By their fruits you will know them

Former Commons Speaker John Bercow with Commons Chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin in the 
royal box at Wimbledon in 2015. Source: Church Times/PA

A couple of stories published over the holiday period serve to illustrate the sorry state of the Church of England. Brainwashed clergy rejecting the Bible.

From MailOnline: Church of England gives staff 'unconscious bias training' to help ensure that half of its leaders are female by 2030

The Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, "hopes the change will stop men hiring employees in their own image and create a 'different' kind of conversation in the Church." She told The Times: 'I certainly think that having women as priests enables different types of conversations that probably wouldn't happen if you're a man. My background as a nurse means people often talk to me in a different way.' - Pass the sick bowl?

The Church of England has appointed its first black female bishop, Rose Hudson-Wilkin. She came to prominence when the first Jewish Speaker, John Bercow, controversially appointed the first black female chaplain to the Commons against the wishes of the dean of Westminster.

Committed feminist Emma Percy, chairwoman of Women and the Church (WATCH) who likes to refer to God as a 'she', said: 'The Church of England needs to show that it is a church for all, where women are taken seriously, where women are good enough for leadership and, consequently, seen as good enough for God.' - As Percy sees it!

If the Church of England were a church for all, WATCH would not undermine traditionalists. But it is no longer a church for all. It is being turned into a feminist institution dedicated to overturning moral values and traditional family life.

If these women were secure in their beliefs they would seek to convert the majority of Anglicans who  profoundly disagree with them and Christians in the wider Church. Instead they look to society for support as if the Church existed to provide secular employment.

The Archbishop of York designate put his finger on the problem as the Church of England prepares to ignore biblical teaching in favour of street credibility among people who neither know nor care about the Church.

From CBN News: New Church of England Archbishop Says Bible Must Bend to Modern Sexual Morality

The politically correct Church of England is spiritually lost.

Its 'unconscious bias training' will keep it that way. Designed to expose unconscious bias and eliminate discriminatory behaviors, when difference of opinion is labelled bias and discrimination it will be seen only in one direction. Against males.

That there has been no outcry clearly illustrates where the Anglican Church is going.

Similarly in Wales the bench of bishops effectively waved two fingers at their membership at Holy Synod yesterday with confirmation of the appointment of a women bishop in a same sex relationship before the issue has been resolved by the Governing Body.

Cherry Vann confirmed in Sacred Synod as Bishop of Monmouth                                Source: Twitter

By their fruits you will know them.

Sacred Synod!

The bishops of Monmouth, Bangor, St Davids (Bp-elect), Llandaff (Abp), Swansea and Brecon and St Asaph in Sacred Synod, 2016.  Source: Church in Wales

The bishops of the Church in Wales will meet in Sacred Synod on Sunday 5 January in Brecon cathedral to confirm the election of Cherry Vann as Bishop of Monmouth.

Pictured above is former Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan in Sacred Synod in 2016. He retired to his newly built Cardiff bunker in January 2017 after engineering the disastrous election of the first female bishop in the Church in Wales.

Much has happened since the new bishop of St Davids was appointed. She lost no time in surrounding herself with women clergy, turning Wales' national shrine into a feminist enclave while trying to eject elderly male priests from further service in her diocese. 

Gone in mysterious circumstances is the then bishop of Monmouth giving rise to claim and counter-claim in a long, drawn out process which did no-one any favours apart from his replacement which turned out to be more about the mission of feminism in the Church than the redemptive mission of the Church.

Persistent rumours of an improper relationship continue to dog another bishop on the bench while John Davies, bishop of Swansea and Brecon, has replaced Barry Morgan as Archbishop of Wales promising 'more of the same - but faster'. He has proved to be true to his word, dragging the Church in Wales into the secular world at an increasing pace.

Barry Morgan was replaced as bishop of Llandaff by LGBT campaigner, June Osborne, following in the footsteps of Joanna Penberthy. The previously tipped Sarah Rowland Jones, vicar of St John's in the heart of Cardiff, was instead made Dean of St Davids, offering Osborne the opportunity of extending the sexual diversity of clergy in her diocese by filling the resulting vacancy at St John's by a transgender vicar who appears to believe that her primary mission is to normalise transgenderism.

The sexual revolutionary mission of the Church in Wales continues with normalising same-sex relationships following the appointment as bishop of Monmouth of Cherry Vann who invited her electors and Monmouth diocesan officers to Bishopstow before Christmas for 'drinks and nibbles' with the new bishop and her partner Wendy.

