“It exists to keep orthodox, biblical Anglicanism inside the fold at the highest level possible; to gather up the fragments, to unite them.  It exists so that evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics and mere Anglicans can continue to be Anglicans without compromising biblical truth. The question for you is: will you join us, will you help us keep our Communion one, holy, catholic and apostolic.”

With these stirring and challenging words, Archbishop Peter Jensen articulated the raison d'être of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans at the launch of FCA (UK) in London this week. The speech deserves careful reading, reflection and action.

It is a battle cry and this is the battle

“In this country [referring to the UK], the Christian foundations have been shaken. In this and the next generation there will be fought what may amount to the last battle for the soul of the nation. It will be an ideological war, a war of ideas. But great issues will hang upon the outcome: the fate of a culture and the eternal fate of souls.”

All of us are involved

“With persuasive power, the culture of the West has adopted and promulgated anti-Christian belief and practice. It confronts every Christian with the choice of submission or harassment. It pretends to be the true heir of the Christian faith, that it now possesses all that was worthwhile of Christianity, and that the entire structure of Christian thought can disappear into the receding past.”

What can we do?

“Unless you develop a deep confidence in the gospel of the saving work of God through Jesus Christ, a willingness to work together for Christ, and a determination to submit to the teaching of Scripture, it will not be done. The culture will swallow you alive.”

What will happen?

“We need to imagine the next twenty years. We need to see the ideological battle being fought out in the arena of ideas with the speed of the internet and the scale of the globe. We need to see biblical churches assailed as never before by the distorted and false gospels which have captured so much of the West. The culturally captivated churches of the West are sending their gospel to the rest of the world.  I tell you, this is not the time to wring hands and say 'the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord', to choose institution over gospel; it is no time to say 'peace, peace' - for there is no peace.”

At the heart of the conflict is the authority of Jesus Christ. There are two areas where this conflict is evident. One is theological education, where “the intellectual and spiritual lives of future leaders are shaped”. The second is the area of hermeneutics: Is the Bible the inspired word of God or is it “a human witness to God, drawn together as a sort of library”?

Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the Cross of Jesus
Going on before.