"Don't worry, be happy!"

"The first African-American presiding bishop of the US Episcopal Church was instated in a ceremony led by female bishops, openly gay reverends and even a Jewish rabbi. After a spirited opening by a gospel choir, Episcopal leaders filed into the imposing National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to the sound of guitars guiding a Spanish hymn and a Native American drumming prelude".

"Don’t worry. Be happy! God has not given up on the world, and God is not finished with the Episcopal Church yet," presiding bishop Curry declared. Report here. His sermon can be found here.

For a more realistic assessment of the occasion, read Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's Installation: The Desolation of the Episcopal Church from Sarah Frances Ives Ph.D for Virtue Online. In this report an Islamic leader, Dr. Alsanousi, asked God to help us understand the Holy Quran. He then went into long sentences which were assumed to be in Arabic and were not listed in the program. "Who knows what he said? I don't" commented Dr Ives.

A better understanding of the Quran should help Western leaders understand that it is not an Arabic version of the Holy Bible. The place of Christians, the people "of the Book", is described by an Islamic scholar in the following video:

“Abducting Women” and “Destroying Churches” is “Real Islam”—Iraqi Grand Ayatollah.

The video is taken from an article "Offensive Jihad: the insurmountable obstacle between Muslims and non-Muslims" here. Far fetched? Not when Muslim inmates are already extorting 'infidel tax' from non-Muslims in the UK's toughest jails if they refuse to convert to Islam. Report here. 

Understanding the Quran should be compulsory for ministers, political and spiritual, if we are to be happy and not worry.

Postscript [11.11.2015]
In addition to ministers political and spiritual we should add BBC executives:
"Why is the BBC letting the Islamic Human Rights Commission set the agenda?"

The worm has turned

Judge and jury: the bunch of Bishops of the Church in Wales

It does not say much for the Bench of Bishops of the Church in Wales that their Archbishop, Dr Barry Morgan made his bench sitters complicit in his decision to ostracise any Church members who, in conscience, are unable to accept the ministry of women as bishops on theological grounds. 

Before agreeing to that disgraceful decision they had had an easy ride in the belief that justice would be allowed to prevail. Credo Cymru (FiF Wales) maintained a dignified hope that if the Archbishop had a shred of decency left in his bones he would not oppose what the wider membership of the Church in Wales asked for in the diocesan consultations and what other bishops were believed to be sympathetic to, a chance for all to prosper according to conscience. But just as David Cameron binned the evidence against same-sex marriage with disastrous results, so the Archbishop binned the results of the consultations. He then added insult to injury by allowing two imported heretical women bishops of the US Episcopal Church to conduct illegal Eucharistic celebrations in Llandaff and St Asaph Cathedrals.

Now, at long last, the worm has turned. Here is Credo Cymru's response to the decision.

Response from Credo Cymru to the Bishops' Code of Practice of September 2014

1. The Code enunciates principles, several of which are welcome to us and reflect some things we said in our submission. These state that the Bench wishes every member of the Church in Wales to feel valued and included in the life of the church, and for all legitimate varieties of churchmanship to flourish. Those who cannot accept that the ordination of women as bishops and priests are explicitly recognised as adhering to an acceptable interpretation of the Anglican heritage. However, the meagre nature of the concrete provision made comes then as an entire non sequitur; it simply does not achieve the apparently avowed end of enabling Traditionalists to flourish. There is a clear discontinuity between the initial principles and the actual provision.

2. We cannot accept that the Code as it stands is the last word on the matter. Fortunately the Code itself does not claim to be such. If it were, we would be unable to recommend that the members of Credo Cymru should continue their Christian life within the fellowship and structures of the Church in Wales. We would have sadly to express the conclusion that fully orthodox and catholic life could no longer be lived out under these circumstances, and that our members might well be advised to seek an alternative spiritual home within which to continue their Christian pilgrimage.

3. The Bench of Bishops of the Church in Wales should realise one fact, however unwelcome. If we are correct in believing that in the purpose of God the orders of bishop and priest ought not to be conferred on women (and, of course, we for our part recognise that that is a big 'if viewed from the bishops' perspective), then there is no bishop currently on the bench who is acting as an orthodox and catholic bishop should act. That is a large part of our problem. To offer any male bishop as a grudging sacramental stand-in for a female diocesan hardly meets our need to relate to a bishop whom we can recognise as being in the Great Tradition of the Church. It is not true to state, as the Presidential Address did, that we accept only bishops who happen to agree with our own views when, of course, it is the relationship to historic orthodoxy in which bishops stand, and not their 'views', which gives rise to the request for alternative episcopal oversight and care. It is quite improper to impute to a minority views which they do not hold and then to decline a request on the basis that those views are 'uncatholic'.

