IMPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES OF NEW GENERATION CHURCHES IMPORTED DOCTRINES ON THE CONTEMPORANEITY OF ANGLICAN SPIRITUALITY, MISSION AND LITURGY.

IMPLICATIONS AND CHALLENGES OF NEW GENERATION CHURCHES’ IMPORTED DOCTRINES ON THE CONTEMPORANEITY OF ANGLICAN SPIRITUALITY, MISSION AND LITURGY. Definition of terms
Treatment of an important but volatile topic of this nature naturally requires that the presenter and his listeners be brought to the same page through contextual definition of terms. On this topic, the following terms or concepts as the case may be shall be defined in the context of our discourse.

1. Contemporaneity
2. Anglican spirituality
3. Anglican mission,
4. Anglican liturgy, and
5. New generation churches

Contemporaneity
In its simplest form, Contemporaneity as a term entails the whole idea of making the ancient look modern and may be, acceptable or more acceptable through deliberate or inadvertent modifications to conform to the albeit undefined but perceived standard, trend, vogue or culture of modernity. The idea of contemporanizing, in the first instance, stems from an intrinsic value judgment or mere belief that places the modern or new view or practice on a higher pedestal than the ancient or former. This judgment, especially when it comes to matter of faith, is often not based on any scientific or proven evidence but on what social science calls ‘face validity’.

The term is undoubtedly a derivative of the adjective ‘contemporary’ which two adopted dictionary definitions are of grave implications for our discourse. First, it means ‘belonging to or occurring in the present’, and second, ‘following modern ideas in style or design’. The etymology of the Word traces it down to Medieval Latin Word contemporarius from con - ‘together with’ and tempus, tempor - ‘time’. If the two quoted words are put together we have “together with time”.

The mind bugging question now is, at what time did Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy ever get out of touch with time? It becomes more worrisome when we juxtapose the question against the first definition of contemporary as ‘belonging to or occurring in the present’. If we attempt to go a bit deeper in our look, contemporazing Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy could imply an attempt to situate Anglicanism, i.e. make it belong to the present day trend of Pentecostalism for it to be of relevance. Certainly, nothing can be more untrue; we all know that Anglicanism has never lost its relevance, be it in spirituality, mission, liturgy or what have you.

Anglican Spirituality:
If placed in the right order, before Anglican Spirituality is Christian Spirituality which in a way also defines Anglican Spirituality. And what is this Christian Spirituality?
Christianity Spirituality is the quest for a fulfilled and authentic life that involves three things viz:
i. Inculcating and internalizing the beliefs and values of Christianity as founded on the Scripture
ii. Weaving these taught and learned beliefs and values into the fabric of our lives, that is, showing forth in our lives what we believe in our hearts; so that
iii. so that we the "animate,", according to Gordon Mursell, may provide the "breath" and "spirit" and "fire" for our lives

One of the most elucidating framework for understanding Anglican Spirituality is the one by Rev. Dr. John H. Westerhoff in his small book "A People Called Episcopalians", which characterizes Anglican Spirituality as:
● liturgical and biblical, rooted in common, communal, daily prayer (Morning Prayer, Noonday prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline of the Book of Common Prayer)
● communal. Communal prayer comes before personal prayer and shapes personal prayer
● sacramental. Anglicans view the sacraments as "outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace." Through Baptism we become participants in a community of faith. Through the Eucharist, we become participants in the life of God.
● pastoral. Devotion to God and pastoral concern and service to our neighbors go together
● incarnational. It emphasizes
o the goodness of material world and sensuality (God s creation)
o a sacramental view of the material world as doorway to the divine
o a tendency at times towards the Orthodox doctrine of theosis or deification (God became human so that humans might become divine), emphasizing:
▪

our participation in the life of God

▪

our ultimate goal of communion with God

● mystical. Here "mystical" is used in contradistinction to "pietism." Pietism refers to a spirituality involving an acute, immediate, life-changing experience of God, and Mystical to a spirituality involving a slow journey to union with God. "Mysticism ... sees the union with God as the end of an ascent, requiring discipline, purgation, study, emptying and patients." (Urban Holmes, in Chapter 9 "Spirituality" in What is Anglicanism, Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, 1982) (Note: this definition of "mystical" is not the definition used by all)

Anglican Spirituality, to my mind, irrespective of the magnitude of complexity introduced by scholars to its definition, is a derivative of Christian Spirituality. By this, I mean that since we are first and foremost Christians before being Anglicans, Anglican beliefs and practices must be and are necessarily rooted in true Christianity, such that transmits the fragrance of Christ s beauty, wondrous compassion and purity powerfully to our world and pave way for the Anglican Church to carry out her God-assigned mission therein.

