The neo-Babylonian captivity of (some) evangelicals

Around September 1520, Matin Luther published a tract. Along with his other writings, he would be invited to repudiate it at the Diet of Worms in 1521. When Erasmus read this particular tract he is reported to have blurted out “The breach is irreparable” for it was seen by Luther’s contemporaries as his most incendiary writing to date. It attacked the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, which Luther maintained had actually held the Church in a kind of servitude. His aim was to set the Church free. The tract was called “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church”. It seems that today part of the contemporary church may have fallen prey to its own modern version of captivity. We all run the risk of being held captive by the culture which surrounds us. It configures us to think in certain ways, and not think in others. It has an ability to weave a spell that for the most part we are unaware of. It is always a challenge to break free.

For the Christian (in the Biblical sense) culture is particularly problematic where it is suffused with ideas and values opposed to the way the Creator would have us think. That there is such a thing as “the way the Creator would have us think” is of course highly contested in modern culture. Some maintain there is no Creator. Others maintain that even if there is He/She/It is unknowable (at least in any practically important way); one can therefore live as a practical, if not a philosophical, atheist. Then there are those who are happy to wander around in an agnostic fog, probably because it frees them to live as they see fit. This will have the added advantage of allowing them to fit in with the culture that surrounds them, of which they will be largely unaware. For my part, I am convinced that there is a Creator to whom I owe my existence. I am also convinced that He has revealed Himself in the Bible, not as the remote watchmaker of the deist, but the loving Father who goes to inordinate lengths precisely so that the He might know me, and I Him. As this is a minority view (and always has been) there is a potential clash between ways of thinking and behaving taught in the Bible (properly understood and applied), and those taught or even mandated in the surrounding, non-Christian, culture.

Such a clash is exactly the state of affairs that prevailed when the first Christians began to preach the Gospel, the good news of Jesus’ rescue mission (the one we’ll be celebrating in a few weeks). The Gospel was so counter-cultural in their time that living it and preaching it cost many of those first believers their liberty and their lives. That doesn’t of itself constitute evidence that the Gospel is true. Men and women in history have given their lives for all sorts of causes. But it does indicate that Biblical thinking and living has and can be costly. There are areas in the world where this is true today. But because broadly Biblical ideas and values came to predominate in the “West”, while there have been periods of difficulty, it would be hard to argue that, at least in recent times, we have experienced having to pay a high, let alone the ultimate, cost for following Jesus. And there have even been places where it has been reasonably comfortable for “evangelicals”. 

I mean of course the U.S. where historically it has not only been relatively easy to be a Christian believer, but in recent decades one could argue it has been desirable. Evangelicals in the US have had a political presence in the US since the 19^th century. However in the second half of the 20^th century, they emerged across the Protestant denominations to form a more clearly defined block, albeit with fuzzy edges. In the 1970’s moreover, they began to form a coherent voting bloc, coalescing around a number of political issues, particularly abortion. As a bloc they were of course actively courted by one Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and as a bloc they apparently supported him. This was always a transactional relationship. Trump promised to put conservative justices on the US Supreme Court and announced himself to be an ardent “pro-lifer”; the evangelicals voted for him in large numbers, even if some of them held their noses as they did so. Back in 2016 there were those who pointed out that Trump did not pass some fairly basic tests that evangelicals should have been interested in. For Max Lucado he didn’t pass the “decency” test that he would apply to someone who wanted to take his daughters out for an evening, let alone run the most powerful country in the World. Russell Moore elicited a Twitter rebuke from Trump, when among other things he called him one of "two immoral options". For Al Mohler too, Trump didn’t pass the smell test, although the other candidate was at least equally unpalatable. Mohler is a smart man, who made a ton of cogent points at the time. That he has now changed his tune has led some to question his motivation. Other evangelicals are reported to be heading in the opposite direction, experiencing what sounds like frustration and a degree of buyer’s remorse. But the fact is that in their support for Trump they were prepared to prioritize the political over the theological. They got what many of them wanted. But they got a lot more besides.

There has always been an anti-intellectual strain in US evangelicalism (and perhaps evangelicalism in general). By that I don’t just mean a dislike for intellectual endeavours outside of the Scriptures some of which like philology, history and science, were used to attack orthodox Christian belief. Thinking hard about that very belief has sometimes seemed too much like hard work for some evangelicals. There is something simple in the Gospel that is attractive (“Jesus loves me, this I know”), but the New Testament is clear that we should progress from milk to meat (1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Hebrews 5:11-14). Where teaching, training and thought are lacking, churches become vulnerable to being captured by influences and teachings other than those found in the Scriptures (Eph 4:14). It was the this sort of thing that Mark Noll diagnosed in the 1990’s:

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind. An extraordinary range of virtues is found among the sprawling throngs of evangelical Protestants in North America….. Notwithstanding all their other virtues, however, American evangelicals are not exemplary for their thinking, and they have not been so for several generations.” (Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind).

Just over 25 years later, that hollowing out of evangelical thinking, intellectual, apologetic and theological, has led in some churches to partisan politics trumping (pardon the pun) Scripture. Those churches have entered a new Babylonian captivity. We shall see whether they return, and in what state.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic we have no reason to be complacent. We either hear and appropriately respond to the warnings of Scripture and grow up in our faith, or we too run the risk of entering some or other captivity.   

