Second-class Christians

Preparations are underway to celebrate what has become one of the major festivals in the Church in Wales, Gay Pride week, 'giving a voice' to those who claim to be persecuted.

As Archbishop Barry Morgan said way back in 2008: "There are a huge number of gay clergy and gay partnered clergy" adding that "there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be bishops and they will be. We’re not arguing about if, we’re just arguing about when."

Now that the Church in Wales has appointed an openly lesbian bishop, claiming to be persecuted while running the show has a hollow ring. It is more about tactical advantage than persecution as outlined in Would I Lie to You?

As part of their 2020 LGBT+ campaign the diocese of Llandaff is launching their first ever LGBT+ prayer writing competition to celebrate LGBT+ History Month 2020: "We’re inviting you to write an original prayer based around the theme Power of Prayer. Your prayer could feature in our forthcoming LGBT+ prayer book and may be spoken at the Faith Tent Eucharist at Pride Cymru."

The diocesan press release invites readers who may be looking for inspiration to watch the above Prayer for Pride video. In fact it is another propaganda tool claiming discrimination while twisting the meaning of love.

News from Wales has announced a special service in North Wales "celebrating diversity and the legendary Ladies of Llangollen" which takes place at St Collen’s Church in Llangollen on Saturday 22nd February, including a blessing of the tomb of the Ladies of Llangollen.

According to the report: "The service is timely following a recent report issued by the bishops of the Church of England on same-sex marriages. This report has hurt, disappointed and discouraged many LGBT Christians...this service will send out a powerful message of inclusion, hope and welcome to all LGBT people across the land."

That is, inclusion, hope and welcome for an alleged oppressed minority but exclusion, no hope and goodbye to Anglicans who are among the majority of Christians who remain faithful to the teaching of the Apostolic Church.

Following the statement by the Church of England's House of Bishops that for Christians marriage is the lifelong union between a man and a woman and remains the proper context for sexual activity, trendy bishops started to break ranks, distancing themselves from the guidance.

Quick off the mark, the bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, issued a statement saying that she was “deeply frustrated and saddened” at the guidance. "I recognise that it has fanned into flame unnecessary pain and distress and I wish to acknowledge my part in that", she said.

Again using love to justify her stance Treweek added, "The word ‘love’ emanating from the generous love of God is one that needs to be heard and lived, and I am extremely sorry that it has not been heard in the publication of the House of Bishops".

In the House of Commons civil partnered vicar's son Ben Bradshaw questioned the Second Church Estates Commissioner on the guidance. Alleging that the Church "still treats its LGBT+ members as second-class Christians", he told the House that "serious questions" will be asked about the Church of England's established status if it stands by its position on opposite-sex civil partnerships.

Justifying her enthronement as the first openly gay bishop in the Church in Wales the bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, said, “God has given us a world teeming with difference and diversity".

That is their own diversity, soon to be enshrined in the forthcoming Church in Wales LGBT+ prayer book.

It is not difficult to identify the real second-class Christians in the Anglican Church.

Marriage

Church wedding                                                                                          Source: Church of England

In 2017 Premier reported that Anglican church weddings had reach a record low: "Figures from the Office for National Statistics show they hosted 49,717 ceremonies in 2014, a reduction compared to 50,226 in 2013."

In April this year the Church Times reported that "for the first time ever, fewer than one quarter of all marriages in England and Wales were religious ceremonies. They accounted for 24 per cent of marriages in 2016, falling by nearly a half (48 per cent) from two decades ago. In the same period of time, the number of all marriages fell by 28 per cent. In 1966, a third of marriages were civil ceremonies. Since 1992, civil marriages have increasingly outnumbered religious marriages every year."

The Government plans to introduce a new system of registration for marriages, including church weddings, in England and Wales.

Premier reports that the new system could lead to criminal offences and £1,000 fines. Under changes which may be law before 2020, couples will no longer be given a marriage certificate at the end of a church wedding. Instead of being asked to sign a register and certificate, they will instead sign a "marriage schedule", the Faculty Office said. The couple then have to take this document to their local register office to record their marriage into a database and only then will they get a certificate, it added.

A London-based Anglican priest commented said it was "an astonishing change to the way marriages are recorded. Now, instead of marriages being registered then and there by the priest, the couple will get a temporary certificate which they then have to present to the register office within a week of the wedding. When they might want to be on honeymoon."

In addition the Government wants to give every married couple in England and Wales the chance to downgrade their marriage. As the Coalition for Marriage (CM4) points out, by allowing people to downgrade their marriage, the Government is creating new instability, a halfway house to family breakdown. Just because a tiny minority of people want the rights of marriage without the commitment.

The slide continues with another nail in the coffin for Christian marriage!

More marriages in Register Offices followed by Church blessings are likely to lead to more pressure to allow same sex blessings in church.

Civil partnerships were welcomed by many but it did not stop there as illustrated by CM4:

"It’s part of plans to introduce heterosexual civil partnerships, after the Supreme Court ruling last year. C4M predicted this ruling all along. It stems directly from introducing same-sex marriage for homosexual couples in 2014 when they already had access to civil partnerships. The court said this was discriminatory against heterosexuals, who only had access to marriage."

Once people start fiddling with an institution change by stealth takes over as illustrated by the decision to ordain women.

