[15 Jan 2020]
Dear friends,
So we’ve all read the statistics and we’re in shock.
But are we really?
I rather feel that the “bombshell” of the National Church statistics released in this month’s edition of the Anglican Journal, is maybe not so much of a bombshell as all that.
The fact is, we have been living with decline and an ageing demographic for some time. We’ve been living with an exhausted Christendom paradigm as well. We have been managing this decline for decades – slowly, perhaps quietly but inexorably. So, on the one hand the empirically verified statistics found in the national church report are, in the cold light of day, sobering, but they can hardly be called a surprise.
Much ink has been spilt refuting the claim that, all things remaining the same, we will be no more as a denomination by a certain date. That need not detain us long. All things will not remain the same and therefore, I don’t believe that prognostication, and I don’t think you do either. What I do believe however, is that we are very definitely being called into a different future – and that the decline we are experiencing and the change it is creating, is making sure that there’s no turning back from that.
I want to talk to you about the future; and about some intimations about what we might be being called to – and maybe what we’re being called away from. All of that is much more interesting than the hand-wringing of recent weeks.
Is this a crisis? Yes. A holy one, I believe. The question is, how do we respond? Well we are Christ-followers and so I’d humbly suggest that we need to do just that: follow Jesus and listen for God’s voice to guide us.
I am firmly of the belief that God has gifted us with this time. I am not being Pollyanna. I mean this. We have come to the end of a time in which the Church was a dominant force in our culture. That is an undisputed fact. And yet not one that should make us despair. We’ve had a good run.
But I also believe that we are being called to deep engagement with our faith and simultaneously, and our behavior as a culture. As an example, take the climate crisis. What does the mission of God look like in the light of that? If, as N.T. Wright has recently written, New Testament Christians believed that in Jesus the Christ, God was bringing earth and heaven together, “making creation new, restoring the world from all its pathologies,” then working to establish the kingdom of God is rightly the work of all believers. This sounds to me like a robust mandate for a theology which will support bold and sustained Christian action to address the climate crisis.
This is a recovery of a strong Christology, which leads to a renewed sense of both Christ’s work among humanity and a template for our own Christian vocations.
I’m taking encouragement from this recovery – that a robust theology of a redeemed humanity in creation is embodied in this interpretation of our scripture and of the whole project that Christ ushers in. It touches and changes how we think through our mission as the people of God. John 3:16, “for God so loved the world…,” means something quite different then, doesn’t it?
So perhaps God is calling us again to listen – just as God has called in the great revivals and ‘re-thinkings’ of our past: Consider the great renewal stories in our denominational history: the times when we prayed as a people that God would “renew a right spirit within [us]”: Wesleyanism in the 18th century which led to the “Great Awakening”, the evangelization of North America, The Oxford Movement that breathed on the dry bones of the 19th century church, the World missions movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,…
I suppose all I’m saying, is that on every level – we’ve been here before. In every age, God has called us into a renewed relationship like the children of Israel. In every age God finds ways to speak to us afresh about mission – in ways that we can’t ignore. This re-awakening is a deeply rooted pattern in our faith. Just because we’ve forgotten that, doesn’t change the truth of its existence. So enough of the hand-wringing.
Here is the Gospel in all its strangeness and beauty and truth – urging us on to deeper thought and engagement through the Gospel of Jesus Christ with this beautiful world.
You see, the issue isn’t that we lack a mission – rather God’s mission is so deep and wide that only through God’s love and only with a vision for working for the kingdom of heaven here among us can we begin to find the energy and the compassion and the motivation to dedicate ourselves, our souls and bodies and our resources and whatever else this new and emerging Church has to give towards its accomplishment.
So, don’t ask me if I think the Church is declining. I categorically do not think that.
However, I do think a church is declining.
But if you then ask me if the electrifying mission of God is alive, then I’d show you a resurrected church, and a new heaven and a new earth. And I have to tell you that that’s what gets me up in the morning with optimism and with a full heart of gratitude for the Diocese of Niagara. Because that is the direction in which we are very consciously travelling – to listen for where God is working and to run to catch up.
We in Niagara are called to life and compelled to love; ignited by the irresistible love of Jesus and renewed by the Holy Spirit.
To my ears, that sounds like the mandate of faith.
Thanks be to God.
