Friday, November 15, 2024

Part I

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Resigns: Justin Welby’s Leadership Became Untenable in the Wake of Sex Abuse Crisis Review

This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury resigned under pressure due to a scandal concerning church sex abuse. He was by no means charged with the sex abuse, but he was charged with failing to take determinative action that was called for in light of the fact that he had knowledge of a situation of what might be the most widespread pattern of sexual abuse undertaken by a single individual in the history of the Church of England and the larger Anglican communion. We’re talking about a sex scandal which began to unwind and has eventually now taken down the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 2013, the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury, and we need to take a moment just to understand what that role is and its historic nature. And so as you look at the Church of England produced by the English Reformation in the 16th century, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior cleric, the senior churchman in the Church of England, the head of the Church of England, since it is a church state in what’s called an Erastian system of government. The head of the church is King Charles III. Among his titles is Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

But even as the king or the monarch is invested with authority to appoint bishops, et cetera, the reality is that the senior cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, plays an extremely important role. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not only the head cleric in the Church of England, the senior cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I’ll say he because at this point they have all been men. The Archbishop of Canterbury is also at the head of what is known as the Anglican Communion. That is the worldwide communion, now about 85 million Anglicans as they are known.

Anglia is the Latin word for England, and thus the Anglican Church is the church that is historically tied to England. The Anglican Communion is the communion of churches, some of which were actually churches when you had the age of the British Empire that were outposts of the Church of England. They became nationalized churches. Some of them were established that way. But even as they have their own national identity, they are also tied to the Anglican Communion of which Justin Welby, the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury has been the leader. But that points to a huge question.

Before we get to Justin Welby, we need to look at that worldwide Anglican Communion and recognize that what we see there is a theological parable. Because as the Archbishop has indicated himself, you’re looking at a communion that includes incredibly liberal churches, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States, and more Conservative churches, in some cases very Conservative churches, found especially in what is known as the Global South, that is the southernmost nations on the globe. But in particular in places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, you have very Conservative Anglicans and they have been facing off in the Anglican Communion insofar as it really is a communion.

They have been facing off against, for example, the Episcopal Church, which now decades ago appointed an openly gay bishop. That is now just considered normal business, and actually far beyond that in the Episcopal Church. But when you’re talking about Sub-Saharan Africa in the main, you talk about those national churches, the same reality would be absolutely inconceivable. And insofar as the Anglican Communion actually is a communion, Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury has been the head of that. And he continues in this role for some time. It is unclear for how much time. It usually takes months. Once it is known that an archbishop is retiring, it takes months in order for his successor to be named.

But in this case, there’s going to be a lot of political pressure in England to name a successor more quickly so that Justin Welby can be moved off the scene. And off the scene means not only in the Church of England, but in the Anglican Communion and in the British House of Lords. Here’s the lead paragraph from the front page story in Wednesday’s edition of The New York Times. “The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, resigned on Tuesday after a damning report concluded that he had failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men decades ago at Christian summer camps.”

Well, just days ago, the Archbishop indicated he was not going to resign his position. But that became untenable. You had senior clerics, including at least one bishop, call for his resignation. And you also had Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, very publicly refusing to offer the Archbishop of Canterbury any endorsement whatsoever that he should stay in office. That spoke very, very loudly. You had other senior leaders in the church who described the Archbishop’s continuation in that role as untenable.

Now, here’s the thing. In terms of the sex abuse crisis, it is clear that Justin Welby did have word as far back as 2013 of the fact that there was a sex abuse scandal involving boys and young men and someone who had been very much involved in the Anglican Communion, who had then moved to Africa and, frankly, continued the pattern of abuse. And whereas the Archbishop of Canterbury should have personally ensured that there was a follow-up on this in terms of investigation, that didn’t take place. And what you have now is an explosion which brought about, eventually, the need for this investigation and report, and that report has led directly to the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It was also widely reported in the British media, that the Archbishop of Canterbury had had what were described as, and I put these in quotation marks, “private words” with King Charles III. I have no idea where those words were, but we can assume those words had something to do with the Archbishop’s resignation from office. Now, this resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury is so unusual in the history of the Anglican Communion and with the operations of the government, the Crown, and the church there in England, that it’s going to take some time for it to become clear just how much time it’s going to take to produce a new Archbishop of Canterbury.