After women were made deacons they complained that they were discriminated against if they were not allowed to be priests. Once they were priests they complained of a stained glass ceiling. Before long virtually anything goes.

The Church of England has lost its way with All the fun of the fair in Cathedrals which are used to play mini golf and provide helter skelter rides at £2 a slide.

There are secularised archbishops charged with being 'not fit for office' by a vicar who says his disclosures about being sexually abused as a teenager were ignored by senior clerics while Justin Welby keeps digging a pit for himself over gay marriage.

One would have thought that the Church would provide some stability based on scripture but that is no longer what the Anglican Church is about. It is about satisfying personal desires regardless of biblical teaching.

In Wales Archbishop John Davies said after a Governing Body vote in September 2018: "The bishops are united in the belief that it is pastorally unsustainable and unjust for the church to continue to make no formal provision for those in committed same-sex relationships."

The Governing Body had agreed by 76 votes to 21 that the lack of formal provision was "pastorally unsustainable". Abdicating all responsibility the archbishop responded: "the vote was an important steer to the bishops in exercising pastoral care." So much for leadership.

Pastoral care used to be in line with scripture and tradition. Under the current regime it has become liberal social work in vestments.

Hostility

Ven Dr Joanne Woolway Grenfell, Archdeacon of Portsdown                               Source: Premiere

The Ven Dr Joanne Woolway Grenfell, Archdeacon of Portsdown, is one of three new women bishops appointed on the same day last week bringing the total number of women bishops in the Church of England to 22, four years after Rt Rev Libby Lane was named Bishop of Stockport in the Diocese of Chester.

Dr Grenfell was appointed Bishop of Stepney, which covers Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

One of her first utterances following preferment sounds like another female cleric playing the victim card to hide the truth about the ordination of women. 

Islington's first female bishop said "she feels the pressure not to 'mess up' as she talked about her years spent building relationships with churches that are 'hostile' to women’s ministry."

Churches are not hostile to women's ministry, only to their standing at the Altar in persona Christi. Women do not have to be ordained to have a ministry.

The secular press constantly implies unfairness by referring to employment practice and equality of opportunity without any knowledge of the Church.

Writing about a "Sydney reverend", from ABC Newcastle News: "If you are a woman with hopes of becoming a priest within the Anglican Church of Australia there are a number of dioceses across the country that will allow you to climb the ranks and hold this leadership position." Commenting "Reverend Sawyer" said "there is more work to be done to achieve equality among church leaders."

Unusually there is an explanation of the problem from Archdeacon of Women's Ministry, Kara Hartley, who believes women have plenty of opportunities within the Anglican Church: "It comes down to our understanding that the leadership of priests and bishops in the church is given over to men, it's a reading of theological understanding, a reading of the Bible and so we continue to hold to that," she said.

Kara said she cannot predict what will happen in the future but there is no appetite for this to change. "That doesn't lessen or create inequality between men and women and I think that's an important distinction to make — we don't see a rising through ranks of church life as somehow making people more or less equal," she said.

Latest figures for the Church of England show that more than half the total of people recommended for training as clergy (54%) are women. Nearly a quarter (23%) of paid clergy in senior posts, Bishops, Cathedral Deans or Archdeacons were women in 2017, compared to 12% in 2012.

In the Church in Wales where a third of the diocesan bishops are women with early hopes of parity despite the dismal performance of the first two women bishops, the hostile Archdeacon of Llandaff, the Ven Peggy Jackson, claimed in a debate designed to rid the Church in Wales of 'traditionalist', orthodox Anglicans that women ordinands were treated badly. 

Expecting to be taken at face value, an ordinand rebutted Jackson’s claim that women had to suffer for their calling because their vocation was disputed and dismissed by traditionalists. He had spoken to every current female ordinand in the Church in Wales and reported that all had told him that they had never experienced discrimination claimed by Jackson.

This is where hostility exists in the Church. Despite all the promises, constant efforts are made to exclude traditionalists by any means possible, including deception.  

A sense of pressure, then. is not confined to women's ministry. If they are confident that they are right in their calling they should have the courage to be honest and present the facts, not emotive words such as hostility, prejudice, misogyny, etc, designed to influence supporters of their 'equality' campaign when they have little or no interest whatsoever in priestly ministry. 

The faithless face of feminism in the Anglican Church

Bishop Rachel Treweek has said the Church of England should not call God 'he'
Source: Express/GettyImages

Christianity is about Christ. For feminists Christianity is about using Christ to promote their own agenda which distorts the nature of love and equality to accommodate their self promoting views on faith and religion.

The Express reports: 'God is NOT a man: First female bishop says calling God “He” is a growing problem'.

It may be a growing problem for bishop Treweek and her trendy feminist supporters but not for the majority of Christians or for Christ Himself who taught His disciples to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

Hallowed means nothing to these Entryists who lacked the integrity to form their own church. Instead they have politicised Western Anglicanism. They have mercilessly used the Anglican Church as a playing field on which only they can win.

So deep has the rot become that they have the support of limp bishops who have sacrificed spirituality on the altar of secularism.

In 2015 the BBC News Magazine published an article Why is God not female? The question keeps coming back. As with the ordination of woman and same sex marriage in church, the arguments are constantly regurgitated, pressing people outside the church who have no understanding of the theological implications of their actions to force change  inside the church.

