Governing Body Highlight

 

There was one highlight at this month's meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. That was the presentation at agendum 16 Open Doors – supporting the persecuted Church.

My readers will have been here before. There have been various entries highlighting Christian persecution around the world, for example,  What it means for others to be a Christian.

How Christians suffer for their faith can be seen in an earlier 2022 video from Open Doors.

Many Christians are prepared to die for their faith while others call on the love of Jesus to justify Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) which dilutes their faith. The contrast could not be more stark.

Postscripts [07.09.2024]

1. From The Christian Post - Five companies that are scaling back DEI, LGBT advocacy

2. From Anglican Futures - Will the Church in Wales be extinct in 15 years? "...it appears the Bishops of the Church in Wales seem determined to drive the church over the precipice."

Altar reverence

Source: Church Times

Church Times (£):
"THE consistory court of the diocese of Leicester has refused to grant a faculty for the introduction of a new altar frontal at St Nicholas’s, Leicester, displaying the Progress Pride flag and incorporating a cross in the design.

"The Progress Pride flag was 'not a Christian emblem', the Chancellor Naomi Gyane said. While it was 'a sign of welcome for people from the LGBTQIA+ community, and although not itself political,' it was, she said, 'a secular contemporary emblem used for many causes and contemporary discourse'."

From the same article:
"He [Dr Ian Paul. one of the objectors] stated that the purpose of the table at which holy communion was celebrated was to focus the congregation on remembering the death of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and not to focus on contemporary and political issues; and that the presence of the Progress Pride flag introduced a tension with the teachings of Jesus and the scriptures as a whole into the centre of the rite of communion."

Exactly! Take note the Church in Wales. See here and here.

 Church in Wales, St Augustine's Rumney                                                                   Source: Twitter

Two wrongs!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, 14 Nigerians will be killed for being Christians. 

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

The pre-woke message was much easier to understand:

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

Postscripts 

[17.06.2023]

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

[22.06.2023]

Another 15 Christians Killed in Nigeria Despite Curfew

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

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

Congregational Catholics

Cardinal Reinhard Marx and fellow bishops from Germany meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Nov. 17, 2022 | Vatican Media. Source: CNA

At the Collation & Installation of the new Dean of Llandaff, the Rev Canon Richard Peers, the retiring bishop, June Osbourne, repeated the claim that "the Church in Wales is part of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", a claim rejected by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches following the unilateral action of some Anglicans to ordain women to the priesthood.

 The bishop invited the Dean-designate to make the following declaration:

"I do solemnly declare my belief in the Faith which is revealed in Holy Scripture and set forth in 
the Catholic Creeds and to which the historic formularies, namely the Thirty-nine Articles of 
Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons as
published in 1662, bear witness; and in public prayer and the administration of the Sacraments,

I will use only those forms of service which are allowed by lawful authority, and none other. And
I hereby undertake to be bound by the Constitution of the Church in Wales, and to accept,
submit to, and carry out any sentence or judgement which may at any time be passed upon me
by the Archbishop, a Diocesan Bishop or any Court or the Tribunal of the Church in Wales."

Somewhat removed from the faith of one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Dean of Llandaff is in a same sex relationship living openly with his partner. The campaigning bishop of Monmouth is also living openly with her partner in a same sex relationship while the Archbishop of Wales is a re-married divorcee.

How can this be? 

Anglican beliefs allow local discretion under The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral :

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God.

2. The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

3. The two Sacraments,–Baptism and the Supper of the Lord,–ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.

'Locally adapted' opens a can of worms. The liberal agenda took hold in the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA, now TEC). In 2003 Anglican provinces declare 'impaired' or 'broken' relationship with ECUSA following the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Within a generation liberal revisionists have taken control of many Anglican provinces. The Church in Wales has become a joke among orthodox Anglicans and the wider Christian fellowship. The Church of England teeters on the edge of disaster as bishops push their latest deception, Living in Love and Faith.

Liberal provinces face extinction while Anglicanism elsewhere thrives. In the USA, Alarm Bells as Episcopal Church Decline Accelerates but nothing deters the revisionists. If at first they don't succeed they try, try and try again until they have their own way.

For those Anglicans who swam the Tiber the same ominous signs are appearing as German bishops meet with Pope Francis amid concern over Synodal Way

The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said he will not deny blessings for same-sex couples.