Spiritually speaking, one would be right to say that the source of Anglican Spirituality is The Trinity – God the Father who created us, God the Son (Jesus Christ) who saved us and God The Holy Spirit who sanctifies us. But in terms of physical impartation, Anglican Spirituality is imparted through the instrumentality of the Scriptures, Creeds and the Anglican doctrines as entrenched in the 39 Articles of the Christian Faith.

Anglican Liturgy
Whereas Spirituality entails our beliefs and practices, Liturgy gives expression to our beliefs. Mariam Webster Dictionary defines Liturgy as a fixed set of ceremonies, words, etc., that are used during public worship in a religion. This implies that Liturgical worship in not peculiar to Anglican Church, not even to Christianity.

Beyond the casual dictionary definitions of Liturgy is the intrinsic importance of the word as a compressed form of tradition which bears testimonies of the people of God to the history of salvation. It constitutes a special medium through which hermeneutics helps to actualize the living presence of Jesus among His people in hymns, prayer and sacraments. The Anglican Liturgy is firmly rooted in the Scriptures and it is indeed a dramatization of the Scriptures. The essence of Liturgy in the Anglicanism is not to provide a book of engagement for lazy priests but to provide an instrument for worship of God in spirit and truth.

In the Anglican setting, the term Liturgy is often loosely applied to The Book of Common Prayers which contains the order of celebration of the Holy Eucharist and other observances of the Christian worship. It is pertinent to note here the observation of W.K. Lowther Clarke in his work Liturgy and Worship that “Individualism and self-will are foreign to the whole idea of liturgy. The Liturgy is the prayer of the Church, something given, which, if it changes at all from generation to generation, does so very slowly, with scrupulous care for the conservatism of worshippers”.

Anglican Mission
The purpose and essence of the Church is Mission of God (Missio Dei) which in practical terms translates into reconciliation. The Catechism of the Anglican Church says the mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and to each other in Christ Jesus the Lord; and that the Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the Gospel, and promotes justice, peace and love.
One of our priests, Funso Awe, articulates the Mission of the Church in one powerful paragraph thus:

The Church is a divine society born on Pentecost (Whit Sunday) …to carry on what Jesus began – to teach people the goodness , holiness and love of God and his purpose for men. It is to restore the relationship between God and man, broken by man s disobedience which we call sin. The Church is the family of God s people, uniting them in worship and in work to set up Jesus’ reign of justice and love, and helping them to bear witness (evangelize) to him by the quality of their lives.

We also want to note here that as the Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all its members, Anglicans see other Christians as sisters and brothers in Christ and pray and work for the unity which is Christ s will for the Church.

New Generation Churches
It would appear that New Generation Churches as a term that is understandably of more use among the mainstream churches is a synonym of Pentecostal Churches, ostensibly as a rebuttal of the latter s misuse of and near monopolistic claim to Pentecost and its attendant experiences and benefits. This probably explains the dearth of the term New Generation Churches in literatures. Pentecostalism and Pentecostal Movement are commonly found, albeit with same meaning as New Generation Churches. The point being made here is that both terms may have to be interchangeably used in this presentation, especially with regards to references and quotations. Pentecostalism or Pentecostal movement as a term embraces the whole idea about New Generation or New Age Churches.

John Schwarz, in a summary presentation of the origin and idea of Pentecostalism, opines that Pentecostalism as a religious movement originated in the United States of America at the turn of the 20th century, coming out of the “holiness” movements that emerged in the latter half of the 19th century. Its own beginnings go back to Topeka, Kansas, in 1901, and to the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906. The Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination (in the US as at the closing years of the 20th Century), was founded in 1914.

The principal Pentecostal distinctive is speaking in “tongues”-a language other than one known to the speaker, called glossalalia-which Pentecostals believe is an outward evidence of an inward experience of being “baptized in the Spirit.” (Pentecostals are called Pentecostals because the first visible sign of the Spirit - speaking in tongues - came on Pentecost in AD 30.)

Of particular relevance to our discourse is the Pentecostals’ anti-intellectual belief that religious “experience” is more important than theology.

