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| Archbishop of Wales John Davies Source: Premier |
In a pre-Christmas interview for Premier, the Archbishop of Wales, John Davies, reveals his "festive frustrations ahead of Christmas".
Many Anglicans will know how he feels. Not over the tinsel, losing one's temper while putting up Christmas tree decorations but by being deprived of the opportunity to worship over Christmas and beyond without compromising one's faith by appearing to endorse the church's slide into secularism.
In his Christmas message the archbishop says, "I'm calling on people to pause and to reflect on what we're called to be, as Christians; the ambassadors, the agents, the advocates for the kingdom [Jesus] represents."
Many faithful Anglicans have been left with more than enough time to pause and to reflect on the time they spent preparing during the Advent season leading to joyous Christmas celebrations, now but a memory.
At the end of his interview the archbishop speaks [@9.00] of social justice, of homelessness.
As 'ambassadors' for the Kingdom the archbishop and his bench should pause and spend time reflecting on the spiritually homeless resulting from their policy of exclusion.
Many faithful Anglicans have been left with more than enough time to pause and to reflect on the time they spent preparing during the Advent season leading to joyous Christmas celebrations, now but a memory.
As 'ambassadors' for the Kingdom the archbishop and his bench should pause and spend time reflecting on the spiritually homeless resulting from their policy of exclusion.
Good to see that Shirley is maintaining his cutting-edge theological engagement with the serious issues facing the people of Wales. At this rate, the Bishop of Bangor will almost be worth listening to. Or may be not.
ReplyDeleteisn't it ironic that the Archbishop and his bench sitters have expunged Jesus' teaching from the life of the Church, torn up the scriptures in their move towards appeasing secular ideals; and then he has the temerity to tell everyone else that they should be ambassadors for the Kingdom of Jesus? Perhaps when the Bishops begin proclaiming the Gospel rather than their rampant liberalism, which only brings death to the Church, then they might earn the right to tell others how they should live their Christian lives.
ReplyDeleteSeymour
Not!
ReplyDeleteThe Anglican Church has been preaching and practising good works for decades (and received a boost in 'Faith in the City'), but it has lost sight of spirituality. This is reflected in sermons in the average church today. Yet the Gospel is not simply about the Good Samaritan lesson! It begins with the regenerated heart.ns
ReplyDeleteRob
Most certainly NOT worth listening to if you live in Llanberis Alwyn and Geraint.
ReplyDeleteI could n’t agree more!
ReplyDeleteIt's curious how the inept and out-of-touch Church in Wales mirrors other once-great institutions brought down by managerial incompetence.
ReplyDeleteInstead of leadership you get a badly written "message" shaped by air-headed PR hacks, approved by a committee of barely qualified executives (the Bench) and delivered by a forgettable Managing Director (or Archbishop) from a Powerpoint slideshow.
The C in W imported the C of E's infatuation with managerialism and corporate buzzwords like "human resources". Not only does this impede the spreading of God's word, the C in W is as incapable of delivering on the management side as the C of E. It just leads to a proliferation of useless and cash-draining posts for people even less qualified than the clerics who appointed them.
Ultimately it does nothing to make the C in W more relevant to the world at large. Instead, like Carillion or any other failing corporation, it keeps replicating its useless management structures (aka Mission Areas) until the whole thing crashes due to unsustainable debts.
A parallel can be drawn between the empty churches of Wales and the dying high streets of our towns, where once-proud household names are collapsing left and right. Basically the C in W forgot its core audience - dare I say "customers"? - as it pursued new "markets" amongst fringe groups of marginal demographic significance. This alienated the people who had supported it for decades and unsurprisingly they (mostly) quietly left. It lost its old stalwarts, failed to keep an inflow of young people and failed to attract new families. In a nutshell, sowing the seeds of its decline.
PP. Sounds like abandon all hope? However, the recent TV appearance of the Vicar of St John's Cardiff, was certainly thought provoking, so was the AB on Sky and then low and behold a podcast of Bishop Jo on FB, very Jesus centric from all three.
ReplyDeletePP, their message may well have been Christocentric; yet even the devil appears as an angel of light to deceive God's people. Don't fall for the Christocentric business; the Welsh bench are happy to lead people into hell. They have done so for the last thirty years, and the current bunch will now finish the job. As in the days of Jeremiah, the Church hierarchy were saying, "Peace, Peace", and "The Temple, the Temple, the Temple"; yet the prophet warned them that there was no peace and their Temple was not going to save them. The Welsh Bishops think that if they throw Jesus into a sentence that will make everything OK, sadly it won't -the Church in Wales is doomed.
DeleteSeymour
What seems to have happened is that the Church has squandered its authority and its 'greatness' through a dedicated pursuit of relevance. It has fallen flat on its face in so doing. Clergy themselves are compromised milksops to whom no-one listens any more.
ReplyDeleteInstead of hitting the headlines on providing transgender affirmation, how about insistence on the basics of the faith, some urgency and some self sacrifice (no, not spurious en-suite pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostella)?
Stoppit
I wonder how Watchman is getting on in Llanberis after you lost your excellent vicar earlier this year? An earned PhD and a fluent Welsh-speaker. Another gifted cleric lost to the Diocese of Bangor. Resigned with no job to go to, it was not long before St Asaph moved-in to attract the discerning cleric to Bala. Meanwhile, Andy Crap fiddles while Rome burns. How many clergy have left the Diocese, now, without any announcement, from 'Fred' West the spare archdeacon to the Potty Professor who thinks he's a teddy bear?
ReplyDelete