The Synodal Way "is a controversial discussion process underway in Germany with the declared aim of addressing the Church’s clerical sexual abuse crisis by debating and passing resolutions on whether, or how, Catholicism needs to change (“develop”) its teaching – and the Catholic Church therefore change its approach – to questions of sexuality and the exercise of power, including doctrine and the sacraments."

The Church of England Synod voted to ordain women to the priesthood and to the episcopate. The Governing Body of the Church in Wales followed suit. The Church of England is seeking to emulate the Church in Wales, blessing same sex partnerships as a precursor to same sex marriage in Church. Disaster looms closer.

Faith by committee is not the faith of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Ultimately it has led to Jesus being depicted as a "rosy-cheeked Christ with breasts, beard and make-up jumping in front of a rainbow".

As Tony Barber wrote in the Financial Times yesterday, "The American priest and author Andrew Greeley once said: “The opposite of Catholic is not Protestant. The opposite of Catholic is sectarian.” But just as secular politics in western countries is a battleground between mutually suspicious conservatives and liberals, so Greeley’s appeal to respect differences of religious opinion is drowning in a doctrinal struggle for control of the Roman Catholic Church."

Postscript [04.12.2022]

Greek City Times The Ordination of Women in the Orthodox Church: Revealing The Truth

The sinking ship

As 'Jolly June' Osborne prepares to sail off into the sunset on retirement she leaves behind a trail of discontent. There will be few tears spilt over her departure but many on the wreckage she leaves behind.

Thumbing her nose to scripture and tradition she has already set the scene for her successor by hastily installing a dean of her choice rather than letting the new bishop make the appointment. The new dean is a priest living openly in a same-sex partnership who was involved in some discontent over his involvement in the Percy affair during his time at Oxford.

He should fit in well, not only in the diocese but in the province which is foundering on the rocks of secularism following a string of political appointments.

In her long running battle with the former dean the bishop was forced to face allegations of bullying after it was decided that she had a case to answer. The allegations were subsequently withdrawn. 

Meanwhile the Revd Vicki Burrows, the Garth Ministry Area Leader, wrote of a "culture of fear" in the diocese in the Church Times (Letters, 17/24 December) and called for the suspension of the Rt Rev June Osborne, after the bishop was accused of "bullying and harassment".

The vicar resigned saying that she “can no longer minister with any sense of integrity in Llandaff”.

Bishop Osborne's response was to appoint the Rev'd Ian Yemm, "who is married to Bernhard, an NHS doctor", in what appears to be another attempt to pre-empt a decision by the Church in Wales.

No doubt the bishop of Llandaff with the again absent bishop of St Davids were influential in the appointment of the first lesbian bishop, the bishop of Monmouth, who also lives with her same sex partner giving the impression that their ministries have more to do with the promotion of homosexuality than the sanctity of Christian marriage.

What of the bishop of St Davids? The original announcement in August of Joanna Penberthy's latest sick leave  promised updates as they became available. I can no longer find that notice, perhaps because there have been no updates which is typical of the mushroom method of management in the Church in Wales.

This is what happens when sociology replaces theology.

Former giants of the Church in Wales before bishops were replaced by 'prefects'.
Five held Oxford Firsts in Theology.     Source: Anglican Misfit

But whatever the cause, the latest Church Growth Modelling is bad news for the Church in Wales as well as other denominations as wokeness replaces holiness:

"The Church in Wales contains a mixture of churchmanships, and for many years all were on the conservative side. However, in the last 25 years, it has become increasingly liberal. In common with most historic UK Christian denominations, it has steadily declined since 1960. This analysis investigates the likelihood of decline leading to denominational extinction.

"The Church in Wales is forecast to be extinct by 2038."

The author writes, "Churches do not grow by becoming like society and attracting people, but by becoming like Jesus and converting people."

Exactly.

Rowan Williams condemns bullying in the Church

 

 During Holy Week Archbishop Rowan Williams is preaching at All Saints, Margaret Street, London. 

In his Wednesday sermon Rowan compares the power of Pontius Pilate with that of Jesus Christ. 

Towards the end of his sermon (position 12.30) Rowan questions how we live out the power that belongs to Jesus: 

"If I say patchily, that is a polite understatement because there is our own kind of gravitational power as well. The gravitational power of egos and fear which draws us back again and again to Pilate's world and Pilate's power. We all ought to be heartbroken when we see how readily that happens. 

"How often, at the moment, are we reading about problems of bullying in the Church? The misuse of authority at one level or another.