Doctrinal Issues in the New Generation Church Movement
Whereas one may not be able to pin an average denomination in the New Generation Church to particular coded doctrines as in the case of most mainstream churches, truth is that they are bounded by some known doctrines, some of which are unwritten. Below are synopsis of some vital and popular ones:

1. Speaking in Tongues: We have mentioned above that the major distinctive of the Pentecostal Churches is speaking in “tongues”, i.e. a language other than one known to the speaker, called glossalalia - which they believe is an outward evidence of an inward experience of being “baptized in the Spirit.” This belief has, may be in Nigeria, been stretched to a rather ridiculous point of taking speaking in the “unknown” and in most cases, “uninterpretable” tongues as proof of genuine conversion, i.e. being born again. And of course, if those who are not born again, according to Jesus in John 3:3 cannot see the kingdom of heaven, it then follows by their postulation that those who do not speak in “tongues” cannot make heaven. This is a questionable doctrine.

2. Anti-Intellectual Stance: the Pentecostals hold the belief that religious “experience” is more important than theology. Yes, it is true that there is nowhere it is written in the Bible that Theological knowledge will take anybody to heaven, the same Bible encourages diligent study of the word.

3. Eisegetical Interpretation of the Bible (erroneously seen as an expression of spiritual liberty): Ancillary to their anti-intellectual stance is the problem of eisegesis which has been the bedrock of many heretical postulations and teachings in many new generation churches of our time and clime in particular. A basic theological education teaches that a biblical text has a single meaning which exegesis as the careful systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning of a text helps us to understand. Exegesis allows several applications of the one true meaning of a text. Anything to the contrary is Eisegesis. A renowned scholar is quoted by Prof. Timothy Palmer in his Biblical Exegesis Handbook as saying, “we are not permitted the luxury of eisegesis – of reading our own ideas into the text or finding there meanings which its author did not have in mind”. Unfortunately many of such eisegesis-induced doctrines that appeal to natural senses and impose little or no restrictions to natural expressions have produced a number of mega churches in the movement.

4. Miracles as Evidence of Divine Endorsement: Contrary to Jesus’ teaching in Matt.7:21-23, miracle has been escalated to be a proof of divine presence and acceptance, hence the desperation that has pushed and still pushes many of the Church leaders in the movement into seeking extra-biblical power, even from the occult world, to perform miracles to attract and retain large membership.

5. Specialized Ministry/Christianity: It is in the New Generation or Pentecostal Churches that we see the member denominations specialize in such areas as prosperity, deliverance, fire and miracle, etc., and lay so much emphasis that their members pursue such interests as the ultimate pursuit of Christianity. This kind of belief and practice is totally strange to the Gospel and Christianity that the early Apostles founded on Christ and delivered through apostolic succession to us.

There are several doctrines/beliefs of the New Generation Churches that have impacted one way or the other on our Anglican Spirituality, Mission and Liturgy; we only chose to bring few of them to the fore with a view to providing a common ground of understanding in our evaluation of the impacts and implications of these and other doctrines on our much cherished Anglicanism (if my presumption is right).

Other strange doctrines and practices commonly found in the Church, as identified by A. Jon and Francis James in their book, Strange Fire in the Church, include syncretism, hypnotism, metaphysics, pastors’ romance with cult groups, ritual killings, deviation and extra-biblical revelations, anointing oil-Holy Spirit packaged in a bottle, heresies etc. Whereas one would expect the Pentecostal Movement that lay near monopolistic claim to the Holy Spirit to be totally devoid of these vices, they are ironically more prevalent in the system.

Majority of these vices are commonplace in the Pentecostal system because of neck-breaking competition among individual church owners to outdo one another in membership drive towards satisfying their unrestrained yearning for prosperity at all cost.

A Brief Impact Assessment:
In our assessment of the implications and challenges of new generation churches’ imported doctrines on the contemporaneity of Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy, we have some home-truth questions to answer viz:

Who imported the strange doctrines of the New Generation Churches into the Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy or how did the strange doctrines get smuggled into the Anglican system?

Who ordered or what necessitated the observable Contemporaneity of the Anglican spirituality, mission and Liturgy?

Where were the custodians of the Anglican spirituality, mission and Liturgy when the infiltration by strange doctrines started and continued?

What can the Church do to mitigate possible negative impacts of some of the doctrines on our orthodox (standard, pure, true) system?

