In September 2024, the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney will be asked to delete the personal Statement of Faith from its Corporate Governance Policy.
However, this personal Statement of Faith should continue to be signed by those elected or appointed to be Board Governors and Heads/CEOs of our Anglican organisations. It has been an integral part of the Corporate Governance Policy since 2014, when it was introduced as the culmination of 4 years’ research, discussion, review and debate.
The Statement of Faith includes the text of the Apostles Creed, affirmation of the Nicene Creed, and 4 extra biblical particulars not covered by the Creeds:
a) God’s word written as the supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct;
b) Only one way to be reconciled to God, through Jesus’ death and resurrection;
c) Justification by faith alone; and
d) Marriage between a man and a woman, and the only proper place for sexual activity.
This last particular was added, albeit unexpectedly without debate, by an overwhelming majority at Synod in 2019, after being raised for consideration after the secular marriage laws in Australia were amended in 2017 to permit same-sex marriages. The wisdom of adding such a particular was canvassed at Synod both in 2017 and 2018.
I wrote the report in 2019 which helped carry the Synod on this addition. It can still be read from page 383 of the PDF of the 2019 Synod Proceeding Book.
The Governance Policy states that one of its key purposes is to ensure that the leaders and governors of our organisations must profess and display a Christian faith shaped by the Bible.
But with a key change in our cultural context represented by such a fundamental yet contested redefinition of marriage in 2017, we needed to update our Statement of Faith.
Back then Peter Jensen had repeatedly said that human anthropology is the ‘watershed’ issue of loyalty for Christians in our era. The orthodox, biblical view of marriage and human sexuality is repeatedly undermined and attacked in our society, not only by advocacy for legislative changes, but by peer pressure and social engineering.
More recently, Carl Trueman has suggested that peculiar times call for specific emphases in our teaching:
As the fourth century wrestled with the doctrine of God, the fifth with Christology and the nature of God’s grace, and the Reformation era with sacraments and salvation, so our age wrestles with the question of anthropology. What does it mean to be human? More specifically, what does it mean to be an embodied human?
… This war against the body lies at the heart of so much of our modern politics. It connects to the sexual politics that deny that human genitals are to be used in some ways and not in others.
… How should the church respond? The easy answer is that the church must teach anthropology.
Let me demonstrate that the doctrine of marriage is more central to biblical witness and closer to fundamental doctrine connected to saving faith than may at first be obvious.
Marriage, of a man and a woman, groom and bride, appears in the first and last pages of the Bible (Genesis 1-2; Revelation 21-22). This central place at beginning and end of the meta-narrative of Scripture is seen as highly significant by many theologians.
Marriage is also a central image of the relationship between God and his people (e.g. in multiple prophetic books), and between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5:31-32; John 3:29; synoptic parables of the bridegroom; and in Revelation).
I further observe that the family is the fundamental, pre-political unit of society, and marriage is the fundamental building block of family. For example, marriage is central to the patriarchal narratives and promises, central to the 10 Commandments, (numbers 7 and 10), and central to New Testament ethics (e.g., Ephesians 5-6; Colossians 3; Titus 2).
Furthermore, our Diocesan Doctrine Commission’s 2014 report, ‘Human Sexuality and the ‘Same Sex Marriage’ Debate’, affirmed the deep significance of marriage not only in creation but also in salvation:
Marriage, in fact, played the primary role from which the rest of humanity expanded. In the gospel we learn that now through Christ Jesus and in the church “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:8–11). The purpose is both eternal and realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. So the significance of the original institution expands because, unlike the church, marriage is both a testimony to God as creator and God as saviour (a point repeated in Ephesians 5:22ff.)
Reflecting further on Ephesians 5:22ff, the Doctrine Commission states,
Ephesians 5:31-32 allows us to see afresh the theological dimension to marriage. The bond between a man and woman which always had the potential to represent God in the world (cf. Gen. 1:26-28) finds its deepest meaning in the way it mirrors the relationship between Christ and his body. […] the significance of the testimony of marriage is that the eternal purposes of God are being made known in the world. This gives marriage an extraordinary importance for God’s activities in the world but, at the same time, it enables us to understand something extraordinary about God’s intentions for marriage.
Marriage, and the related issues of sex and gender, is where our loyalty to Christ as Lord and his sufficient Word are being tested. People in our churches and organisations need clarity and consistency of leadership that holds to the biblical teaching on these central matters.
Rightly did our Book of Common Prayer say that ‘so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful’. This is fundamental biblical and Anglican doctrine.