"Every preacher ought to be aware that whenever they stand in the pulpit there will be some members of the congregation who have experienced Pilate's power at work in the Church and who are aware of their own danger in sitting where they sit. And how it ought to break our hearts when we see on the other side of Europe, a Church invested in the power of the state, not merely the power of the state to control but the power of the state to invade and slaughter."

That should have some ears burning!

Woke Welby and his 'white Jesus'

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby                                 Source: Rebel Priest

From The Jerusalem Post: The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the Anglican Church should reconsider its portrayal of Jesus as a white man.

It is not clear for whom he was speaking when he expressed his belief that Anglicans thought of the Son of God as a white man. The archbishop and most of his trendy episcopal colleagues long since abandoned the faith as orthodox Anglicans along with the Church in Wales and the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC), both of which have become irrelevant as Churches for the faithful.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Justin Welby said that in light of the Black Lives Matter protests, the West needed to question whether the traditional portrayal of Jesus as a white man by Western churches was the correct approach to take.

The archbishop added, “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings."  He did not think that "throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it" but thought "that’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship. It is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”

Commenting on the Black Lives Matter campaign to remove statues to figures deemed controversial, he said that people should forgive the 'trespasses' of those who were being commemorated, rather than remove statues, but added that the church would be reviewing the monuments it holds.

When asked if people should forgive the trespasses of those immortalised in the form of statues, rather than tearing them down, Welby said: "Some will have to come down. We can only do that if we've got justice, which means the statue needs to be put in context.

"Some names will have to change. The church, goodness me you know, you just go around Canterbury Cathedral, there are monuments everywhere or Westminster Abbey, and we're looking at all that, and some will have to come down."

Described as the Woke Archbishop the Archbishop of Canterbury, Welby is “ashamed of our history” and of his supposed advantages as a straight white male.

He has become leader of the self loathing brigade, apologising for anything and everything in the past that is questioned in the woke culture.

He preaches the gospel of woke and slanders his own flock. With no supporting evidence he asserted "There is no doubt," that "when we look at our own Church we are still deeply institutionally racist."

Bending the knee to the latest trend is not leadership. It is capitulation.

Source: BBC/LORNA MAY WADSWORTH

It encourages gestures such as that in St Albans Cathedral where a copy of a picture of the Last Supper showing a black Jesus was placed at an altar "in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement" presumably without knowing what the BLM movement stands for.

According to BBC News the artist used a Jamaican-born model for the basis of her interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's 15th Century work because she wanted "to make people question the Western myth that [Jesus Christ] had fair hair and blue eyes".

Jacob Epstein's 'Christ in Majesty'

 One aspect lost in the controversy about the suitability of artwork is the effort put into producing the work and possible motivations behind it. It may represent an interpretation by the artist or sponsor or result from a specific commission.

If someone in a free society objects to a work they are at liberty to criticise it. Once gone the opportunity for criticism is lost, along with the hard won freedoms which allow extremist pressure groups to behave as they do.

The example of ISIS destroying artefacts they disliked should be a warning of the destructive power now being unleashed, something religious leaders should be speaking against, not for.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew born in Bethlehem of Judea. He would have been neither black nor white but somewhere in between - see So what colour was Jesus?

 As the Religious News Service (RNS) aptly put it: We can’t cancel ‘white Jesus,’ but we can keep telling our church’s story.

Spot the difference?

Before her success in Strictly Come Dancing, Stacey Dooley was already a successful television presenter and journalist.

In this video filmed in her home town of Luton she questioned why non-Muslims, according to the street preacher and his followers, are "destined to go to hell" along with the UK and British police.

By contrast a Christian street preacher was arrested at Southgate station London N14 for preaching about Jesus, saving people from hell.

The police told him he was breaching the peace because he was being "islamophobic".

Spot the difference?

Postscript [01.03.2019]

From Christian Concern

Ask the Home Secretary to protect street preachers petition

Interfaith week - for some!

 Asia Bibi, a Christian woman recently acquitted on false charges of blasphemy, is still 'in captivity'
   Source: Breitbart/AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary

People celebrating Interfaith week in the UK are fortunate that they are allowed to demonstrate their tolerance of other faiths. Not so in Pakistan where Asia Bibi was acquitted on false charges of blasphemy after spending nine years in prison but remains in custody. It's all about intolerance.

