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Answer, theologically and practically. By way of introduction let me remind ourselves of the world today, to which we must respond, and again convincingly described by Mary Eberstad.

The [sexual] revolution robbed many of a familial identity. By spurring secularization, it also robbed them of a supernatural identity, which is why swaths of the materially advanced societies once rooted in European civilization now suffer unprecedented uncertainty about who they are. This is especially true among the young. They are racked by the compound fractures of what is now a sixty-year experiment, motivating frantic, often furious attempts to construct an ersatz identity. We are told to see ourselves as members of political collectives based on race, ethnicity, gender, and the rest of the alphabetized brigade. This divisive project has in turn given rise to today’s sharply politicized turns of public discourse, street unrest, and the rancorous, unforgiving tone of much of our politics. We need to understand that humanity is running an analogous experiment on itself.The revolution ushered in facts of life that had never before existed on the scale seen today. Abortion, fatherlessness, divorce, single parenthood, childlessness, the imploding nuclear family, the shrinking extended family: All these phenomena are acts of human subtraction. Every one of them has the effect of reducing the number of people to whom we belong, and whom we can call our own. Outside consciously religious communities, which now amount to a counter-culture, generational reality for most people can be summarized in one word: fewer. Fewer brothers, sisters, cousins, children, grandchildren. Fewer people to play … with, or talk to, or learn from. Fewer people to celebrate a birth; fewer people to visit one’s deathbed. In a way that is not generally acknowledged, the sexual revolution has produced a relationship deficit. And since we are social creatures and define ourselves relationally, this shortage means that we face an identity deficit. Who am I? This is a universal, inescapable question. Because of the revolution, many of us have lost the material with which to construct an answer.

And if Dr Gilbert Russell and Dr Margaret Dewey are right, the feminization of the church may be connected. For they have pointed out that, as a matter of human history, the notion of deity as female has gone together with an absence of the recognition of God as transcendent and with a virtual identification of deity with the forces of nature in the cult of the Earth-mother. They write:

Most of the ancient world lay in the close embrace of the Earth-mother, who in her manifold cults was propitiated and honoured simply because all life depended upon her bounty. The great merit of Judaism was that it opposed to this universal cult the worship of a God whose “masculinity” … matched and mastered the compulsive and seductive qualities of the Great Mother … It has yet to be shown that there is, in the field of the religion, any alternative to the cult of the Great Father save that of the Great Mother, in one of its many forms. That we, in the western world at least, are moving back into a period of Great mother worship is almost too obvious to require demonstration.

And the writers show, that religions that lack a firm male image of deity lapse not only into an immanentism in which the sense of a transcendent creator is absent, but also have the corresponding nature and fertility rites with the sexual license which provoked the denunciations of the Hebrew prophets. So how do we respond?

1. With a strong conviction that God is in control who is transcendent and immanent.

I haven’t mentioned Article 1 yet at this conference. But this is so essential. For Article 1 of the 39 is entitled Of Faith in the Holy Trinity and reads as follows:

“There is but one living and true God everlasting [not limited by time - he is timeless for he created time], without body [not limited by space either; without], parts [indivisible – ruling out “tritheism or three Gods”] or passions [he is changeless]; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness [so he is of infinite love, compassion, justice etc – he is not made so by people’s suffering; it is his essence, in that sense he is without “passion” – a technical word]; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible [and that is so important – if you meditate on what that means and then believe it]. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

And that is Classical theism, with God, responsible for all things, is the absolute, self-existent ultimate being. And he is transcendent (independent and “beyond” this material universe) as well as immanent (encompassing and totally involved in it). Being the “maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible” means that material phenomena, whether biological organisms (from the smallest to the greatest so including human beings), or insentient matter are all dependent for their existence and coherence on God. God, of course, is in control.

2. We must face the fact that the culture in the West has become negative towards the Christian faith

We must face the fact that much of the culture in the West has gone from being, in my life time, positive regarding the Christian faith, to neutral and now it is beginning to come, in many parts, quite negative. And we’ve got to realize that the problem is not that people can’t believe, they don’t want to believe. Carl Trueman writes:

The Enlightenment [the 18th Enlightenment] did not simply rebel against old ways of thinking about knowledge; it rebelled also against the moral teachings of Christianity. The mainstream of modern thought has deemed doctrines of human sinfulness and Christ’s atonement incompatible with human autonomy and freedom. This moral and political objection to Christianity is the dominant motif of today’s cultured despisers. Unlike the canons of scholarship, the objection that Christianity promotes subservience, injustice, and hatred cannot be accommodated by Christians. Reason is compatible with faith, but the opposite of humility before God and obedience to his commandments is antithetical to it. The Christian gospel is first and foremost a judgment on this world, not a selective affirmation of it in the service of winning friends and influencing people.Christians should not expect to be warmly embraced by the world, nor even to be tolerated. In John 15.18-19, Christ tells his disciples:“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

3. We need to do our homework and get our thinking straight

We need to do our homework, particularly if we are in leadership positions to get our thinking straight and to answer the genuine questions people have. We need to be confident in what we believe and how to behave, (doctrine and ethics) and know what we are up against if we are to witness in the modern pagan world. We are living in a Western world in some respects like the Roman world in New Testament times and need to be confident. For that is what Paul is helping the Roman Christians to be, confident and face reality in his letter to the Romans. Paul, of course, starts his great work, with a simple, and brilliant summary of the gospel, with every word almost pregnant with meaning (Romans 1.1-5);

