Rudeboy tactics and evangelism

Ex-media consultant Paul Eddy deliberately wants to embarrass the Church of England into evangelising other faiths in Britain. The 40-year old trainee priest has ‘an agenda’ - as he puts it - to ‘gain access to the mic’. So he’s pleased with the coverage he’s provoked over the withdrawal of his Synod motion this week http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2074486/Church-of-England-accused-of-censoring-debate-on-Islam.html That’s because, as he told me, he believes he’s ‘using the same tactics as the liberal lobby.’ ‘For generations we have allowed other people to use the media and we have a long way to catch up.’ He sent out a press release claiming that the Synod machinery had been used deliberately to bump his motion off the next meeting in July – again.

His accusations caused uproar in the press – but of the rude-boy kind that’s a pain to the rest of us. His actual motion reads: ‘That this Synod request the House of Bishops to report to the Synod on their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in Britain’s multi-faith society, and offer examples and commendations of good practice in sharing the gospel of salvation through Christ alone with people of other faiths and of none.’ A good and timely motion. But when it lost its slot through lack of signatures, Eddy saw his chance. He sent out a press release crying ‘Foul!’ – and caught the nation’s unschooled ear. Martin Beckford, the new Religion Correspondent at the Telegraph on Tuesday, wrote: ‘His motion called on church leaders to clarify their strategy on whether they think Muslims and believers in other religions should be actively converted to Christianity in modern Britain.’ Well, that’s not my understanding of evangelism even if it’s Eddy’s, and perhaps I have some right to express a view. No one ‘converts’ anyone. It simply isn’t like that. The more you try, the less success you have – like torture. It is the infection of the Spirit that ‘converts’, not the pressure of the sales pitch. Eddy, wrote Beckford perhaps disingenuously, also believed that ‘Christ himself ordered all Christians to actively recruit nonbelievers and followers of other faiths’. Neither Christ – nor Eddy - said anything of the kind. Christ’s only ‘order’ was that we love one another. Discipling – which is what Christ actually commanded - flows out of love and concern for others, not some New Labour-ish need to increase a quota, or meet a target. Certainly there is increasing frustration at our loss for words – in public - as to the truth of Christ in these complex times - whether Synod fixed the motion or not. That’s the culture we’ve got to change. Reticence in evangelism has been, at its best, a kind of misplaced courtesy stemming from more refined times of cultural coherence. When the scandal of the cross becomes a scandal of silence at a time that’s crying out for religious leadership, the rude-boys will step up to the mic.

It will take courage and resolve to change things – and a few indiscriminate verbal hand-grenades. A more robust approach to apologetics – explaining what our faith is for - is essential. Most leading Muslims in Britain have never read the Bible and the government is spending millions on getting Muslims to understand their own version of ‘correct Islam’ rather than ensuring a working knowledge of the founding narrative of our island civilization. There is a problem in the church, going all the way back to the Faith in the City Report in 1985 which viewed the ‘arrival’ of adherents of other faiths as ‘present[ing] the members of Christian Churches with theological problems which they have not yet been able to resolve’ (para.3.26). It’s still the case. Its own solution was to ignore other faiths altogether: ‘There are places where Christian service to the community may take the form of helping others to maintain their religious and cultural heritage in freedom and dignity’ (para.3.28).In other words, because they vetoed mission when it could have done some good, those Anglican churchmen (and one woman) helped sanction the kind of ghettoes that have spawned the mess we’re in. ends