The Notice of the meeting of the Sacred Synod to confirm the election of Cherry Vann was posted the day after the drinks and nibbles party. It states: "This will be a public meeting and, should any member of the Church in Wales wish to draw to the bishops' attention any matter in relation to this episcopal election, they are invited to attend the meeting in person."

Much has changed in the sixty + years since this photograph of Church in Wales bishops was taken when five bishops held Oxford Firsts in Theology:

Source: Anglican Misfit

Sacred in name only, it is unlikely that any member of the Church in Wales attending the Synod will wish to draw to the bishops' attention any matter in relation to this episcopal election given the current mission of the Church in Wales.

This is where it is leading. The new 'norm': Proud dad Reuben Sharpe has revealed how he gave birth to miracle baby Jamie with partner Jay in Britain’s most modern family - and even the couple's doctor was transgender.

2020 is the anniversary of the disestablishment of the Church in Wales. Preaching to the converted and those willing to 'go along to get on' the 2020 Vision video has been viewed a mere 2,840 times in the five years since its appearance in September 2014. A make believe world skips over the reality of the situation as regular, adult Sunday attendance continues to plummet; 14% down from 30,424 in 2014 to 26,110 in 2018.

The 2020 Vision initiative seeks a "reimagined Church in Wales" agreeing to support the "continued development of a unity scheme - the Church Uniting in Wales - incorporating Methodist, Presbyterian, United Reformed, and Baptist Churches alongside the Church in Wales."

There will be nothing sacred about Sunday's synod. It will merely confirm the bishops' intention to separate further the Church in Wales from the Holy Catholic Church to which it jokingly claims to belong - 'locally adapted' into a do-as-you-please Church.

Happy New Year!

More of the same

"Thank you for your kind applause", as Madame Edith used to say in 'Allo 'Allo! after her star turn                                                          Source: Church in Wales

No altar cross or candles on the nave altar when the appointment of the Bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, was confirmed in Sacred Synod last Friday. Instead the altar was used as a microphone stand. Apt for another political rally!

The first reported utterance of the new bishop on the occasion of her consecration the following day was to urge "sexuality-row" Llandaff diocese to move on, again drawing unwelcome attention to the Electoral College row after the Western Mail re-hashed the Jeffrey John self-promotion story on 11 July, an episode the bench had been trying to bury with their appointment of the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Rev June Osborne as bishop-designate.

More successfully buried had been the Church of England Osborne Report on homosexuality which should have been published in 1989 but surfaced in 2012. Some believe this report damaged Osborne's chances of preferment in the Church of England. Not so in the Church in Wales.

Pursuing another pet theme, bishop June offered her view of the church as a secular institution given over to the advancement of women in a BBC interview which formed part of their coverage of her consecration. She said:

 "Isn't it fantastic, Wales becomes the Province of the Anglican Communion that has the highest percentage of women bishops in it and that has to feel right because one woman is great but more than one woman in an organisation, people know this, really begins to make a change for the better because gender parity, gender equality, women feeling that their voice is respected just as the men's voices. It's what the Church in Wales has been working on for some years now and so I just think that bishop Jo in St Davids will be a fantastic colleague but it will also mean the the workings of the bench of bishops and the whole church will just become more normal. It's what people know in the normal life is mixed gender teams."

Yet more of the same in a radio interview here (advance to 51.12).

Rather than the Cornerstone, Jesus Christ has become the stepping-stone for women to pursue their careers in the church, demanding parity rather than spirituality. 

Stand by for more of 'what the Church in Wales has been working on for some years', substituting politics for faith when bishop June and her 'fantastic colleague' bishop Jo 'make normal the workings of the bench of bishops and the whole church'.

What bishop June failed to mention when she referred to the 'whole church' was that she had in mind the Church in Wales, one of the smallest provinces in the Anglican Communion, and possibly the Church of England. The vast majority of the world's 80 million Anglicans, along with the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, regard provinces such as the Church in Wales and the Church of England as being in error which puts her views into context.

Barry's legacy

Source: Church in Wales

So it is game, set and match to Morgan. 

Barry's bench sitters dutifully welcome the latest and last bishop to be appointed under his patronage, Wales’ first woman bishop, the 129th Bishop of St Davids. "She was greeted with cheers and applause" after her election was confirmed at the "Sacred Synod". 

No price has been too high but while the Church in Wales dies the Ordinariate continues to grow. Perhaps Dr Morgan has done more for unity than he bargained for.

