In other words the orthodox ministers are standing on the shore of a beach. A tidal wave is sweeping inland and it knocks somebody to the ground a few feet away from you. But instead of accepting there is a tidal wave coming that will drown you also – you tell yourself that your friend drowned because of his attitude or posture.

Last week I wrote a post in which I spotlighted a warning from the Rev. Peter Sanlon, a young vicar in the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, highlighting his warning that faithful orthodox Christians within the C of E are going to have to found congregations outside the official church if the faith is going to survive the deluge. He wrote:

I am begging you to pray that if there is catastrophic spiritual ruin ahead of us, that God would open our eyes to it before it is too late. If you have not been praying with heartfelt sincerity and desperate dependence on God – start tonight.

Dr. Sanlon, who is Vicar of St. Mark’s (Church of England) and Rector of Emmanuel Anglican Church (Free Church of England), agreed to an e-mail interview with me about his views. The transcript is as follows. I strongly encourage US Christians to pay close attention to what he says. What British Christians are living with today, American Christians will almost certainly be living with tomorrow. We have the advantage of time to prepare — though not much of it.

Dr. Sanlon, you’ve mentioned to me that the situation for faithful small-o orthodox Christians in the West today is a lot like passengers on the Titanic refusing to believe that the ship is sinking. What do you mean?

The Titanic was believed to be the ‘unsinkable ship’ – yet 1,503 souls perished in the icy Atlantic waters. The designers, financiers, media, crew and passengers held that the ship was unsinkable — and therefore were unable to consider or prepare adequately for her sinking. People are shaped and formed by their beliefs: if you believe something cannot occur, you will not think about it or prepare for it. This is all the more true if the thing you believe cannot happen is something that would be deeply unpleasant to you.

The human heart has an astonishing capacity for self-deception, and together with those who are similarly disposed we have almost infinite abilities to participate in mass delusion. Consider how the shudders of the Titanic liner impacting the iceberg were dismissed as insignificant. Those down in the hull of the ship could see water pouring in — but those in the restaurants and cabins above them would not believe warnings. Those bringing the warnings were uncouth, less cultured, not as intelligent — and crucially theywere bringing warnings of tragedy that were unpalatable. The mind rationalizes what the heart desires.

What then do I mean when I say that orthodox Christians in the West are like passengers on the Titanic?

I mean that the Church in our Western nations has already hit the iceberg. Water is flooding into the hull — the ship will sink. The grinding judders of our ship impacting the iceberg have been felt — but the majority of Christians will do what the Titanic passengers and crew did — explain the evidence away and refuse to help one another prepare to save one another’s spiritual lives. The iceberg that has has ripped open the Church is composed of not frozen water, but three things. Radical sexual gender ideologies, Islam and governments’ totalitarian instincts.

Why is it that these three movements are so certain to sink the ship? The reason is that the mainline churches in the West are deeply compromised. Over many decades our leaders have fostered the hope that by political action, legal efforts or even by embracing the cultures’ ideologies in these three areas, that it can prosper or survive. This has severely weakened the Churches and leaves us unprepared for the future.

One final point about the Titanic. People said at the time that ‘God could not sink her.’ They believed that God was on their side due to their technological ability and cultural superiority. The ultimate reason for refusing to believe that God would remove our positions of security, privilege and cultural acceptability is that we think God is on our side and could not do it. Well, such spiritual pride is often met by God with his humbling judgement.

Help American readers understand what the situation looks like for UK Christians. It is hard for many of us to imagine that the country that gave us C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien could have turned so hostile to the faith.

It is important to explain that I do not believe the Church itself — in the sense of God’s people — will be sunk. What I do mean is that the public, easy, culturally acceptable way we do church is sunk. We face a situation where, short of supernatural intervention, the Church is moving into exile.

How has such a situation arisen? It is a complex story – but in essence Britain secularised 20 to 30 years before the USA. When Ronald Reagan talked about his faith it was viewed as bizarre in England. Today the political commendations of Billy Graham given in America would not be given in England. This means that we now have people in leadership positions who had their entire schooling and formative lives lived out under a regime of full-blooded acceptance of radical deconstructionist ideologies.

It is always the case that societies have many people who reject the beliefs of Christians. This is different. British people in their sixties recall that when they were twenty, many thought Christians were ignorant due to their ‘unscientific’ beliefs. Today, people in their twenties think Christians are not ignorant, but evil and dangerous due to their inability to commend the radical sexual ideologies, Islam and further government control of life’s details. People who are evil must be silenced, protected from themselves and prevented from infecting others with their beliefs.