Already, as you can imagine, the press is speculating on who might be the successor. And once again, this has to do not only with directly the Church of England, but indirectly the Anglican Communion. And the successor to Justin Welby is going to be chosen by a Crown Appointments Commission. And that Crown Commission is given an advisory role to the Crown. And the Crown Commission advises the Crown when it comes to several appointments, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. But it is also true that there will be consultation with the head of government. That is to say, Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister. This is all very Anglican.

Now, Justin Welby is likely to be remembered now, primarily, tragically enough for him, for the fact that he resigned from office in the midst of this kind of scandal, that after this kind of investigation, his continued service was just implausible. But you also need to look at the fact that Justin Welby has been discussed on The Briefing as recently as less than a month ago, where I sought to make very clear his example of theological accommodation, theological surrender on the issue of same-sex marriage and same-sex couples. And that gets down to the fact that Justin Welby, who had a background in finance, he was primarily known for his role in business.

It turns out that he had had an interest in the priesthood from the time he was a teenager. And as a young man, he was very much influenced by the evangelical tradition in the Church of England, but specifically by the charismatic tradition. He actually had ties to even something like the Vineyard movement here in the United States and figures such as the late John Wimber. Very controversial here. And even as he decided that his calling was actually in the ministry, and that became something of headline news at the time, leaving a very important, very lucrative position in the British business world, in particular in the petroleum and the oil business and then going into the process of ordination, he received a bit more attention than your average new Church of England priest precisely because of that background.

He also came with a lot of ability, not only in executive and finance positions, but also in terms of understanding the global situation. So he appeared to have some real skills that the Church of England needed. He rose through the ranks, eventually became the Bishop of Durham there in the north of England. And he was there only for a very short number of years before he was tapped as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury.

Now, one of the frustrations that I face is he was often described as an evangelical. And it is true that during the time that he was serving as a cleric there in the Church of England in the early stages, he had made some very clear statements in support, for example, the Bible’s clear teachings on homosexuality, on what it means to be male and female, basically all the issues that would be defined as LGBTQ. At least in that early period, Justin Welby did clearly and publicly affirm the biblical position, but as Archbishop of Canterbury, he has equivocated all over the place. He has spoken more clearly about the need for what he defines as unity than clarity on these issues. And he had even, as I pointed out just back in October on The Briefing, he had accommodated himself to the idea of blessing same-sex unions. Now, let’s just state the obvious. You go from clearly articulating, defining and defending a biblical position on the impossibility of same-sex marriage, then you go to offering an official church blessing for those same relationships, something, brothers and sisters, has changed.

Part II

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A Parable of Moral Compromise and Theological Surrender: The Crisis in the Church of England As It Stands Now

And at this point, I just want to say that the Church of England has been moving in a Liberal direction throughout most of the 20th century. There were roots back even in the 19th century, and it is basically right now a parable of theological collapse. It’s also a parable of a collapse in attendance, and I would argue that’s not coincidental. As you’re looking at Justin Welby, you see someone who has tried to straddle two different theological worlds, and that simply doesn’t matter. The old parable used to be said by preachers that if you try to straddle that kind of issue, you’ll end up with torn trousers. And metaphorically, that’s exactly where Justin Welby has been. And as you’re looking at the situation now, you realize this is a parable not only the Church of England’s lack of theological clarity, but it’s also a symbol of its collapse all the way up to the level of its highest leadership.

Now, I want you to understand, I say that as someone who loves British history, who has many, many Anglican friends around the world who are of solid, clear, biblical conviction. That includes here in the United States and also many around the world. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Anglican Archbishops there in the Global South, many of whom have taken absolutely clear and costly courageous positions in defense of the gospel and biblical truth. But I am also close enough to observe a church like the Episcopal Church in the United States, which is an absolute parable of theological accommodation and cultural Christianity.

