(This article is also available as a video, recorded by Clifford Hill.) 

 The Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate in the City of London has taken a decisive step in challenging the House of Bishops in the Church of England to repent and reform their ways or they may destroy the Anglican Communion.

In a forthright declaration, Rector William Taylor says that his church has not been in fellowship with the Diocese of London for the past three years and they no longer make financial contributions to the Church of England. He says that the House of Bishops has walked away from the true church by not giving support to teaching in regard to family, marriage, and sexual relationships that is in accordance with the word of God in the Bible.

Taylor says that 75% of people in the worldwide Anglican church no longer look to the Archbishop of Canterbury for leadership. Bishops in the global South and the breakaway Anglican movement of GAFCON, led by Archbishop Foley Beach of North America, are willing to provide episcopal leadership for St Helen’s and any other Anglican churches who no longer have confidence in the House of Bishops in the Church of England. The Archbishop is shortly coming to London and is willing to meet with other church leaders who have similar views to those of St Helen’s.

The gospel being preached by Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford...is not the gospel of the New Testament but a pale reflection of Western culture.

Surely the time has come to recognise that the gospel being preached by Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, for example, as well as many other liberal clergy, is not the gospel of the New Testament but a pale reflection of Western culture and the increasing apostasy of many Western church leaders. The gospel requires us to stand up for our beliefs and to speak out against worldly values when they are at variance with the values of the Kingdom.

The stand being taken by St Helen’s provides an opportunity for those who worship in institutional churches to ask their local incumbent some serious questions as to whether their church is truly fulfilling the ‘Great Commission’ of Jesus to make disciples. In your church, are you seeing men and women and young people coming to Jesus? If not, what is the mission of your church?

A constitutional break-up?

If many Bible-believing Anglican churches in Britain decide to follow the example of St Helen’s and link with those who have lost confidence in the House of Bishops, this could signal the breakup of the Church of England. It would begin the process of disestablishment at the very time when a new monarch is looking for the endorsement of the State Church. The constitutional crisis for both Church and State will be enormous. But surely, if the Church was really acting in the way it should in today’s increasingly secular society, this point was bound to be reached at some time.

In fact, this is something that I foresaw more than 30 years ago at a public meeting in London. Church leaders of all denominations supported a day of prayer in a packed assembly of more than 2,000 people in Westminster Central Hall in 1987. There were a number of well-known speakers as well as politicians and senior members of the Government in the Hall. I was speaking about the increasing level of liberal theology leading to unbelief among church leaders that was having a divisive effect.

In a moment of passion, I suddenly took off my clerical collar and tore it up in front of the astonished assembly. The sound of tearing cloth was picked up by the microphone and there was an audible gasp from those present as I said, “This is what the Lord says, I will tear the church asunder as this garment has been torn, unless there is repentance and turning from the path of unbelief and lack of faith.” I said a lot more things, but that was basically the message.

Some of our older readers will remember this incident, as someone wrote to me recently reminding me about it and asking if I thought it was coming true very soon. The answer to that is, “Yes, I do”. I think the stand being taken by St Helen’s is highly significant and may be signalling the end of the Church of England as the established church.

Time to come together?

As a senior Nonconformist minister, whose forebears suffered cruel persecution at the hands of bishops in the Church of England, I also want to issue a call to all the Bible-believing ministers in the Nonconformist denominations to carefully consider their situation within their denomination, where they may be in a similar position to that of St Helen’s within the Anglican Church.

The true ecclesia as a community of believers upholding the word of God and being seen to be different from the world... would be of monumental significance for bringing spiritual revival to the nation at a time of growing national crisis.

This may be the time for all Bible-believing church leaders to come together and recognise their fellowship with those who stand against worldly values, where they differ from scripture, and hold firmly to the gospel of Jesus and the whole word of God. Of course, there will be lots of differences in biblical interpretation and styles of worship, but the true ecclesia as a community of believers upholding the word of God and being seen to be different from the world, not only in teaching but also in lifestyle, would be of monumental significance for bringing spiritual revival to the nation at a time of growing national crisis.

A unity to heal past injustices

The historical and spiritual importance of Nonconformists and Anglicans coming together in unity would be to recognise the immense injustices of what the bishops did to the Puritan Dissenters in the Church of England in 1662. On 24 August in that year when the ‘Act of Uniformity’ became law, more than 2,000 faithful pastors were ejected from their churches. Many of these pastors continued preaching and serving their flock in house meetings or in barns or in the open air. Because they were destitute, the local people responded by giving them food and any money they could spare.

Cruelly, the Bishops persuaded Parliament to pass the infamous ‘Five-Mile Act’, banning them from living near their former parishes, thus rendering them and their families homeless and destitute. John Wesley’s grandfather was one of these Dissenters who died of starvation, aged 34. Hundreds like John Bunyan were sent to prison. Further Acts of persecution followed such as the ‘Conventicles’, the ‘Corporation’ and ‘Test Acts’ that punished any member of the public who attended a meeting of more than four persons and even deprived Nonconformists of basic civil rights such as working in the Civil Service, having a commission in the army, or attending a university.

These restrictions on Nonconformists lasted 150 years! They are a terrible blot of injustice in the history of the Church of England. They blighted the lives of thousands of faithful Bible-believing Christians. Many were deported under the cruellest of conditions, leaving families destitute. The great injustice of those times has never been acknowledged or repented by the Church of England. Today there is an opportunity for some of the Anglican clergy to seek to ameliorate the hideous sins of their forefathers.

What an amazing opportunity there is for Bible believing Christians today to shake off the contaminated shackles of lifeless institutions.

I was ordained into the Congregational Church as a Nonconformist minister in 1952 – 71 years ago – and I share a long heritage of Puritan Dissent, going back to the Pilgrim Fathers. Congregationalists were the original Dissenters. I refused to join the Presbyterians when many Congregationalists joined them to form the URC in 1972.

An amazing opportunity

At 95, I believe I am the last still living of the group of Founding Fathers of the Congregational Federation, and if Bible-believing church leaders are unhappy in their institutional denomination, they may like to follow the path that we followed in establishing the Congregational Federation. The Federation is not a denomination like Methodism or the URC. It is simply a fellowship of independent churches each appointing their own pastoral oversight and looking to the headship of Jesus – not unlike the communities of believers in the New Testament Church.

What an amazing opportunity there is for Bible believing Christians today to shake off the contaminated shackles of lifeless institutions that the Nonconformist Denominations and the Church of England have become – in the words of the Rector of St Helen’s – “Like an empty shack in a field of turnips” (Isaiah 24:20). The opportunity is there to reassert the essential characteristics of the ‘community of believers in Jesus’ that we see in the New Testament Church.