A famous Anglican evangelist left the archbishop of Canterbury’s evangelism council, claiming he had a different religion than church leadership’s after they affirmed homosexuality.
Rico Tice, associate minister of All Soul’s Langham Place in London and a renowned evangelist, told attendees at a gathering of conservative Anglicans in Israel called GAFCON that he stepped down from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s Task Group for Evangelism because Paul Bayes, the bishop who leads the group, affirmed homosexuality. Tice said that he and Bayes have different religions, and that the main difference hinges on whether one views scripture as authoritative. (RELATED: Anglican Church To Bless Gay Marriages In New Zealand)
“While I was on the Archbishop Task Group for Evangelism — and I’ve been to see him in person on this — Bishop Paul Bayes of Liverpool was affirming same-sex relationships, which is putting people on the road to destruction. I don’t know how you could submit to his leadership? I had to leave that committee,” Tice said, according to Premier.
“It’s a different religion. Bishop Paul Bayes and I have a different religion and it’s around whether scripture is authoritative in terms of human sexuality,” he added.
Tice asserted that when church leadership affirms homosexuality, they lead people to God’s wrath and to destruction, rather than shepherding them.
“I think it is a great wickedness to tell people who are on the road to destruction that they are not. To tell them that they are safe when it comes to God’s wrath when they are not,” Tice said, according to Christian Today.
“If we have church leaders that are putting people on that road to destruction it is a salvation issue. That is why we have to distance ourselves. That is why I stepped down from the archbishop’s commission on evangelism, which I may say was grievous. I wept about it. I was longing to serve and found it a great honour that archbishop Welby had appointed me to that body,” he added.
Tice also warned that if the Anglican Communion, the worldwide body of Anglican churches, did not repent and affirm the authority of scripture, they would lose their spiritual authority and the Holy Spirit would leave their churches.
“It will be like Wesley where the Lord will take his power and spirit and his gospel outside the institution elsewhere,” Tice said, according to CT. “I think the message here [from Jerusalem] with the vast numbers that are here and the leaders that are here is ‘listen guys, the spirit will depart at the traditional Anglican church unless we submit to scripture and unless we repent of our sin and call people to do that.’
“And so I think it’s a great warning to be heeded,” he added.
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