It’s hard to imagine any idea central to the project of the ideological left that doesn’t have full representation in the Episcopal Church, right down to the color, the multiple colors of the banners out front. But when it comes to the Anglican tradition, I’ve got to admit to you, I am very Anglican in my taste for music. I have great appreciation for the Anglican tradition, its tradition of choral music, its tradition of biblical anthems. There’s something very beautiful, very historic as you look at Anglicanism’s Book of Common Prayer.

I do not use it as a church manual. I’m a Baptist. But I do see in it, and you do often hear, usually when you, for example, go to a wedding ceremony, you hear that historic language which is dating all the way back to a time very close to the translation of the King James Bible, which is why so much of the language sounds alike. There are very few Protestant Christians in the English-speaking tradition who do not share at least a part of this Anglican tradition. But as an evangelical Protestant and as a Christian, I would simply have to say as a Baptist, what you see in the Church of England and in this current crisis is the fact that when you have this kind of state church, things are going to go badly.

And they will go badly because here you have an intersection of theology and politics. You have national identity and a so-called National Church. There was every assurance that this kind of collision was going to come. And of course, it has come with flashpoints of controversy, which is why you look at some among the Archbishops of Canterbury who have gone down as martyrs of the church, sometimes by the power of the Crown. And it also acknowledges the fact that when there is misconduct in the church, it has to be called out for what it is and dealt with for what it is. And the church must protect the vulnerable. That includes children and it also includes others, and that goes all the way up in terms of the leadership of a church or a denomination.

One of the issues here is that when you do have a hierarchical church, when you do have an Archbishop of Canterbury, when you do have a Crown appointment, when you do have a head of an Anglican Communion and all the rest, you can understand how these issues can ratchet up the ladder very, very quickly. But when it comes to this particular controversy, it’s also important to recognize that Justin Welby had information that he didn’t act upon in this case, and that was the center of the investigation, or at least the part of the investigation that had to do with the Archbishop himself. In that sense, this kind of headline should serve as a warning to us all.

And you also look at this and recognize that the process of determining who will be the next archbishop of Canterbury is not likely to be a process filled with theological clarity. And I say that with great lament. I say that with regret. I say that with a sense of loss. And here we need to recognize that when you look at the Church of England, you are increasingly looking at a parable of theological compromise, and you’re looking at a metaphor for theological surrender. I want to be clear that is not true for all of the clerics in the Church of England. It is not true for all of the members of the Church of England. Of course, thanks be to God, it is not true that they have all departed the faith.

It is to say, when you look at the infrastructure of the Church of England and you look at the role of Archbishop Justin Welby, and you look at the likelihood of his successor, you’re looking at the fact that things are not likely to be clarified in a way evangelical Christians will appreciate. As a matter of fact, I think you can look at considerable pressure being put on the Crown and upon the Commission and upon the Prime Minister to produce the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. I think you can see the lines of that shaping up pretty fast.

Part III

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What Should I Look for in a Future Spouse? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 17-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

Well, that was an issue we needed to think about and talk about for a bit, but now we get to turn to questions. Once again, I appreciate all your questions. The first question up today is one I saved a couple of weeks, because it’s really important and because it’s going to take a minute or two. It’s a question from a 17-year-old young woman. This is what she writes. “I’m a 17-year-old girl from North Carolina and I was wondering what you would suggest to a person of my age and background.” Then she says, “Christian, brought up in the faith, seeking to do the Lord’s will, of what they should look for in a future spouse.” She says, “Maturity seems to be at level zero for young people my age. And I’m wondering what would be your advice to Gen Z, especially young women, in what we should look for in a partner?”

Just a really great question. I think an important question, one we really need to talk about, and a question being asked by a lot of folks, a lot of people beyond this one listener. And I simply also want to say that maturity may appear to be level zero for young people your age, but the fact that you sent this question the way you did indicates it’s not actually level zero, but I think I understand what you mean. And particularly when you look at young men in society, it’s clear that many of them are not maturing as fast as they should. Frankly, it’s a problem among both young men and young women, but it’s far more visible and I think a deeper problem among many young men. But the question’s honest, what should I look for? What should a young woman look for in a future spouse?

