of evangelical churches in the Episcopal denomination voted to break from Episcopal oversight and sought the oversight of evangelical Bishops from Africa.
• Early 2008 St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican church in Vancouver (where JI Packer attends) voted overwhelmingly to break from the Anglican Church of Canada for similar reasons – and sought oversight from Bishops in South America.

If you didn’t know – J.I. Packer has been an influential evangelical theologian for many decades.

Here are some of Packer’s thoughts on the issue. I especially liked these two thoughts:

In response to the question, “Why can’t we agree to disagree?”

Because what we’re contending for is the gospel – and the alternative, what we’re being asked to sanction even if we don’t’ personally agree with it, is not the gospel – It is in fact a denial of the gospel and a key point. And it would be extremely unloving and irreverent to the God who has spoken and told us what the truth is if we simply said, ‘Oh let’s not bother.’

There are secondary matters which we can say, ‘Oh let’s not bother’ – say for infant baptism vs believer baptism – but this is a primary matter. This is what it means to get right with God. And none of the specifics of the gospel are negotiable.

In response to the follow-up question, “What do you mean by unloving?”

To leave people in error which may ruin them eternally is, in my judgement, extremely unloving.

It’s worth a look.