4. As presented, the Code of Practice is seriously inadequate for Traditionalists who, in conscience, are unable to accept the ministry of women as bishops. We can only conclude from this that the Bench of Bishops have a fundamental difficulty in understanding our theological position.

5. At the least, Traditionalist members of the Church in Wales are going to have to look to bishops outside the current bench as the true pastors of their souls and as their link with continuing apostolicity. 

6. In view of the declining membership of the Church in Wales, perhaps we should all consider the real possibility that our Church currently stands under divine judgement, and that the unrelenting trend towards secular modernity in recent years has simply not benefitted us in any obvious way. These appear to us to have been years in which little serious attention has been given to the divine Word and the Tradition. To plunge on in the same unchecked direction might quite simply be disastrous.

8 October 2014

The 'trend to secular modernity' follows the same downward spiral as the Episcopal Church of the United States where their Presiding Bishop has been busy spending other people's money defending the indefensible with the same disastrous results to the faith. 

The bench sitters appear blind to what is happening under Barry Morgan's headship. Presumably they are waiting for Godot!

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).

Misconduct charges filed against Katharine Jefferts Schori

A Washington-based conservative group, the American Anglican Fellowship has filed charges against the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, alleging her $30 million legal campaign against church conservatives is an abuse of office and violates church canons. - HT Anglican Ink; story here.

The US Episcopal Church: the feminist effect

From David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
January 21, 2014

How to spend $30 million dollars:

1. Educate 100 seminary students (average 3-year cost $45,000) for $4,500,000.

2. Plant and build 2,000 churches in Africa for about $6,000 a church. Total cost $12 million.

3. 24,000 children die of hunger each day in the world. An estimated 3.1 million children die every year due to hunger and lack of nutritious food. A single meal costs .22 cents to produce. $2 million would produce 9 million meals and feed more than 3 million children. An estimated 850 million children in the world do not have enough food to eat or do not get a nutritious meal every day.

4. $50 can provide a nutritious meal for a child for a year. $5 million would feed 100,000 children for one year.

5. $200 can provide an education for a child including provision of buildings and teachers' salaries etc. for a year. For $5 million you can equip 25,000 children.

6. WFP, the world's largest humanitarian agency, says that it costs 25 cents (US) to fill a cup with porridge, rice or beans and give girls a monthly ration. $1.50 the price of a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts (but not Starbucks) is enough to feed a child through school for one week. For $1.5 million dollars you could feed 1 million children for one week. One development agency leader told VOL there are still lots of hurting people and the numbers keep growing.

7. In one fell swoop you could rebuild the Episcopal cathedral in Haiti and every Episcopal parish that was destroyed by the earthquake in that country.

TOTAL COST $30 MILLION

OR you could spend $30 million Episcopal dollars on law firms like David Booth Beers to endlessly litigate against orthodox Anglicans who only want to proclaim the gospel and to keep properties they bought and paid for. The Dennis Canon might well be the most expensively litigated church law in the history of the world.

The figure of $30 million is a conservative figure. It does not include ongoing litigation, nor the millions of dollars the other side has spent defending church properties. One canon lawyer estimates that the true figure could be well over $60 million, in which case the figures above could and should be doubled.

A.S. Haley of Curmudgeon blog fame wrote on Sept. 2010, "We thus arrive at an estimated total of some Twenty-Six Million, Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ($26,650,000) dedicated thus far by the Church of Katharine Jefferts Schori to lawsuits and illegal disciplinary actions. That is quite a negative achievement for someone who has been in office for not even four years yet." He now estimates the figures to be between $30 million and $33 million. "If the spending continues at the same rate, by the time her term is up in November 2015 (and assuming her last budget is like those before it), she will have committed the Church to an impossible-sounding Sixty-Four Million Dollars in legal costs." http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/09/just-how-much-has-ecusa-spent-on.html

Think about that the next time you drop a check or cash in the collection plate of your local Episcopal Church. Ask yourself: Where is this money really going?

END

Odd how orthodox Anglicans are represented as the villains by feminists!

An emasculate conception

 "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." 

In 2005 a new version of the Gospels invited readers to believe that Jesus Christ was a woman known as Judith:

 "And Joseph went to Bethlehem, To be enrolled with Mary, his wife, who was then pregnant,  And she brought forth her firstborn child, And her name was chosen to be Judith.” Later, "She bearing her cross went forth, There they crucified Judith.... Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb, But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Judith who was crucified. She is not here; for She is risen.” 