Okay. So you’ll forgive me for getting as basic as I can be, because we live in a world of confusion. You’re not confused about this, but just so we avoid any confusion anywhere, as a young woman, you should be looking for a young man. Now, clearly you’ve got that down, but we live in a strange and corrupt age in which sometimes we have to state the obvious. Okay, when I speak to young people about marriage and they say, “How am I going to meet my future spouse?” I say, “Well, God’s already answered half that question for you before you think about anything else, because half of humanity is already excluded.”

Okay, so we cut the question in half. But then the Scripture also says that a Christian should be married to another believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not to be unequally yoked in marriage with an unbeliever. So as you’re doing the math, that cuts out another incredibly large percentage of those who might be potential spouses. So we’re already down to a much smaller number. And then it’s also clear, I just want to point out, that you are likely to marry someone you meet. And so that’s going to reduce the answer to your question even a lot more.

But you ask about maturity, and this gets down to the fact that it’s not enough, I think, to marry someone who’s just merely Christian. I think the maturity in your question is reflected in the fact you’re going to be looking for a young man of Christian maturity, and I think it’s biblical to say you’re going to be looking for a young man who can be the spiritual leader of your home and will fulfill that responsibility. Someone who is a man of genuine conviction and genuine faith and right doctrine and whose life is unblemished by sin in such a way that it would be a discredit to your marriage or a weakening to a potential marriage.

And I think we also need to just state that when marriage is on the screen, when marriage is on the table, it’s not just say a young man, it is also the larger family and all the rest. That doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t marry a faithful, mature Christian young man who comes from say a troubled family background or a broken family background, but it does mean you’d have to understand how this all fits into the larger picture.

But as you’re looking for character traits, so you’re looking for there needs to be a graciousness, there needs to be a gentleness as well as a strength. There needs to be the courage of convictions. But you know what? I’m simply going to say, as I speak to a young woman in this case, or to young women, you need to marry a Christian young man of maturity and courage and compassion, of love and of character and of ability who’s going to be able to have a job and hold a job and provide. He also needs to be evaluated as to whether or not you can gladly, gleefully see him as the father of your shared children.

So I would say you need to marry a young man who is a believer, a seriously-minded committed believer who’s growing in grace, who shows the capacity for Christian leadership, who you can see sitting beside you there in church for the rest of your life as faithful Christians together and growing together in grace. He needs to be understood as someone who can fulfill the responsibility of a man, of a husband, of a father, in terms not only of providing and not only in terms of character and ability, but also just in terms of spiritual leadership as well.

And I also want to say that I think it’s very sweet, when we see God through the ministry of the local church and through the Fellowship of the Saints, through the Fellowship of Christians, helping young people, and in this case I mean a young man and a young woman, to come into a situation where they can move and begin to think in terms of marriage. That’s a very, very sweet thing, and I think it’s a sign of God’s graciousness to us. And I want to give a word of encouragement to this 17-year-old young woman, and I want to speak frankly as a man who is now not only a father, but a grandfather. I’m also president of a college and a seminary. And I want to tell you, I’m going to give you some good news.

There are an awful lot of young men who show up as boys at 17 or 18 who show up as men by the time they get to their early 20s. And that’s exactly what I get to see all over the place, in local churches on this campus and elsewhere. It’s also something that I think is essentially tied to growth and maturity in Christ. And I think that’s a beautiful biblical thing. And so I just want to encourage you as you have encouraged me with your question. Now, let me tell you, I have a subversive purpose in taking your question and dealing with it as I did. It is because I do want to speak to you, but I want to be overheard by a lot of young men who need to grow up in Christ now and get busy. Amen.

Part IV

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What Do We Think About a Christian Who Stops Dating a Potential Spouse Due to Health Conditions? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay. I also received a question from a man, and in this case a man say a generation older than that 17-year-old listener. And in this case, this man says, “In the context of a man and a woman getting to know one another, is it biblically wrong to stop it if one discovers that the other has a health condition,” and he mentions one, “that’s manageable, is working to get rid of it, but the other person wants someone ‘healthy’?”

