Thresholds

Sources: C of E Hereford Diocese, Catholic Church and Church in Wales

In my youth, crossing the threshold meant holy wedlock combined with jokes about whether one would be strong enough to carry one's bride across the threshold - or vice versa! It was thought by the superstitious that the groom must carry his new wife across the threshold of their new home to prevent bad luck. Predictably that advice has been amended to: "if you consider that each partner is as equal and valuable as the other, why not step over the threshold together?" Now of course anything goes.

The the sill of a doorway, 'threshold' implies a new beginning, a definition used well in 2013 by the Diocese of Hereford. Their 'Crossing the Threshold' was a "Community development approach to the use of church buildings". In 2003 the Catholic Archdiocese of Cardiff, in which the Anglican Dioceses of Hereford and Llandaff find themselves, used 'Crossing the Threshold' to address their urgent problem of non-churchgoing Catholics.

'Crossing Thresholds' in the Church in Wales has a predictably parochial approach as it dwells on the "history of women’s ministry in Wales". An unfortunate phrase which, reading the the Press release, implies that women exercised no ministry "from the first deaconess in 1884 to the vote enabling women to be ordained as bishops". In characteristically ridiculous comments devoid of any hint of belief in the Apostolic faith, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan said, "Crossing the thresholds of ministry has been a long and arduous journey during which a generation of women has had to endure inequality and prejudice against them as they served first as deacons, then priests, before finally breaking the stained glass ceiling to be allowed to be ordained as bishops .They are the ground-breakers and ground-breakers are the people who throughout history are the ones who have built our Church and formed our faith."

On that basis, the universal Church other than in pockets such as Barry's little patch in which Provinces have unilaterally voted against scripture and tradition, the wider Holy Catholic Church is guilty of inequality and prejudice! 

The Church of Wales has been here before giving the impression that there is nothing more important in the Church in Wales than feminism. That would be wrong. There is. 'Crossing the thresholds' was launched by Dr Gill Todd. She Chairs the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon's Safeguarding Committee doing valuable work in 'keeping people, especially children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from harm'. The Diocese of Swansea & Brecon is in the lead in Wales with Dare2Care which focuses on dementia for which they are to be congratulated but social work does not require an ordained ministry.

In 2011 at the Church in Wales' Governing Body (GB) Dr Todd introduced a report on Women’s Representation in the Church in Wales illustrating how representation of women in the Church in Wales has generally improved at various level other than worshipping. In 2010 the GB had been presented with a report illustrating steep decline under every heading. Responding to the WalesOnline headline 'Church attendance in Wales 'plummeting', Dr Morgan said: "All over Wales you can see parishes and churches transforming themselves and the community around them. They are fully engaged with their mission to the community in many different ways, with new and exciting initiatives, risks being taken, new avenues explored and new ways reinvigorated."

Since then the plight of the Church in Wales along with the Church of England and other Provinces which decided to do things their way have gone from bad to worse with attendances declining ever further. It is not that 'a generation of women has had to endure inequality and prejudice against them'. Rather, a generation has had to endure the prejudices of the likes of Dr Morgan obsessed with their liberal agenda. There's the rub.

Abdication

Mesdames Gould, Wigley, Wolf, Jackson and Ford   Photos: Church in Wales

On the evening of Thursday 4th September instead of sitting down to dinner with President Barack Obama at Cardiff Castle on the first day of the Nato summit in Wales the Archbishop of Wales sat in the congregation of his cathedral which he had given over to a group of women to act out their feminist fantasies that the ordination of women is accepted in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of which they claim to be part. 

As the article correctly states "The legislation to ordain women as bishops in Wales comes into effect on September 12, exactly one year after it was passed by the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. The delay was built in to allow the Welsh bishops time to prepare a Code of Practice to accompany the new law."

Since the Archbishop has abdicated any sense of responsible governance in his church the door is now open to ignore him.

Readers can read the report (here) and make of it what they will but I thought the preacher at the evening celebration made an interesting point when she said, "There is frequently an unholy scramble to claim the status of victim inside the church, which completely misses the point of Jesus’ message. The lost, according to Jesus, are not the insiders or the privileged but the genuinely vulnerable, the poor, the dependent, the young and the frail."

I wonder if she had paid any attention to the keynote speaker, +Geralyn Wolf, who endlessly portrayed women as the victims when "she warned about the prejudices that face women bishops", or perhaps she was elsewhere during the day!

As for +Wolf's comment "Anglican women bishops in the USA have a huge amount to share and this is a unique opportunity to engage with their experience and to see together what that might mean for the future of the Church in Wales", perhaps the least said the better (here)!!

The bishops of Llandaff and St Asaph dressing down for the occasion

Personal cost

Photo: Nathaniel Ramanaden

From the Church in Wales web site (here), "History was made in St Asaph on Sunday 31 August as Bishop Gayle Harris from the United States became the first Anglican woman bishop to preside and preach in a Welsh Cathedral.

Bishop Gayle, who is Suffragen (sic) Bishop of Massachusetts, led the service at 11am, both preaching and leading the Eucharist. She is in Wales to attend the “Crossing the Threshold” conference in Cardiff – a conference to mark the change in church law in Wales which means women can become bishops.

