CHURCH OF ENGLAND: Bishop says discipline measure will kill Anglicanism
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Editorial

Church of England Newspaper

The prospect of heresy trials being reintroduced to the Church of England, only days after the Pope repeated his apology for the Inquisition, loom on the horizon when General Synod debate the matter next month.

In an interview with The Church of England Newspaper, Bishop David Jenkins, notorious as Bishop of Durham for denying the physical resurrection and the virgin birth, claimed that the passing of the Clergy Discipline (Doctrinal) Measure “would mean the end of Anglicanism.”

In The Times on Tuesday the religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill reported that the measure “could enable the evangelical wing of the Church to lay siege to the liberals in ways that they have previously only dreamed of.”

In reality it is evangelicals who have the most to fear since many of their clergy routinely defy the canons on dress and liturgy – a matter which is much more easily proved in a tribunal than allegations of uttering dodgy doctrine during a sermon.

Archdeacon Alan Hawker, the author of the new tribunal system of discipline in the Church of England and a supporter of bringing worship and doctrine under the new rules, argued that evangelicals were more likely to be targeted than liberals.

He said that many safeguards had been built into the Measure, to prevent frivolous complaints. “The problem in my opinion is not evangelicals of the Reform-type going after liberals, all the evidence of America is that evangelicals will be targeted,” he argued.

But the Archdeacon said that however infrequently it was used there had to be, in principle, the possibility of doctrinal discipline. “We need a facility which is there and which sets a marker.”

The former Bishop of Durham claimed that the forthcoming debate was a sign that clergy are “retiring into dug-outs” instead of allowing church life to be a “mixture of fellowship and community in the wilderness.”

The Bishop argued that God put people together on earth “to find out what we should believe.”

Although in theory the Church of England still has the mechanisms for trying clergy for so-called heresy, the cumbersome and expensive Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure hasn’t been used for this purpose for over 40 years. However, other clergy offences can now be tried under a system of tribunals. Proponents of the change argue that bringing worship and doctrine under the new disciplinary arrangements is merely a matter of housekeeping.

On whether heresy trials could become widespread, they point to the complaints procedure which allows a bishop to dismiss complaints and arrange conciliation between warring parties in a parish.

END