I am not going to take much time answering this because I’m not sure that a long answer will help. I’m simply going to say that if someone wants to back off when they find out that a prospective husband or wife has a health problem, then that is a very sad commentary. But it is also a reminder of the fact that it’s better to find out now than after a wedding, after one is married. And it also reminds me, I mentioned the Book of Common Prayer, talking about the incident related to Justin Welby in the beginning.

And the language in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, all of that has the ring of the familiar because it’s so deeply biblical. And in sickness and in health is exactly what a husband and a wife are called to when you think about faithfulness one to the other. And so I think this is a very bad sign in terms of, say, a set of priorities for someone looking for marriage. But I’ll say to this man who sent in this question, if this is going to happen, I think it’s much healthier for all concerned that it happens before the wedding rather than after, tragically enough

Part V

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Can We Learn True Virtue from Pagan Philosophers Like Plato, Aristotle, and Homer? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from another 17-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

But as a final question, I’m going to take another question from a 17-year-old listener to The Briefing. This one from Georgia. The listener writes, “I attend a classical Christian school and we read many works by Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. These were brilliant and wise men, but my question for you is whether they can teach true virtue and possess true virtue since they never read or had access to the Bible or the living Word of God.” Another really great question. Can unbelievers, can pagans possess and demonstrate true virtue? Can they teach true virtue? Well, the answer to that is yes, they can. And I think you see this even in Scripture with the notion of something like a noble pagan. 

I didn’t say a righteous pagan, but something like a noble pagan. You have someone who even as a pagan reflects true virtue in his life, true character, and so this is a situation of sometimes perplexity for the Christian Church. Over here you have a Christian who doesn’t appear to be such a great moral example, and over here’s a pagan who appears to be a wonderful moral example. Over here you have a Christian who seems to be confused about many issues, and over here you have a pagan teacher who’s very clear about these issues. And this is because of common grace.

And so I want to say to this listener, it is not because of an inherent righteousness in these pagans. It is because a perfectly righteous God who created the universe, the one true and living God, has implanted the knowledge of the virtues among us in such a way that, very thankfully, pagans have access to this basic knowledge. And that’s one of the reasons why it is wrong under every major ethical scheme to lie. It is wrong for an adult to hurt a child. It is wrong, you just go down the list. And there is virtue reflected even in the laws and in the civil statutes of just about every single society, and it produces people who can often be very virtuous neighbors. Actually, we’d rather have pagan neighbors that are virtuous than those who lack virtue.

Now, I think this listener is really onto something by asking this question, beyond even the surface level, because for Christians, it’s important not only to know what virtue is but who determines what virtue is, what is the meaning, the worldview, the entire system of thought, and eventually the entire worship due to the one true and living God behind these virtues. These virtues don’t stand on their own two feet. Pagans have no way of explaining how these virtues even come to be, but we’d certainly rather have a pagan who taught those virtues and live by those virtues than one who did not.

You can look at an awful lot of, say, the moral teachings of some of the classical ancients and you can certainly understand that they were teaching what is true virtue, what they said was true. But it’s not true just because they said it and just because they’re virtuous. They’re virtuous because, and their teachings are virtuous because they’re measured against a standard of the absolutely morally perfect Creator. But thankfully, he has implanted a moral knowledge in us and in the world around us in such a way that even pagans can come to an understanding of many virtues. But you know what? That pagan cannot be virtuous in the sense that we must be virtuous. Indeed, we must be absolutely righteous before a righteous God, a perfectly, infinitely righteous God.

And that’s where we understand as Christians that there is no righteousness in us at all as sinners. The only righteousness acceptable to the Father is the imputed righteousness of the Son. So I simply want to change the terms here for just a moment and say that an ancient pagan, for example, can be virtuous in this sense measured in an earthly frame, but that pagan cannot be righteous in this sense measured in a biblical frame. And in the end, the only righteousness that is truly righteous is the imputed righteousness of Christ, and that is a righteousness imputed to believers. And so, in conclusion, let me say this. When a Pagan teaches don’t tell a lie, he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t fully understand why