A Guardian report states that "The court established that Bibi, a Christian, was falsely accused by Muslim women picking fruit with her on 14 June, 2009. The allegation stemmed from a quarrel over the fact that she had taken a sip of water from a cup she had fetched for them, which in the eyes of her accusers she wasn’t allowed to touch."

Breitbart reports that "Bibi will remain in captivity, though not in a prison, until the 'finalization of the legal process,' despite Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordering her release. The Supreme Court is Pakistan’s court of last resort, yet the government brokered a deal with the radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party granting them an extra appeal on the case over the Supreme Court’s ruling." 

Mob rule prevails in Muslim Pakistan. Meanwhile, Church and State are encouraging the Islamification of Great Britain, cowed by claims of Islamophobia if anyone seeks the truth. 

The Church in Wales has been advertising an Interfaith Walking Tour in Cardiff ending at the Dar-Yl-Isra Mosque for a ‘Faith Speed Dating’ experience! 

It is probably no coincidence that the mosque is listed as the Muslim Welfare & Education Centre.

Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet, not the Son of God, and reject the fact that He died on the Cross. 

The Son of God has become a victim of political correctness. By denying Muslims the truth they are being denied salvation and others are made more vulnerable to intolerance.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful 2017

Adoration of the Shepherds by Friar Juan Bautista Maíno (1569 –  1649)

From the angel Gabriel:

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

And, behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

For with God nothing shall be impossible.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-38 (KJV)

Happy Christmas!

Holy Saturday: Muslim Jesus v. Christian Jesus

This video portrays in simple terms the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ whom Muslims claim as a prophet. They deny His death on The Cross and His Resurrection, condemning themselves and those they convert to Islam to be judged:

   23 so that all will honour the Son even as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him.

   24"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

   25"Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.…

Not in my name

                                                                                                                                                                                                        Source: Independent/PA

"Not in my name". Of course not, but in the name of he who it is claimed "knows best"!

This is the key problem for non-Muslims. Are we 'kafirs' being deliberately misled in the same way that verses, or parts of them, are quoted from the Quran in an attempt to prove that Islam bears no fault.

When gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali they were heard to shout "Allahu Akbar" as they began their attack, the cry used before animals are slaughtered in the Muslim manner.

Of course these atrocities are condemned by 'moderate' Muslims, especially when they are a minority. They would be mad not to do so. Meanwhile Christianity is being systematically wiped out where it originated in the Middle East with claims that it is "on course" to disappear from Iraq and Syria. I hear no Islamic condemnation.

On 18 November Newsnight considered [advance to 39 minutes] what we know about the Paris attackers, referring to an attack which "the perpetrators call jihad", raising the question of "the nature of religion and those who carry out cold blooded murder in its name". Professor Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, complained that Muslims had been asked to condemn such atrocities for ten years since the 7 July London bombings. It may not have occurred to him but it occurred to me that there has to be a problem with Islam, one that is blindingly obvious to others because it has existed for centuries with Islamic conquests and occupations, using their own laws to justify their actions. Similar concerns are not expressed about Christianity other than harking back to the Crusaders who sought only to protect Christians and their Holy places from invaders.

In response to the Professor's suggestion that the West was somehow complicit for targeting 'Muslim' countries, historian Tim Holland queried why the Yazidis had been targeted. But there was no answer to that because it was all that Newsnight had time for! Clearly not as important as the sporting fixtures which dominate airtime.

The answer to the question of why the Yazidis were targeted is simple. Islam demands that a choice be made when Muslims have control under Sharia. - Become a Muslim, pay the tax or die while women and children are taken into slavery. The plight of the Yazidis had some initial media coverage but that quickly disappeared from the headlines as many of the Yazidi people have from the face of the earth. Not for them the open doors which have allowed Muslims to flood into Europe, including two 'refugees' who have since been identified among the bombers in Paris.

But being a Muslim carries its own risks. In February CP World reported that an ISIL policing unit in Mosul had severely disfigured the faces of 15 Iraqi women by pouring acid on them as a form of punishment after the women were caught without their faces being veiled appropriately, by ISIS standards.

There is no way out. Apostasy carries a death sentence. Those who escape risk being beaten. Nissar Hussain, 49, suffered a shattered knee cap and broken hand when he was attacked with a pickaxe handle outside his home in Bradford.

Lying for the faith is permitted but questioning is not. Outsiders are accused of Islamophobia if they dare to question Islam. Continuing death and destruction should be enough for anyone to raise serious questions even in isolation but when it is on a continuous basis one has to question people's motives.