Secondarily, the 2019 amendment was also added to assist us in answering the pressing need for each Anglican school and organisation to maintain that it is a genuine, legitimate and justified occupational requirement for their governors and their most senior leader, to hold to the traditional Christian belief on marriage and sex.
However, this addition was narrowly targeted. So under our Policy, affirming the Statement of Faith was only ever required of board members and the chief executive or school principal. It is not required of any other executive staff, let alone regular employees, where considerable organisational discretion is already permitted.
My report also demonstrated that over church history, statements of faith address the doctrines under threat at the time. And they have covered a variety of matters – and not just those most central to salvation. I’ve also shown that marriage is seen in a number of such statements, historically and in the present day.
Was the GAFCON movement wrong to include a statement about marriage (alongside a statement about stewardship of creation, social justice, and relief and empowerment of the poor) in its Jerusalem Statement among the ‘tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity’?
Likewise, in January 2022, by constitutional amendment, the Church of England Evangelical Council realised it needed to amend its Statement of Faith by adding these words:
We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.
Clearly it is not idiosyncratic for Anglicans to be updating their statements of orthodox faith in light of current controversy to make explicit what we have always believed.
But it is also clear from debates in and around Synod, and from feedback received by the Committee reviewing the Governance Policy, that a number of people, often associated with several of our Anglican Schools, don’t like its unpopularity in wider society. They have detailed via anecdote various relational problems, and some recruiting problems.
I have taken the time to speak to a number of School heads, chaplains, council chairs and members, so as to try and feel the force of these concerns. The governors and heads of these Schools appear to be strong Christians and far from ‘shrinking violets’.
It is hard to be criticised heavily and mocked for subscribing to orthodox Christian views.
Of course, one wonders why such members of school communities do not object so vociferously to our teaching that trust in the risen Lord Jesus and his atoning death is the only way to be saved. Surely this is equally offensive to a person of another religion or none. But that is not the lightning rod issue of our age.
While sympathising with the difficulty of unpopularity, especially with those who are loud and aggressive in the media, we must not walk away from being clear on what we believe.
And we must uphold and embody the fact that it is perfectly possible to love those with whom we disagree over doctrine or ethical choices. Our Anglican Schools, organisations and churches have been doing this for years. We can and do care pastorally in ways sensitive to a wide variety of individuals, often well, but not always. There are also contrary anecdotes to be told as well.
In some areas of the Diocese, being clear and conservative on marriage is actually still a selling point to many in local communities.
And there has been no quantitative evidence presented to the Synod that enrolments or waiting lists at Anglican Schools have fallen in 2023-24, compared to 2018-19 when the Statement of Faith was changed. Notwithstanding the impact of COVID and the economic difficulties of rising interest rates and inflation, many of our Schools are in demand!
A number of Anglican Schools have appointed excellent new Heads in recent years since 2019, who have willingly signed the Statement of Faith in its new form. Likewise, over this period, the Synod and Standing Committee has elected hundreds of godly Christian people of fine qualities, who have been willing to sign our Statement of Faith.
Of course, retaining the Statement of Faith does not remove the continuing need for the subjective assessment of character, convictions and competence, by nominators, with proper references
as needed or required.
Like it or not, the battle today is being fought over issues of marriage and human sex. It is ubiquitous in our media. It has rent the Anglican communion over the last two decades. It has caused us to produce report after report, outlining and ably (in my view) defending our traditional view as biblical and
good for society. It has been famously, but erroneously claimed that Martin Luther said:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. To be steady on all battle fronts besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Mark Thompson has shown that even if Luther never said those fine words, he did say something similar, in his Collected Works. Here is a translation (WABr 3, 81.113–82.119):
Neither is it of any help if someone should say, ‘I will gladly confess Christ and His Word in every other article, except that I may keep silence about one or two that my tyrants may not tolerate, such as both species on the Sacrament and the like’. For whoever denies Christ in one article or word has denied the same Christ […] who would be denied by [denying] all the articles, since there is only one Christ in all His words, taken all together or singly.
It’s not quite as memorable a quote, but as Dr Thompson observed,
Today’s point of attack may not seem a ‘first order issue’, at least at first. But it may be that this is the point at which the gospel needs to be defended today.
We should keep our existing Statement of Faith. It continues to be focused on fundamental biblical doctrine, which it sets out clearly and publicly on a single page.
It assists us to ensure strong convictions, and not just conformity of behaviour, among our leadership at the highest level of our Anglican organisations, in areas where this is being challenged by our society. We need such courageous and faithful leaders!