Lay Presidency

From The Living Church: Lay Presidency Comes to the Church of England "The Church of England’s blessings for same-sex couples, which stop short of marriage rites, have prompted a comparable protest from low-church evangelicals."

Not that it will bother the Church in Wales which has long since ceased to keep the faith. Nor will it affect those of us who have effectively been denied the sacraments following archbishop Barry Morgan's shameless withdrawal of sacramental and pastoral provision for Anglicans who do. 

As Anglicanism becomes more secularised the number of attendees tumbles. Collapse is inevitable.

The Church Growth Modelling forecasts, optimistically, the extinction of the Church in Wales by 2060 with just 3,000 in attendance.

That it should come to this!

God Save the Queen - and the CofE

Archbishop Stephen Cottrell. By Bashereyre (CC 3.0)     Source: Nation Cymru

Nation Cymru reports that the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has called for Wales to sing God Save the Queen before international sports games.

He also complained about Scotland singing Flower of Scotland, the Scottish national anthem, before its Euro 2020 match with England.

Singing national anthems at international events has become standard practice but with no specifically English national anthem, England often chant the African-American spiritual song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot at international rugby matches.

The archbishop made his suggestion in a column in the Telegraph. He said many people in England feel left behind by "metropolitan elites in London and the South East".

Rather like the Church of England and its bishops.  

The Archbishop Cranmer blog puts it this way after the Archbishop of York called for the Church of England to be a church for England, rather than just ‘of’:
 "The Church of England tolerates you, but it isn’t for you. It is there for you to come and go in common worship and to feed on Christ by faith, but thousands upon thousands of its clergy (including 99% of Bishops) truly despise everything you believe and represent, and quite a few of them can’t wait for you to leave so the liberal new order might arise and their theology be consummated.

Having already alienated many with their current LLF obsession, Living in Love and Faith, the Church of England has created fury with "an ambitious target of planting 10,000 new, predominantly lay-led churches by 2030".

The recommendations come in a briefing paper GS 2223 [Simpler, Humbler, Bolder. A Church for the whole nation which is Christ centred and shaped by the Five Marks of Mission] issued by the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy group. 

The church-planting initiative’s leader, the Rev. Canon John McGinley of New Wine, touched off a firestorm of criticism when he labelled stipendiary clergy, church buildings, and theological college training as “limiting factors” for growth at a church planting conference.

The strategy was outlined thus: "Lay-led churches release the Church from key limiting factors. When you don’t need a building and a stipend and long, costly college-based training for every leader of a church . . . then actually we can release new people to lead and new churches to form. It also releases the discipleship of people. In church-planting, there are no passengers."

As reported in the Guardian, Traditionalists in the Church of England have launched a campaign to defend the centuries-old parish system against plans to promote innovative church gatherings in unconventional settings:

"At the campaign’s launch this week, Father Marcus Walker, the rector of St Bartholomew the Great in central London, said parishioners were facing the 'last chance to save the system that has defined Christianity for 1,000 years'.

"He said: 'In the last 10 to 15 years, particularly under [the archbishop of Canterbury] Justin Welby, there has been heavy skew away from traditional parishes with a relationship to a church building and local community, to a style of church set up in a cinema or barn or converted Chinese takeaway'."

Lay led 'house groups' within the parish system are one thing, groups set up outside traditional parishes are something else. 

With no properly ordained priests to administer the sacraments the Church of England will drift further towards nonconformity before she expires.

Trouble and strife

Unhappily married: Andy and Flo                                       Credit: daily Mirror

Andy Capp and Flo are unhappily married. Andy is a working-class figure who never actually works. Andy's hobbies include pigeon racing, darts, snooker (his cue's name is "Delilah"), football (which always involves fights with the other players, and frequently ends with Andy being sent off), occasional cricket and rugby, betting on horses, getting drunk in the local pub (often falling into the canal and being fished out by a constable, and always, seven nights a week, arriving home late as a result), ending up in the local jail, fishing (and not catching anything bigger than a goldfish), unsuccessfully mooching money from everyone for beer, unsuccessfully flirting with barmaids, picking up other bargirls, loafing on the sofa, and fighting with his long-suffering wife, Florrie (also known as "Flo").

Despite their difficulties Andy and Flo have have stuck together but their life together is a cartoon. The reality for others is no joke. A loveless marriage other than a marriage of convenience is a burden to both parties. When children are involved the atmosphere can be unbearable for them when constant bickering and worse takes place. This is the problem the Catholic Church has to resolve without the divisions that have split and weakened the Anglican Communion.

Two addresses "set down important markers" for Synod-2015 on its first formal day of work. The Rorate Caeli Blog sets out the Synod's most likely outcome "barring a miracle". Surely a miracle is needed. Watering down the faith can lead to no faith other than faith in one's own desires as witnessed in liberal Anglicanism whereas absolutism can be equally destructive as illustrated by Islam.

The alternative of living one's life in a loveless marriage and continuing to receive Holy Communion compared with a loving, happy marriage but denied the sacrament is a dilemma the Catholic Church must resolve without all the baggage that has gone with it in the Anglican Church, much of it brought about by liberal clergy.

"Church risks being seen as 'homophobic' if it doesn't evolve" said the Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan in his presidential address to members of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in April 2014. "Gay marriage should be accepted in the same way that divorce and re-marriage has been" and added that quoting the Bible is not the way to settle debate on such emotive issues: "Some people have changed their minds for example on women’s ministry and same-sex relationships when they have experienced the ministry of a woman priest in the one case, or discovered their own son or daughter to be gay in the other".

Dr Morgan argued, "Holy scripture itself is far more nuanced, subtle and complex than we often realise. We cannot just quote biblical texts on different subject matters and think that settles an issue". But that is exactly what Dr Morgan did in 2008 when he quoted St Paul ("In Christ there is no bond or free, male or female, Jew or Greek") to justify his stance on women bishops: "I do not see how, having agreed to ordaining women to both the diaconate and priesthood, the church can logically exclude women from the episcopate".

If Synod becomes embroiled in similar arguments the Catholic Church will find herself in the same sorry mess as the Anglican Church. For outsiders, denying the sacraments to people who have remarried looks particularly harsh, especially when compared with the practice of annulment.

The Rorate Caeli blog referred to "squaring the circle". Can it be possible without detriment to the Church? Pray that it is.