St David's Day

St David's Day Walk from St Non's through St Davids                                                                                                                                            Source: Twitter

Yesterday was St David's Day. The Tweetosphere was full of tweets about the patron saint of Wales but the 'little things' St David spoke of were not aired, just the phrase.

David's last words to his followers were in a sermon on the Sunday prior to his death: "Lords, brothers and sisters, Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us." (Wikipedia)

The 'little things' referred to, keeping the faith and your creed, walking in the path that our fathers have trod before us are omitted, probably because they are precisely the things that the bishops of the Church in Wales have ceased to observe.

The path walked from St Non's through the city of St Davids on St David's Day, pictured above, shows just one clergyman among a group of women clergy who now control St Davids Cathedral which has become more of a tourist attraction than a place of pilgrimage.

Preaching to politicians at Cardiff’s St David’s Day National Service at St John the Baptist Church on Sunday the Archbishop of Wales urged politicians to 'model St David'. Perhaps with tongue in cheek he said: David and his monks, whether doing the little things or the larger ones, were focussed and concentrating servants of God and God’s kingdom;  people who, as Jesus demanded, built their lives on the rock of his teaching, absorbed it, lived it out and stood firm and strong in times of testing."

The rock has crumbled in Wales.

When tested the bishops have not keep the faith or walked the path our fathers trod before us. They have conformed to this world pursuing 'inclusive' policies, not the faith of our fathers and creed.

Self-serving Senior Women and the Church

AB Antje Jackelén             PB Jefferts Schori             Ven Peggy Jackson

Just as you think it can't get much worse than the heretical views of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the US (TEC) along comes Antje Jackelén the new Archbishop of the Church of Sweden who reportedly has difficulty in choosing between Jesus and Muhammed!

From beliefnet:
“On July 8, 2012, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached her brand of post-Christian religion while masquerading as a Christian bishop,” reported convention attendee Dr. Sarah Frances Ives. “She mocked most of the crucial doctrines of the Christian faith, including the God of creation, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. She accomplishes this through her demeaning use of rhetoric. She taunts the Lord by the use of the name ‘Big Man’ and then points her finger at everyone listening and tells them that they have ‘missed the boat.’

“Jefferts Schori then proclaims that she has the answer for this. We all need the ‘act of crossing boundaries’ to become God after which our hands become a ‘sacrament of mission.’ In this sermon, Jefferts Schori continued her mission of destroying the Christian faith through her rhetorical device of dismissive ridicule". Read the whole sad story here.

In Sweden the appointment of Antje Jackelén as Archbishop of the Church of Sweden has prompted one of the church’s most pre-eminent theologians, Professor Eva Hamberg, to leave her post as a member of the church’s theological council in protest against bishop Antje Jackelén’s failure to stand behind the Church of Sweden’s profession of faith. In a number of interviews Professor Hamberg has expressed her disappointment that 'not even the top leader of the church' will clearly profess a Christian faith but wavers between Jesus and Muhammed. Professor Hamberg has also renounced her position as priest and her membership of the church.

Antje Jackelén was appointed Archbishop as predicted here because she is a woman: "Powerful lobbying groups within the church have long argued that the new archbishop must be a woman so Jackelén’s sex has been an advantage". Her motto is ”God is greater” translated from the Arabic "Allahu akbar", the cry of Muslim extremists as they butcher the innocent. Critics claim that the scene was prepared for the Antje Jackelén 'from the beginning' and that she has not been subjected to a proper vetting process.

When candidates were asked if they thought Jesus presented a truer picture of God than Muhammed she could not choose between the two. The report continues: It is not only Jackelén’s motto and her unwillingness to put Jesus ahead of Muhammed that has evoked strong feelings among many committed Christians. During the pre-appointment questioning, the new archbishop also said that the Church of Sweden has more in common with other religions than with other Christian churches, that the Virgin Birth must be understood metaphorically, that hell doesn’t exist and that the Biblical texts should not be taken as truth. The full sad story here.

