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| A post-ordination scene outside Llandaff Cathedral. Source: Church in Wales |
This post-ordination scene outside Llandaff Cathedral is palpable. Blessings and hugs. I well remember such joyous scenes before women were ordained. Everything then was clear cut. Orthodoxy prevailed.
There is nothing biblical about the ordination of women but having been led astray, many women insist that they hear the call as though God has changed His mind after sending His Son to show us the Way. If He had, surely the change would be universal, not confined to local decision makers. But, sadly, it is as it is.
Today the Church in Wales is in disarray. Progressives continue to push for more change as the pews empty. More defections are expected after the second woman bishop is enthroned next month because the promised provision evaporated once the progressives achieved their goal.
So, there will be great joy for many this morning among those for whom conscience is not a problem. For others there will be pain because their church has left them. More to the point, there will be great sorrow because nobody in the Church in Wales appears to care.
This verse puts it all into context AB. 2 KINGS Chapter 17 verse 15. King James version.
ReplyDeleteNot the time and place to be playing bishops young man.
ReplyDeleteIf you were there, why didn’t you just simply fall to your knees and ask one of the newly ordained (female) priests to offer you God's blessing. It is, after all, God's blessing we're seeking: the gender of the priestly hands that communicate it are an irrelevance.
ReplyDeleteHow can I put this - It's not the church that's left you, it's your entrenched mysogyny (not to mention your homophobia + islamophobia) that means the grace of God's Shekhinah has long since departed. Have you ever considered that God might be calling you to journey to a place as yet unknown? That seems to be God's way with all His people - calling us to journey and discover afresh His grace.
The cloud of God's blessing - the cloud of unknowing - has departed from you: follow after it AB, rather than stamp your feet, dig in your heels and bid it come back to you!!!
Sorry Scapegoat but you really have completely confused and muddled up homophobia, Islamophobia and mysogyny when none of the three of anything whatsoever to do with each other. That is how completely confused you are. I pray that someone will enlighten you in time.
DeleteIf the gender of the hands are an irrelevance then why didn't Mary give birth to the daughter of God?
DeleteWhy wasn't the promised Messiah female?
To those who don't accept the wimmin such matters are entirely relevant and your inability to acknowledge or accept that fact reveal much about your own bigotry.
There is no grace in betrayal Scapegoat.
DeleteIn Barry Morgan's time as archbishop 30% of worshippers rejected his self indulgent, do as you please view of Anglicanism and left the Church in Wales.
The cloud you speak of is not God's blessing, it is the cloud of rejection. Rejection of the 12,000 souls you and those for whom conscience is not a problem have been content to abandon.
Clive - I have not muddled the three phobias - just drawing attention to the fact that all three are the stimulus of most of AB's postings. If s/he's not banging on about one, s/he's banging on about the other! So sorry you're confused by my post - on re-reading it I was rather pleased with how clearly I had put things. I suggest you re-read it. Thank you.
DeleteAs for Cymru'r Groes, I would add to your questions a couple more: why were women the first apostle's of the resurrection? Why were female bishops and prophets present within the life of the early church?
Time to move on - God's Shekhinah invites us to journey and find fresh and grace-filled ways of exercising a fully inclusive priesthood. Happy days.
Sounds like you've been huffing something stronger than incense, Mr Scapegoat. Happy days eh? My friends tell me the ordination service was a shadow of previous ones. Fewer priests than ever (no matter what gender or orientation) and a smattering of a congregation.
DeleteTime to face facts. The Church is an irrelevance now. Maybe it's just a matter of time before it collapses into a happy little club for perverts. Or else this happened decades ago: even the unshakeable moralist Lord Carey was covering for a paedophile bishop!
As always the bad drives out the good and even if Bishop June turns out to be Mrs T instead of Theresa May, I doubt she can turn the tide at Llandaff. Though I hear she is intrigued by whispers that the Dean has appointed himself as Chief Evangelist to the Antiques Trade!
Scapegoat,
DeleteIf you watched Newsnight last night, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08ww1xs/newsnight-26062017 [advance to 21.40], you will have learnt that MI5 has let it be known that "23,000 people living in the UK have potential links to violent extremism" and this is probably "just the tip of the iceberg".
The former Chair of the cobra intelligence group which advises the Government on intelligence matters told Newsnight that "for years the intelligence community and successive governments have been far too tolerant in attitudes towards extremist groups, in particular the Islamist Al-Muhajiroun network. There are 3,000 people with current connections to violent, Islamic extremism and another 20,000 with recent links. 23,000 is the population of a small market town, 23,000 jihadists in our midst willing to kill in the name of Islam."
You will regard that as Islamophobia. I regard it as fair warning.
