Evangelising England

OK, so this was announced last week Evangelising England.

To which I let out a resigned sigh. 

 

To those who don't know me - and probably some of those who do -  this may well sound like I have rejected Christianity, and don't want people to get to know Jesus. That could not be further from the truth.

I am a passionate believer that people need to know Jesus, need to engage with the Divine, need to find faith, find spiritual truth and reality that engages them and drives them and fires them on.

I am a passionate believer that we, as Christians, need to talk to others about what we believe, discuss with them, engage with them about faith - ours and theirs.

The reason I sigh is that the Church of England as a system and structure has done so much damage to these conversation over the last few years. The damage has been done mainly with the farce over Women Bishops and the constant and continuing hand-washing over sexuality. The messages that these have sent out - very publicly - are that women are just about tolerated and that anything other than heterosexuality is an abomination to God. The recent suspension of ECUSA over this issue is a clear demonstration of the feeling from the church system.

Now I know that there are many Anglican churches that strongly support women in all roles. There are many churches who are less interested in peoples sexuality than their humanity. The problem is that the general public perception of what Christianity means is set by the more public statements. There is a perception that Christianity is anti-women and anti-homosexuality. This is not helped by some of the more fundamentalist reports coming from the US and (sometimes) supported by people in the UK. The impression given is, although we are very British, and are not going to shout and rave like the Americans do, British Christians are also very much the same.

This statement is likely to have a number of effects:

1. All sorts of money and resources will be poured into ineffective, outdated "evangelism" campaigns.

2. Some of the larger, more conservative churches will push their agenda again, and there will be embarrassments.

3. For a few people, in a few places, the negative impressions that the Church of England has given over the last few years will be undone.

Of course, there is a view that not giving total support to any activity that you define as "evangelism" makes the baby Jesus cry. In truth, some of these activities make him cry - both in sadness and laughing.

I am all for evangelism. I am all for telling people the good news. But the starting point today is to undo so much of the damage caused by the Church of England as an organisation. And then it is to engage and listen. And then to change and accept and embrace others, to move to being where they are, to be the presence of God for them.

Yes, I am all for evangelism. That is why I sigh at the statement, because I suspect, in many cases, this will put back the work once again.