Six green bishops sitting on the bench

Church in Wales bishops 2022 from left: Bishop John Lomas, Bishop June Osborne, Bishop Gregory Cameron, Archbishop Andrew John, 
Bishop Joanna Penberthy, Bishop Cherry Vann and Bishop Mary Stallard.                Source: Church in Wales

According to the 2021 census for Wales, 46.5% of the 3,063,456 population have no religion. Christians represent 43.6% while 6.3% declined to answer the 'Religion' question.

From Wikipedia, three Roman catholic dioceses, the Archdiocese of Cardiff, the Diocese of Menevia and the Diocese of Wrexham care for 209,451 Catholic souls (nearly 70,000 per bishop).

The (Anglican) Church in Wales with six dioceses has become rather shy in publishing statistics. In 2018 the adult average Sunday attendance was 26,110 giving a figure of 4,352 souls per bishop. Today the attendance figures must be very much lower.

Illustrated above are the seven Church in Wales bishops who were to attend the 2022 Lambeth Conference giving them "a chance to 'speak and act for the good of our world'." Sadly their view of the world is no longer in step with the majority of Anglicans.

Assistant bishop Mary Stallard was appointed by the archbishop to assist him in the management of Bangor diocese because he was said to be too busy in his capacity as archbishop. Stallard has since replaced the bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne who retired amid allegations of bullying.

The diocese of St Davids has had to manage without a bishop as a result of Joanna Penberthy's long periods of sick leave documented in Church Times suggetsing that they are not that busy after the long absence of the former bishop of Monmouth.

From published sources it appears that the archbishop's 'busy schedule' is mainly political with a spot of PR beach cleaning thrown in. 

He would have more credibility as archbishop if he turned his attention to the spiritual life of the Church in Wales. Instead he chose to promote the Energy Footprint Tool in his presidential address to the Last meeting of the church's Governing Body. 

He also announced that "the Church would hold an Environmental Summit next year to bring together key stakeholders with the aim of making Wales 'an exemplar of good practice'." - Unlike their position in the Anglican Communion, part of the 15% criticised for 'dragging the Church into apostasy'. 

The archbishop has since been invited to join the Gorsedd by accepting the Honorary Druid Order, the Blue Dress, which is for Service to the Nation!

It is expected that a new bishop of St Davids will be elected in October following Joanna Penberthy's retirement at the end of July. So no more politics please. 

Joanna in St Davids and June Llandaff fulfilled an agenda which has seen the first partnered lesbian bishop in Great Britain being installed in the diocese of Monmouth.

The rot has deepened. A Christian teacher was dismissed from The Bishop of Llandaff Church in Wales School, Cardiff, after sharing his beliefs on marriage at a staff training seminar. He had been urged to talk about his beliefs on marriage but was sacked the next day for 'hate speech'.

The teacher called his dismissal an "attack on Christianity" and “an affront to freedom of speech and freedom of thought".

He is not alone in his views. Many souls have been lost to the Church because there is no room in the Church in Wales for Anglicans who maintain their traditional Christian beliefs.

A revival is needed to regain them and slow the Church's decline. That will require a holy man of God, not an apostate.

The Church in Wales can not afford to fluff the election of the next Bishop of St Davids, The motto of the patron saint of Wales was 'Keep the faith' not abandon it.

"What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?"

Cherry picking

Still from 'Lambeth Conference 2022 - a reflection by Bishop Cherry'                                                                                                                    Source: YouTube

Reflecting on Lambeth 2022 the bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, shares some of her initial thoughts in this video.

Still processing everything that happened there, Cherry says that there was much that was 'rich and inspiring'.

For her that was the greatly increased number of women bishops and the well publicised presence of seven LGBT+ bishops (up from just one at the previous conference) who were "taking a full part in the sessions making them feel very held in the fellowship of allies as well as the love and the prayers of many at home. "Thank you" she says, "Things are shifting, albeit slowly".

For the vast majority of the 85,000,000 Anglicans worldwide things are shifting too quickly and are unacceptable when biblical teaching is sacrificed for secular desires. 

The Cherry picked items are an impediment to Christian unity and are changing Anglicanism from a Communion into a fellowship to please a minority whose motives are questionable.

Cherry concludes:
"Underpinning all this was the letter of 1 Peter and how its message of faith and hope in Christ in the midst of suffering, exile and persecution can sustain, inspire and strengthen our witness today. We left renewed in our desire to walk together, listen together and witness together so that we might truly be God's Church for God's world - today.! 

