Thursday, 20 October 2016

A presence in every community


The Font, St John's Church, Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil                                             Source: Wales Online


Has Anglicanism run its course in Great Britain ending a Christian presence in every community? 

The sad sight of the font in the derelict Grade II listed building, above, stands as a sorry reminder of all the souls who will have promised to "fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life". Since the Anglican Church has turned its mind to making sin respectable the consequences are plain for all to see, dereliction.

It comes as little surprise to read that the Church of England is considering a plan to abandon a legal requirement to hold Sunday services in parish churches thus changing their slogan "A Christian presence in every community" to "A Christian presence in some communities".

This is the inevitable consequence of declining attendances in the liberalised Anglican church. The Telegraph follows up its report on the plan with a question: Why is the Anglican Church in crisis? Its answer: The roots of the rift between liberal and conservative wings can be traced back decades but the current crisis erupted in 2003 when the US branch of Anglicanism – The Episcopal Church (TEC) - ordained its first openly-gay bishop, Gene Robinson.

Credit: Elinor Carucci for TIME
The baptismal dying to sin has become living to sin, a message eagerly proclaimed by too many bishops of the church. Tolerance of homosexuality and the gesture of remorse over the death of Alan Turing has been turned into an absurd clamour for equal treatment regardless of merit or circumstance. The 'victim' has become the oppressor. People demand 'rights' however bizarre the circumstances resulting in trans-sexual 'men' having babies. Eggs are being developed using skin cells. There are likely to be three parent families with every individual having "the right to reproduce" regardless of the effect on the children resulting from these 'unions'. How they may feel as they grow up is ignored. As women old enough to be great grandparents are helped to give birth it is increasingly likely that the child will be motherless within a few years of birth. In these circumstances the absurdity of gender neutral toilets looks almost comic.

Instead of "fighting valiantly against sin, the world and the devil", many liberal clerics prefer to excuse human weakness regarding it simply as part of life's tapestry, thus making it appear not only acceptable but respectable often in justification of their own lifestyle.

There is a certain irony in all this. Not satisfied with Civil Partnerships, the latest liberal push is to allow same sex couples to marry in church but sooner or later there will be no churches for them to marry in given the current rate of decline. Our churches will become derelict monuments to past glory or converted into mosques for the growing number of Muslims in our midst who worship regularly and already outnumber Anglican worshippers.

During his visit to the UK Patriarch Kirill, expressed his concerns about developments within Anglicanism drawing Archbishop Justin Welby’s attention to "the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern over the liberalization of the Church of England’s teaching on church order, particularly, the ordination of women as priests and bishops and on the family and morality", concerns previously expressed by Metropolitan Hilarion but ignored as were earlier pleas of the Catholic Church. We live with the consequences.

As Christianity declines and Islam becomes more prevalent in the UK we are more likely to have a Muslim presence in every community. One has only to look at the fate of Christians in Muslim countries to be aware of the dangers of aiding the expansion of Islam in this country. After Birmingham council's  'disastrous failure' over Islamism in schools there have been more recent worries over "extremism" and "twisted ideologies" in a Nottingham Muslim school.

The same pattern has been repeated many times in the greater sexual exploitation of children by Muslim men, often of Pakistani heritage. There are 'No-Go' Zones and there has been electoral fraud. Multiculturalism is a disaster.

Many church leaders show misguided Christian charity in pressing the Government to take more refugees regardless of the consequences. In a recent report "743 Christian refugees living in camps in Germany were attacked by Muslim refugees in 2016, pointing to big failures on the part of German authorities when it comes to understanding the role of religion in the lives of refugees". Meanwhile adult migrants pretend to be 'Calais kids' at the expense of genuinely vulnerable children to gain access to the UK.

Ignoring these challenges is not charity, it is complicity. A common trait among liberal Anglicans which is witnessing the death of Christianity in this country and the spread of Islam to be the new presence in every community.

Updates

[22.10.2016]

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1 comment:

  1. Simple soul22 October 2016 at 22:52

    Christians should not tolerate sin and wrongdoing of others in the name of forgiveness -that is not Christian love or Christian mercy. Such an approach sends the wrong message to the world. How often do we hear "everyone has his own opinion" or "each to his own".
    I dare to say that is where the Anglican Church including The Church in Wales, has gone wrong and has lost its Catholic heritage ,and this is because 'teaching', either from the pulpit or by way of life example, has been lacking. As a consequence the Church has abandoned the concept of any authority, and this has led to a form of ecclesiastical anarchy. As an example,most rarely could one find a parish priest prepared to explain on a Sunday morning the error of womens' ordination. Similarly for the other issues mentioned in this blog.

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