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations

Read John Chapman, at the start of Know and Tell, for an excellent exposition of how that is good news. But good news for whom? As you read on in chapter 1 you realize contrary to expectation that a rational presentation of the gospel is not necessarily going to be fruitful in the pagan world. In fact the gospel, here in pagan Rome, it seems is not for outsiders but insiders according to Paul. Look at Romans 1.15:

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

It’s to you (plural) – you Christians in Rome. And because many of them, both Jewish background and Greek background Christians, were thinking the Gospel was not intellectually adequate, Paul is saying, don’t worry I’m totally confident it is intellectually respectable. I’m not ashamed of it. And your Roman neighbours who come to believe will acknowledge that it does answer their question. But, he is saying, your run of the mill pagan Roman neighbours are irrational, however intellectually adequate you are, and however well-educated they are. They are not interested in good arguments. Why? Because these are ungodly and unrighteous men and women, (Romans 1.18-23):

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things [in the modern world you have all sorts of other things you put in the place of God].

Romans particular teaches that good Christian theology (the study of God) is for Christians, to give them confidence. Then they are confident when called upon to give an account of the hope that is in them. (1 Peter 3.15). So if you really believe in our triune God, and do your homework whatever is necessary, you will stick your neck out and if you really believe and have reasons for the belief that divorce is wrong, the ordination of women and legislating against conversion therapy, and abortion and gay-marriage and euthanasia and gay-adoption are wrong, you will stick your neck out and take any action that is necessary. If you’ve never thought it through and you’re a believer, you will find it hard. And, of course, that is why prayer is so important in preaching if people are really going to commit to Christ. For it is the Holy Spirit’s work to convince of Sin, Righteousness and Judgment. So your mind does really matter, particularly for you. Well, so much for theological responses. Now for some practical responses.

4. We need to discuss the Five Guiding Principles.

Let me explain, these are part of the so called Guidance for Candidates for Ordination in the Church of England. In July 2014 legislation was passed to enable women to be consecrated to the episcopate in the Church of England. This means that the Church of England is now fully committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender. The Church of England also remains committed to ensuring that those who cannot receive the ministry of women priests or bishops are able to flourish. The House of Bishops has therefore agreed Five Guiding Principles as the basis for this mutual flourishing. From January 2015, all candidates coming to a BAP are required to give their assent to all of the Five Guiding Principles. The House of Bishops confirm that the Principles need to be read 'one with the other and held in tension, rather than being applied selectively.' The Five Guiding Principles are:

• Now that legislation has been passed to enable women to become bishops the Church of England [a church that is a “church visible, not mystical” (Hooker), and the church visible is made up of churches that are “visible incorrupt or corrupt, sometimes more sometimes less” (Hooker)] is fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender, [the tension is from the inescapable fact that some believe this is simply wrong because against the “command of the Lord” (1 Cor 14.37) and as a decision it is “within a broader process of discernment” many in the worldwide Church also think it is wrong] and holds that those whom it has duly ordained and appointed to office are true and lawful holders of the office [all have to assent to the critical decision wastruly made and reached according to the Standing Orders of the General Synod of the visible church that is the Church of England and so lawfully reached according to the General Synod Measure 1970; however, the Worship and Doctrine Measure 1974 requires its clergy to “drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines” or in modern language of the ASB and Common Worship (rather than 1662), take action “against error”] which they occupy and thus deserve due respect [as all made in the image of God are due respect] and canonical obedience [which, canonically is due in “all things lawful and honest.]• Anyone who ministers within the Church of England must be prepared to acknowledge that the Church of England has reached a clear decision on the matter [which many are seeking to overturn, as they believe it was a wrong decision.]• Since it continues to share the historic episcopate with other Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and those provinces of the Anglican Communion which continue to ordain only men as priests or bishops, the Church of England acknowledges that its own clear decision on ministry and gender is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican Communion and the whole Church of God;• Since those within the Church of England who, on grounds of theological conviction, are unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests continue to be within the spectrum of teaching and tradition of the Anglican Communion, the Church of England remains committed to enabling them to flourish within its life and structures; and • Pastoral and sacramental provision for the minority within the Church of England will be made without specifying a limit of time and in a way that maintains the highest possible degree of communion and contributes to mutual flourishing across the whole Church of England [so those in “broken partnership” with their bishop or with some impairment of communion need to work for the ‘highest possible degree of communion with their bishops and clergy.Under Criterion B (Ministry within the Church of England) you are required to confirm that you assent to all five of these Principles and, in the Sponsoring papers that your DDO will write for you in preparation for your attending a Bishops' Advisory Panel, he or she is required to acknowledge your assent to these Principles.

5. We need to develop cell groups or home groups that can, if necessary act like small churches.

This happened in Eastern Europe under the former Soviet tyranny, but not just for an emergency but for Church growth – but connected Anglican groups and with lessons learnt during the Covid pandemic.

6. Two final theological responses.

i. we want Revelation 1-3 to provide our ecclesiology.

ii. We do not want to forget Articles 11 and 12

We don’t want to be like two former C of E bishops and forget Articles 11 and 12 and go over to Rome until it adopts them ex animo and revises the Papacy and one or two other things. They, of course, say - Article 11 Of the Justification of Man

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings; Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

And, with that goes the next Article 12 is Of Good Works

Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's Judgement; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.

They assure us of forgiveness, but do not allow us to take everything for granted if there is absolutely no evidence.