Turbulent Bishops (with apologies to Henry II)

In his displeasure at Thomas Becket in 1170, Henry II is reputed to have cried “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest”, leading to some of his more impulsive Knights paying the Archbishop a visit, resulting in his untimely demise. Even in the absence of outraged monarchs, the Church of England continues to encounter turbulence, although not (thankfully) with a similar violent outcome. This time it is the Bishop of Oxford who has been stirring the pot (one too many metaphors). For those not familiar with the continuing agonies of the established church in England, it has been discussing issues of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage in a process called “Living in Love and Faith”. It has come to the point where the Bishops are meeting to agree concrete proposals to put to their governing General Synod; change is in the air. Officially, the Church of England currently holds to “traditional” (i.e largely Biblical) views of sexuality, gender and marriage. The broader culture, of course, does not. Hence the “traditional” view is pitted against what is widely regarded as a “progressive” view. This is seen as a problem in that not only is it uncomfortable, but is said by some to be unsustainable. Something has to give.

It is worth saying that it would be surprising if the views of Christians, seeking to follow a Saviour whom the world saw fit to crucify, were ever entirely compatible with the views of that same world. However, for a long time broadly Biblically-based values and attitudes have so influenced the Western World (an issue famously explored in Tom Holland’s “Dominion”), that tensions have tended to be at the margins or under the surface (with the occasional glaring exception). But, with increasing speed the values of the culture which we inhabit have been diverging from anything remotely Biblical. Hence problems have arisen, among them what should the church’s response be to this divergence and how should it decide. And this brings us back to the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft.

In the middle of the final part of a process involving discussions among the Church of England’s Bishops from November 2022 to January 2023, Bishop Croft decided that it was time for him to make his own thinking clear and public. So he published a pamphlet entitled “Together in Love and Faith: Personal Reflections and Next Steps for the Church” (downloadable here) in which he concentrated on the issue of same-sex relationships, and in particular the attitude the Church of England should take towards same-sex partnerships. Some have questioned his objectives. Others have rather rolled their eyes at another bishop seeking to subvert the very teaching he promised to uphold and defend. But his pamphlet is interesting. It is in part a description of a journey from an evangelical position in which Scripture is the starting point and final authority, including in areas as difficult, fraught and contentious as human sexuality, to what he calls “a more affirming position” on same-sex relationships. It is a careful, thoughtful and I have no doubt sincere attempt to argue for that position. And he does it claiming that he remains an evangelical, retaining “a high view of the authority of Scripture”.

There have been lots of responses, from both those who share his newly adopted objective (that the Church of England abandons its currently orthodox position and move to recognize same-sex relationships as on a par with heterosexual relationships), and those who oppose it. Some of the opposition is from “traditionists” who look at 2000 years of church teaching and practice and see that the Bishop’s position stands this on its head. For them this is sufficient basis for rejecting his conclusions. But much of the opposition (unsurprisingly) has come from those Anglicans who claim, along with the Bishop, to be evangelicals, recognizing Scripture as the source and standard of Church teaching and practice (while taking note of 2000 years of teaching and practice). Perhaps the most thorough and penetrating response has come from a member of the Bishop’s own diocese, Vaughan Roberts. To be fair to the Bishop, Roberts’ response it is as effective as it is because the Bishop gave him prior sight of his pamphlet before it was published. And the Bishop has praised both the tone and content of Robert’s response. All very Anglican. But both cannot be right in their conclusions. Part of their discussion is about practical steps the Church of England might have to take to retain both of them within its compass. But there is a more fundamental, and familiar, issue that quickly comes to the fore. 

Vaughan Roberts is no naïve Biblicist. He is a thoughtful and experienced pastor and Bible teacher, who leads one of the largest evangelical Anglican churches in Oxford. And crucially, he has personally has had to grapple with issues of human sexuality not just in the abstract, but personally. Once again in this paper he is very open about his own struggles and experience. Where he agrees with his Bishop, he makes it clear (and there are areas of agreement). But he is surely correct in spotting what has really changed for the Bishop. It is something the Bishop is also fairly clear about. Notwithstanding warm words about Scripture, he actually prioritises something above it. For him, Scripture is trumped by experience. We do not interpret our experience in the light of Scripture, we use experience to interpret Scripture. Where the demands and implications of Scripture lead to difficult and painful conclusions, including some that might mean careful and perhaps painful readjustment of our thinking and behaviour, it is legitimate to reinterpret Scripture. In fact, we probably should. For how could painful change be what God demands of us?  For the Bishop, in the light of the painful and unjust experiences of some of those whose sexual identity is different to Biblical demands and norms, we should find a way to alter our interpretation of Scripture to avoid the pain. This is simply the loving thing to do. And so in his pamphlet the Bishop goes to considerable lengths to do exactly this. As Roberts points out this is “an essentially liberal, rather than evangelical, approach”.  

All of which means that we have been here before. It is the old claim that Scripture is not the revelation of God, and does not have any authority over and above us. Authority lies somewhere else. For the Enlightenment it was in reason; in the 21^st century it is in experience. And so the current impasse that the Church of England finds itself in boils down to this familiar issue of authority. There is much more in Robert’s response beyond this, and all of it worth reading and thinking about. But why should the rest of us be bothered?

There are practical reasons for being bothered about the state of the Church of England; there's its infrastructure for one, with churches up and down the country. Then there are those links of fellowship between evangelicals (in the Roberts sense) in the Church of England, and those of us happily outside of it. We should not be, and are not, indifferent to the pressure they are under and the struggle on which they are embarked. It is tough. But what is at stake is truth, and truth always matters. There is such a thing as “Neuhaus’ law”:  where orthodoxy is optional, it will soon or later be proscribed. And that matters to us all.