A few months ago, a writer who reported in EN about 'Reform' expressed his wonder at why Anglican evangelicals stay in a compromised denomination. Steve Donald writes here in response to that comment.
To leave or stay?
This question has been my dilemma over the last two years and it is not set to go away. I am unhappy about the moral confusion in our denomination over issues like that of practising homosexuals. At the moment it is permissible for lay people in the Church of England but not for clergy. This is an intolerable fudge. While a higher standard is expected of ministers, it is making a false separation between two things that should stay together, namely, if it wrong for leaders it is wrong for lay people. Whatever the outcome of the debate about homosexuality going on within the church, it has raised for me the issue of what circumstances lead to someone leaving a church. I use the Bible as my authority and I have been seeking to see what it has to say on this matter.
What does the Bible say?
The Old Testament is consistently for sticking with God's people through thick and thin. Take Moses, for example. When the children of Israel kept rebelling against God, the Lord decided to wipe them out and start again, but Moses pleaded passionately, even at the cost of his own life, for God to stay his hand (Exodus 32.1-32). Moses had a passion for the people of God, even though many of them were stiff-necked and rebellious.