In July this year role reversal and substitution in the guise of equality reached its climax in the Episcopal Church of the United States, the Mecca of religious liberalism. They voted overwhelmingly in favour of transgender ordination, the latest in a series of departures from the male priesthood of faith and tradition in the Apostolic Church. 

In 2008 the Presiding Bishop's arch disciple, the Archbishop of Wales, wrote for the Guardian that refusing to ordain women bishops was at odds with the gospel. Quoting St Paul he wrote: "At the heart of the Christian gospel are values of integrity, justice, wholeness and inclusion: In Christ there is no bond or free, male or female, Jew or Greek". Too often in this feminist inspired campaign, equality is preached out of context for the benefit of a secular audience while demeaning the views of those who share a different integrity. Yes, in Christ there is no "bond or free", no "Jew or Greek" but that does not mean that they are the same any more than "male and female" are the same; they are complementary. Interpreting the Bible in the context of social development becomes not a matter of faith but simply a question of geography using a false definition of equality contrary to Christ's vision of the church. The gospel values of integrity, justice, wholeness and inclusion are now being denied to opponents of the ordination of women on the absurd pretext that affording them the protection they need would make women bishops second class.

In 2002 the results of a survey carried out by Christian Research disclosed a decline in core beliefs and widespread scepticism among liberal clergy, particularly in organisations such as Affirming Catholicism and Modern Church (formerly the Modern Churchpeople's Union). The sample of women clergy in the survey showed that just over half said they believed in the bodily Resurrection. The figure fell to exactly a third when it came to the Virgin birth. This is a worrying development given the prediction: "It's obvious that over time the priesthood will become increasingly a female profession. As far as the church has a future it will include a predominant ministry of women and they will get to the top."- David Martin, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.

Women rightly have much higher expectations today, demanding equality of opportunity in society and in employment but the church is not a secular marketplace. The ordained ministry is a vocation which already shows itself to be incapable of achieving the objective of parity in employment as envisaged by Women and the Church (WATCH). The  church is being increasingly feminised with every indication that the end result will not be parity but female domination. As the testosterone deficit in congregations spreads through choir and chancel to the sanctuary, supporters of the ordination of women outdo one another in liberality with the predicted result of gender reversal in the priesthood leaving the church dominated by women as in pagan churches at the time of Christ when His Apostolic Church stood apart. 
  
Back in 2007 Clerical Whispers blogged: "For the first time, the Church of England reports that more women than men were ordained in 2006. Last year 244 women and 234 men were ordained in the Church of England. 
In June 2012 the Church of England published these statistics:
The number of women clergy, paid and unpaid, continues to rise. In 2011 there were 1,763 women in full-time paid parochial appointments compared with 1,140 in 2000, an increase of 50 per cent over the decade. Women make up over one in five (22 per cent) of paid parish clergy. Women in 2011 made up more than half of both those in self-supporting ministry (54 per cent) and of licensed readers (51 per cent).

Constantly capitulating, trendy liberals in the House of Bishops have demonstrated that they are ill-equipped to defend traditional teaching from attack, particularly by Women and the Church who campaign for equality but demand an ordained women's ministry solely on their terms, a ministry that in a period of reception has shown every indication that the result will be predominately (perhaps solely) a female ministry according to evidence already available. Synod can no longer in good conscience vote for a measure that will result in the inequality it strives to avoid. The proposals for the ordination of women to the episcopate must be rejected in order to reverse the process of gender substitution in the priesthood which will turn the Church of England into a feminised organisation no longer recognisable as part of Christ's Apostolic Church.

Area Ministry: the Business Solution

Map: Wikipedia

Landmark report by Church in Wales recommends replacing parishes with ministry areas: 
"Key recommendations include replacing traditional parishes with "ministry areas" modelled on the catchment areas of secondary schools. Each area could include around 25 parishes." - WalesOnline.

In reality the 'landmark report' only repeats what the Archbishop of Wales forecast back in 2006 in a lecture organised by 'The Christian Centre for Rural Wales' when Dr Morgan said:
  "there are provinces across the Anglican Communion in America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and in many dioceses of the Church in England and now in Wales, which have begun to examine the setting up of local ministry teams without diminishing the role of the clergy, but which take the discipleship of all God’s people seriously.  Instead of seeing the Church as a community centred around a priest, the church itself is seen as a corporate body which becomes a ministering congregation.  In other words, it ceases to be a congregation which is ministered to but becomes an active congregation and lives out God’s mission in the world."