In Memoriam

The Welsh language, same-sex and the Church in Wales

Outside St Davids Cathedral "Another First for Canon Joanna, Bishop-elect."  Source: Church in Wales

"From the beginning, the Welsh language was given equality with English in the constitution and liturgy of the Church in Wales, and throughout the twentieth century some of its priests were prominent in Welsh literature." - The Church in Wales, Facing Difficulties

One hundred years after disestablishment, the Church in Wales' 2020 Vision is to "re-imagine itself in order to serve its communities more effectively... We need a cultural change in the kind of church we are". That is what the Archbishop of Wales told the The Time Is Now conference in 2014.

For the bishop elect of St Davids the kind of church she wants is based on what has been rejected by the Church in Wales, most strongly by the good people of St Davids. Her stated priority is "To encourage us that we are not simply trying to keep the show on the road but we are trying to live out our gospel of the risen Christ and the reality of God’s Holy Spirit and to live that out in our real communities, encouraging people to live out their faith in surprising and different ways, not feeling guilty that the future may look different from the past but feeling encouraged that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever and is as relevant to Wales in the 21st century as he has been through the centuries until now. But how that plays out may look very different".

Listening to Canon Penberthy on Radio 4 [@12.30] "our gospel" is the gospel according to Dr Barry Morgan. Women clergy, gay blessings and working towards same sex marriage in church. When interviewed Ed Stourton asked what sort of discrimination she had suffered. She replied it was "blank incomprehension" that she would want to exercise her own ministry rather than help her husband. Not the sort of aggravation implied by her earlier "prejudice and discrimination" claim. The implication is that lay ministry was not good enough which hardly fits with the ideas of '2020 Vision'.

So the bishop elect of St Davids, the most conservative diocese in the Province, is a liberal minded woman who on her own admission is not a fluent Welsh speaker either:

"Improving my Welsh is a priority for me now. I was in Welsh-speaking parishes in north Carmarthenshire before and people were very generous and I did learn to take services in Welsh which were received well. But I was always a bit cowardly about the conversations and I think I’ll be looking for money to go on a Welsh immersion course where I will have to take the bull by the horns and have the courage to speak the language. I really want to do it  – we are a bilingual nation and the Welsh language is one of our jewels, if not our life blood."

To quote further from 'Facing Difficulties': "The Church, as ever, wishes to see the Welsh language survive and flourish, but it can do nothing without the support of its members. The Welsh language is a gift from God to all who live in Wales. It is our privilege and responsibility to use and promote it in our future mission and ministry". Surely that should have been uppermost in the mind of the facilitator for the diocese of St Davids.

'Facing difficulties' ends with the question: "How can you promote the use of the Welsh language in the Church in your area?" For a start the facilitator should have ensured that the bishop elect was a fluent Welsh speaker familiar with the diocese which is the spiritual home of the Church in Wales and a place of pilgrimage drawing people from around the world.

Disestablishment was born out of dissatisfaction with English-speaking landowners and "anti-Welsh" attitudes within the Church. Based on the appointment of the bishop elect of St Davids, heritage clearly counts for nothing. Moving forward, or "re-imagine itself", is based not on scripture and tradition but on sexual licence and equality of opportunity in the workplace where secular attitudes to 'equality' count more than theology.

The Electoral College meets behind closed doors so that everything can be done in secret leaving regular churchgoers unaware of how the President stage manages the proceedings in a situation where many members hold their positions under his patronage especially the bishops.

If this candidate matched the diocesan profile either profile was way off the mark or it was prepared to fulfil the requirements of the President who is on record as claiming that "she was deemed to be the best person to be a bishop". If the sacred synod had any spunk they would not confirm this election.

Postscript [08.11.2016]

From Western Mail letters: Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Not quite the successors of St David

When the new woman bishop-designate of St David’s was on Radio Four on Sunday morning being interviewed she had at least the decency to admit that the Church in Wales blesses gay marriages.

When the male bishops deviously introduced such prayers, they claimed they were not blessings!

She also unequivocally stated that she is in favour of full same-sex marriage. Well, she is entitled to her beliefs, but if she seriously thinks she (and her male colleagues) are the legitimate actual successors of St David, they deceive themselves.

They may have the medieval cathedrals, the episcopal props and the endowments but they are self-evidently not bishops in the Church of God, pledged under sacred vow to banish away strange doctrines.

Robert Ian Williams