Is it any surprise that people get fed up, leaving the Church in crisis as only 2% of young adults identify as C of E.

The Church in Wales too has become a leaking bucket, rusted by feminists. Their duplicity in getting the Governing Body to agree a Code of Practice which furthered the feminist cause while shutting out many faithful, cradle Anglicans can be judged by its fruits. The two women bishops appointed have proved to be a complete waste of spiritual space as they constantly drive forward their feminist agenda.

The ugly face of feminism in the church owes much of its success to Women and the Church (WATCH).

From my entry Women in the Church:

"Women bishops would humanise the priesthood" said the then Archbishop of Canterbury in 2011. Dr Rowan Williams warned the Church hierarchy to prepare for the “culture change” that would come with the “full inclusion” of women. Not the full inclusion the Archbishop would have expected. Instead it is inclusion to the exclusion of anyone with views not in accord with Women and the Church (WATCH) and their fellow travellers as highlighted by the "Sheffield controversy".

A culture change indeed. and not for the better so far as mother Church is concerned.

Suffrage

Suffragette arrest                                                                                            Source: Huffington Post

Things have moved on in the 100 years since (some) women were given the vote but the Guardian view on women’s suffrage is that there is still no real equality:

"After a campaign that had lasted more than 50 years, that had seen violence and death – as well as the forcefeeding of a thousand suffragettes in prison – women had at last won “the full rights of citizenship”; some women, at least. The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the vote to those women over 30 who owned property or were married to a man who did. At a stroke, 40% of British women were enfranchised. An intellectual revolution rapidly became a political one as Britain absorbed ideas about gender equality and the purpose of political representation...

...Britain still has a serious democratic deficit: women make up more than half of the population, but less than a third of MPs. While Theresa May is the country’s second female PM, only after a byelection in 2016 did the total number of women ever elected finally exceed the number of men elected at a single election. This raises questions of legitimacy: “who” is present in political institutions directly affects whether they represent the public symbolically and substantively."

The following percentages are provided in a Commons Library briefing paper, Women in Public life, the Professions and the Boardroom. The table provides an overview of female representation in the public sphere across the UK:

                                                                           %

MPs (2017)                                                       32
Lords (2017)                                                     26
Cabinet (2017)                                                  26
MSPs (2016)                                                     35
AMs (2016)                                                       42
MLAs (2017)                                                     30
Board of public bodies (2016)                          39
Senior civil service (2017)                                41
Justice of the Supreme Court (2017)                 9
GPs (2015)                                                       54
NHS Consultants (2015)                                  34
Secondary head teachers (2015)                     39
University Professors (2015-16)                      24
FTSE 100 directors (2016)                              26

The table shows that GPs are predominately women. In the teaching profession women represent a majority of teachers in English state-maintained nursery and primary education. The proportion of  female teachers was 85% in 2016. Unlike their male colleagues, many women GPs work part time while teaching offers the attraction of being home for much of the school holidays suggesting choice rather than discrimination accounts for the apparent imbalance.

Feminists use numerical parity as a synonym for equality to gain an advantage through positive discrimination. This is particularly so in the Anglican Church where feminism is rife. Women bishops in the Church of England are being fast-tracked while the women bishops in Wales have made it clear that they regard parity as a priority.

The Conservative Woman blog gave its own particular take on the  Presidents Club "pearl-clutching hysteria" which was about the behaviour of some men and the reaction of some women. As comedian Jimmy Tarbuck pointed out women attending hen parties are also known for "bad behaviour", and that "it has to be both ways".

The Channel 4 News interview with clinical psychologist, Professor Jordan B Peterson was another attempt to show males in an a poor light. That confrontation has been viewed over 6 million times on YouTube. As The Atlantic put it, a British broadcaster doggedly tried to put words into the academic’s mouth. A more comical response is available here.

One hundred years after the female heroes who led the suffrage movement gained the vote, the battle continues.

Dumb dumber dumbest

The Church of England has been accused of ‘dumbing down’ after drawing up a new service in which
worshippers use Post-it notes, clap like football fans and move their fingers like ‘twinkling stars’ -
Source: Mail Online

Informality has become the watchword in the Anglican Church in England and Wales. 

From the Free Dictionary: Dumb (adj), informal 

a. slow to understand; dim-witted

b. foolish; stupid. See also dumb down

 

  dumb down

    to make or become less intellectually demanding or sophisticated.

The Church in Wales has introduced little boxes, snakes and ladders, balloons and all manner of gimmickry as worshippers make for the exit, reducing regular attendance to less that 1% of the population. 

The Church of England (CofE) is following suit. Yesterday was Godparents' Sunday. Probably the best Archbishop the CofE never had, the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, sums up the feelings of more traditional Anglicans in his new book 'Faith, Freedom And The Future', when he said: ‘When they come into a church, worshippers should sense the presence of a holy God, not the bonhomie they may experience at bingo.’

In his own inimitable style the Rev Dr Peter Mullen takes Bishop Nazir-Ali to task in No dumbing down in the Cof E. Brilliant!

A Happy Christmas to my Orthodox readers

I need no excuse to indulge myself in the glories of the Russian Orthodox Church but their celebration of Christmas on 7 January is an opportunity too good to miss.

