Reach Ministries
RockyRoger
Shipmate
Hi guys,
these folk are having meetings in our area:
https://reachministries.uk/about/
I had a quick look at where they are coming from:
(Warning for link to explicitly sexist statement, page also contains link to their anti- LGBT statement - L, hosting )
Hmm .... should we be (bog standard COE with lots of Holy Communion and lady clergy be worried?
Does anyone on SOF know anyting about these guys? Or had dealings with them.
How should I pray for them?
these folk are having meetings in our area:
https://reachministries.uk/about/
I had a quick look at where they are coming from:
(Warning for link to explicitly sexist statement, page also contains link to their anti- LGBT statement - L, hosting )
Hmm .... should we be (bog standard COE with lots of Holy Communion and lady clergy be worried?
Does anyone on SOF know anyting about these guys? Or had dealings with them.
How should I pray for them?
Comments
As I said on another thread it did make me wonder how the other 9 plus evangelical churches already here felt about that!
I am not trusting these guys. Thirty years ago our lovely local small gentle evangelical church was done over by NIF. All previous leaders , even lowly ones like me, were squeezed out. Pastoral care all but ceased.
Pretty standard for FIEC. They do put a high priority on pastoral care, but yes defiantly sexist and unapologetically opposed to same sex marriage, etc. Although I was surprise that Reach had Prophetic Ministry down as a thing - I always got the impression that his church was not Charismatic.
I always found them just a little bit arrogant when it comes to relations with Christians who don't exactly align with their views. I can't imagine them ever singing "There's a wideness in God's Mercy" in one of their services. But I'm happy to acknowledge them as Christian brothers and sisters.
[Content warning - a variety of bigoted views]
https://fiec.org.uk/who-we-are/beliefs/women-in-ministry
there's also their ethos statement on Same Sex Marriage
https://fiec.org.uk/who-we-are/beliefs/same-sex-marriage
and their Doctrinal Basis
To answer the question posed in the opening post, I would pray that the Holy Spirit convicts them of their bigotry.
I mean, if you went onto the website of an RC parish for instance, you wouldn't expect to see a section that ran something like, 'The RCC doesn't have female clergy, right? We only have male priests and deacons. Got that? And they don't get married, right? Oh, and if you are in a same-sex relationship don't expect to get married here as we only marry male and female partners ...'
Not because those things aren't RC practice (and Orthodox too of course) but for a variety of reasons. It would generally be understood that this was the RC position.
There are, of course, more 'inclusive' messages on the websites of those parishes and congregations which have a more liberal policy on such matters.
So it could be argued that in that case it should be fine for those with a more 'exclusive' policy to state this upfront online and in their printed blurb.
But I dunno. I doesn't sit well with me. It's almost as if they are effectively saying, 'The rest of you are too lax in these matters. We'll show you how it ought to be done ...'
Ok, it's not as if my own Tradition doesn't act like that at times (at times? Understatement!) but ittgr way they push this sort of thing into the foreground as some kind of defining USP that strikes a discordant note to me.
Presumably they wouldn't be planting a new church in Rocky Roger's area unless they believed the others weren't up to scratch.
I was surprised to see a reference to the 'prophetic' dimension. It could well be though that they don't mean this in the charismatic sense but that their stance on sexuality and gender issues and on male leadership places them in a 'prophetic' position contra societal norms.
As to 'biological sex', they don't know what they're talking about.
Well, quite. Certainly just pretty normal for the FIEC, and at least if you know where you stand with them from the start they're easily ignored.
Well, the Orthodox don't have a Magisterium either, but there's a common body of belief of course.
I've seen statements setting out positions on inclusively and such on Anglican parish websites, and they aren't independent - although given the range and diversity of 'churchpersonship' they might as well be ... 😉
But yes, you are right, there is more reason for an independent church to put more details upfront on its website.
In this particular case, I suspect it's something of a 'marketing' device in the sense of 'product differentiation.'
Evangelicalism is a somewhat crowded market when it comes to the 'offer' so each group has to differentiate itself in some way. Variations on a theme.
Incidentally, as an aside, for those of us less familiar with groups which label themselves as Reformed (whether small r or Big R), would @chrisstiles indicate who the people represented by the acronyms are, or were?
I'm familiar with the FIEC but not AMiE. Are the 'Restless-Reformed' a thing? Does SGM stand for 'Scripture Gift Mission'?
If so, they were the ones who published tracts weren't they?
My impression is that as there wasn't an existing conservative Reformed denomination in the UK, the church planting that started with during the restless-reformed period went in multiple directions, some went independent Baptist, others aligned with SGM (Sovereign Grace Ministries - until that blew up).
There are multiple organisations planting churches of this stripe operating in the UK (ISTR there was a church mentioned on the forum a month or so ago that had links to the plantingcollective - which is an umbrella group for Acts 29, AMiE, Co-Mission and City to City UK).
I imagine that with the passing of some of the old organisations the AMiE (Gafcon aligned Anglican Mission in England) and the FIEC are the new homes for churches of this sort
And what this has to do with the Good News.
