David: Is there a particular issue facing the Anglican Church of Canada that needs to be addressed by this synod and, is it being addressed?
Rev. Dr. George:  The synod is going to talk about the Covenant; it’s most likely they will initiate and commend a period of study of the Covenant; it might have had more attention – perhaps in the coming triennium it will get the attention it deserves.

David: Will that be too late?
Rev. Dr. George:  I don’t think it’s too late but I do think that in the meantime it’s important that the church take it seriously in those 3 years, that people would think about it. The Covenant ought to be more than simply a legislative act of acceptance or rejection: it ought to inform and help and that is something you hope would happen in dioceses and parishes. I think the bonds of affection globally are important for our identity as Anglicans, it’s integral to our identity as catholic Christians.

David: I have a few friends who went through seminary – not Wycliffe – entering as Christians and emerging as something else. The ones who were still Christian when they came out had to spend much of their time trying to hang on to their faith in spite of all efforts to subvert it. Why on earth is that happening? Any comments?
Rev. Dr. George:  It depends what you think theological education’s task mandate is. Our faculty share a Nicene faith. We hope we are contributing to the upbuilding of the church, the edification of the church in its Nicene faith. What theological education is supposed to be is a particular way of building up leaders who can catechise, who can convey that same faith to other Christians. So, to us, it’s a misunderstanding of theological education to think its primary task is to destroy the Nicene faith – and some theological education imagines itself to be that. The way you avoid that is though serious theological work on the traditional doctrines of the church: the atonement; sin – a kind of education that understands itself to be for the forming of leaders to be ordained for actual ministry in the church. You’re trying to close the gap which can arise between the practice of church and theology. But, to be an evangelical school is to do that theological work not only for church, but in the service of the Gospel. That takes a certain kind of focus: theology is meant to be the guarding, clarifying and testing of the faith of the church according to the Scripture. Is theological education always that? No.

David: In some seminaries, it appears not to be.
Rev. Dr. George:  Well, I’m an evangelical, so I would advocate that it should be. I’m a member of the Anglican Church of Canada and live and minister to upbuild and support the ACoC; I think there is a particular contribution that theology has to make and a particular contribution that more traditional Anglicans and evangelical have to make, That’s really important to bear in mind because synods have their own place, they come and go, but the ongoing deeper work of catechesis in a culture which is increasingly de-Christianised, in a church which is often forgetful of roots, that really matters. Synods are one thing, but at a grass roots level there have to be leaders who can teach the faith.

David: That leads me to another question: you are trying to produce leaders who can make disciples. I’m not anti-intellectual, but if Jesus had spoken to the thief on the cross using the terminology and language of some of your professors, he would have – had he been able – scratched his head, turned to the other thief and said, “what did he just say?”
Rev. Dr. George:  I think theology isn’t the same thing as preaching: preaching is a first order activity – you are communicating the Gospel to people, but theology is meant to step back and think about how we’re doing that. So the professors you are referring to would agree about the moment of witness – which is the analogue of when Jesus was talking to the thief. There was a church where I did doctoral study to which would come all these famous professors and I remember the pastor there would say that he had to remind himself, as he ascended the pulpit, that every one of them was a dying sinner. You’re right, you’re training people to do that, but in the service of that there’s a place for thinking about what the church is, what our doctrine is – we live in a church which spends very little time actually thinking about doctrinal questions. And we’re not always well served by that.

David: So my lingering suspicion that it’s obscurity for obscurity’s sake is really not founded then?
Rev. Dr. George:  I think it isn’t because one of the fruits of one of the professors you are probably thinking of was serving on the committee that wrote the Covenant – really trying to fight his way to know what it means to love the church, and to suffer with the church and also to witness to it.

David: Do you think that, for some, there is a desire to cling to Anglicanism and all its trappings more than to Christianity or Christ – that Anglicanism has become so important that compromises are being made that shouldn’t be made and that Anglican unity has been set at a higher priority than truth?
Rev. Dr. George:  My assumption is that there is an important and valuable dynamic in having movements of theological witness and renewal within the church catholic. And the danger to the church catholic is forgetfulness or having its life centred on self. That kind of inertia is always the danger: churches need movements of renewal within them to remind them that they exist for the sake of the Gospel. And in Anglicanism in the modern period, that was the catholic as well as the evangelical: the Anglo Catholics and the evangelicals were movements that stayed within the church that was forgetful in its own way in the nineteenth century and were meant to remind it of something larger for which it existed. Evangelicals would say that the church is always in danger of making its own existence the reason for its being. We even do that in our own lives of faith.

David: George Orwell said, “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Every second sentence in this synod has included “missional”, “mission”, “spirit” and so on. I suspect the people using these words mean something different than I would mean if I used them, or, perhaps they have no idea what they mean by them.
Rev. Dr. George:  Yes, I agree with you. One of the challenges is that if a church says, we need to have a more mission focussed life, there is no appropriate answer but, “amen”. Who would be against that? And there are many ways in which we would applaud that. Sometimes we wake up to some evangelistic imperative out of practical concerns but, for whatever reason, if the Gospel is preached that is good. However, I think you are right that, it’s one thing to say that our idea of mission has to be wider and that could include social transformation and activism, but there is a difference between saying that and saying social transformation and activism is the Gospel. John Stott talked about holistic mission which was both evangelistic and involved social witness – that’s a good thing. The test is, does the idea of mission include the hope and expectation of witnessing to people who would come to faith in Jesus Christ. It’s become the coin of the realm.

David: Yes, and the point I’m getting at is when someone uses the word “mission”, I have no idea what they mean.
Rev. Dr. George:  And the litmus test I would offer would be, if what they’re describing includes, in a central way, Christians witnessing to their faith in Jesus Christ, in the hope that by the grace of God that person might come to believe, then the odds are pretty good they’re talking about some kind of wider expansive view of what mission is and not something else.
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