Historical Antecedents
History would tell us that Contemporaneity (modernizing) of Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy did not start infiltration of the New Generation Churches’ doctrines.

In the late 1800s, covert doctrinal disagreements started developing between the Modernists, protestant liberals who wanted to “modernize” the Bible and Christianity, that is, reconcile the Christianity with modern science, and the Fundamentalists, conservatives who argued for the “fundamentals of the faith”. In the early 1940s, a third group emerged – Evangelicals, a coalition of conservative Christians who wanted to distance themselves from fundamentalism and its narrowness and anti-intellectualism; its taboos against smoking, movies, dancing, card-playing and the like; and its separatist philosophy. The Evangelicals soon began to accept some findings of science with regards to creation, and some aspects of biblical scholarship, and began to play an active role in society.

Closely aligned with the Pentecostals are the charismatics from the Greek word charismata, meaning “gift” who believe in the gifts of the Spirit but are not insistent on speaking in tongues as the only evidence of the Spirit. The Charismatic movement traces its beginnings to 1960 when Vennis Bennett, rector of St. Mark s Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California, announced to his congregation on Easter Sunday that he had experienced “the baptism of the Holy Spirit,” which led to his forced resignation. An important distinction between Pentecostals and charismatics is that charismatics remain within their churches (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) rather than joining Pentecostal churches. Another difference is that most charismatics do not embrace Pentecostalism s anti-intellectual, pre-millennial fundamentalism.

Three major reasons account for the growth of the charismatic movement within the mainstream churches, including the Anglican Communion, namely:

i. The desire for a more experiential faith, one that goes beyond church tradition, doctrine and liturgy.
ii. The belief that gifts of the Spirit are as available today as they were in the first century.
iii. The desire of many for the Holy Spirit to deepen and enliven their faith, and to give them “words of knowledge” concerning their lives and the lives of others.

When we look at the Modernists (Protestant liberals), charistmatics and Evangelicals, all as off-shoots of fundamentalism (conservatives’ argument for the “fundamentals of the faith”), we will discover that about the only two areas they differ from the Pentecostals are anti-intellectualism and insistence on speaking in tongues as the only evidence of the Spirit. In many other areas, we can see a blend of beliefs and practices with the Pentecostals.

That the Anglican Communion of today is a mix of fundamentalists, charismatics and the Evangelicals is not in doubt and needs no argument. The presence of Evangelical Ministry in almost every parish of our Church proves the point, even if it was created as an alternative to the “troublesome” EFAC (Evangelical Fellowship in Anglican Communion). The point here is that there is an inner desire for experiential faith that goes beyond church traditions.

In-Road to Anglican Doctrines, Mission and Liturgy
As already enumerated in this paper, desire for a more experiential faith, one that goes beyond church tradition, doctrine and liturgy; the belief that gifts of the Spirit are as available today as they were in the first century; and the desire of many for the Holy Spirit to deepen and enliven their faith, and to give them “words of knowledge” concerning their lives and the lives of others, all stand on one end of the continuum that separates the Fundamentalists on one hand from the Evangelicals/charismatics on the other.

Along the Fundamentalists-Evangelicals continuum is the Pentecostal incursion into the Anglican spirituality, mission and Liturgy. The Pentecostal or new generation Churches as you may like to call them, came under the cover of aggressive evangelism to re-convert the converted, primarily in the Anglican Communion, Methodist and few other protestant Churches.

The existence of the Evangelical/charismatic groups who were still battling for acceptance by the fundamentalists that held the power and authority of the Anglican Church made the incursion easy for them. The youths left the Church in their droves, not in search of, but in fulfillment of their cravings for a “more experiential faith”. Knowing this, the Pentecostals played smart, advertently or inadvertently, by attacking and faulting every doctrine and tradition of the Church, including singing of hymns, silent prayers, clerical vestments, hierarchical structure, collection and blessing of offering etc., and our already dissatisfied evangelicals joyfully accepted their wrong postulations as right and did not only move into the new generation churches, but served as “fishing hooks” to draw a lot of others that could not make up their minds in a direction. It is on record that most of the traditions and practices of the Anglican Communion so maliciously criticized and demonized then by the Pentecostal movement, are in practice in their churches today. The effects of this deceitful de-population of the Anglican membership which they call “conversion” are still manifest till date on the Church.