In England Jackelén's appointment has sparked a row. Not so much about her suitability to lead a Christian church but the implication that gender was the issue, something pounced on by the Rev Miranda Threlfall-Holmes in her blog about "Christianity, History, Feminism" with particular emphasis on the later. The Rev Sally Hitchiner Kicked off with her tweet: "Antje Jackelen elected Sweden's first woman archbishop - Come on England: the Swedes are decades ahead again!" Never mind the quality! If someone else does it we should do it too and should have done it first. That was the response here and here to the news that the Church in Wales voted in favour of women bishops.

The appointment of Antje Jackelén made it crystal clear that the major imperative was to appoint a woman. There was less concerned about her beliefs. As the Rev Peter Ould wrote in response to Sally Hitchiner's tweet: Are you not slightly concerned she denies parts of the Creed? Is that OK because she's XX? Perhaps those making the appointment were influenced by anything goes in today's liberal church, particularly in the example of TEC.

The liberal Church of England is desperate to see women bishops at any cost. This was the reaction of the Archdeacon of Llandaff  after she was "shocked" by the General Synod vote in November. She said:
“I feel saddened that the Synod lay members revealed themselves badly out of touch with the feelings of ordinary people, inside the Church and beyond. It gave a quite wrong message about the Church’s attitude to women in all walks of society, appearing to deny women’s ability to hold positions of leadership and authority, and imply that they should be content with discrimination and subordinate status.” 

The Archdeacon proposed the amendment to the Bishops' Bill in Wales which denied faithful Anglicans a statutory right to continue as loyal Anglicans in the Church in Wales. Peggy Jackson is an intelligent woman, a chartered accountant and a pilot but she is unable, or is unwilling, to see the difference between people of faith who take the teaching of Christ more seriously than the opinions of people in the street. We do not deny "women’s ability to hold positions of leadership and authority" or "imply that they should be content with discrimination and subordinate status." (Interview here).

I can understand her feelings after being deserted by her husband when she said, “I was at a low in my life, I thought I would give the Church a go and I found the most wonderful welcome. I was feeling desperate and it was a lifeline at a very black time.”

Of course it is all about gender with some women serving their own interests above all else. However embittered some may feel they should be able to see that it is a very black time for many cradle Anglicans. They know the tide has turned but it is not a feminine trait to abandon others. All that is asked is a lifeline.

Crown Nominations Commission: Fair play?

Today I spotted this interesting observation from the American Anglican Council on the Archbishop of Canterbury selection procedure:

   "Finally, with regard to the larger Anglican Communion, we see the revisionist elite in the Church of England and the current politicians in Parliament working together to produce a desired outcome in the selection of the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The fact that the Archbishop and Primate of Wales, Barry Morgan, will sit on the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) is absurd. Wales is a miniscule church, with fewer and fewer people attending church practically every week. Archbishop Rowan Williams was the previous Primate of Wales, and he did such a good job of shrinking the Welch Church that they made him Archbishop of Canterbury. Now Rowan's successor Barry Morgan, who has continued Dr. Williams' work of shrinking the church, is to sit on the commission that will nominate the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Another person who has been chosen to sit on the CNC is the Rev. Kenneth Kearon, who as the head of the Anglican Communion Office helps to foist the revisionist agenda of the Anglican elite onto the rest of the Communion. What does Kearon bring to the Commission if not the desires of the liberal elite of the Church of England and the revisionist West?" Full text here.

Dr Morgan's appointment has already attracted criticism here with some choice comments here. While I cannot comment on the possible shrinkage of the Church in Wales when Rowan Williams was Archbishop, in the September 2011 edition of 'Highlights' the Church in Wales published some disastrous Membership and Finance details. They were hidden away on the back page of a document that trumpeted Equal Opportunities for all in the Church, all who matter that is - see this report from the Let nothing you dismay Blog.


I am told by those close to him that the Archbishop of Wales feels hurt when people are unkind to him, that is, whenever people disagree with him. If people hold to their creed they are not being unkind, rather they are defending the faith. If Dr Morgan and his modern liberal friends followed Christ's example rather than spending their time trying to force their own agendas onto the Anglican Church (here and here) we wouldn't be in the mess in which we now find ourselves with declining membership, shortage of funds and constant squabbling about secular issues which have nothing whatsoever to do with the faith of the wider Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. So the question has to be asked, do they believe what they recite in the Creed? If not, all becomes clear.