"Brilliant MAECymru net-working lunch hosted by +Joanna & St David’s Diocese group on Saturday." Source: Twitter @StaryMallard
This Tweet well illustrates the driving ambition of bishops in the Church in Wales today.
The fruits of a drive by theologically inept bishops to follow fashionable trends in society, putting their own spin in scripture and tradition. .
High on their list of priorities is their campaign for same sex marriage.
Do not be deceived.
They do not represent the remaining devout women and men in the pews.
Over the centuries faithful women have kept their heads down, praying to the Father as His Son taught us to pray.
They are appalled by the 'babies by baster' culture supported by feminist organisations which regard children as an entitlement, denying them a normal family life, nurtured by a father and a mother as God intended.
When feminists demand that God be referred to as 'she', they mean a woman in their own image.
In the October issue of Forward in Faith's magazine, New Directions Fr Michael Fisher pays homage at the windswept chapel of St Non in Pembrokeshire - 'In the steps of pilgrims'.
Pilgrimage is a hot topic in the Church in Wales, particularly in Llandaff where Bishop June has decided that the Llandaff Clergy School in 2019 will take the form of a no expenses spared pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain.
Perhaps +June was unaware that much closer to home St Davids Cathedral has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. In the twelfth century Pope Calixtus II declared that the shrine was so important that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome and three were equivalent to one to Jerusalem.
The extract from Michael Fisher's article illustrates the harsh reality for traditionalist pilgrims in Wales. Given the increasing number of women clergy the chances are that pilgrims who are unable on grounds of conscience to receive the sacramental ministry of women will be denied the opportunity of receiving Holy Communion when visiting St Davids Cathedral.
Elevating secular issues above theology, Joanna Penberthy has said she finds it hard to take that a group of people see women as "that different". Either she has no grasp of the issues involved or she simply lacks any sense of charity by ignoring them.
If, as a bishop, she thinks it is hard for her she should spare a thought for those in her care who are suffering the results of feminist ambitions in the Church in Wales. Faithful women and men, often cradle Anglicans, have been left with absolutely nothing after years of Anglican devotion.
As bishop-elect of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy commented: "As someone who in the early years was at the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination, I have absolutely no intention of dishing that out so I think it's important that everybody feels free to be honest about their opinions and about their misgivings."
When challenged +Joanna was forced to admit that the alleged discrimination amounted to nothing more than a difference of opinion. Whether she has a short memory or has had a change of heart, the evident misandry in her attack on faithful, elderly male clergy under her care illustrates the 'couldn't care less unless you are one of us' attitude of the bench of bishops and many of the newly ordained clergy, echoing the infamous claim “There is no place for you in this church”.
The bench of bishops appear to be completely ignorant of the fact that within a generation there will be no Church in Wales for anyone to find a place in according to expert opinion here which confirms a conclusion reached back in 2015 here.
Doubters among the few remaining Anglicans who still regularly attend diminishing services should look around at the aging faces with no young families to provide future congregations for the new brand of clergy who committed to change, usually for their own benefit.
Whether they see it or not, former bishops have been heard to say that the Church in Wales is finished.
"Mr Jones' licence is due to be revoked at the end of the year" Source: BBC
LMAs are not a brilliant idea according to the bishop of St Davids. Well, she has her sponsor Barry Morgan to thank for that.
In her address to the St Davids diocesan conference she said, "Unfortunately we do not have the money to keep our normal, proper, well-tried, well-loved and best way of being local church which is having paid stipendiaries as near as possible to a few churches where they can get to know and love everybody. If we could do that. If God would supply us with the money then that is what I would do."
I don't know what the good people of in Cilcennin, Ystrad Aeron, Trefilan and Cribyn will make of that statement.
Their beloved priest, an 82-year-old retired vicar has been told that he can no longer carry out church services because he is "too old to be covered by insurance".
He has been voluntarily conducting services in the Aeron Valley because of a shortage of vicars. He believes the ruling will affect rural churches. "Two churches every Sunday will be short of a Minister to take a service" he said. "There are two of us that help out every Sunday. They will have to rely on lay people to take the service. I'm convinced it will close certain churches if they don't have a regular Minister."
