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?