In the above video the congregation, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, are engrossed in the liturgy. There is a sense of spirituality lost in some other churches. Contrast their piety with that of many Anglican congregations in Great Britain today where reverence has been replaced by the familiarity of  'Other Forms of Worship' in which the Altar is no longer the focus of attention.

It is hardly surprising that congregations have dwindled when there is no sense of otherness. We are 'of this world' but losing the other worldliness of mystery and awe exhibited by our Orthodox brothers and sisters is a great loss.

The selfish selfie

I am disappointed to say the least by the attitude to the coming General Election of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Nationalist Party. More than enough blood has been shed, including the blood of my own kinsmen, in the making of the Union to see it unpicked for party political advantage.

There is something distinctly unpleasant about a politician who wants to be a foreigner in a United dismembered Kingdom while expecting to call the tune in British politics. By all means have a strong voice in devolved government but the current scheming is a disservice to our United Kingdom. The vote for independence was lost but minorities are never satisfied no matter what the cost.

The Scottish people like the rest of the United Kingdom should make a clear choice for the government of the United Kingdom leaving nationalism to devolved government but the way things are we have the ludicrous situation of the "two-faced" Sun backing the SNP in Scotland and the Tories elsewhere. How very Murdoch!

The choice is clear, vote for strong government to avoid minorities calling the tune. One only has to look to the Anglican Church in Great Britain to see the chaos that has been caused by the tail constantly wagging the dog in England and Wales.

Update - the hidden agenda [05.05.2015]

From HeraldScotland: "Leaders of Glasgow anti-Labour demo suspended by SNP".

After denying that hardline nationalists organised the angry protest which forced Jim Murphy and comic Eddie Izzard to cut short a rally in Glasgow city centre, two members have now been suspended by the SNP. A group of around 20 demonstrators, drawn from different fringe groups, had disrupted the street rally.

"One of the suspended, Piers Doughty Brown, a self-style 'anti-austerity' campaigner, and James Scott, the leader of a fringe nationalist group called Scottish Resistance, had their membership of the SNP withdrawn after pictures emerged of the pair with Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond".

Scottish Resistance is "part of an alliance of nationalist groupings committed to overthrowing "British imperialism" and advancing "the cause of independence".

Nicola Sturgeon said the appalling scenes on the streets of Glasgow were nothing to do with the SNP:
"What happened yesterday was the ugly face of nationalism". Quite so.

Update - SNP threat [07.05.2015]

Police Scotland have issued nationwide warnings amid fears of 'threatening behaviour' from firebrand SNP supporters. Story here.

The crunch

Original picture Tony Wills

For some days now, looking out of our kitchen window around breakfast time I have been watching the antics of a couple of male blackbirds. A female is busying herself around the garden but soon she will make her choice of mate. One of the males will have to leave. There is no way they will be building a nest together.


Liberal Anglicanism sees things differently. The ramifications of the House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage (here) rumble on. A summary of the various reactions can be found on Anglican Mainstream (here). According to the Telegraph (here) the authority of the House of Bishop is going to be tested by a vicar of two large parishes in north-west London who said that he would not be “frightened” into cancelling his wedding to his long-term partner by any prohibition. They have been together for fourteen years and not only will they "press ahead" with their plans but they expected "at least two bishops" to be among their guests.


Across the pond the 'marriage' of 2 lesbian Episcopal priests made the headlines in 2011 adding "a  new twist to gay issues" (story here). The Episcopal Church in the United States has now moved so far from traditional Anglicanism that it should be a warning to anyone in Great Britain who values any claim of continuity with the Apostolic Church. Read Anglican Curmudgeon's account (here) of the fate of faithful Anglicans in TEC. The author A. S. Haley concludes with the words: "Anglo-Catholics sought to travel the via media of Anglicanism on a path toward the ultimate reconciliation of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The modern crop of identity-liberals have no common goal other than to celebrate their own individuality, and to make others respect (and even honor) it."

The purpose of nest building is for the continuance of the species. God made male and female. If males or females want to live together in civil partnerships that is fine by me but the notion of same sex marriage goes beyond the protection of assets. Marriage is the joining together of a man and a woman. To demand that same sex couples should be allowed to marry on grounds of equality is an abuse of the word. It has more to do with expecting others to give their stamp of approval to a misguided concept of equality or as the Curmudgeon puts it, to celebrate their individuality and to make others respect (and even honor) it.

Liberals constantly push boundaries by exploiting tolerance and understanding until all are expected to bow to every fad or endure the consequences as members of the Episcopal Church have discovered (here). The following video illustrates the manipulation of public opinion which has aided the acceptance of women first as deacons, then priests and soon to be bishops while the LGBT lobby has moved from pleas of acceptance to threatening demands:

Reports are coming in of diocesan synods giving "the green light" to women bishops (here and here). No surprises there given that synods have become councils of the like minded and few in the Church of England and nobody in the Church of Wales gets anywhere unless they accept the liberal agenda.

Women expecting to be bishops because they think they should be bishops and men wanting women to  be bishops because they are women is based on an erroneous notion of equality of opportunity. But soon that will be yesterday's news.

Claiming 'equality' to justify gay marriage is altogether a different ball game. Men and women are not the same, deliberately so in terms of continuance of the species. Same-sex marriage cannot be justified. That is the crunch.