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones who has already held 36 services this year said he was "disappointed" there was not a meeting between the Diocese and retired clergy affected by the decision.
One parishioner said churchgoers were "shocked" and "horrified" by the news. "We don't understand it. We feel they are one of us she said".
The Church in Wales has issued a statement saying: "There has now been further advice giving us hope a solution can be found, thereby allowing these people to continue their ministry within the Diocese."
St Davids is one of six dioceses in the Church in Wales with no sign of reduction as recommended in the Church in Wales (Harries) Review. All make use of retired clergy which makes the decision by bishop Joanna look personal. It has been suggested that it was her way of getting rid of traditionalist clergy.
Busily backpedaling after adverse publicity Joanna should have sought advice from her feminist friend in Llandaff. Bishop June is taking all her clergy on a jolly to Santiago de Compostela with all the insurance implications that involves.
Update
In an abrupt about turn the Church in Wales now says it is "confident" clergy are sufficiently insured "regardless of age".
BBC News reports that after receiving legal advice the church issued a new statement stating it was confident all clergy were sufficiently insured and would be able "to continue their valuable service, for which we are extremely grateful".
"We are writing to all those affected and we apologise for the upset and confusion caused," it said.
The Rev'd John Emrys Jones responded graciously. "I don't blame anybody... but there should have been a consultation by the diocese before sending out the letters," he said.
Quite right. A public relations disaster although it must be remembered that when the bishops consult they ignore the results if they don't like what they hear.
Without adverse publicity no doubt there would have been no change.
True Anglicans in Great Britain must sometimes wonder why they have bishops given the example of the bishop of Buckingham.
In his blog 'Archbishop Cranmer' gives a reasoned explanation of why an Imam should not be preaching the sermon at a Eucharist service. The reaction of the bishop of Buckingham was simply to say that objections to the Imam's sermon were “ridiculous”. In Islamic terms the bishop, along with other non-Muslims, is of course a mere infidel.
Imam Monawar Hussain MBE is Muslim tutor at Eton College and the founder of the Oxford Foundation which promotes religious and racial harmony. His response was that there are many different voices in all our traditions. Some Muslims might not be happy at my presence at the church so I’m not surprised at the objections but there are so many more Christian friends who are pleased I’ll be there. We need to be building trust and working together.
Building trust and working together amounts to little more than making Islam acceptable to the population of Britain. The authorities have become paralysed as race relations and political correctness have been deemed more important than safeguarding children. Any references to problems with religious ideological differences are met with accusations of Islamophobia.
The twenty men who have recently been found guilty of being part of a grooming gang that raped and abused girls as young as 11 in Huddersfield are described as "British Asians mainly of Pakistani heritage".
Seven of the gang are named Mohammed which may have led "Anti-Muslim activist" Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, to assume that they were Muslim. It has been claimed that "far-right figures have used the crimes to argue that 'Muslim grooming gangs' pose a particular threat to Britain".
Not all British Asians of mainly Pakistani heritage are Muslim. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is probably the best Archbishop of Canterbury we never had. In this lecture bishop Michael explains how Islam became dominant in the Arab world and how Christianity became almost extinct in the Middle East:
In his blog Archbishop Cranmer explains that Imam Monawar Hussain, "being a Muslim of orthodox belief, does not believe in the divinity of Jesus: Isa, as the Lord is called in the Qur’an, is not the Son of God, nor was he crucified at Calvary. But Isa is not the Lord, for the Jesus of the Qur’an did not die on a cross, and neither was he resurrected. Yes, he was born to the virgin Mary; yes, he worked miracles; yes, he preached in Judæa and had disciples. But the Jesus in whom Imam Monawar Hussain believes is not the Jesus of the Bible, for he believes the al-Injīl (the Gospel) to have been corrupted. In Islam, Jesus is a nabī (prophet) and rasūl (messenger) of God. He is abd-Allāh (a servant of God), wadjih (worthy of esteem), and mubārak (blessed). But for Imam Monawar Hussain, Jesus did not die on a cross, he did not lie in a grave, and was not resurrected on the third day. Imam Monawar Hussain believes in another Jesus (2Cor 11:4). Preaching the University Sermon on Sunday, Imam Monawar Hussain will deny by his presence in the pulpit the very body and blood of Christ commemorated by the Eucharist; he will refute by his mere being: 'God from God, Light from Light, of one very substance with the Father…'. "
The wisdom of a 4 yr old is something to behold when it comes to perceived gender irregularities.