 Walking together for most bishops in minority western provinces means walking in step with them or leave the Church as the many unchurched Anglicans in Wales, England and elsewhere can testify.

A shorter statement from Cherry could have been 'Pull up the ladder girls, we are in the lifeboat' which is all that appears to matter to them while the majority of provinces follow the traditional path of The Great Commission.

Make belief Anglicans

Ddetail from Sermons and Deeds of the Antichrist, Luca Signorelli,
WikipediA

Lambeth 2022  has come and gone. Most of the bishops will have returned to their dioceses. 

To make sense of the mixed messages coming out of Canterbury readers can watch Anglican Unscripted 752 - Walking Apart for a well informed commentary on the proceedings and likely outcomes.

Despite the claims of revisionists to have won the day, the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches which represents the vast majority of Anglicans held firm. Their willingness as orthodox Bishops to attend the Conference did not mean that they have agreed to 'walk together' with the revisionist Primates and Bishops in the Anglican Communion.

Those who break with Lambeth 1.10 teaching on human sexuality are 'false teachers'. 

The actions of the Episcopal Church (TEC) and Others [including the Church in Wales which has just a few thousand members remaining] "undermine the clarity and authority of Holy Scripture" but the Global South will not be forced out of the Anglican fellowship. They will bond together with other like-minded Anglicans, not with those who have broken God's laws.

 The Anglican Communion is done. It has become a federation of churches but they are not walking together. They are walking in different directions. Satan has invaded the Church, using false teachers who are teaching doctrine unknown to the saints. 

It is unlikely that the bishops of the Church in Wales were listening. They along with other make-belief Anglicans, the even smaller Episcopal Church of Scotland, TEC and a few other provinces will carry on blindly, interpreting the Bible to suit themselves until there are no more pew-sitters and the money runs out.

As for 'walking together', Christian Today puts it this way: "It is, in effect, unity at the expense of Anglicans whose only fault, it seems, is to have remained faithful to Scripture. Is that really a price worth paying?"

That should resonate throughout the Church in Wales and other recalcitrant provinces as they fall apart.

Postscript [12.08.2022]

From The Christian Institute: Over 120 Anglican bishops affirm ‘one man, one woman marriage’

Lambeth: Reply to an open letter to Justin Welby

The female bishops pose for their group portrait. Photo: Neil Turner/The Lambeth Conference                                                     Source: Episcopal News Service

Perhaps it is a generational thing but I have to admit that I am not a fan of Sandi Toksvig's brand of humour. Having watched bits of QI occasionally her success seems to me to be more to do with lesbianism than comedy. 

An admitted humanist Ms Toksvig has written a 'Dear Justin' letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury telling him of his mistakes at the Lambeth Conference. 

Before playing the usual victim card she writes: 
"So, you and your other religious pals got together at the Lambeth Conference and the main take away seems to be that gay sex is a sin. It was a sin in 1998 and you just wanted to make it clear in 2022 that no-one in you finely frocked gang has moved on from that. Seriously, with the state the world is in, that is what you wanted to focus on? You didn't have other more pressing matters like, I don't know, war or poverty?..."

What the LGBTQ+ lobby fails to understand is it is not about sex it is about marriage.

Civil Partnerships were created for same-sex couples who were not legally allowed to marry. They have legally recognized unions with rights similar to those of marriage. 

Having gained such acceptance the LGBTQ+ lobby are not satisfied. For them, marriage is the ultimate stamp of approval. For Christians marriage is the union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

But the activists stop at nothing. What we have is a re-run of the campaign for the ordination of women. Originally they campaigned for deaconesses to be ordained deacons. Step by step they succeeded in advancing to the priesthood and the episcopate using the same strategy of stealth and deception. 

The result of their efforts can be seen in the women only photograph taken at this year's Lambeth Conference. The number of women bishops attending has grown to 97 in 2022 from 11 in 1998. "We’ve increased exponentially," said Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry. So much for just wanting to be deacons.

Same sex relations are now characterised as 'Human Dignity', just one of the 'Calls' in the Lambeth Conference programme. The agenda includes much more but for bishops in the Church in Wales and other provinces that have decided by committee that same sex marriage is compatible with Christian teaching, it was the main item for them and they went to Lambeth determined to push their agenda regardless of the cost to the Anglican Communion.