In Islam Jesus is regarded as a prophet so why are His words ignored? Jesus said: "Everyone who is committed to the truth listens to my voice."

Everyone deserves to know the truth. More honesty would save many.

Postscript [24.11.2015]

British women filmed 'urging young girls to join Islamic State terrorists in Syria'

and from the Jewish Journal:
Why are we abandoning the Christians?

The witch, the crone, Christina Rees and others

The Rev Crone

Not satisfied with what Women and the Church (WATCH) has done to reduce the Anglican Church in Great Britain to a pale reflection of her former glory, its former Chair and "prominent Church of England campaigner", Christina Rees, will be among the speakers at a conference in Philadelphia later this year of the Catholic movement for women's ordination, Women's Ordination Worldwide. (H/T Ruth Gledhill).

The BBC's Religious affairs correspondent, Caroline Wyatt, recently posed the question: Is the UK still a Christian country? The answer was 'Yes'. But based on analyses by the US Pew Research Center, the conclusions suggest that in the UK, if current trends continue, the proportion of the population identifying themselves as Christians will fall from 64% in 2010 to 45% by 2050, while the proportion of Muslims will rise from 5% to 11%. The proportion of the population claiming no religion in the UK - the "unaffiliated" - will also rise significantly, from 28% to 39%.

One would have thought that alarm bells would be ringing but no, feminism, LGBT and what is absurdly labeled 'equality' is all today. Faith and regular worship have been sidelined.

Ruth Gledhill was reporting on the latest in the Westminster Faith Debates series at London's "liberal flagship church", St James' Piccadilly. Among the guest speakers was the Rev Kate Bottley, described as a 'Gogglebox tv' vicar. She amused her audience by relating a story about how she had told her hairdresser that she was coming to London to take part in the debate on women bishops and the difference they can make. "What's a bishop?" her hairdresser asked. After the vicar explained, the hairdresser said she did not know what the Church of England was either.

If the Rev Kate Bottley's hairdresser, or anyone else wants to know what a real bishop is like, they should watch this video as Bishop Mark Lawrence speaks to his text from Hebrews 12: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith".

But the event wasn't about traditional Christian values. Adam Dinham, the only man on the panel, and who is married to a Muslim man, and who was there as director of the Faiths and Civil Society Unit at Goldsmiths, which sponsored the event, said he had wanted the evening to celebrate and think about the contribution of women as faith leaders in the Anglican community as well as other religions and traditions".

Represented among these religions and traditions were a "leading witch and herbalist" who shared the Church of England platform with the Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori and Helene Mobius, who heads the prison chaplain ministry of the Pagan Federation who challenged stereotypes of women. She said, Paganism had a "deep reverence" for both the feminine and masculine, not in a partnered but in a "conjoined" sense. This was not to diminish the role of God because without His "fertile seed" the cycle of life could not continue. However, she criticised the debasement of women in society which had seen words such as "crone", which once meant "elder", used as a term to mean something quite different.

She explained: "The word crone does not mean wizened old cackling pagan". Instead it referred to a woman who had passed beyond menstruation. It was the "passage of the mother becoming grandmother, no longer able, thankfully, to reproduce." This led to some discussion about whether there should be an authorised liturgy in the Church to mark the menopause.

Given the number of menopausal women clergy that idea must have been received with some impact. Perhaps the honorific, the Rev Crone could be introduced to make the Church of England more relevant to paganism? And why not? There are calls for a service to meet just about every occasion, the most recent being for a service to "celebrate transgender identity like a Baptism" (here). In fact, there seems to be more of an appetite for celebrating the extraordinary than for the straight forward worship of Almighty God, particularly on a Sunday by "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith".

Which brings me back to the Googlebox tv vicar. She is "all for a mid-week church service" so that she can have a "Sunday lie-in" (here). A joke perhaps but many a true word spoken in jest. She added, "I don't think declining church numbers are down to a loss of faith rather increasing pressure on people's time. Perhaps the Church could recognise this." Or, as the Archdeacon of Norwich, Ven Jan McFarlane put it in response to the revelation that Norwich is the most godless city in England: the citizens of Norwich are "doing their churchgoing differently", ie, staying away.

In new Anglicanism the daily Eucharists have been eroded and Sunday Masses cut so busy people are less able to make their Communion compared with the Roman Catholic Church yet these women want to spread their brand of Christianity to do for the Catholic Church what they have done for Anglicanism.