Postscript [07/03/2014]

From The Christian Institute Gay marriage: Law changes backed in Commons vote. Centuries-old laws changed by MPs ahead of this month’s gay marriages. 

“These changes cover legislation going back nearly 800 years, affecting legislation covering inheritance, taxation, social security and children.” The amendments mean the terms “husband” and “wife” will be replaced in many pieces of legislation. If Dukes, Earls and other male Peers marry other men, their ‘husbands’ could not be made Duchesses, Countesses or Ladies. A gay King’s ‘husband’ is prevented from becoming Queen.

We are all partakers of the one bread

Normandie WWII                                                                                     Source: PhotosNormandie

The point of posting the 'Meditation on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass' video was to remember why we do what we do, not how we do it. I had intended to post the entry under the title 'Lest we forget' but then I recalled that I had already used it (here) to remember others who had made the supreme sacrifice.

As usual my wife expressed my own thoughts more succinctly when she said in response to some of the comments received, "there is beauty in the simplicity of a said mass in the early morning or late evening when maybe only a few are gathered together but there is also beauty in the splendour of a solemn mass, the colours of the vestments, the music and singing. There is no need to be 'pro' or 'anti'. Each has its place." 

Generally worshippers are able to choose between a simple said service and a sung service or they can choose another church where the style of worship is more to their liking. But there is now a more serious dimension. Church members who are unable to accept the ministry of women as priests and bishops must still be permitted to respond in good conscience to Christ's invitation:

 "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."

This is the challenge for the 'enlightened' Anglican Church. It must not fail.

The baptism row

Distortion has become a feature of the Anglican Church under the influence of feminist ideology. God's kingdom is regarded as part of a new PC world where dissenters are branded misogynists, homophobes, bigots and the rest. Anything in fact to discredit opposition to liberal excesses.

Unlike the US where the feminist agenda is in control, women are not yet officially running the Church of England but with their feet now firmly on the threshold even some liberal clergy are beginning to question where feminist excesses masquerading as equality are taking the Church. The Pilling Report caused ripples but the proposal to ignore the devil and all his works has caused waves of dissent.

Feminism has used a 'stepping stone' strategy in its use of the Church to reach a political goal. Each step shows a relatively small change from the previous position but looking back the change is obvious especially for those finding themselves in an unintended position.

Small changes may not have appeared to be very important to those willing to be converted until they look back. The watered down baptism service provides a clear example of this. In the latest revision the vicar will simply ask: “Do you reject evil? And in all its many forms? And all its empty promises?” leaving the hearers to make what they will of the question, a far cry from the Book of Common Prayer which has:

"DOST thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them?"

There can be little doubt what the original BCP version means. In fact it neatly sums up the work of the devil and the covetous and carnal desires that are wrecking the Anglican Communion.

Hardly surprising the revisionists want rid of it!

Pilling: It's all about Eve

It is ten years since Michael Kalmuk and his long-time partner Kelly Montfort recited their solemn Anglican vows that would bless their relationship in what was described as the World's first "official" Anglican same-sex blessing. They had been together for twenty-one years and spent much of their careers working with people with disabilities. Story here.

Unless one is homophobic it is difficult not to be touched by such a story but the Rev. Margaret Marquardt who conducted the ceremony said in her homily that it amounted to "an act of healing for gay and lesbian people throughout the Anglican church"! In another report here she is quoted as saying said that it was an affirmation of "God's presence" in the couple's relationship, making one wonder if she was familiar with the Bible or simply chose passages to re-interpret Holy Scripture  according to her will, now common practice in liberal Anglicanism. 

A similar story can be read in the report of House of Bishops Working Group on human sexuality, the Pilling Report, where natural sympathy leads to the wrong conclusion that members of the clergy should be allowed to offer blessings to same-sex couples (summary here). Another of the report's recommendations is that The whole Church is called to real repentance for the lack of welcome and acceptance extended to homosexual people in the past, and to demonstrate the unconditional acceptance and love of God in Christ for all people. This it seems to me is the main thrust of the report. God loves all, we have been beastly to gays so same-sex unions should be blessed by the Church as an act of repentance. This conclusion ignores biblical facts but there was not unanimity. The report includes a dissenting statement by the Bishop of Birkenhead who said that he was "not persuaded that the biblical witness on same sex sexual behaviour is unclear". It is true that gays have been treated badly in society but I have not witnessed the reported lack of welcome and acceptance in the Church and don't know of anyone who does, quite the contrary.

The item in the report which I find most illuminating is the advice given by a female 'expert' which so baffled the Review Group that it is included as a separate Prologue "Living with holiness and desire". As Pilling remarks in his Forward, "One of our advisers, [the Rev Dr] Jessica Martin, challenged us to think about human sexuality more widely than most of our evidence was leading us to do. We asked her to write a paper which now forms the prologue to the report. We wanted to give others a chance to read it and reflect on it and we feared that, if we tried to integrate it into the main body of the report, much would be lost."

After her opening statement "Desire begins and ends with God", implying that its all His fault, the Rev Dr waffles on page after page implicating St Augustine of Hippo in the process before her aim is made apparent in the final sentence: "In Christ all things may be made new, every failure may be made the occasion of a generous forgiveness", or to put it another way as Pilling does, to demonstrate the unconditional acceptance and love of God in Christ for all people, ergo, same-sex blessings!

