It is unfortunate that senior Anglican clergy express themselves every bit as poorly as senior Roman Catholic clergy have been since John Paul II’s days.
What are they saying when giving interviews or writing books? Their language is impenetrable. It’s easier to understand French intellectuals than it is these men.
Gentlemen, we are supposed to be winning souls for Christ, not dissuading them.
My thanks to James Higham for alerting me to two Anglican news stories. This is one of them. The second appears in tomorrow’s post.
On Sunday, September 21, 2014, the Independent carried the Bishop of London’s — Richard Chartres’s (pron. ‘Charters’) — perspective on Christianity, taken from Jules Evans’s interview with him on the Philosophy for Life website.
Chartres’s views are such a mixed bag, it’s hard to know where to start or end — or interpret their meaning with any confidence. Some make sense, others do not.
First, rightly, the bishop tells Evans that religious extremism is a dangerous thing indeed:
The great Bishop Butler says to John Wesley: ‘pretending to special revelations of the Holy Ghost[,] Mr Wesley[,] is a very horrid thing. It’s a very horrid thing indeed.’ And it is indeed a very horrid thing.
Then Chartres immediately adds this statement:
Unless it’s held firmly within a community of interpretation, with a shared communal experience of discerning between evil spirits and good spirits, then it’s very dangerous.
Hmm. That will confuse a lot of people, especially those in staunchly experiential charismatic churches (e.g. the snake-handling ones) and those congregations which drum you out if you don’t start speaking in tongues. Both would readily assert that they are on the same page with discernment.
Meanwhile, did Luther or Calvin put forward enthusiastic experiences in their churches? No, they did not. In fact, those Lutheran and Reformed denominations which stay true to their founders’ respective doctrines advise against such religious experiences.
Chartres then goes into an exploration of enthusiasm and mysticism during the Middle Ages — a useful and interesting piece of Church history. No wonder the Reformers didn’t embrace it! More importantly, however, they knew it was unbiblical.
Even the Catholic Church was sceptical of mysticism. Sadly, Chartres says this was because of:
rigid control, bureaucratic church authority, and the over-definition of mystery in the interest of polemics.
Dear me. What does the last phrase in that sentence even mean? He’s probably saying that the Catholic hierarchy just wanted to pick an argument. No, they also saw that Christianity should have sense and balance, because where we have mysticism or unusual experiences, there is often a darker spirit at work masquerading as divine.
In any event, the mystical Christian mediaeval movements resulted in the Holy Ghost (as the Holy Spirit was termed until the late 20th century) being expunged from various denominational liturgies, such as the Book of Common Prayer.
So far, it’s an informative but unbiblical interview. However, that no longer matters to today’s Anglican hierarchy.
Then, Chartres revs up a few gears praising the Charismatic nature of London’s Church of England services.
Even worse, he quotes G K Chesterton. Whether this is accurate, I cannot tell, not being a great reader of Chesterton outside of one Father Brown story in a secondary school English anthology. Did he really say this?
you can’t really be an orthodox Christian without having a charismatic life.
In the next breath, Chartres goes on to deny the ever-present gifts of the Holy Spirit such as wisdom, fortitude and piety (those which Chesterton would have learned when he was converting to Catholicism). Or is Chartres saying something else? It’s difficult to tell:
That doesn’t necessarily mean special gifts of the Holy Spirit. Such gifts are given to people at various stages of people in their pilgrimage, for good reason, often to break up the crust of convention which is keeping them imprisoned. Once a real fluency in spiritual matters has been achieved, they’re no longer necessary. It’s very dangerous to hold on to some of these psychic phenomena which often attend growing in the Holy Spirit.
Hmm. I would be highly wary of paying attention to anything this man says, as he concludes by advocating contemplative prayer and mystical experiences, recommending his favourite authors and false teachers.
Does the bishop speak of Christ and Christ crucified for our sins? No, he does not.
He also calls Christ’s Bride — the Church:
just as shallow as the rest of us … lacking in distinction …
Although he does say that the only way to God is through His Son, he says there are other faiths through which one can find ‘a way’, as all have an element of truth in them.
Heresy, like every other deception, also has an element of truth in it. That’s why people find error and damning heresies so easy to accept. It looks as if Chartres could be yet another clergyman taking that route.
A faithful Christian would not read this interview without thinking Bishop Chartres has served the Church or our Lord well in this exchange. One cannot imagine John MacArthur saying any of these things. I’d enjoy seeing the two debate this issue on video or television.
My ever-expanding left-hand column of links has good ones to discernment ministries which debunk mystical and contemplative prayer, which readers might find useful:
May God bless all of us — and may the Holy Spirit continue to work quietly through us — in finding eternal truth and salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Churchmouse Campanologist 