Like TEC in the US the Scottish and Welsh provinces are comparatively wealthy but with steeply declining memberships. They are counted in thousands compared with much poorer, more orthodox provinces in the Global South where membership is counted in millions.

Many of the bishops from poorer areas came to Lambeth intent on upholding the sanctity of marriage. Much was done to thwart them but they continued to fight under Christ's banner as Christians promise in our baptism.

If the will of the Anglican Communion as a whole counted for anything the Welsh bishops and their like would be regarded as a tiny, unrepresentative minority and told where to go.

Instead, synodical processes are manipulated by liberal bishops to drive forward their own agendas. They influence public opinion by appealing to humanists and those who have no religion, increasing secular resentment then claim that the Church is out of step. It is not. They are.

This deception is exemplified by the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church who tweeted "Tonight I feel a burden lifted of what might happen at this conference and determined that we continue to be an example of diversity, an example of enabling people with differing opinions to remain part of the same Church... 'love means love' to use the latest catch phrase. Watch this video clip in which the primus claims that nobody is to be thrown out of the Communion and that there will be no sanctions for what people do. 

Complete garbage. 

Whilst pandering to the LGBTWQ+ lobby, thousands of Anglicans who identify with the traditional, orthodox faith, as in the Global South, have been left with no spiritual home. They have effectively been expelled whilst those continuing to attend services are made complicit.

Similarly the archbishop of Wales tweeted "I welcome this afternoon's #LambethCall affirming of the dignity of all people". He was quickly followed by affirming underlings.

If only these idiots could leave Christian marriage alone there would be no problem.

Users

Six openly partnered/married gay and lesbian bishops at Lambeth 2022.                  Source: Twitter

There have been a number of postings on Twitter of this group of gay and lesbian bishops at Lambeth thumbing their noses at orthodoxy, this one by @TransEpiscopal, a group of "transgender Episcopalians and allies dedicated to making the Episcopal Church a welcoming place for all"!

The US Episcopalian Church along with other western Anglican provinces do not need transgender, gay and lesbian priests and bishops to make people welcome. If the Church had not been welcoming there would be no openly gay and lesbian priests or bishops in the Church.

They protest that God loves them and that they are made in His image. So they are. So are adulterers.

God loves the sinner, not the sin, so these entrists busy themselves changing definitions to suit themselves, even re-defining marriage which is between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others and for life. Were it not so there would be no children and civilisation would cease.

The LGBTQ+ community is using the Church for their own ends. They are a vocal minority who do not represent the majority of Anglicans and fellow Christians.

The same sex partnered bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, (pictured 3rd from right) is a patron of Open Table, an organisation whose mission is to "warmly welcome and affirm people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA), + our family and friends, and anyone who wants to belong in an accepting, loving worship community."

Very well organised, a vocal minority is using Lambeth to manipulate public opinion for their own ends. 

The Global South stands for Bible based orthodoxy. They have set out four priorities for ‘Orthodox delegates’ including re-affirmation of Resolution 1.10. 

They must not be silenced by a vocal minority intent on serving their own interests above all others.

Postscript [01.08.2022] 

The house of the Lord! - Look at the setting for this circus. What have we become?

At what cost?

Cherry Vann at sacred Synod in 2020 with her partner, bishops and legal staff                                                         Source: Twitter

From Christian Today 

"The 'Call on Human Identity' referenced the last statement of a Lambeth resolution on the issue from 1998, known to all as 'Lambeth 1.10' describes marriage as being 'between a man and a woman in life-long union' and states that 'legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions cannot be advised'."

"The initial response raised by the globally small minority of Anglicans who have long repudiated the statement - and some having already introduced same-sex blessings or marriage - concerned matters of principle.

"In the words of the bishops of the Church in Wales, the draft Lambeth Call on Human Dignity, undermines and subverts the dignity of an integral part of our community, rather than affirming them."

For a timeline on this sorry saga see Lambeth Conference and the same-sex story.

Same-sex spouses have not been invited to Lambeth. So deeply do the Welsh bishops feel about this ban that they have chosen to stay in a local hotel as a token of protest because +Cherry Vann’s same sex partner would not be allowed to stay on the Conference site. 

How convenient for the bishops having to take superior accommodation to make their protest. At what cost and to whom one wonders.