The Rev Sharon Ferguson, Chief Executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) welcomed the Pilling recommendations as "a small step of the Church of England towards greater inclusion but urges them to continue this work to enable the church to witness effectively to God’s love for all", echoing the Prologue message, God loves us, so what the hell!

Speaking on behalf of the Inclusive Church we have another female cleric, the Very Rev’d Dianna Gwilliams, Dean of Guildford Cathedral and Chair of Inclusive Church who says: "We hope that this will enable all Christians to find ways of celebrating the covenantal love between people which reflects the love of God for all people."

The House of Bishops has become incapable of coming to any conclusion without using women to do their thinking for them but only women who represent the old Eve. Women in the image of Mary, the new Eve, who gave us the Church in the Body of Christ have no say. Accordingly, even when it is absolutely clear that marriage is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others and that Christ deliberately chose men, not women, to be his Apostles, they work their way around these awkward facts by spinning a yarn about inequality which, if true, must have been what Christ intended. But He saw no inequality, only difference.

The process which gave us women deacons and priests, soon to be women bishops, is being repeated. Not quite as grand as Charles and Camilla but gay couples will be able to get married in a Registry Office before their grand Church service which will appear to be a marriage ceremony. That is a very small step from an actual marriage ceremony, just as women claimed it was only a few words separating deacons from priests.

Shortly after the World's first "official" Anglican same-sex blessing took place, an article in Orthodoxy Today was published under the heading 'Thoughts on Women's Ordination'. One sentence particularly stands out: "Virtually every Protestant group that has decided to ordain women has to one degree or another begun to reject Biblical language and images of God in favor of images more acceptable to feminist theology." Pilling it seems is no exception.

Happy Easter!

This year we searched in vain for packs of Easter cards with an icon depicting the Resurrection. There were plenty of cards to choose from with fluffy bunnies, flowers and eggs, even a few floral crosses but not what we wanted. After our initial disappointment I found myself reflecting on the part that flowers and eggs have played in our Easter celebrations. In particular I recalled the powerful fragrance of freesias and lilies which adorned the Altar of Repose, the result of many hours of work when help was taken for granted. Much has changed in the passing years. Divided congregations have become increasingly elderly. There are fewer, if any, children in many churches compared with the days when the Sunday School children, later re-named the more trendy 'Junior Church', would join the main congregation to await the vicar's usual question, "Why Easter eggs?" Back would come the eager replies of "New life!" earning the reward of a Cadbury's cream egg - and not just for the children :)

Happy Easter!

The egg also symbolises the tomb from which sprang new life. Following the installation of Pope Francis heralding a new pontificate of simplicity, the Anglican Church too witnessed a change in emphasis in the installation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury: “I am Justin, A servant of Jesus Christ, and I come seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together.” - Together as one, a new beginning?

Integrity

 

Regardless of public opinion on the subject, the Scottish Deputy First Minister has insisted that legislation will be brought forward enabling the first gay marriage to take place in Scotland in 2015 despite 64% of the population being against it. Announcing the decision, Miss Sturgeon said: “We are committed to a Scotland that is fair and equal, and that is why we intend to proceed with plans to allow same-sex marriage and religious ceremonies for civil partnerships."

South of the border the Dean of St Albans has accused the Church of England of being 'without integrity' on the subject of same sex marriage. In his Out4Marriage contribution he goes so far as to claim that God must be in favour of gay marriage. I have great sympathy for Dr John but I find this contribution to the debate extraordinary. Yes 'God is love' and God must love gay and transgender people as much as so-called straight people but it cannot follow that God is in favour of same-sex marriage. Similarly, when Miss Sturgeon says that she is committed to a country that is fair and equal, the majority of people who voted 'No' to same-sex marriage would agree with her sentiments on equality but that has nothing to do with the proposal to legalise same-sex marriage which to the majority of people is a contradiction. 

At the recent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender reception hosted by the Prime Minister, Mr Cameron recognised "the immense contribution that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people make in every part of our country, in the arts, in media, in sport, in business, in finance". That is not in doubt. Gay people contribute much, perhaps more in some spheres and are entitled to be loved and valued along with everyone else but it cannot be right that the rest of us should be made to feel that there is something wrong with us simply for disagreeing with gay marriage. Opponents of the ordination of women were accused of being misogynists, now opponents of same-sex marriage are accused of being homophobic when nothing could be further from the truth. If Mr Cameron  believes that the Church is "locking out people who are gay, or are bisexual or are transgender from being full members of that Church" he shows an abysmal ignorance, certainly of the Anglican church in my experience. 

So let us have real integrity and accept that opponents of same-sex marriage also have deeply held convictions. Contrary to what politicians would have us believe, this is not about equality but about the redefinition of an institution that will have far reaching implications for all of us, particularly for our children and their schools, something politicians simply fail to understand. They have no mandate; it is pure opportunism.   

The good shepherd

"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep."

The good shepherd cares for all his sheep. How many bishops in the Anglican Church can claim that for themselves today as they prepare to abandon part of their flock?

That's rich!

Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley

Headline from the Telegraph: 
The Church of England faithful left to fend for themselves.