Besides the membership drift, another implication of the Pentecostal churches’ incursion is the unwarranted forceful reshaping of many Anglican Christian families into multi-faith units. Here, we have the husband/father abandoned by wife and children for one new generation church or another, or in some instances, the children leave their parents in the Anglican Church to join a Pentecostal church, thus creating disunity in the family. Often, such families cannot pray together. This has grave implications for the Christian stand and growth of such families. The surprising thing about this is that the leaders of such receiving churches see nothing wrong with their encouragement of family split along denominational lines.

Wither the Clergy?
I reckon that the organizers of this conference did not intend this presentation to be a lamentation, but rather, a re-evaluation of the Anglican ecumenical position with a view to seeing our pitfalls and, where necessary, make amends in our inter-denominational relationships. We have hitherto been known and are praised everywhere for our liberality. But, to what extent has the so-called liberality benefitted us and what are the likely implications of our unrestrained liberality on the immediate and distant future of the Church?

The new generation churches did not originate in Nigeria or anywhere in Africa. It all started in the US with its set of beliefs, some of which have been mentioned in the course of this presentation. When Pentecostalism came to Nigeria, it came with its doctrines. We can call their doctrines imported only if they started in Nigeria with doctrines other than the ones they presently hold and practice. If the new generation churches’ doctrines are imported at all, we can only talk about it in the context of our own policy of “open border” for all manners of doctrine that are foreign to us. So, in essence, we – Anglican clergy and laity - are the importers of the doctrines. I have thoughtfully identified two major styles of doctrinal importation among us. These are Clerical Negligence and Neo-Pentecostalism.

Clerical Negligence: This has to do with the “ancient” clergy of the pre-pentecostal era who left undone what they should have done, namely evangelism, doctrinal dynamics that would allow Scriptural facts to supersede traditions, sensitivity to the yearnings of dome in the church membership for “a more experiential faith” etc. Their failure created an in-road for Pentecostal incursion and made the Church a ready harvest ground for their membership drive.

Neo-Pentecostalism: It would appear from my and Church members’ recent observations that a group we can describe as Neo-Pentecostals has emerged within our Communion. This group with membership cutting across both the clergy and laity, has sympathy for new generation Churches’ doctrines and practices such as “speaking in tongues” as evidence of the Holy Spirit, anti-intellectualism (not a few of our priests now condemn knowledge of Theology from the pulpit), eisegetical interpretation of the Scriptures (all in the name of new discovery), free adoption of fire and miracle/enemy-focused approach to prayers (isn’t it true that many of our clergy men use MFM Bible for their sermon and prayer preparation; elemental transmission of power (you see Anglicans carrying water and soaps to Church like CAC); praying in the name of living Church leaders (Olorun Adeboye …God of Adeboye); anti-church vestment (ridiculous attempt to conduct liturgical service in jacket and trousers), prophecy for sale etc. We recently had to make pronouncements banning the use of strange phrases – “Amen! Amen!! Amen!!!, Holy Ghost, Fire!!!” at any prayer in our diocese. Since our pronouncement, the strange practice has stopped (or so I presume) and Holy Spirit has not stopped moving. What then is the hullabaloo all about?

Of more danger to our Anglican spirituality, mission and liturgy are these neo-pentecostals within the system, both clergy and lay. These are the main importers of the new generation churches’ doctrines to the Anglican Church and they need to be checked. In doing this we should pay attention to the fact that doctrinal dynamism is not the same with doctrinal compromise; and spirituality not same as spiritual gymnastics. Much as the system does not want to stifle the spirit, there is need for moderation in our liberality. And the authoritative moderators or umpires in the emergent contest between real Anglican doctrines that sustain its spirituality, mission and doctrines, and the emergent neo-pentecostal movement within the Church are the Church fathers.

History is waiting to be written concerning all of us; thank you and God bless you.


References
1. The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), 2007
2. Iluno Nelson, A Glossary of Ecclesistical and Liturgical Terms, Rehoboth Publishing, Lagos,2015
3. Schwarz John, Word Alive! An Introduction to the Christian Faith, Tabgha Foundation, Minnesota,1995
4. Palmer Timothy (Prof.) – Biblical Exegesis Handbook, ACTS, Bukuru, Nigeria, 2013
5. Jon Abd-Kalmatulla & James J. Francis – Strange Fire in the Church (How Occult and Cult Teachings Infiltrate the Church, Lighthouse Rescue Mission Int., Jos, 2012
6. http://www.stjohnadulted.org/spir_5.htm/What is Christian Spirituality