So it seems my post reporting on Jim Packer’s comments while speaking at Holy Trinity Eastbourne have caused a little bit of a stir in the virtual and real-life press. Few people were interested with Packer’s insightful analysis of Liberalism, or his thoughts on the future of the Anglican church, but on one sentence - “I would say with great respect Archbishop, I believe that the way of wisdom is for you to resign.”

The story has been mentioned by Martin Beckford in the Telegraph, Ruth Gledhill in The Times and on the Church Times Blog. It’s also been discussed on Peter Kirk’s blog. Now personally I don’t think it’s a huge story by any means, but it just goes to show how the media has changed, I can blog something which otherwise would go unheard outside its original audience, isn’t technology good?!

You can listen to Dr. Packer’s talk yourself, and the question time.

How he’s been enjoying GAFCON and why he won’t be going to Lambeth…

Video on SydneyAnglicans

There’s loads of other videos there, little snippets from the conference including Vaughan Roberts.

Last night I went to Holy Trinity Eastbourne to listen to Dr. J.I. Packer speak, the title of his talk was ‘Lessons to be learned from the Canadian Church Experience’. This comes in response to the rumblings in the Anglican church and the personal experiences of Jim Packer and other Canadian ministers in dealing with their liberal Bishop, Michael Ingham. 3 months ago I blogged about these issues, Packers De-licensing and his response to Ingham.

With that background in mind Packer set out to define 4 terms involved in the current debates:

1. Orthodoxy - Packer sees this as a synonym for Evangelicalism which focuses on the teaching of the Bible (because it acknowledges the authority of the Bible) and on the message of the Gospel (being based on Faith and Repentance).
2. Anglicanism - He highlighted two different views, those who saw Anglicanism as being bound up with historical practises (defined by traditions) and those who saw it as being defined by principles, as contained in the Creeds, Prayer Book, 39 Articles etc. Packer made it clear he stood in the 2nd camp - Anglicanism is based on principles. He also stated that he believed Anglicanism is “the richest version of Evangelicalism that the world has seen”.
3. Liberalism - Dr. Packer used 4 S’s to define liberalism…
   • Subordinates Scripture to the culture and individualistic Christian experience
   • Sanctifies the Secular
   • Scales down the Supernatural
   • Sweeps away Biblical Standards
4. Homosexuality - He basically made it clear that he was talking about the practise and not the temptation. Packer gave examples of temptations and how we should not yield to them and included homosexual temptations in this - we should not yield to the temptations because the actions are defined as sin by the Bible.

Dr. Packer went on to give the basic facts about his situation in the Canadian church, the history, how it happened and how things stand now. He highlighted the changing situation, that Bishops are no longer just theoretical heretics but are heretics in what the practise. He referred to Acts 27:27, Paul in the storm and used this as a metaphor to speak of being faithful through the storm in the hope of reaching land.

Big Jim then addressed 4 questions in conclusion…

1. What is God doing to the Anglican Communion?
   • Purging of liberalism
   • Preparing faithful Anglicans for counter-cultural and enterprising mission
2. What is the pattern of ‘alternative oversight’ doing to the Anglican Communion?
   • Drawing together a fellowship of the Orthodox
   • Parallel jurisdictions are disrupting the traditional diocese/province model
3. What are those who have ‘realigned’ to do now?
   • Pioneer faithful Christian outreach
   • Renewal of teaching, mission and discipleship
4. How should English Evangelicals react?
   • Watch and Pray

The question-time that followed came up with the usual questions from slightly ‘un-balanced’ folk, and a few good ones - “Dr. Packer, if you could have 5 minutes with the Archbishop of Cantebury, what would you say?”…

Packer stated that Rowan Williams’ views about homosexuality (documented before becoming A of C, and not changed since) mean that he is not qualified to lead the Anglican Communion and enforce rules layed down at Lambeth in 1998. Big Jim was clear, “Rowan Williams should resign”!

It so happened that earlier in the day I’d done some computer training with the Holy Trinity office staff, so as payment I got 3 free Packer books - God has Spoken, 18 Words, and Growing in Christ… good times.

It’s not often that I get annoyed when reading the EN newspaper (Evangelicals Now), because on the whole it’s pretty good, you know it’s sound, and usually very interesting… unlike the Church of England Newspaper, that gets me annoyed some times. But I got a bit annoyed when reading the most recent edition (April 2008), specifically Josh Moody’s ‘Letter from America’.

This piece is yet another “We like Mark Driscoll’s theology, but we don’t like his style” piece, of which you’ll find plenty across the web. It’s not that I have a problem with people who disagree with MD, it’s just that I find it sad that people insist on criticising a faithful gospel ministry, and for what gain? On top of that, this particular piece is about 2 years behind the times, essentially it is poorly researched.

The Internet Monk has some detailed thoughts about why people don’t like Mark Driscoll, worth reading if you’re a critic. For my part I’ve responded to the editor of EN to perhaps give a different perspective, doubt it will get published, but I have a blog, so here is my response published here…

Dear Sir,

Can I graciously suggest that Josh Moody is out of date, and perhaps out of touch when he writes about Mark Driscoll in the April edition of EN. Driscoll was given the dubious title of ‘The Cussing Pastor’ by Donald Miller in his book ‘Blue Like Jazz’, this was published 5 years ago. I’ve yet to hear Driscoll swear in a sermon, though his language in the past has certainly been more risqué, it is not what we would call swearing - ‘B.S.’ is of course just two letters! Since then Driscoll has I guess become more ‘mature’, he has publicly repented of many failures in his ministry, most recently when teaching on Humility (4th November 2007). As for the call for mentors, Driscoll counts John Piper and CJ Mahaney as his closest ministry mentors (2nd March 2008), not to mention the likes of Bruce Ware, Tim Keller and Wayne Grudem – of course Piper did once say ‘crap’ in a sermon! Moody here seems to be telling us about the Driscoll of several years ago.

There is much that could be said in response to Moody’s criticisms of Driscoll’s missiology of being ‘theologically conservative and culturally liberal’, but it would be unwise to debate the rights and wrongs of different forms of entertainment. The point here is that the proclamation of the gospel needs to be related to the context in to which it is preached. Paul, preaching to the Areopagus in Acts 17 gives a classic example of this gospel-contextualisation, this passage is key to Driscoll’s methodology and the name of his church (Mars Hill) is derived from it. Driscoll is preaching to young, liberal, post-modern, pagan Seattle-ites, people who listen to secular rock music, who watch R-rated films, who gamble, who drink, who get their teaching about sex from porn rather than the Bible - it is in to this culture that Driscoll preaches. While some call for a retreat from this kind of sinful culture, Driscoll and others are calling Christians, to engage with, to be a part of, and to understand the culture so that we can be missionaries within it. Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., writing in a recent book (Preaching the Cross) put it like this, “We cannot simply withdraw. That would be to deny our commission. But we cannot feel at home either. That would be to deny our identity.” Driscoll is equally clear in his teaching that Christians need to be distinctive and above reproach in all matters, his view is that Christians should “go as far into the culture without sinning as they possibly can”, in order to share Christ. I would challenge EN readers to consider reading Driscoll’s first book entitled ‘Radical Reformission’ and make an informed opinion, about Driscoll, and about how we can best preach Christ in our culture.

Yours Sincerely,

Hugh Bourne