For millennia the Word of God has been received through the Bible. It is being replaced by the opinions of feminists, LGBT pressure groups and any other so-called 'equality' groups obsessed with 'sameness', interpreting Holy Scripture to suit the latest 'equality' cause. Do they not know, or do they conveniently forget, that "for just as each of us has one body with many members, these members do not all have the same function"?

The Rev Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James', said that it mattered not so much that women were bishops and priests, as "how" they were bishops and priests. The authority held by a woman will be held "differently" from that held by a man. How true, but probably not what she meant. If she had been interested in biblical authority, she need only have referred to 1Timothy 3:2. The revisionists long argued that we were all the same but having achieved their aims, women now have to be seen as different.

A fuller report in the Church Times quotes Presiding Bishop Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori as saying that women could offer a "witness to the otherness of God" as could gay bishops, or those who were young, or old, or from BME backgrounds. "White, male, English-speaking bishops with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge are only one sort," she said. "They cannot image the fullness of God."

And there was me thinking that the 'otherness of God' was represented by mystery and holiness.

Perhaps the flavour of the event was best captured by another guest speaker, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner. She was "applauded for her moving acapella solo of The Lord's My Shepherd, sung with female instead of male pronouns"! That certainly is different.

Here is the panel:

The panel: (back row left to right) Adam Dinham, director of Faith and Civil Society Unit,
Goldsmiths, University of London;  Helene Mobius, Pagan Federation prison ministry manager;
 Saleha Islam, director of the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre; Ms Winkett; Dr Schori; Hilary Cotton,
chair of WATCH; Professor Linda Woodhead, director of the Westminster Faith Debates;
 (front row left to right) the Dean of the Diocese of Kootenay, British Colombia, Nissa Basbaum;
 Mrs Bottley; Bharti Tailor, executive director of the Hindu Forum of Europe; Laura Janner-Klausner,
senior rabbi to the Movement for Reform Judaism.                           Source: Church Times

This piece of papyrus

In 1938 Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich with his worthless piece of paper. In 2014 a fragment of papyrus is held up to suggest that, contrary to all the biblical evidence, Jesus had a wife. That must be a considerable disappointment for today's proponents of same-sex marriage but it is hardly earth shattering news that this fragment could "support the notion that Mary Magdalene was a major leader in the early Jesus movement!"

On moving up to an affluent parish in reward for doing her Archbishop's bidding, a 'major leader' in the current Jesus movement, the Archdeacon of Llandaff said: "It’s unbelievably important that discrimination against women in the Church is coming to an end. Anybody coming into the Church in Wales now is joining a Church that opens all its offices to women – we can’t have people joining this Church, with the expectation that it will continue to discriminate – that is absolutely unacceptable. It is shame on us that it has taken this long."

Real discrimination against women is defined here. There is no discrimination against women in the Church. That the role of women in the Church is different is NOT discrimination as Dr. Marianne Dorman explains here. The accusation is simply a tool used to convince the ignorant that some ambitious women are being denied their fundamental right. If what they claim were true, Christ Himself would be guilty of discrimination.

In between fiddling filling in their expenses in the "palace of sexminster" MPs are instead conspiring to discriminate against men to allow women bishops to be fast tracked into the Lords. Caroline Spelman, the Conservative MP for Meriden, said: "At present, many ordained women have reported feeling that they are still regarded as second best, which will persist unless we are successful in getting a mix of men and women bishops in the Upper House." Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, said: "To have places reserved solely for men brings into question the legitimacy of bishops in the Lords in a modern democracy. Since the seats are currently allocated on a seniority basis, changing this will require legislation, which the Labour Party will be happy to support." 

Our Prime Minister knows a little bit about Christianity as he explained in his Easter message here. His 'acts of kindness' in fighting discrimination where none exists and in pushing through same-sex marriage without a mandate help us to see how much more Christ could have done if only he had the insight of the modern Jesus movement.

Postscript
Read here about "the state of modern scholarship" which puts “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” into context.

Welby wobbling the wrong way

 Archbishop Justin Welby                                                                          Photo: Owen Humphreys/PA

 "Welby, an evangelical, is a supporter of female bishops. He is also, like the prime minister and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, an old Etonian." That was the Guardian's reaction following the news that Justin Welby was to replace Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps it is because he is an old Etonian that he has been "reassessing his own views" on marriage and sexuality.

