From Divinity to Deviancy

Mary Stallard the new bishop of Llandaff follows Delyth Liddell, Methodist University Chaplain

and LGBTQI+ Gathering church leader at the Pride Cymru parade.    Source: Twitter

Celebrating diversity at Pride Cymru, the new bishop of Llandaff lost no time in identifying with her LGBTQ+ promoting sister bishops, the former bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, the retiring bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy, and the bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, patron of Open Table. 

Diversity has become a euphemism for deviancy.

As the time approaches for appointing the next bishop of St Davids the Church in Wales needs to rethink its priorities.

From St Davids Diocese: 

"An Extraordinary Diocesan Conference is to be held on Saturday July 22nd., following the announcement that Bishop Joanna Penberthy is to retire on health grounds. The half-day conference will be chaired by the Archbishop of Wales, Andrew John, and will take place at Newcastle Emlyn Rugby Club when conference representatives will have the opportunity to discuss the future of the diocese and what they would like from their new bishop when he/she is elected in October."

Much has changed in the sixty + years since Church in Wales bishops held Oxford Firsts in Theology.

A return from deviancy to divinity is essential to restore any credibility to the Church in Wales if it wants to avoid being characterised as the queer church. 

Announcing the retirement of the bishop of St Davids, the Archbishop of Wales said "I want to thank Bishop Joanna for her ministry in the diocese and province. She has contributed significantly to areas of church life in particular on environmental matters and with our Social Responsibility network." Quite! 

Environmental matters and social responsibility are important but faith and worship still matter.

The Church needs bishops who win souls in a spirit of true equality and diversity.

BBC Sounds recently broadcast on the All Things Considered series  a programme titled 'Gender and Identity'. University chaplain Delyth Liddell was joined by bishop Mary Stallard and Sarah Jones, a transgender Anglican priest and vicar of St. John's in central Cardiff.

From the programme notes:
"... Pride is not just a celebration, it's also about protest, designed to get people thinking about acceptance, equality and deeper matters about identity. Today, we turn our attention to that very matter, considering gender. What does it mean on its most fundamental level? What did God intend? How does it make us who we are to ourselves and each other? And what of the interplay between biology, psychology and faith? Big topics and ones which can stir confusion, concern, and generate challenging questions."

Personally I have never encountered non-acceptance or unequal treatment in race, colour or sexuality in decades of church life. Quite the reverse, yet comments are often received from protestors. But that is all they do, protest and abuse others. There is no supporting evidence. No engagement or acknowledgement of other commentators' desire to protect the sacrament of holy matrimony. Difference of opinion is simply dismissed as phobia to silence any opposition.  

After 2,000 years of scholarship and witness Anglicans are expected to believe that interpreting scripture to please oneself is the way to salvation. I think not.

This is the result: "I believe in a non-binary God whose pronouns are plural."

Next stop polyamory!

Postscripts 

[29.06.2023]

From the US:

The Queering of the Episcopal Church by David W. Virtue DD

Why is America tolerating indecent exposure at Pride events? by Family Policy Institute of Washington

[30.06.2023]

From C4M: PRIDE: THE ANTI-MARRIAGE PLATFORM

[11.07.2023]

Lesbian Methodist Minister and chaplain at Cardiff University, Delyth Liddell, says that "visible gay role models are key to changing attitudes about the LGBT+ community in churches".
On 'All Things Considered' the bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, is to share his thoughts with the chaplain on his vision for an "inclusive Church".

That is selective inclusion of course because the bishops have decided that there is no place in the Church in Wales for Anglicans who keep the faith.

The Fall

Fall of the union flag                                                       Source: Twitter

Not to sully the display of gay pride flags the falling union flag can be seen thrown to the ground in this tweet

It is emblematic of the state the country finds itself in after the success of a strategy outlined in Life Site News in 2012, The six ways homosexual activists manipulate public opinion.

One of those strategies was to Confuse and neutralize the churches. 

So successful has this strategy been that the Anglican Church is in total disarray with same-sex partnered priests and bishops living openly together. Churches are being queered under the guise of equality and diversity with same-sex marriage on the horizon. 

Typical is St Mary's Priory Church in Abergavenny which is "Looking forward to welcoming @AbergavennyPri1 to @StMarysPriory for bigger, better Pride." 

They tweet, "We are an inclusive church where ALL Are welcome! Even our flowers welcoming everyone! Plz retwt 😊🏳️‍🌈". Happy to oblige here.

The same-sex partnered vicar is a regular worship leader at Governing Body previously queered St Augustine's, Rumney. 

The Church is not alone. The message of the First Minister of Wales to Pride Cymru last weekend was, "When we said that we wanted to make Wales the most LGBTQ+ friendly place in Europe, we meant it.

He uses the words stigma, discrimination, barriers, abuse, liberation, equality, struggle, exclusion, bullying and erasure. 

That is another of the six strategies to Exploit the “victim” status.

Far better to have heard about the NHS victims who have been stuck for years on waiting lists as their pain intensifies and risk of death from cancer draws closer through lack of early diagnoses. 

Far better to have a sensible plan for tackling the traffic chaos that greets major events in the nations Capital city.

 The most worrying strategy is Intimidation which has grave consequences for the education our children.

 Numerous comments under previous threads express concern about gender identification issues, the most notorious recent example being Cat-Identity Clash. 

Many of these issues originated across the pond where Sexual indoctrination of kids continues. In Toronto Gender-neutral school washrooms only serve to humiliate students.

Intimidation is used to prevent critics for speaking out. If they do they are branded as homophobic for expressing a contrary opinion while silence is construed as consent. 