So the 'Independent Review' is effectively an endorsement of Barry's plan based as usual on the performance of the failing Episcopal Church of America. In this example of area ministry we have the now familiar liberal agenda in a PowerPoint presentation, a business based solution to confront the shrinking membership of the church.  [Download viewer here if required.]

Those members who have already been active in the Church in Wales, seeking to live God's mission in the world, will be sadly disappointed having responded to their Archbishop's urgings to take part in the Review. Evidently eager to tackle the top heavy structure resulting from severe losses suffered in their church, it was suggested by a clear majority [that has a familiar ring! - Ed] that the number of dioceses be cut to three, no doubt with commensurate reductions in senior posts but while the Review recommends that the number of administrative areas be reduced to three, the seven bishops would remain - even if the number of dioceses is eventually reduced! This was the assessment of the 'independent review':

 15. Dioceses: their number and administration
We have received a wide variety of views on how many dioceses there should be
in Wales, fluctuating wildly between one and the opinion that every deanery
should be a diocese! The majority view was probably that there should be three
or four dioceses, with some re-drawing of boundaries. However, we believe that
this is the wrong time to be changing the number and shape of dioceses. It would
occupy time and energy for the next ten years and distract the church from the
urgent changes which are necessary now, irrespective of the number of
dioceses. The present number and shape of dioceses may not be ideal. If we
were starting again we would have three. However, the present number and
configuration works and we think that the Church should continue, at least for the
next four years, with the present six dioceses. ... These recommendations should be reviewed after three years, with a view to evaluating the effectiveness of the change. At that point a judgement should be made about whether or not the church is best served by six dioceses with three administrative centres, or three dioceses. If the latter, we believe there should still be the same number of bishops as at present, namely seven.

No doubt the seven bishops will be well satisfied that the Lord Harries of Pentregarth managed to produce a report which they think makes the Church in Wales 'fit for purpose'. Actually the Lord Jesus Christ did that long before these revisionists started tinkering with His plan. The consequences for the US Episcopal Church can be read here.

Liberal Anglicanism

From Anglican Mainstream: 

The Episcopal Church: Tearing the Fabric of communion to Shreds (2012)

Executive Summary

"When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psalm 11:3

The Episcopal Church has been systematically destroying the foundations of Anglican Christianity within the United States and tearing the fabric of the Anglican Communion to shreds. In this report, we demonstrate, through the words of TEC leaders, their actions and their defiance of both the Bible and the instruments of Anglican unity, why orthodox Anglicans in North America were led to form the Anglican Church in North America in order to preserve and promote an Anglicanism that is truly biblical, missionary and united.

Catalog of Heresies: Quoting Episcopal Church Leaders

• TEC leaders, including the presiding bishop, have denied Jesus as the only way to the Father, denied the divinity and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, denied the Resurrection, denied heaven and hell, denied salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, denied the authority of Holy Scripture, denied the Creeds, and denied Biblical standards for human sexuality.

Fruits of TEC's Theology

• The fruits of TEC's new theology include a refusal to reaffirm the historic articles of the Christian faith, syncretism, the promotion of abortion, weakening traditional marriage, promoting same-sex blessings and other sexual aberrations, communion for the unbaptized, and promoting these abominations throughout the Communion.
• A "baptismal theology" detached from catholic and biblical doctrine and the pursuit of "justice" are frequently cited as the rationale for these actions.

Declining Membership

• Also a result of TEC's new theology and the 2003 consecration of a bishop in a homosexual relationship, TEC membership has dropped 16 percent from 2002 to 2010 (the most recent data reported by TEC)-from 2,320,221 members down to 1,951,907 members.
• Average Sunday attendance has dropped by 22 percent during this period; the median average Sunday attendance in a TEC parish is now only 65 people.
• TEC reports that 511 parishes and missions have ceased to exist during this period. From 2003 to 2012, at least 314 congregations have split or completely withdrawn from TEC.

The full report is available here.

Read commentary by A S Haley here

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.

Thanksgiving thanks, no thanks

The jovial Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, recently elected President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has run into trouble.

Was the Archbishop simply mimicking his Episcopal Church opposite number, the 'spirit hearing' Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, being relevant to society by referring to God as 'She'?

We have heard much lately about the procedure for Anglo Catholics thinking of going to Rome. If Bishop Dolan is thinking of going the other way, just a simple phone call from Tim to Mrs Jefferts Schori should do the trick.