Public schools have long had a reputation for same sex activity which may have influenced the thinking old Etonians such as the Prime Minister who (regretfully) forced through the gay marriage legislation and Boris Johnson who supported it although old Etonian Welby voted against it. As the Telegraph put it: Although Archbishop Welby comes from the born-again evangelical wing of the Church and voted against David Cameron’s Same-Sex Marriage Bill, he has recently spoken about wanting to get his “mind clear” on the issue. 

The issue is to be top of the agenda at GAFCON in Nigeria later this month when an “action plan” on marriage and sexuality will "reassert a traditionalist interpretation of the Bible" which is seen by some as "a challenge to Archbishop Welby". He told a meeting in August that the Church needed to face up to the fact that most young people, including Christians, thought that its stance on gay marriage was “wicked”. So? That doesn't make them right.

Has the Archbishop also considered that "Ofsted claims that most pupils don’t know who Jesus was"? He should do because he is backing a move in his own Church to introduce what is being likened to “Sunday school for adults” because the Lord’s Prayer, the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes are now so "unfamiliar to a modern audience".

If Justin Welby is wobbling on marriage and sexuality, he should be sure to wobble in the right direction. Jesus didn't look to the ignorant asking what they should have. He sent his disciples to teach what they had received from Him:

 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” - The Great Commission

God help the Church of England

"Some time in the next two months – maybe next week – the new archbishop of Canterbury, primate of England and head of the Anglican communion worldwide will be appointed. The process by which he (sic) will be chosen is barely more transparent than it was when Henry VIII first persuaded Thomas Cranmer to consolidate his breakaway foundation. The Crown Nominations Commission has been meeting in secret conclave in a secret location, paring down the candidates until one preferred name emerges. The PM and the Queen then approve his appointment. Candidates tend to be bishops already (so no chance of a woman) but there's no formal application or interview. More open, perhaps, than the election of a pope – but not much. Letting in the light would not immediately arrest the church's decline, but at least it would link it to ordinary life. The pageant and tied palace are non-negotiable, so the appointment process must be grabbed for the opportunity it is. Give churchgoers the vote, have a hustings in every pulpit and a ballot box by the font. It would compel leaders to move on from their inward-looking arguments over sex and women and, as the church would put it, allow the faithless an encounter with the sacred. In the US, where there have been elections since 1919, the Episcopal church is a liberal, campaigning movement with a woman at its head. In England, there'd be one other welcome consequence: at least one member of the House of Lords would be elected." - Editorial, The Guardian, Friday 28 September 2012.

One can only hope that the editorial was intended to be amusing, but I doubt it. In fact it well illustrates the slide from the sacred to the secular. As might be expected there are the usual jibes about women not being eligible citing the example of the Episcopal Church in the United States as a liberal campaigning movement with a woman at its head, perhaps ignorant of the chaos in the Episcopal Church. To suggest that churchgoers be given the vote again suggests a view of the church as a club organised by its members making up rules as they go along rather than a body of people guided by faith and doctrine, a view that is not too far removed from liberal activists determined to follow their own agenda.

At the other end of the media scale the Mail Online reports that Christians have often despaired of the true spiritual message of the Nativity being heard highlighting a Church of England-backed campaign to raise awareness of Jesus Christ by portraying him as a toy doll (illustrated above). The image with the slogan He cries, He wees, He saves the world is to be "emblazoned on bus stops, advertising hoardings and in newspapers in the weeks leading up to Christmas." Alongside the £100,000 poster campaign, radio adverts will tell the Nativity story in the style of a celebrity chef. The idea is, apparently, to make the birth of Christ seem more ‘modern’. As one person commented: ‘I don’t think my non-Christian friends and relations would be at all impressed by the ad or even understand what it was trying to achieve.’ The article goes on to say that the Rt Rev Nick Baines, the Bishop of Bradford and one of the favourites to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, has given his enthusiastic support. Jesus wept!

With deadlock in the CNC, God help the Church of England. 

Jesus was a Muslim!

Much has been written recently about the cross and whether it is appropriate for Christians to wear it as an expression of their faith. At the same time in Afghanistan the cross has been publicly burned by Muslims who complain bitterly about any form of disrespect shown to their own faith.