Quite so I thought on reading the headline. Rejected by Synod in the Church of England and Archboyo [see comment 2 from Pageantmaster] in the Church in Wales, traditionalists have a right to feel rejected. But not at all. Those we are to feel sorry for are the worshippers 'left behind' after those striving to keep the Catholic faith have moved on to join the Ordinariate. What rotters! Did they not consider how their vacated pews would be filled, churches heated, buildings cared for, offertories maintained? It's a pity the Anglican Church did not give more thought to such matters before they decided to show the door to the faithful simply for keeping the faith. And who gains from this mess? Those women who decided to use the priesthood as a vehicle for their careers despite the cost to everyone else, especially the faithful. They had better make the best of it before the church disintegrates completely.

Different, but inferior?

Traditionalist Anglicans will be familiar with the sort of tactics used by the inappropriately named Equal Love campaign. In 2010 The Rev Sharon Ferguson, a lesbian church minister fighting to overturn the ban on same-sex marriages revealed that she had been 'sent abusive messages' since launching her campaign. Familiar tactics in a campaign of of half truth and dissimulation. 

Complaints from 'equal rights' campaigners about receiving abusive messages and being spat upon are not uncommon despite hard evidence when to my knowledge filth laden hate mail has been received in the opposite direction. 'Different' these agitators may be in the sense of being a vociferous minority but 'inferior'? Such suggestions are used solely to gain support by implying discrimination from people who fail to see that discrimination is, in reality, against those who do not clamour to change everything only to the advantage of minorities regardless of the cost to the majority. What they seek is not equality but dominance, the very thing they complain about in their power struggle using religion and the church as though it were a secular institution rather than the vehicle of faith that brings people closer to God.

In her campaign for so-called equality the Rev Sharon Ferguson said: “The system we currently have is discriminatory and segregates people. It is not acceptable in this day and age. As a person of faith, I want to get married." To get married implies taking a husband when in fact her desire is to share her life with another woman. That is her privilege. The law has been changed to ensure that she and those like her not disadvantaged. But this is not enough for so-called equal love campaigners. We do not judge how couples live their lives but however they wish to see it, a homosexual partnership is not the same as the union between a man and a woman joined together in holy matrimony for the procreation of children. They can call it whatever else they like but it is not marriage as understood by the majority of people handed down by tradition and custom for thousands of years so why pretend that it is? To suggest that these couples are made to feel inferior if they are not allowed to be 'married' is a problem of their own making. 

The trendy list of gay marriage supporters is growing and, perhaps unsurprisingly, is now afflicting the Anglican church following its abandonment of apostolic tradition. Since the Prime Minister decided to come out in favour of gay marriage, politicians and celebrities have joined the clamour to satisfy people who will never be satisfied until the rest of us are completely subjugated. In a classic piece of dissimulation the Guardian has come out in favour claiming that 'the argument that gay marriage undermines straight marriage is as unconvincing as it is insulting'. The reasons they find so convincing are neatly unpacked line by line here but it is unlikely that campaigners will be interested in the facts.

Self or selfless?

The current debate on gay marriage ignores an important aspect of marriage - children. Children may not be in the minds of all gay or lesbian couples but if they are, they ignore the fact that it is normal for a child to have a mother (female) and a father (male). 

In probably the most high profile case, Sir Elton John and his partner have admitted that their son "faced 'challenges' and potential 'double' stigma as he grew up and have consulted counsellors to find out the best way of dealing with any potential problems." Hardly surprising when the boy's 'mother' (and possibly his biological father) will be 84 when Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John is 21 and his father (also possibly his biological father) is in his 70th year and both are/were male. In the US there was another bizarre story of a pregnant father giving birth to a bouncing baby girl. These sort of cases are so far removed from normality that they highlight the absurdity of change for no apparent reason other than self-gratification. I want, therefore I must have, no matter what the consequences.

Fresh from his Review for the Archbishop of Wales who appears to be somewhat accident prone in his choices, the liberal-minded former bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth has stepped into the debate with the suggestion: "Instead of at first opposing civil partnerships, and then only accepting them grudgingly with gritted teeth, they should have welcomed them warmly from the first and immediately proposed services of commitments and blessing in church. They should do this even now." Few people are any longer interested in what the Anglican Church has to say but it will be interesting to see what trendy recommendations Lord Harries comes up with for the Church in Wales to hasten its further decline.

Many religious and non-religious heterosexual people supported civil partnerships despite reservations that some participants sought to have their partnerships seen as a marriage. In the church this has become a familiar pattern of give a little, grab the lot. Spurious arguments about equality have seen women's ordination and liberal sexuality take more bites out of the apple until there is nothing left but a barely recognised core. The Anglican Communion is now in its death throws as the Anglican Covenant attempts to paper-over the cracks. For some odd reason, once a band wagon starts rolling people jump on for fear of being left behind and branded yesterday's people, many clergy included. 


PM David Cameron has been followed by the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband in support of so-called gay rights but in reality it has more to do with electoral advantage than ethics or conscience. By implication Cabinet Minister Francis Maude now associates family values with being nasty!  There is a moral here. Trendy desires have done the Anglican Church no favours in her drive to become more relevant to society. What the country needs is strong leadership based on traditional values instead of pandering to current whims which favour self over selflessness.