As indicated in the Life Site News article referred to above, homophile strategists are very adept at manipulating public opinion. Their agenda on reshaping traditional values has been remarkably successful. The indoctrination of our children is a step too far.

Postscripts 

[25.06.2023]

1. “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.

    Not if we have anything to say about it, you’re not. #LeaveOurKidsAlone ”

2. Another church for the bishop of Monmouth to tick off 
    https://twitter.com/CommsGuyMatt/status/1671857770276978688

[03.07.2023]

+ Cherry Vann presides at Open Table      Source: Twitter

Queering the Lord's Table 

https://twitter.com/EastCardiffMA/status/1675786556492201984

Channel Swim

"The former Scotland international said he and Isla have become firm friends
over the years he has known her." Source: BBC News

 

Generally I find the BBC's coverage of soccer and their expenditure on overpaid commentators/pundits to be disproportionate but I take my hat off to 'football legend' Graeme Souness who has completed a swim across the English Channel to raise £1m for charity after highlighting the plight of 14 year old Isla Grist who suffers from rare skin disease Epidermolysis bullosa.

Souness broke down in tears when interviewed on the BBC's Breakfast show as he called it "the cruellest disease out there".

From BBC News: "Souness completed the 21-mile swim as part of a six-person relay team in 12 hours and 17 minutes. He took part in the team challenge, which included Isla's father, to raise money for Debra UK, which supports people with the disease, also known as butterfly skin."

Donations may be made here.

Pain for the Ordinariate

Former bishops of Llandaff and of Monmouth in Grill the Bishops          Source :Church in Wales

 

 An announcement from CBCEW, one of many to cross my desk.

"The Right Revd Richard Pain, a former Bishop of Monmouth, will be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church within the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, on Sunday 2 July at St Basil & St Gwladys, Rogerstone Newport.  He will be received by The Rt Revd Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

"Monsignor Newton said: ’We are delighted that after much prayer Richard has asked to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church.  He will be the first bishop from the Anglican Church in Wales to be received into the Ordinariate since its creation in 2011. Richard has a long and distinguished ministry in the Church in Wales.  He has many gifts which he will continue to use to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Wales."

It is difficult to reconcile Monsignor Newton's fulsome welcome with previous events in the diocese of Monmouth but it would be churlish not to wish Fr Pain well as he abandons the ship he helped to sink.

One of the most bizarre of such cases involved the feminist campaigner and prominent activist in the movement for the ordination of women, Dr Una Kroll who died in 2017. 

She had been described as 'an inspirational woman famed for her humanitarian work'. She had been a doctor and nun who became a priest' but was to shock admirers and friends by publicly leaving the priesthood she had so long campaigned to be part of to become a Roman Catholic.

As I wrote at the time, "Many faithful Anglicans who showed charity in accommodating the desires of these women have since discovered to their cost, that their church has left them. This is particularly so in Wales where women were successful in ensuring that there will be no provision for alternative oversight. I have seen no evidence of a campaign for equality on behalf of the excluded."

As a bishop of the Church in Wales Richard Pain ordained women. Now he is being admitted to an organisation set up to accommodate those who were unable on grounds of conscience to receive the sacramental ministry of women, 

He leaves behind many abandoned Anglicans without any sacramental or pastoral ministry.

Postscript [22.06.2023]

Informative article from Martin Shipton, Associate Editor Nation Cymru:
Former Church in Wales Bishop to become a Catholic

Two wrongs!

 A 'non-white' Jesus in a boat with 'refugees'. St Mary Redcliffe church, Bristol                                Source: Wales Online

A Bristol church has taken the Colston statue toppling a step further by replacing a stained glass window depicting slave trader Edward Colston with a window showing a "multi-racial Jesus in boat with refugees" as our "neighbours".

The message appears to be that Jesus Christ identifies primarily with the illegal traffic of refugees/asylum seekers/economic migrants who choose to leave one safe country for another.

Neighbourliness did not extend to Christians when Muslim migrants allegedly 'threw Christians overboard during row on a boat sailing from Libya to Italy'. Police said that fifteen people had been arrested on suspicion of multiple homicide aggravated by religious hatred.

That is not to say that all boat people are Muslims. The mistake is to regard other faiths as the same as Christianity. 

In Pakistan Christians and other religious minorities are struggling to survive barbaric persecution as they face 'abductions, indentured servitude and state-sanctioned execution'.

Today, 14 Nigerians will be killed for being Christians. 

There is much more. See 2022 Persecutor of the Year Report

The pre-woke message was much easier to understand:

The Good Samaritan helping the beaten man and paying for his stay at the inn.

Postscripts 

[17.06.2023]

More from the 'religion of peace': Uganda school attack: 25 killed by militants linked to Islamic State group

[22.06.2023]

Another 15 Christians Killed in Nigeria Despite Curfew

Intersociety Petitions 29 World Leaders To Intervene On Behalf Of ‘Persecuted Christians In Nigeria’, End Imo Killings

...“This is to the extent over 2,300 defenseless Christians have been hacked to death by the Jihadists under the first six months of 2023 (Jan-June); over 31,000 slaughtered since June 2015 and 53,000 since the 2009 Boko Haram uprising; over 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools burned down or wantonly destroyed, 1000 Christian communities sacked, 50m Christians uprooted and 15m Christian IDPs generated; out of which Benue State accounts for more than 2.5m Christian IDPs alone.”

Caption corner 5 June 2023

Source: Twitter

As usual publishable captions will appear as comments.