The cost to western Anglicanism of their behaviour is considerable. 

As this Anglican Ink article notes, provinces engaged in 'Progressive Ideology', including same sex marriage, are dying while provinces mainly in Africa and globally that are not so engaged are growing. 

An analysis, Is Anglicanism growing or dying?, shows that in Africa the number of Anglicans increased from 7,718,000 in 1970 to 56,947,000 in 2015. Globally the numbers increased from  47,394,000 in 1970 to 90,771,000 in 2015.

"In 1970, the combined membership of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada came to 4,373,000. In 2015, the combined membership of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada came to 2,537,000 and it has dropped considerably since then. In half a century North American Anglicanism has halved in size...

"For the rest of the West the picture is mixed. The numbers for England, Scotland, and Wales are as bad or nearly as bad as for North America...

"Central to understanding Lambeth 2022 will be recognition of who is not present. Swathes, perhaps the majority, of non-western Anglicans will be unrepresented. Beyond this, new Anglican groupings will be absent, yet they have substantial links with much of Anglicanism."

The article concludes, "Numbers are not everything, but they are not nothing. The massive growth and decline in the Anglican Communion cannot be passed over in an embarrassed silence...The shrinking provinces of North America and Britain need a new humility. Any attempt at 'business as usual' will lead to the spectacle of mostly white bishops from mostly declining western dioceses holding disproportionate influence at Lambeth. Such optics would render the deliberations of Lambeth 2022 wholly invalid."

Instead of posturing with false notions of human dignity, the Welsh bishops, and most of the English bishops, should have the humility to face reality and accept that they have been in error.

The alternative cost should be clear even to a bishop in the Church in Wales.

Beyond belief

Church in Wales bishops, from left: Bishop John Lomas, Bishop June Osborne, Bishop Gregory Cameron, Archbishop Andrew John, Bishop Joanna Penberthy,
 Bishop Cherry Vann and Bishop Mary Stallard. Source: Church in Wales

The apparently not-at-all-busy archbishop of Wales who needs an assistant to help him do next to nothing has surfaced to make what he regards is an important announcement along with other like-minded Anglicans who are promoting same sex marriage. 

Marching off to Lambeth, not with the cross of Jesus, but with the LGBT banner going on before, the most reverend Andrew John, bishop of Bangor and archbishop of Wales proclaims: "The draft Lambeth Call on human dignity “undermines and subverts" LGBT+ people...the bishops pledge to work to amend the passage “to reflect more adequately our understanding of their equal place in the Church".

 That is a distortion of the facts.

LGBT+ people already have more than an equal place in the Church. Gay bishops, LGBT chaplains, same-sex blessings, pride eucharists. All are welcomed and affirmed.

By contrast, Anglicans who, in conscience, are unable to accept the new order, the ordained ministry of women and the liberal agenda that has come with it are cast aside without a thought. There is no longer even a pretence of any place for them in the Church. That evaporated as soon as the movement for the ordination of women achieved their goal.

The female dominated bench of bishops shows no desire to provide an equal place for Anglicans who have not swallowed their propaganda.

That is a battle lost but the baggage that has come with it continues. For many Anglicans the institution of marriage is sacred. As the official policy of the Church in Wales states:

"Drawing on the teaching of the Bible, and of the Church down through the centuries, the Church in Wales Marriage Service talks about marriage as a gift of God. Marriage is described as the lifelong, faithful union between a man and a woman, and married love is compared with the love Jesus has for his people – a love expressed in his willing sacrifice of himself on the cross."

To uphold this officially stated view is being characterised as homophobic while the bishops openly campaign to allow same sex marriage in Church, the archbishop of Wales' first expressed wish after his enthronement. 

For the women's movement, first they demanded equality based on secular standards, then parity, already surpassed but the female dominated bench shows no desire to provide an equal place for Anglicans who have not succumbed to their falsehoods.

The bishops of the Church in Wales have become a joke outside their own province. Why should anyone at Lambeth listen to them when their message is anathema to the vast majority of Anglicans and other Christians around the world.

Ironically the lead author in the Lambeth Conference drafting process for The Lambeth Call on Christian Unity is bishop Gregory Cameron - see pages 5 and 44 of the link to LAMBETH CALLS: GUIDANCE AND STUDY DOCUMENTS. The section begins:

"We are committed to the work of unity. We confess we are not united and for Christians that is a scandal and a cause of shame. We urge all our sisters and brothers to commit to work for unity and we call especially on our ecumenical partners to help us, work with us and enable us to move closer to one another."

