A strange dream....

On the night of October 19th, 2003, I had a strange and disturbing dream. Generally speaking, I'm an avid dreamer! I often have wonderfully entertaining dreams with casts of thousands, all filmed in glorious Technicolor and panavision. If there were Oscars for dreams, I'd surpass Ben Hur! But on two or three occasions in my life I have had dreams through which I believe God has been telling me something. Such dreams have a simple yet significant quality about them, and I know the minute I wake that there is something important in the message. I had such a dream on October 19th this year.

In my dream I saw the assassination of the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth 2nd. She was dressed in a salmon pink suit with matching hat, and was standing on the steps of a large building, surrounded by crowds of people. At the front of the crowd was a group of African men dressed in traditional African robes with matching hats. Suddenly, these men surged forward, several of them grabbing and restraining the Queen's bodyguards. One of them grabbed the Queen, drew a knife and slit her throat. In my dream I watched in numbed horror as she lay dead, sprawled across the steps.

To say I was troubled and disturbed when I woke would be an understatement. My first thought was that if the dream was some kind of premonition of a real event that was about to happen, then what on earth could or should I do about it? If I called the authorities I would look like a first class crank. But if I said nothing, and it came to pass, what role would my disobedience have played?
While praying about it later that morning, the Lord gave me what I believe was the interpretation of the dream. The whole scene was symbolic. The monarch is the head of the Church of England and the Queen appeared in my dream, I believe, in that capacity. The steps were the steps of the church. The African men represented the Bishops of the Anglican Communion from that continent. The incident is, I believe, the current debate raging in the Anglican Church over the ordination of the gay bishop in America.

The interpretation is, I believe, that the Anglican Communion is going to be torn apart, broken up, through the so-called "third world" bishops standing their ground and refusing to acknowledge this appointment. It may eventually result in the disestablishment of the Church of England, and the monarch no longer being the head of the church (throat being cut?). Why I should have such a dream I don't know, but I do know that our friends in the Anglican Church need our prayers and intercession at this time. But it also leads me to consider the significance of the possible disestablishment of the church in this country and the effects of such a schism in the Anglican Communion.

In a nutshell, I have a deep sense of excitement that even though it looks disastrous on the surface, yet it could be a necessary precursor to revival in Britain. In fact, I even think that God Himself may be behind this. In Ezekiel 38:4 God says He Himself will put hooks in the jaw of Gog and Magog to draw them out into confrontation so that His judgements can be executed. Maybe, just maybe, God is using this issue of the homosexual bishop to ultimately liberate the Anglican Church. You cannot accommodate compromise and hope to be the harbinger of moral and religious revival and renewal in the land.

If the Anglican Church did divide on this issue, I believe it would free the evangelical wing to speak powerfully and profoundly on issues of spiritual renewal and revival. By the same token, if the church were to be disestablished, no longer entwined with the State, it would be free of the shackles of political correctness and compromise, free "of" the government that it might speak "to" the government, answerable and accountable to God first and foremost rather than to the humanistic demands of man. Being "married to power" has all through history always been detrimental to the church's ability to preach a pure and uncompromised message.

Last but not least, I also think it would be a good thing if the monarch were not the "head" of the church. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not anti-royalist, rather I am pro-Christ and His headship of His Church. I somehow think it is not coincidental that at the very same time that the Anglican Church is working its way through the gay bishop debate, that suddenly there are monumental, scandalous accusations being made against the future King of England. Such accusations, if true, would perhaps hasten the end of the monarchy in this country, and at the very least add crushing weight to the argument that the church should be disestablished and the monarch removed as head of the church.

But once again, is that such a bad thing? One of the reasons the Pilgrim Fathers eventually left these shores for the New World was that they felt that the Reformation in Britain had failed, that Henry's break with Rome was a superficial act of convenience, that all that had happened was that a pope had been swapped for a king. You may say that the monarch's role as head of the Church of England is more ceremonial than functional, that it doesn't really matter. I beg to differ. The fact remains that the monarch holds that office, even if it is more secular than sacred, and it means that there is a malaise and compromise at the very head of the church. The New Testament is quite clear, that there is only one head of the church, and that is Jesus our Lord, the sinless lamb of God who was and is spotless, uncompromisingly holy and righteous, the source of all life in His body, the church (Col 2:19, Eph 4:15-16).

What kind of example, what kind of lead, that the "head of the church" should be so steeped in scandal, adultery and lies; that such an office should be perpetuated through succession rather than God's anointing and appointment; that someone who might have no personal faith in God at all might be called upon to head up the church in this land? As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the Lord Jesus is recognised as the true head of the church, the better for all concerned. I believe it would liberate the Church of England by removing the dichotomy at the heart of its existence. I don't want to go on too much about revival - l don't want to subject you to another bout of revival-expectation fatigue! But I have a quiet witness in my spirit that the Anglican Church in England will be in the thick of any revival, and for that to happen, such cataclysmic changes as these must take place first.

Brendan Munro