From Twitter, unable to read for himself a 4 yr old son asked his mummy what was written on the Kleenex box.
Then he asked, "Why are they called mansize? Can girls, boys & mummies use them?" I said: "I don’t know & yes of course." He suggests you should call them “very large tissues”. It is 2018
Kleenex is scrapping "Mansize" branding from its tissue boxes after 60 years on the shelves as consumers called it out for being sexist. The tissues would now be called "Extra Large".
No it is not April 1. Every day is April 1 for the gender police.
From a Llandaff Diocesan press release "Cardiff’s new city centre vicar the Revd Sarah Jones is to be licensed tomorrow (October 18) in a special service at St John’s Church".
She takes over at St John’s from Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones who left the diocese in the Spring after four years in the post to become "Dean of St David’s [sic] Cathedral". That is after extensive, expensive refurbishment of the deanery which had satisfied the requirements of numerous male Deans before her.
St David's should be St Davids (Communications Officer please note) but that is not the only error.
According to the press release: "Hailing originally from London, where she lived until her mid-twenties, the keen musician worked in sales and management and training roles before returning to education as a mature student to study Experimental Psychology. After university she ran a consultancy in addition to playing on the acoustic music scene before finally putting herself forward as a candidate for ordination".
Actually he lived in London. By her mid twenties she was "a married man, working in industry". The Rev Sarah Jones spent more than half her life as a man before becoming the Church of England’s first gender-change priest, something of which she claims to be proud.
Wanting to raise awareness her blog is headlined "Transgender Priest; Singer-Songwriter".
Odd, then, that the Church in Wales should be so coy about an aspect of the Revd Sarah Jones' life of which she claims to be particularly proud.
Could it be that she has come 'Out4Marriage' which is not the policy of the Church in Wales despite the efforts of the bench of bishops to make it so?
Ignoring the facts the bishop of Llandaff is in error as she thumbs her nose at the wishes of the dwindling number of Anglicans in Wales, pursuing her feminist agenda instead of spreading the Gospel of Christ.
Dr Who used to provide regular family viewing many years ago when the children were growing up.
They now have children of their own. Accustomed to advanced computer graphics they are not easily upset by such as the Daleks.
Asking one of my grandchildren if he found a particular computer game too gory after seeing blood being splattered everywhere he looked at me in astonishment and explained that it was not real.
After reading that the new Dr Who played by Jodie Whittaker was 'a triumph for diversity' I thought I should take a look so watched the new series on Sunday evening.
The current Dr Who is far removed from William Hartnell, the original doctor. I was reminded of a youthful-looking Emily Thornberry. The word that came to mind was not diversity but tokenism.
Gender swapping is not diverse, it is perverse. Sex is determined by chromosomes, XX for a female or XY for a male, yet people born in New York City are to be allowed to have their sex recorded as 'X' in another nod to LGBT rights.
The NYC Mayor signed the provision into law with the words, "We want to make sure that people are not dependent on the subjective judgement of anybody else including a doctor"! That will be no comfort for the women prisoners sexually assaulted by a fellow inmate who self-identified as a woman and had previously raped two women.
In the next episode Dr Who meets 'civil rights icon' Rosa Parks.
When William Hartnell played Dr Who entertainment was entertainment, not political posturing.
In this video the Archbishop of York leads prayers at the marriage of Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank.
The prayers are based on what the Church believes not on what many bishops in the Anglican Church in Great Britain have come to believe as they embrace secular values.
In 2012 Archbishop Sentamu said, "I don't think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can't just change it overnight, no matter how powerful you are."
At the conclusion of the prayers Princess Eugenie can be seen whispering "thank you", a response that will be echoed by many Anglicans whose Christian values are no longer represented by the majority of Archbishop Sentamu's fellow bishops.
