The Second Reformation
by Paul Hazelden

It is my belief that historians will look back at these days (if the Lord tarries) and refer to this time as 'The Second Reformation'.

Across the world, the church is being reformed - changed, re-shaped, re-thought, renewed. This process is affecting churches in every denomination, 'stream' and grouping. And it is by-passing churches of every type as well. Your name, your history and your historic allegiances are less important than what you understand the Church is called to be, and the future possibilities your understanding opens up and closes down.

The traditional, established Church is being humbled

(Anglicans: women priests and homosexual bishops; Catholics with sex abuse and opposing the distribution of condoms in Africa; Methodists and URC vying with each other to be the fastest dying denomination…)

Why?

Because a humbled Church might start to listen to what God has to say, and consider His priorities, rather than staying with its own ideas and agenda.

We all know in theory that there is only one Church, and we are called to be united. But we all know that the other groups don't do it right or believe the right things.

Three basic approaches: the evangelicals believe the Bible, the liberals trust in science and reason, and the catholics rely on tradition. All three are wrong, and, of course, all three are partly right.

We know the church has often got things horribly wrong: the crusades and the inquisition are two obvious examples. Human reason created Auschwitz and Hiroshima, the destruction of the rainforests and the ozone layer, and trade rules that make it uneconomical for a farmer to grow rice. Those who claim to believe the Bible can't agree on what the Bible teaches, and traditionally respond to any doctrinal disagreement by breaking fellowship and pronouncing anathemas on the opposing group.

Perhaps one day we will be humbled enough to recognise that we need the Bible because God speaks through it, we need reason, because God gave it to us to be used, and we need tradition because we need to understand who we are and where we have come from, learning from both the good and the bad parts of our past.

All of which is to say that the traditions divisions within the Church will become less important as the Church learns to focus on the important issues. The real division in the Church is between those who hold primarily to their doctrines and traditions, and those who live in relationship with the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit so that the world may come to know fullness of life.

That's the background.

It is my conviction that the future life and health of the Church depends largely on how whether the Church is prepared to embrace social action as a vital aspect of its life.

Why?

The modern world increasingly comprises of fractured communities. Within a few hundred yards, you can find people living in radically different worlds that are mutually incomprehensible.

(The new age devotee, with feng shui and healing crystals; the petty criminal with guns and drugs; the advertising executive with contracts and sales pitches; the software developer with projects and deadlines; the musician with rehearsals and performances; single mothers, teachers and train drivers - all are living in worlds isolated from each other by lack of knowledge and suspicion and the pressures of modern life.)

In the Western world, most people today do not believe the gospel to be untrue, they believe it to be irrelevant. What we have to say about sin and judgement does not speak to the world most people inhabit. The believe it to be a matter of personal and private choice, because that is the message we have given them.

They cannot inhabit the world we live in, so if we are to communicate, we must inhabit the world they live in. Social action is the bridge.

If the church is to grow, Christians must be discipled. There is hardly a church in the country that does not need at least one, and probably a range of social action projects through with its members can be discipled.

In the past, churches have traditionally been seen as hierarchical institutions, with members belonging to one congregation, the congregation belonging to one denomination, and the denomination probably having its own internal hierarchy - district, province, diocese, nation, etc.

The reality today is that many Christians are functioning as members of several churches, and are rarely asked or expected to give up membership of one church in order to be active in another - several examples of this were given. And churches often belong to groupings that are more important to them in some ways than any denominational link. So instead of a neat 'tree-structured' hierarchy, we see a complex network of inter-relating individuals and groups.

The denominational structures are still important in many ways - paying salaries and administering pension schemes, undertaking safety checks on buildings and CRB checks on individuals; but new projects and initiatives are increasingly being undertaken on the basis of relationships that flourish between (often like-minded) people within the intra- and trans-denominational groupings.