The Dangers of Standing Still

This article was submitted to The Anglo-Catholic by Fr. Michael Gray of The Traditional Anglican Church, the English province of the TAC.

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It is good practice, in considering all the available alternatives, to include “do nothing”. But it is not always the case that “do nothing” is available. My analysis of the practical choices available after Anglicanorum coetibus is based on legal developments in England and Wales. It might be of wider application.

It is certain that whatever a continuing body does as a whole, some people will respond to the situation in one of two ways. One is personally to use the provision (assuming that the local hierarchy sets up an Ordinariate, whatever else happens). The other is to go elsewhere, perhaps in disgust at the “envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness” which has marred these last months. It hardly matters what “elsewhere” is; it could be the abandonment of corporate Christian practice, it could be Orthodoxy, or a house church, or a reversion to the state religion. What all responses have in common is that the continuing body is left weakened in numbers, yet with all its previous problems except, perhaps, slightly less internal disagreement.

Now this is in a context where we are not likely to have gained new members, though it just might be the case that there is no such thing as bad publicity and we should be thanking God that the dispute has brought us above the threshold of visibility. However, visibility brings fresh dangers with it.

It has been our fortune, in England and Wales, that we have not had to engage hitherto with the state bureaucracy. The Traditional Anglican Church (TTAC) is not a registered charity. Nor has it any other legal corporate existence, such as a company limited by guarantee. The same is true of almost all of its parishes. It does not require Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks of its members (not because these are inherently wrong, but because we have known each other far too long for these to give any useful reassurance). Because we do not pay clergy, we are not caught by equality and anti-discrimination law in relation to employment. Because we do not own buildings, we avoid all manner of associated obligations. Because the clergy are not (for the most part) Assistant Registrars, there is no question of them being required (or even able) to conduct “marriage” or “civil partnership” ceremonies repugnant to moral law.

It has been our fortune, and it comes with costs, both financial and legal. But it is not certain that this fortune will continue, and any continuing body, not just TTAC, must consider this. TTAC has in the past considered registering as a charity. But recent changes in charity law imposed for the first time a test that charities for the advancement of religion must also demonstrate “public benefit”, of which the Charity Commission is arbiter, and there could be no security but that at some future date the Charity Commission might require us to conform to the secular equality agenda (for instance, consider seriously as a candidate for the episcopate a lesbian atheist). This “public benefit” weapon has already led to the destruction of the Catholic adoption agencies. For a time, TTAC has avoided the issue by not seeking registration. But a recent document from the Charity Commission indicates that if a religious body has charitable characteristics then it must register – it does not have the option of not doing so.

This is only one instance of the future threats to small continuing bodies. We have also in this country only recently escaped from a secular equality law incompatible with the gospel. But for how long? There seem to be two choices. Either be part of an organisation large enough to resist, or be so small as to be invisible. Such resistance may indeed have to be on a world-wide basis, since the threats come in part from the secularism of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. It is those in communion with the Pope who have the numbers, the world-wide extent and the determination to resist who may succeed in open resistance. I do not despise the alternative choice. For a time my own assumption had been that the future might lie with the underground church, and that the continuing bodies were better placed than many to prepare for this. But it is not easy to evangelise from underground, and for all Christian bodies the choice is to evangelise or die.