The UK is not only ahead of the USA on secularisation; it has always been more left-leaning than America politically. There is a spectrum of right and left in both cultures, but as the editor of The Economist explored a few years ago, the UK shifts the spectrum of possible political views several notches towards the left. So a view held to be ‘right wing’ in the UK could be thought of as let wing in the USA. This research is detailed in The Right Nation by Adrian Wooldridge.

A consequence of this is that the UK is ahead of the USA in seeking to use state apparatus to enforce cultural norms that would be rejected by American libertarians. Such moves are done with the support of many in the British population.

It may well be that, as Os Guinness argued in his book The Gravedigger File, that cultures which were once deeply shaped by Christian beliefs turn upon them with a deeper ferocity than cultures that never had them. Perhaps. The UK has turned deeply and aggressively against public expressions of Christian faith because the mainline Churches have so compromised that they are no longer willing to teach things that run counter to the culture’s deeply held views. So one Church of England bishop told me that he ‘personally believed the Bible’s teaching on sexuality – but I can’t say so in public for fear of upsetting people.’ The lack of clarity from the Church leads to a situation where this week the Prime Minister of the UK declared:

Theresa May is lauded as the daughter of a Church minister. No wonder people are confused as to what the Church believes when leaders are silent or promote the world’s views. Flags are flown in universities, councils, fire stations and schools to celebrate the new radical ideologies. To even ask how to question the rightness of that has already led to people facing investigations and discipline from their institutions. The movements for acceptance have now allied with the totalitarian instinct and become views which are to not merely be tolerated but to be celebrated.

I’ve been told by a British reader that Evangelicals in your country are especially resistant to facing these harsh realities. Is that true? If so, why?

I believe it is the fallen human heart that is resistant to the challenges facing us — but they do manifest themselves in Britain in particular ways.

As the compromised Church moves to suppress faithful ministry, we see that those Titanic passengers who are in denial, painfully turn on their friends and colleagues who suffer. So there are currently a number of clergy in the Church of England undergoing disciplinary procedures against them for upholding plain Biblical teaching in areas that the culture finds offensive. Bishops have told clergy that unless they submit to the situation they will face discipline. Some are currently facing that and others have done.

One example — a friend of mine — was eventually forced out of his job and given a severance package on the basis of a confidentiality agreement. The Church of England would be deeply embarrassed if the contents of his legal proceedings were made public. Now the deepest tragedy is not that a mainline church behaves like that, nor is it that Churches other than the Church of England do the same. No the greatest sadness is the reaction of long-term friends and fellow believers to a minister who undergoes such victimisation. Many simply say of him — and they will say of those currently undergoing investigations — ‘Oh it is their fault. They must have been angular or difficult. If they had been more winsome and discreet all would have been fine.”

In other words the orthodox ministers are standing on the shore of a beach. A tidal wave is sweeping inland and it knocks somebody to the ground a few feet away from you. But instead of accepting there is a tidal wave coming that will drown you also – you tell yourself that your friend drowned because of his attitude or posture.

Another minister who has observed the inability of many to accept the tidal wave that is sweeping over the Church summarises the reasons for British orthodox attitudes as:

• Apathy:People busy themselves with limited areas of faithfulness and find it difficult to engage with the larger cultural challenges.
• Boredom:The same problems keep coming up — it just seems intractable and boring.
• Comfort:Many clergy are actually in the UK very comfortable in homes and church buildings provided by their denomination. Once we assume they are our right it is very difficult to give them up.
• Denial:I repeatedly hear from people in England that the serious analysis of the problems we face is accurate and irrefutable — but its not as bad as that. Nobody can ever explain how the analysis of court cases, church statements and media stories as it is — but does not lead where the evidence seems to lead. It is just denial, of the Titanic stripe.
• Establishment longings:Evangelicals in particular pride themselves on being radical, anti-establishment sorts. In reality in England many are actually deeply shaped by the Establishment. They entered ministry assuming the establishment blessing of yesteryear would continue for ever, and as the evidence shows that the establishment has turned against Christianity with ferocity, they cling to the hope that they can find a place of safety within that establishment. Perhaps by being quiet, winsome or striking a political deal. In reality the only quarter that will be given is that which is necessary to beguile as many as possible into complacency.
• Fear:People see the way they will be excluded from polite society if they publicly uphold Christian beliefs — and they fear it. Parents fear how their children will be treated, employees fear disciplinary procedures. Clergy fear being isolated from the main line denominations.

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