I too have heard of Gerwhine moonlighting as a 'salesperson' at a local antiques dealership.
DeleteIf true both June and HMRC might be interested.
Just a couple of points: First, it is not the individual priest's gift to give of God's blessing. We do this as a representative of the catholic church, by virtue of the Bishop's authority and shared pastoral work (see the ordinal for explanation: sacraments are always shared with our bishop, and through him, the Church).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it is a theological and philosophical mistake to presume that the physical reality of the body has nothing to do with God. The Christian religion is not simply a choice of one mental construct over another, but is about the use and redemption of the material world.
I really do think the book about John Paul II's Theology of the Body should be compulsory. It is a beautiful affirmation of the purpose and nature of the gift of male and female bodies, and I believe it throws the light of life in its fulness onto the tortuous narcissism which invades what should be a call to redeem the world.
The short summary of this teaching is: West, C. 2009 Theology of the Body for beginners: A basic introduction to John Paul II's sexual revolution. Ascension Press, 2nd Edition.
Fear not, earthlings, Bishop June will have everyone licked into shape before very long, when there will be only one orthodoxy in Llandaff: hers! If the advert in Friday's Church Times is anything to go by, she will be interviewing for her new Chaplain on her first day at work after her enthronement. Let's hope interviews for Dean and Archdeacons will quickly follow. If the Oval Office needed a good scrub post-Bill Clinton, Llys Esgob certainly needs it post Barry the Golfer. How is Llandaff going to cope with a Bishop who is not duplicitous? It will be quite a culture shock, won't it? Then, it will be only a matter of time before she begins surveying the grime and murk in other parts of the Province... Brecon, Bangor. Beware the stabbing sound of the clicking stiletto coming towards your doors. Even a purple cassock and an amethyst on your right hand is no protection. Just aske them in Salisbury!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of pain, sorrow and disgrace.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-40407464
"Ex-Archbishop Lord Carey resigns after child abuse review"
What ever happened to the planned demo last Saturday by the Reverend Gareth Parry at Bangor Cathedral AB. If he has been gagged, is he still breathing, or if paid off, has anything been declared?
ReplyDeleteBerwyn o Fon
Excuse me, please do not associate me with any demo planned at Bangor cathedral or in fact with anything else to do with the place. I was miles away in an ordination service in the Anglican Catholic Church on Saturday. I think the gentleman you are thinking about is a certain Gareth James.
ReplyDeleteThe Revd. J. Gareth Parry
How interesting. And where might that have been?
DeleteNewport Risings
That's sorted then Father Gareth but an even more serious misapprehension appears in this blog in the contribution of Longing For Change. If he or she thinks that Mrs Osborne, the Charlady from Sailsbury, can take a new broom to the CiW then he, she or it has reckoned without the powerful influence of the CRACH who excluded the CiW from Rhodri Morgan's funeral. I shall leave others to explain.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDear Watchman, my 'fear not' was tongue-in-cheek. That's the problem with electronic communication, it lacks nuance (like some of the contributions to this blog). However, given her predecessor's record, June Osborne can hardly be less of a bishop to the whole Diocese than Barry the Golfer was, in spite of her gender. And her statement on the Diocesan website that no-one is forced to recognise the sacramental ministry of women is something the Golfer would never have said. All I am saying is that, even though some people (the lazy, the incompetent, the arrogant, the disloyal) will not find her modus operandi easy to live with; she is not afraid to tell it how it is, and does not speak with forked tongue. A 'bishop' (inverted commas out of respect for those who do not recognise her orders) with integrity and transparency will be a welcome change - in Llandaff and Wales more widely.
ReplyDeleteOde to AB
ReplyDeleteThere are wise people, but just the opposite too,
Who are like wild boar, roaming the planes, they do,
Every bad mannered, rude person will have many troubles,
Problems, sickness, tragic in the doubles.
The ignorant will cry, insult everybody who comes by,
Looking for answer for her righteousness, asking always why?
Until they find that all problems come from their own,
By their bad manner they will be thrown.
LaSophia
'If he or she thinks that Mrs Osborne, the Charlady from Sailsbury, can take a new broom to the CiW then he, she or it has reckoned without the powerful influence of the CRACH who excluded the CiW from Rhodri Morgan's funeral.' As a admirer of RM, watched his funeral on line, in fact the Reverend Aled Edwards spoke on behalf of faith communities. I thought Rhodri anyway was an atheist so why should he have a CiW funeral?
ReplyDeleteThe Church in Wales has been in decline from 1920 when there were 350,000 communicants...this lot are just accelerating the decline.
ReplyDeletePoor episcopal leadership in the Roman catholic Church is also destroying us....