Invited by the Bishop of St Asaph to preach at the Cathedral, Bishop Gayle spoke about being a follower of Christ in her sermon, explaining that discipleship isn’t easy and involves personal cost." 

She can say that again!

Women bishops 2 : 0 Jesus Christ

In a previous entry (in May) I gave details of arrangements being made for the Rt Rev'd Geralyn Wolf to be the first woman bishop to celebrate the Eucharist in Llandaff Cathedral, one week before women bishops become legal in the Church in Wales on the 12 September 2014 and while the Code of Practice which is part of the Women bishops legislation remains a closely guarded secret among the Bench of Bishops until it is presented as a fait accompli to the next meeting of their Governing Body - see here.  

Unable to control their enthusiasm for seeing a woman bishop at the Altar in the Church in Wales the Bishop of St Asaph has upstaged the Llandaff event by arranging for the Rt Rev Gayle Harris to celebrate in St Asaph Cathedral on Sunday 31 August 2014 when she will become the first Anglican woman bishop to preside and preach at a Welsh cathedral. Story here.

Out-manouvered by St Asaph, apparently Swansea and Brecon could not find a one-legged a**e kicking transgendered Episcopalian woman bishop who was free and so trump the PC Jewish and black guests to make it 'Women bishops  3 : 0  Jesus Christ'.

But 'Crossing the threshold' has little to do with Jesus Christ, other than as a vehicle for political ambition. It is about equality of opportunity in the workplace. As the Rev'd Jan Gould, priest-in-charge of Glan Ely benefice in Cardiff puts it: "This conference is about how we ‘cross the threshold’ to a transformed leadership with the Church in Wales. Anglican women bishops in the USA have a huge amount to share and this is a unique opportunity to engage with their experience and to see together what that might mean for the future of the Church in Wales".  

True, the leadership of the Church in Wales needs to be transformed but the Episcopal Church in the United States where 'Integrity' is the current driving force is far from a model of Christian orthodoxy. The Church in Wales, and indeed the Church of England, need to be informed by the tradition of the Holy Catholic Church, not adapt the Catholic faith to reflect the whims of society. That path has done wonders for feminism but at the expense of the Anglican Church as explained by Alice C. Linsley, a former woman priest in the Episcopal Church, in "The Feminization of Anglican Orders"(here).

First woman bishop to celebrate the Eucharist at Llandaff Cathedral

Photo: Islam Times                                                           Bishop Geralyn Wolf

You couldn't dream up a story like this. Before women bishops are legal in the Church in Wales, the near bankrupt Llandaff Cathedral (where, as acting Dean, the Archbishop of Wales tore up the notion of twin integrity) is to host a celebration of the Eucharist where the President will be a converted Jewish, Episcopalian woman bishop who defrocked another female priest in the US Episcopal Church for being a 'Christian Muslim'. While the Archbishop himself is partial to a spot of clergy discipline he is more inclined to matters of the flesh than the spirit where more or less anything goes. Nevertheless he may have some explaining to do with his Muslim friends for welcoming a cleric who in their eyes will be guilty of Islamophobia because Jesus would be regarded as a lesser prophet in Islam.

In another step towards nonconformity the celebration is the culmination of  "Crossing the Threshold!", a "day conference to mark the opening of the Episcopate to women in the Church in Wales". Other participants are the Revd Dr Jenny Hurd, Chair Wales Synod Methodist Church and Jane Williams, "Theological writer and educator" - better known as Mrs Rowan Williams, now Lady Williams of Oystermouth, the sort of honour feminism still has to suffer.

The story appears as the very last item  in the Pentecost 2014 edition of the Monmouth Diocesan Newsletter [bottom of page 12]. Page 8 has a report on the April meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. Most prominent are Assisted dying [killing] and Same-sex marriage: "the Bench of Bishops asked the Standing Doctrinal Commission to look at the issue of blessing of civil partnerships". The Chairman of the Commission is the Reverend Canon Dr. Peter Sedgwick, Principal of the failed St Michael's College, Llandaff. His wife is the Revd Jan Gould, organiser of "Crossing the Threshold!", who tried to get a previous meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales to agree that no candidate could be presented for ordination if they opposed women’s ordained ministry.

Conspicuous for its absence from the Newsletter's GB report is any reference to the discussion on the Code of Practice. From Highlights:

4. In approving this Canon, the Governing 

Body entrusts the Bench of Bishops 

without delay to agree a Code of Practice 

which commits the Bench to making 

provisions such that all members of the 

Church in Wales, including those who in 

conscience dissent from the provisions 

of section 1, may have a sense of 

security in their accepted and valued 

place within the Church in Wales. 

The "Crossing the Threshold!" celebration takes place at St Michael’s College, Cardiff on 4th September 2014 ending with a Eucharist at 7.45pm in Llandaff Cathedral, a week BEFORE the 12 September 2014, the date from which it will be possible for women to be ordained as bishops (details here) and well before the next meeting of the Governing Body which takes place on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 September 2014 where further dissent is possible if the bishops renege on their pledge.

This is unacceptable in any democratic organisation and another example of how Barry and the Bench have used the Church for political ends.

As for the Governing Body, the Bishop of Monmouth was spot on when he wrote (page 5), "People seem to nod approval (or congregations are just too polite!)".

The message is clear: WAKE UP GB!