The Rt. Rev. Susan Bell
What an extraordinary and confusing message. Does “Christian action to address the climate crisis” really provide a more compelling mandate than the one set by the Rock upon whom the Church depends for its purpose? Christ did not come to set an example of how the planet could be rescued from the deprivations of fallen Man, but rather to rescue men from their sin and guilt. +Niagara may think otherwise, but I’d like to know if she can find any scriptural warrant. She would do better to reflect on why some local churches are growing and bucking the trend of decline, rather than promoting a new “gospel” which simply makes the institutional Church conform more closely to the world.
I think this bishop is confused the Church has always had a mission, to preach and live according to Bible, to bring people to the Father through the Son. From this people will come to God and have a relationship with him. Resulting from this we Christians go out into the world as we have always done to improve it. The Anglican Church of Canada has become a reflection of society and this bishop wants to bring the issues of society in to the Church wrap them up in biblical language and send people into the world not to profess Christ but to champion the causes of society.
It is a mistake to let this woman frame any type of scenario for discussion. The purpose of Bishop Bell’s life is to be a bad example for others.
Saying that Wesleynism was part of “our denominational history” is a bit like saying Lutheranism is part of Roman Catholic history. Hardly a cause for rejoicing in the parent church. I’m not familiar with “the evangelization of North America”. Was that done by Anglicans? The Oxford Movement I would not associate with anyone “breathing life” into anything. But I suppose, leaving specific examples aside, the question would be whether the climate crisis (real or imagined) presents an opportunity for Anglicans to turn the statistics around and re-evangelize North America. What would John Wesley have done? What would the apostle Paul have done? Is it merely a historical accident that they had no theology of climate? Is God working through the climate to bring people to Christ? I know His ways are mysterious, but…..I seem to recall those two preaching the Gospel from the scriptures. Could that be worth a try?
I would say she is desperately grasping at straws, but I’m sure she is against those too.
“We’ve been living with an exhausted Christendom paradigm as well.”
Which paradigm is that? The one where Jesus Christ says, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ or maybe the one where Paul teaches “I only came to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified’ or maybe the one of James who tells us ‘friendship with the world is enmity with God?’
A church doesn’t fail because it doesn’t attract numbers, it fails when it decides being attractive the world is more important than Christ.
That said, she is correct that we have a responsibility for stewardship and Christians should lead the way in exercising that responsibility.
However, it is also more importantly true that it is Christ being lifted up that will draw all people unto him. Lifting up the earth, even though we have a responsibility to care for it, does not make it’s husbandry a substitute (or a euphamism) for the gospel.
If I can mix metaphors here: Royals great George Brett offered the advice don’t go to the plate trying to hit the ball far. Instead go to the plate trying to hit it hard. By shifting the focus from far to hard you shift the focus from the fence to the ball. If you focus on the ball and succeed in hitting it hard, guess what, it will go far.
If you are struggling with the analogy here think shifting the focus from climate change or human sexuality or socual justice (or any other detractor from the real mission) back to Christ.
Stick to ‘preaching Christ’. It is enough.
Maybe her faith in God and Christ went over Niagara Falls and went down the Niagara River and all she is left is the beliefs of the socialist humanists that shift like blowing sand
What a great idea for a fundraiser to combat climate hysteria; a bishop and a barrel. Well, maybe a drum. Are drums bigger than barrels?
If this lady can help curb the amount of hot air and noxious gases being pumped into the atmosphere by misguided clergy persons masquerading as Christians, she is to be encouraged..
I think that her goal (and that of some past bishops of the diocese) is to reduce membership to zero, and close all the church buildings, thereby reducing the carbon emissions of her diocese to zero, well before the predicted 2040 end (according to their own report) of the Anglican Church of Canada. In the 16 year period from 2001-2017, the ACoC stats show that her diocese lost 55% of its membership (47195 to 21095) and 49% of its attendance (12140 to 6103) and baptisms have declined by over 75% (1458 to 339).
It is very very sad. I would never have believed in my lifetime the Church of England which in my youth was still lively and evangelical, would have sunk so very low..
In some limited way, I feel sorry for her. She appears to be a stunning example of the Peter Principle. I assume she went through some type of discernment process, probably went to a seminary [on student loans no doubt, yet unpaid], was actually ordained, served as a curate somewhere, became a rector somewhere else, and after all that she comes across as dumber than a box of rocks.