Yes, it is a scandal. Trendy Anglican bishops are renouncing the faith and dragging down others with them instead of saving their souls. 

Postscripts 

[27/07/2022] Motion of no confidence threat for Justin Welby over the Lambeth Calls surrender

[28/07/2022] From Christian Today: "Bishops who deny the Gospel 'should be removed from their positions'."

[29.07.2022] ORTHODOX bishops at the Lambeth Conference - representing 75% of the Anglican Communion - announced today (29JUL) that they will be tabling their own ‘Lambeth Resolution (Call)’.

[02.08.2022] Orthodox bishops reveal text of resolution reaffirming ‘Lambeth 1.10’ as the Anglican Communion teaching on marriage and sexuality

Lambeth Conference postponed

Lambeth Conference 2008                                                                     Source: Anglican Communion

An uncomfortable looking Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has announced that Lambeth 2020 has been rescheduled to the Summer of 2021. He must be relieved given all the angst that has preceded it.

His announcement follows his earlier underwhelming performance in his politically correct televised act of devotion on Mothering Sunday.

Perhaps following the Bishop of Monmouth and partner venture, Justin Welby, in his latest pronouncement sends his wife's greetings to all the spouses, presumably, therefore, including those in same sex partnerships who were told not to attend, before uttering his blessing from both of them. 

I am sure he means well but the trials that are likely to come reveal a sick political set up in the Church of England that leaves the faithful with little comfort in their hours of need.

Lambeth 2008 warning unheeded

Lambeth Conference 2008                                                                     Source: Anglican Communion

At the close of the 2008 Lambeth Conference Archbishop Rowan Williams warned of a grave peril to the Anglican Communion caused by some provinces deciding unilaterally to consecrate gay clergy and bless same-sex unions.

Addressing a gathering of clergy and laity in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in 2019 the former Archbishop of Canterbury said that the Anglican Communion was "fractured but still a family".

As if to emphasis the fracture, LGBT+ campaigners are to hold a church service led by two high-profile married lesbian priests on the eve of the Lambeth conference which is expected to be dominated by conflicts over sexuality and marriage. According to a Guardian report the service is intended to send a strong message to once-a-decade Lambeth conference.

The “inclusive” eucharist will be presided over by the 'first avowed lesbian to be consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Communion',  the Rt Rev Mary Glasspool, assistant bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of New York. The preacher will be a daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Rev Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth. Having entered into a same-sex marriage she told the Guardian that her message at the eucharist would be one of a “Christian welcome and hospitality”. She said: “Jesus was always determined to make those who society sees as outsiders be insiders.”

No distinction is made between sin and the sinner.

Former 'insiders' who do not subscribe to the LGBT+ creed and their 'inclusive' church now find themselves outsiders as more bishops and clergy test which way the wind is blowing and endorse un-Christian values.

Under the heading Same Sex Marriage Research the Ozanne Foundation claimed a victory for supporters of same-sex marriage: "Same sex marriage support far outweighs those against". A YouGov poll allegedly shows that "a marked increase in the number of Anglicans believing same-sex marriage is right alongside a marked decrease in numbers believing it is wrong."

The Rev Peter Ould, also a psephologist, responded with a timely tweet: "A gentle reminder to everyone that 'Anglican' here is not in any way correlated to attending church OR believing the basics of Christianity. These are all self-identified and not qualified as having any religious / spiritual activity." You can read an extended response from Peter Ould here.

Rowan Williams' warning at the last Lambeth Conference went unheeded. The liberals have their way.

Twelve years after Lambeth 2008 the Church in Wales has its own lesbian bishop as the bench drives forward its agenda to change the nature of Holy Matrimony, twisting scripture to mean what they want it to mean or what secular society thinks it should mean.

The Archbishop of Wales⁩ speaks at a Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast about the ⁦Church in Wales ⁩ being "a pilgrim people and a kingdom building people" but it is not the Kingdom of God.

Postscript [06.03.2020]

Snuffing out Love.

From Christian Today: A trial that should shame all Anglicans

"Bishop Love stands accused of believing what most Christians – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, Evangelical, and indeed Anglican – believe, and have always believed, about sex and marriage. His crime, if one can call it that, is not to permit same-sex marriages in his diocese."