In the papers recently

I have been reading about the formation of the Fellowship of confessing Anglicans. Normally I wouldn't worry too much, other than to think "at least someone is standing up in the middle of their mess" and to pray for righteousness for them.

But now it's all a bit more sharply pointed - a bit closer to home, now we seem to have become involved in an Anglican church ourselves. The overall slant in the editorial from The Times is not favourable because of the movements unwillingness to compromise with modern ethics, and therefore it sounds promising to me. There was a good letter by John Samways about the article, which was published, and which seems to sum things up well.

My concern with this is that if one dug below the surface one would find mostly crusty old 1662 prayerbook men, rather than radical Christians that want to stand up for righteousness and life by the Spirit. The Anglican church is such a mixture, and being either liberal or conservative is no indication of whether the individual is actually fundamentally Christian in outlook or not.

In an earlier age I'd have been pleased to see the Anglican church split in order that the 'true Christians' could move forward and the dead bits could just shrink and disappear as they should. There is still a part of me that wishes that would happen, but there is also a side that sees it as SUCH a mess, such a mixture, that I can't imagine such a clean split taking place. This really is a full on wheat-and-tares situation, and one can only hope that as people press further into God that the tares will stand out more and more. I just hope there are more people like Nazir-Ali who will stand up for what is right than people who embrace sinful, shameful behaviour and call it right.