The Telegraph reports that the first woman bishop to sit in the House of Lords, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek' has said she feels "frustrated" at seeing all-female clergy leading Church of England services. She believes it is undesirable to see women "at the front" of the church with no men beside them - in a suitably inferior position no doubt.
Perhaps she had the likes of the Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, in mind. Neither can stand the inconvenient biblical truth that God is male but Harper takes it further.
She claims, "What most women experience is that “toxic masculinity” has invaded our families, our workplaces, our schools, our politics and our churches. Patriarchal ideologies are the norm. The Church has been horribly silent in the face of violence and abuse against women. We don’t talk about it even though in our congregations there will be many, some say 87% of women who have experienced some form of harassment, and one in 6 who have been the victim of rape or attempted rape."
On the contrary, masculinity is under severe threat. Canon Harper even pokes fun at the serious problem of the falling quality and quantity of men’s sperm which, it is claimed, is falling so rapidly that were it to continue the future of the human race would be in doubt. "Too many pies it seems!", illustrates her lack of concern.
But that is today's Anglican Church.
Thank God, then, for the ruling of the Supreme Court that Ashers bakery's refusal to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage was not discriminatory.
By their silence it appears that Church of England bishops in general couldn't give a damn about the sanctity of marriage. They have the same mentality as the Equality Commission which squandered £250,000 punishing a Christian family for the faith.
The problem is, they do not know the difference between equality and sameness. No wonder we are in the mess we are in.
The bishops of Bangor, St Davids, Monmouth, Swansea & Brecon (Archbishop), St Asaph and Llandaff . Source: Church in Wales
All dressed up but nowhere to go. The Church in Wales has no future.
That is the conclusion of bishops who are not deluded by their own sense of importance.
Much has been made of dwindling attendances at Sunday services, apart from at the Governing Body (GB), but why does anyone attend services at a church that has lost its way? It cannot be for theological reasons because the Church in Wales has abandoned theology for the Zeitgeist.
Conclusions reached at GB are no longer based on scripture and tradition but on the whims of a manipulative bench of bishops. Biblical truths are ignored or misinterpreted to make them appear more plausible.
Faithful Anglicans who are unwilling to accept false doctrine have left the church thus strengthening the hand of remaining members who are willing to conform.
If the mission of the Church in Wales is based on false doctrine its evangelism will lead people astray so it must be better for the soul to be a believer on the outside than a non-believer on the inside.
To be cast out by remainers with false accusation of misogyny, homophobia and of not believing in equality is the flowering of weeds sown by bishops who have interpreted the Gospel to accommodate secular trends resulting in churchianity rather than Christianity.
The Church of Wales is deformed with no apparent chance of correction. All of its bishops continue to show allegiance to posturings of the former archbishop. A form of succession which perpetuates his brand of radicalism has developed into a ministry not of hope but of despair. The consequences are dire.
For worshippers no longer able to tolerate the hypocrisy of the bench of bishops there is not the range of options available to disaffected Anglicans in England.
Assistance that may have been provided by provincial episcopal visitors from England to allow traditional parishes to flourish has been stymied by mean-spirited shepherds and shepherdesses who refuse to allow PEVs to cross the border.
Consequently most of Wales has been turned into a spiritual desert for traditionalist Anglicans. The faithful have been abandoned while the Church in Wales continues to pretend to be in fellowship within the Holy Catholic Church.
It is generally assumed that disaffected Anglicans will turn to Rome as the only practical alternative for those who need to find another spiritual home.
That is not so simple for conscientious worshippers who are drawn to the 'catholic and reformed' worship provided by the Anglican Church.
The Ordinariate was set up by Pope Benedict XVI to maintain Anglican patrimony. It allowed 'Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining elements of their identity', not that there is much opportunity to participate in Wales other than in SE Wales.
If that option is available the process of reception into another church after a lifetime of Anglican devotion is not an attractive option, particularly for those in declining years, often widows or widowers, cradle Anglicans who hoped to die as Anglicans as did their husband or wife.
In the absence of Anglican churches abroad visiting Anglicans have been permitted to receive at the local Catholic church but that does not apply in the wilderness created in Wales so the faithful are denied Holy Communion.
The bench of bishops speak of an inclusive church based on equality. It includes some but not others. There is no equality in that.
