From 1966 to 2002?

Recent tensions in the Anglican Communion over homosexual practice have caused Professor Packer great heartache. Here he takes the opportunity to explain his actions.

In 1966 in Britain, when evangelical leader Martyn Lloyd-Jones called on Anglican evangelicals to leave the Church of England, I, with John Stott and others, stayed put and maintained that this was not the way to go.

But 36 years later, in 2002, I was one of the 80-odd who walked out of the Synod of the Canadian diocese of New Westminster, declaring communion with the bishop and the synod broken. I have been asked: what had changed? Have my principles shifted over time, or were the two situations significantly different? I here respond to these questions.

New Westminster

In June 2002 New Westminster Synod passed (by a 62.5% majority) a motion requesting Bishop Michael Ingham to do as he said he wished to do, and start the blessing of same-sex unions on request. We who walked out when the bishop said he was going ahead, formed ourselves into the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW), choosing the name to show that we had not left the diocese, but the diocese had left us. We have not withdrawn from the Anglican Church of Canada, nor from the Anglican Communion nor from the diocese as such (though as of now we send our diocesan apportionment to other destinations); we are simply protesting with all our power a decision that officially disrupts that fellowship in the gospel that gives the Anglican Church its public identity, the identity to biblical faith and biblical holiness.

Because of this decision, we found ourselves compelled by conscience to suspend communion with the bishop and synod, and to ask for alternative episcopal oversight; for our diocesan, having committed himself to act out a negation of the gospel, should now, in our estimation, be brought under discipline. On the spelling out and living out of the New Testament gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ there can be no compromise nor can an explicit denial of any part of that gospel be treated as a small thing.

Guilt by association?

In 1966 there were bishops in the Church of England who seemed to be believing and behaving badly, as were some clergy also. But the views of these deviant office holders had no official status, and when it was insinuated that we who were officially in communion with them were guilty by association of all their errors we could not agree. Our reasoning was that we were adhering to Anglican doctrine as officially defined in the Articles and delineated liturgically in the Prayer Book, and these documents were unchanged.

We could speak freely against the individual errors, as Paul spoke freely against the Galatian and Colossian and Corinthian errors, and, like Paul, we could not be held guilty of what we denounced. So with full integrity we could identify ourselves as Anglican constitutionalists and make clear that we were working and praying for constitutional renewal - which, should God grant it, would amount to full-scale spiritual revival. Meanwhile, in the time-tested Anglican way, we looked to the discipline of public debate to discredit the errors of deviants, and to re-establish theological truth and pastoral wisdom in everyone's mind.

In 2002, however, a single diocese, cutting loose from the solidarity of biblical, Canadian episcopal, and worldwide Anglican consensus against homosexual behaviour, treated itself as competent to legitimise and constitutionalise the gay lifestyle as an acceptable mode of Christian discipleship. Two questions arose. First, how dare any part of God's church ask God to bless what he has declared that he rejects, forbids and condemns? Second, with what credibility could anyone in the diocese, having accepted this constitutionalising of the gay way, then protest that it ignores the Bible, negates the gospel and parts company with authentic Anglicanism? The bishop's acceptance of synod's motion put all in the diocese who were not prepared to give up fighting the issue in an irretrievably false position.

Primary Christian doctrine

In ECUSA the same questions arose when a practising homosexual who had left wife and children became Bishop of New Hampshire. Should Canada's General Synod legislate permissive blessing of same-sex unions, the same questions would arise in every Canadian diocese.

Theological, pastoral and constitutional mis-steps of secondary importance can ordinarily be accepted, under protest. That, for example, is how many with whom I sympathise, accept the ordination of women as presbyters and bishops.

But when a primary Christian doctrine that is part of the gospel is negated, integrity calls for direct non-acceptance, which the suspending of communion expresses. In this case, what is being negated is Paul's assurance to the Corinthians that those who do not set themselves against homosexual behaviour in their own lives - who do not, in other words, repent with regard to it, and labour to leave it behind - will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6.9-10). So people like me in New Westminster diocese must show that we take Paul seriously, and find for ourselves an uncompromised place to stand, a position from which we can with integrity reach out pastorally to practising gays on the same terms as Paul did. If we suffer loss in the process, well, so be it; faithfulness, we know, sometimes involves that. This is the course that the ACiNW has sought to follow, and it has been heartening to find that most of the Anglican communion thinks we did the right thing.

Life in the Lord

I am, if I know myself at all, first and foremost a Reformed evangelical, centred upon the majesty of God, the authority of Scripture, the glory of the cross, the need for conversion and the priority of mission. To my own way of thinking, this makes me a catholic Christian, and what I long for most is the unity of all Christians everywhere in these truths, and in the love, praise, evangelistic zeal and cultural endeavour which they generate, all bathed in doxological passion. This would be life in the Lord at its best, and a true foretaste of heaven.

But now, within this larger frame, I am a convictional Anglican who sees supreme worth in the mainstream Anglican heritage of theology, worship, and moral guidance, and I seek unity and renewal in the truth of the gospel within an Anglican frame. In 1966 this led me to refuse the appearance of lapsing into sectarianism; in 2002 it led me to refuse an apparent lapse into lethal error that sanctifies sin and negates the gospel. Circumstances alter cases. The fixed point is the goal of unity in, and life through, the truth of the gospel and the grace of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May God hold us all to this.

Professor J I Packer, Regent College, Vancouver, explains the difference between 1966 and 2002

New Westminster

Guilt by association?

Primary Christian doctrine

Life in the Lord

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