Fresh Expressions has been imported into Canada and seems to have been embraced by such stalwarts of Canadian Anglicanism as Primate Fred Hiltz and Niagara bishop Michael Bird, a fact that would make  even the most gullible suspicious. John Bowen, an evangelical whom I heard speak a week ago, is enthusiastic about Fresh Expressions. This article tends to confirm my initial impression that it is more concerned with delivery than content – a fundamental flaw: when content is mentioned we are given the usual non-gospel, liberal claptrap cause du jour:

The ideas for alternative-style worship are part of an initiative launched by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to appeal to the younger generation.

They are set out in a new book compiled by the Church’s Fresh Expressions programme, which aims to boost church attendance with more relevant and exciting services.

One Holy Communion service promoted in the book, called Ancient Faith, Future Mission, begins with the congregation being shown a video clip from the YouTube website about a United Nations anti-poverty campaign.

Worshippers are told that “our planet is messed up” and that “things are not right”.

They are then asked to approach the altar and rub sea salt on their fingers to represent tears, before walking around and meditating at eight “prayer stations” representing themes such as “gender equality” and “environmental sustainability”.

A psalm is recited in “beat poetry” style to the accompaniment of African Djembe drums, and prayers are said “for the corporate world, for influential CEOs who oversee billion-dollar industries”.

The prayers continue: “We pray for John Chambers of Cisco Systems, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Dr Eric Schmidt of Google Inc, H Lee Scott Jr of Wal-Mart Stores and others who have already made commitments to justice.”

Speaking for myself, I would prefer to have a root canal without an anaesthetic.

Among the alternative services explored in the book, which is co-edited by the Rt Rev Steven Croft, the new Bishop of Sheffield, are so-called “U2charists”, services in which the congregation receives communion but sings the songs of the Irish rock band U2 instead of traditional hymns.

The services, which include such songs as “Mysterious Ways”, “One”, and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, have been pioneered at St Swithin’s church in Lincoln.

This, of course, is proof positive that the Anglican church has deftly managed to emasculate anyone attempting to satirise it: who can compete with the self-ridicule of a church that willingly chooses to sing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as a hymn?

In chapter of the book, Archbishop Williams says: “The Bible is full of stories about God communicating through act and sign as well as language … Far from being bound to communication through clear information economically expressed in words, our society is still deeply sensitive to symbols and inclined to express important feelings and perceptions in this way.”

The Fresh Expressions initiative was launched by the Archbishop in 2004 to combat the significant drop in churchgoing that has been seen in Britain over recent decades. In the past few years the decline appears to have steadied.

Church leaders are particularly concerned about the loss of younger people, who are abandoning the pews at a greater rate than their older counterparts.

The Rt Rev Graham Cray, who heads the Fresh Expressions initiative, said that it was vital that the Church explored new ways of engaging with modern culture.

“We have to reconnect with a very large percentage of the population that has no contact or interest in traditional church,” he said.

Sadly, the Anglican church is ignoring something that actually works – expressing the unchanging Gospel with contemporary artistic forms – and prefers to convince itself instead that the medium is the message. The trouble is, it isn’t.

I watched the film Duplicity last night. I rather enjoyed it: it was all about who was being “played” and by whom. That is to say, taken for a ride, conned, stung, swindled, double-crossed, duped, suckered, bamboozled; the answer in the film is supposed to be a surprise, so I won’t give it away.

Which brings me to evangelical leaders in the ACoC: I think they are being played. I had the pleasure of attending an Essentials gathering today where the speaker was John Bowen, an evangelical who remains within the ACoC and is the motivating force behind Fresh Expressions in Canada.

I was curious as to how he manages to cope in the ACoC and also whether he had any sense of being paraded as a token evangelical; his answer was that being permitted to preach the true Gospel is what is important and he still has that leeway. An apparently reasonable answer.

But who is really being played here? I suspect that evangelicals who remain in the ACoC preach the gospel only within constraints that the ACoC places on them. As Malcolm Muggeridge used to say: like playing hymns in a whorehouse. There is a game afoot: evangelicals do what they think they can get away with and the ACoC gives them enough latitude to make them think they are a welcome part of the institution. But who is really playing whom?

Consider:
The ACoC is suing and persecuting those who can no longer put up with its antics. Those who remain within the ACoC are helping to finance the lawsuits.

The ACoC has its liberal agenda set, yet it wants to be seen as inclusive so it needs token evangelicals to flaunt at the appropriate moment. It has no interest in what the evangelicals have to say: it pretends to listen and goes its merry way unimpeded.

The ACoC allows programs like Alpha and Fresh Expressions, but its intent is to capitalise on the success of such programs by making use of the techniques while altering the content to something that fits the ACoC’s anfractuous view of reality.

So who is being played?