It strikes me this is what nationalist ideology looks like, when translated into a particular expression of Christianity.
Note that this is not the same thing as "Christian nationalism", which this article from the Evangelical Alliance attempts to define from an evangelical perspective. Whatever else it says, for me it illustrates the impaired capacity for self-examination in evangelicalism.
As chrisstiles points out, there are a number of evangelical groups of this ilk actively looking to plant churches in the UK. And their attitudes aren't very far removed from groups such as the CEEC, an association of conservative evangelical churches in the CofE. (Regarding "unity", in Anglicanism, one notion that crops up is "impaired fellowship", to the extent that the CEEC published a resource paper on what it looks like at a local parish level.)
Given that evangelicals are among the church groupings apparently experiencing numerical growth in the UK, I do wonder about the longer-term consequences of just ignoring them.
If so, how and what would that achieve other than to make martyrs of them.
I wouldn't 'ignore' them but be as pleasant towards them as I try to be to Christians of all stripes - and anyone else for that matter.
I don't always succeed, of course.
I used to run into a lot of FIEC types at one time and they were rather suspicious of me as someone who belonged to a charismatic evangelical church back then. They were fine with me once they realised I didn't bite.
I expect they'd think I was way beyond the pale now though.
Sorry, in what sense does it look like a nationalist ideology?
What struck me is that its attitude to fellowship is primarily about establishing boundaries. Protestant evangelicalism being primarily predicated on what individuals believe, these boundaries are ostensibly conceived in terms of adherence to particular beliefs about "the Truth of the Gospel". In practice, they work to exclude specific groups of people on the basis of their identity.
In the context of evangelicalism in the UK, I would relate the underlying attitudes to the psychology of nationalism, as described by Psychology Today (for example):
I would agree with others that the type of aggressive statements of faith on the Reach Ministries website very much rub me up the wrong way. I think they really do believe that they are the one thing preventing the entire church in this country from going to hell, and that standing up for the True Faith is consequently vital.
What @pease says makes a lot of sense, too.
I don't think they think they're preventing the entire church from going to Hell. I think they think apostate progressives like me are absolutely going there.
This seems to be closer to group formation, with the beliefs themselves being close to forms of Conservatism, I'm not sure it clarifies to introduce nationalism as an analogue.
In any case, to add to what Gamaliel says above; these movements are largely visible because they are somewhat adjacent to the forms of Christianity in which most of us move, non-denominational Charismatic Christianity is still growing much faster, and well if you don't like what the Evangelicals believe ..
This is not a new thought. It was certainly articulated by Martin Marty about 40 years ago in his work on "Fundamentalisms", and seems to be a common human trait.
Eucharisma points out that Which references Andrew Village, Biblical Conservatism and Psychological Type (Journal of Empirical Theology, 29), which you can find here.
To my prayers!
Even if they do gain adherents in your patch it's unlikely to have a great deal of impact on whether or not people continue to worship in your parish.
If they don't gain traction in your area they'll move on somewhere else. I don't see how they pose a 'threat' unless we see it as intrinsically threatening that there are people out there who see things differently than we might ourselves.
If so, then we are only doing what groups like Reach are doing, only in reverse.
I'm thinking of Gamaliel's advice in Acts here ... although I wouldn't say that was the only factor to consider.
Reach may fizzle out in your area or they may become established. You may find that people who run with them for a while become disillusioned and seek out your lovely new female curate for help and advice. Who knows, you may even end up with refugees from there in your church?
There are all sorts of possible outcomes and scenarios.
In relative terms, a larger amount and in terms of beliefs they are probably much more conservative on dead horse issues (but diverge on issues of leadership) but also have a particular political take.
Okay? That's all true, but the non-denominational charismatic movement is different from the charismatic movement within Anglicanism (or any other established denomination).
“Rabbi, is there a prayer for the Tsar?”
“May God bless and keep the Tsar… far away from us!”
This occurred some years ago (2018 IIRC), so I don't know if the new church is still functioning. The A-C church is, albeit suffering from the general depletions partly caused by Covid.
Some of these new churches are rather akin to mushrooms - here today, gone tomorrow - and there's nothing new in that. My own feeling FWIW is that there's room for everyone, however much one might dislike certain views and teachings.
The scene was always in a state of flux and constantly evolving and shape-shifting. The level of co-operation with other churches varied but generally they were involved in Billy Graham and Luis Palau missions and such like. My own group went through a pretty 'exclusive' stage but became more 'open' over time. It long since folded.
I'd suggest that the FIEC were more consistent in their approach and less subject to flux and change, although some individuals and churches did migrate into the 'new church' scene. Heck, I know of one former FIEC church-plant where the pastor and around 34 of his congregation were recently received into Orthodoxy! That's not gone down too well ...
All that said, I don't think individual members of FIEC churches are 'monolithic' and you will get a range of views on various issues to a certain extent but not on what we might call 'Epiphanous' matters.