Steps

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

After man first set foot on the moon, mankind was left with the historic statement, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". Everyone understood that the statement was not intended to exclude women but to encompass all humanity in the technological advancement of mankind which has seen men and women astronauts venture into space, part of a sequence of small steps that led to Kennedy's vision of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth".

Around the same time people in the Anglican church were taking what were represented as small steps, not towards a giant leap for mankind, Christ did that, but in what now can be seen clearly as a secular policy in furtherance of gender politics in the church, a process which is about to destroy the faith of many Christians in the name of feminism, one which already has done for many. In my previous Blog entry I referred to a Guardian article by Andrew Brown. One paragraph continues to rankle:

   "... there will be female bishops, as there are already female priests, and these will be treated exactly the same as male ones – except by the men who don't want to treat them equally and who believe that God has called them to undermine women's authority wherever it appears." [My emphasis.]

What was initially regarded as an honourable position in the Anglican Church, a church which assured traditionalists that they would continue to have a place, has been turned into one of having to suffer accusations of misogyny, prejudice, discrimination and, now, a "a belief that God has called them to undermine women's authority wherever it appears". How crass. God made man and woman in his own image, not hermaphrodites but both male and female, equal, neither superior nor inferior but with different roles in creation. Perhaps Mr Brown doesn't realise that both men and women, male and female, are equally opposed to the ordination of women priests and bishops, woman more vehemently in my experience but more prone to suffer in silence as they do not possess the strident streak exhibited by those who presume to speak for them as implied by the incorrectly named WATCH - Women and the Church. Women's authority does not depend on being a priest or a bishop. In Britain women are rightly employed at all levels in society, but 'authority' in the Anglican Church has become a banner used by people who have sold their souls to secularism in direct contradiction to Christ's example in choosing male Apostles, a tradition handed down in His Apostolic Church from a time when pagan priestesses were common.

The 'small' steps that turned deaconesses into deacons thus permitting their ordination as priests have now become that giant leap for the Church of England with the proposals before Synod to ordain women as successors to the Apostles in defiance of the wider Catholic and Orthodox Churches with whom we share our creed. To brand men and women  who oppose this innovation and whose only desire is to keep the Apostolic faith as 'undermining women's authority' is as absurd as it is offensive.

Mean-minded gender politics v. traditional Anglican faith

Readers may have observed that I find it difficult to be 'slow to anger' where the Anglican church is concerned today. What makes me particularly angry is the complete absence of compassion for men and women in the church who, in common with the majority of Christians, simply want to practice their religion in accordance with tradition, something that should be a human right. I have witnessed and valued women's ministry for its dedication in many areas of church life but much has now changed setting one against another. I didn't see the need for Deaconesses to become Deacons any more than actresses needed to became actors or heroines to became heroes but whereas actors and heroes of either sex were equal in pursuit of their ambitions, so called equality in the church meant something different, a change in our understanding of the priesthood using faith as a vehicle for gender politics. 

Women deacons became priests on the dubious pretext that there was no biblical objection and the assertion that there was little difference between deacon and priest other than the utterance of a few words (such regard for the sacred ministry!). Now it is the 'stained glass ceiling' that has to be shattered in the guise of equality. Such is the success of this secular based campaign that even some opponents of the ordination of women express sympathy for their position, one which has been manipulated to appear one of prejudice. If they succeed in their goal the next step will be parity which is the aim of Women and the Church (WATCH). Only when we have a woman Archbishop will cries of injustice be allowed to fade.


The appointment of women bishops shatters the tradition of the Universal Church of which Anglicanism has been part. In England, 2012 sees the culmination of a process of deception and lies using false promises to achieve this objective. In Wales their Archbishop is determined to reintroduce the measure in 2012, ignoring the earlier defeat on the basis that the Holy Spirit is only at work when the Archbishop finds the result favourable. Out of spite he went on to deny traditionalists acceptable pastoral and sacramental care by imposing oversight by a bench of bishops none of whom shows any sympathy towards traditionalists. The Church of England has been more tolerant in consecrating replacement PEVs but what of the future given the intransigence of members of Synod, particularly the hard edged women of WATCH and GRAS?


I have to accept that not everyone shares a traditional understanding of the sacred ministry but I cannot understand why, as Christians, new Anglicans would want to deny traditionalists the opportunity to continue to practise their religion as they have done well before many of the new breed of Anglicans entered the church. While some traditionalists may be able to look to the Ordinariate or possibly to the Western Rite of Orthodoxy many will find themselves in the wilderness as their own church adopts a take it or leave it approach, carefully crafted to offer only something known to be unacceptable on the basis that anything else would imply that women would be seen as second class bishops. I was particularly saddened over Christmas to receive a card from a very devout lady with a message that she had had enough and given up going to church. Like many disenchanted souls before her, she had been receiving the sacrament regularly before many of the new breed of Anglicans were born. Does people's faith count for nothing in the gender politics that now obsess our church? 


In my previous entry I again highlighted the plight of traditionalist Anglicans in the Episcopal church of the United States and the road to ruin the liberalised Episcopal church there has embarked upon. There is another report here which well illustrates what happens when liberalism replaces the traditional faith of the church. Our once tolerant, broad church should look again to the faith of the Universal church and end its obsession with gender politics while there is still Anglican church in which to hold the office of bishop.