It seems ironic then that Muslims claim Jesus as one of their own, a prophet referred to in the Quran as well as in the Bible. But that is only part of the story, a story which some years ago was the subject of an ITV programme, The Muslim Jesus. To the casual viewer I imagine the story would have been quite compelling without further evidence of the truth. Muslims deny that Christ died on the cross (some say another took His place) so they would have no objection to burning the cross as a Christian symbol. There is no dispute that Jesus is referred to in the Quran but the claim that Muhammad is mentioned in the Bible is readily disputed even by many Muslims.


Visitors to Birmingham will be familiar with Islam being freely promoted on the streets as illustrated in this video. Last year I heard complaints that similar operations had been extended. A stall had been set up opposite a well-known Anglo Catholic church in a Cardiff suburb where, in common with many other areas, Christians are becoming marginalised as parishes become dominated by Islamic influences and appearance. When a dispute arose over the claim that 'Jesus was a Muslim' the police intervened. On being told that exception was taken to people shouting outside the Church that Jesus was a Muslim, the police response was that the pamphlets were not offensive and that we live in a free country.  One wonders what would have been the reaction if Christians stood opposite one of the City's 32 mosques and made counter claims. The group still engages with passers by claiming: "Let us show you what the Bible really says about Islam - and how Jesus really was a Muslim"!


When Channel 4 broadcast a programme, 'UnderCover Mosques', to highlight what was being said inside rather than outside mosques, in this case the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham, the West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service ignored the hate allegations uncovered and investigated the programme makers instead. They were later forced to apologise after the programme makers were vindicated. The National Secular Society (no friend of Christianity) recently quoted this example in their evidence to the United Nations. Illustrating the extent to which Islamic influence is spreading around the world the NSS included this astonishing testimony:


 "I am deeply saddened that in this Council of all places in the whole world, Sharia law has been ruled to be beyond discussion by distinguished delegates, unless they are "experts" and therefore presumably Muslim. If I have got that wrong and non-Muslim experts are acceptable, I will be quick to apologise.


For those of you who like solving simultaneous equations, or are logicians, I have a little exercise. If criticising Islam = Islamophobia, and Islamophobia = racism (as we are told), and racism = unacceptable (as we agree), does this therefore mean that criticising Islam is unacceptable? That is the very questionable algebra or dubious logic that is being increasingly employed to silence critics in the UK by guilt-tripping them. We must not allow criticism to be stifled in this manipulative way. I'm very much struck by Indian born UK writer Kenan Malik's opinion that: "The trouble with Islamophobia is that it is an irrational concept. It confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims, on the one hand, with criticism of Islam on the other. The charge of 'Islamophobia' is all too often used not to highlight racism but to stifle criticism. And, in reality, discrimination against Muslims is not as great as is often perceived - but criticism of Islam should be greater. All too often Islamophobia is used as an excuse in a way to kind of blackmail society."



I am not suggesting that restrictions to freedom of expression are the monopoly of any one religion. I therefore oppose all blasphemy laws, and helped in the abolition of the UK's remaining (Christian) blasphemy laws. We also know of censorship by Sikhs and Hindus. The worst example of countries operating a blasphemy law, however, is Pakistan where accusing a rival of blasphemy is a convenient way of removing them. Not only does this result in their removal to jail, but the survival prospects of those accused of blasphemy, far less convicted of it, is very poor. And the judiciary are wary of even trying such cases.


Looking at the categories of Muslim influence in What Islam Isn't, it is clear what is now happening in the UK and elsewhere around the world. Islamic street propaganda must be seen for what it is. 


Jesus was NOT a Muslim. He died on the Cross and is the fulfilment of the prophecies.

More feminist claptrap

Have you ever wondered why there is no Feast of the Female Genital Mutilation of our Lord? 

Could it be that, fortunately, Jesus "had a body which appeared externally to be unremarkably male" even if He had "one of the intersex conditions which might nonetheless have had some 'hidden' female physical features"?

Dr Susannah Cornwall writes that her extraordinary claim that Jesus was not fully male was made in the context of the current debate surrounding the consecration of women as bishops in the Church of England.  That makes her comments even more suspect, along the lines of my previous blog about female clergy claiming that "women priests are treated as "second-class Christians, suffering from institutionalised sexism and racism within the Church of England", contrary to evidence submitted to Parliament.

These women continue to demonstrate that Jesus clearly knew what He was doing in appointing only male Apostles into positions of authority. The Rev Dr Peter Mullen gives a crisp response to Dr Cornwall's claim here.