ReformationUCC.org

During the week of June 22, 257 Anglican bishops from around the world will gather in Jerusalem to discuss their true unity in Christ because, they sadly conclude, their former unity based on their historical connection to the English Reformation has been broken. For the Global South and Western Evangelicals, this historic church of the Reformation has seriously lost its way. It is compromised by a syncretism that finds its guidance from the sexual proclivities of the day. There remains in its leadership no opportunity for the Holy Scripture to speak with authority. The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) comes because a new generation demands reformation again to preserve and uphold the historic Christian faith in the Anglican tradition. Their goal is to identify where their unity really lies. Please pray for those who are gathered in Jerusalem.

To prepare participants for the conference, a document of theological resources has been drafted.

The Way, The Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future

What implications does this hold for the United Church of Christ?

All our forefathers in the faith descended from the same Reformation GAFCON’s participants came from.

Anglicanism and the German Reformed church share a theological inheritance traceable to the Apostles through the work of the Reformers and, in particular, Heinrich Bullinger. Bullinger’s sermons were used as a form of “Theological Education by Extension” to train Anglican ministers without the benefit of a formal theological education. Bullinger, who has been called “The Father of All Christian Churches”, wrote perhaps the most universally accepted Reformed Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, which dovetails well with the 39 Articles, the historic confession of the Anglican church. Bullinger in his day had a wider influence upon the Reformed movement than Calvin himself.

The Congregationalist branch of the church which formed the UCC has a more distant relationship with Bullinger, but the Reform encouraged by Bullinger lead the way for the developments of church life and doctrine that allowed Congregationalism to emerge as a Reformed movement out of Anglicanism in the aftermath of the Westminster Assembly.

All this to say that the UCC, with Anglicanism, shares a common inheritance in the Reformation. Perhaps if orthodox voices are going to be allowed to speak again in the UCC, this theological resource will prove useful to us in this hour.

In response to GAFCON, Biblical Witness Fellowship Executive Director David Runnion-Bareford issue the following statement of unity:

In the unity that is ours in the Holy Spirit, we stand in solidarity with the witness of you, our Anglican brothers and sisters gathered in Jerusalem for the Global Anglican Futures Conference. We appreciate your call to reformation of the Anglican Communion in the unity that is ours in Jesus Christ alone, and your rejection of the division caused by The Episcopal Church and the Canadian Anglican Church. We share your voice in calling the church to “The Way, The Truth and the Life”. In the words of this historic document you have been inspired to publish, we too would say to our denominations of the apostolic ecumenical church,

“In the church of Christ different identities (of race, nationality, class, gender) are not merely included, they are transformed. And they are relativised by being included in the identity of the crucified and risen Lord. They then bear one message: the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection, and his transforming power. Christians do not simply belong to a message, they bear that message in their lives.” (The Way, The Truth & The Life, p. 26)
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Editor’s Note: You may read the other installments of this series here as they are posted Part 2 Part 3 Part 4