Make belief Anglicans

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

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

Just a job!

Former Gogglebox star and a priest in Nottinghamshire
Photograph: @revkatebottley

From the Guardian: "It’s a job that comes with a range of uniform options...The retailer’s women’s black jumper with the word 'Believe” emblazoned in bold colours is a hit with female priests, leading one Church of England bishop to describe it as “the new clergy uniform'...

"Rev Kate Bottley, the former Gogglebox star and a priest in Nottinghamshire, also posted a picture using the hashtag #TeamBelieve. '​​Never one to shy away from a bandwagon, like most of the clerics I know I’ve bought this jumper,' she wrote."

But believe what? 

More or less whatever they like these days. The creeds have become something to recite in religious rituals. Clergy believe what they want influencing laity to do the same.

In the Church in Wales "the Bishop of St Asaph is among four senior religious leaders and Parliamentarians recognised for their 'ground-breaking work' in the area of sexuality, gender identity.

"The Rt Revd Gregory Cameron received an award for his leadership within the Church in Wales in bringing it to a point of enabling same-sex blessings.

"Jayne Ozanne, whose Foundation instigated the new awards, said: 'It is so important to recognise the role that leaders have in tackling prejudice and discrimination at an institutional or national level.  So many of us yearn for change, but few know how to achieve it.  I am thrilled that we are able to recognise some of our unsung heroes who have given so much in the fight for equality'.

It is not prejudicial and discriminatory to belief other than these people would have us believe.

Gay couple receive 'landmark' Church in Wales blessing from the bishop of St Asaph   Source: BBC

Postscript 

More 'believers' or 'seasonal consumerism at its worst' as Richard Frith, canon precentor at Southwell minster described it.

https://twitter.com/LlandaffDio/status/1469383091479326724/photo/1

Postscript [12.12.2021]

Thanks to Archbishop Cranmer for this video of a 'Believe' sweater wearing cleric explaining what believing means to her. 

The bishops of the Church in Wales clearly demonstrate that reciting one thing and doing another is what they believe.

Church in Wales bishops ditch faith for secularism

      Source: WalesOnline (Image: Caroline McCredie/Getty Images)

The Christmas present to the Church in Wales from their bishops:

A BILL TO AUTHORISE EXPERIMENTAL USE OF PROPOSED REVISIONS OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (service of Blessing following a Civil Partnership or Marriage between two people of the same sex)

WHEREAS the Order of Clergy and Order of Laity of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales indicated their view by informal poll on 12 September 2018 ‘that it is pastorally unsustainable for the Church to make no formal provision for those in same-gender relationships’.

AND WHEREAS the Bench of Bishops believes that it is desirable that, before a bill for the revision of a part of the Book of Common Prayer is submitted by the Bishops for the consideration of the Governing Body, a proposed form of service be used experimentally in the churches of the Church in Wales for a limited period.

BE IT HEREBY ENACTED that:

1. A Diocesan Bishop shall have power to authorise for experimental use in the churches within their diocese the form set out in the Appendix for a service of Blessing following a Civil Partnership or Marriage between two people of the same sex for a period of five years from 1 October 2021, subject to the conditions set out below.

2. No Cleric shall be obliged to officiate at such a service.

3. The Parochial Fees for a ‘Marriage Blessing (following a Civil Marriage)’ may be charged by the officiating minister and Parochial Church Council for such a service.

Backers:

+John Cambrensis
+Andrew Bangor
+Gregory Llanelwy
+Joanna Tyddewi
+June Landav
+Cherry Monmouth

From Church Times:

In an explanatory memorandum, the Bishops acknowledge that scripture and Christian tradition have previously understood unions of one man and one woman as the only context for sexual relationships.

“However, with new social, scientific and psychological understandings of sexuality in the last one and a half centuries, we believe that same-sex relationships can be understood in a radically different way, and that the teaching of Scripture should therefore be re-interrogated,” the Bishops write.

Postscript [02.01.2021]

From Coalition for Marriage (C4M):

Legalising gay marriage has caused a surge in divorce rates among lesbians, says same-sex fertility chief. - Mail Online

Meanwhile in Wales, Kirsty Williams’s Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill was debated last month. The current legal requirement for pupils to “learn the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and the bringing up of children” has been ditched. The parental right of withdrawal is also thrown out.

More from C4M here.

What is truth?

This video is the subject of the 2016 'Featured Post' highlighted in the Right Hand Column: If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything. 

The presentation concludes that it should not be hard to tell a 5' 9" white guy that he is not a 6' 5" Chinese woman. But clearly it is. Why?

Three years on there are increasing reports of intimidation and exclusion for stating what previously would have been regarded as obvious.

Sexing at birth is a normal part of life. One's classification as male or female is duly recorded on one's birth certificate. With gender fluidity, people identifying as genderqueer or non-binary express feelings at variance with their birth classification which everyone else is expected to agree with regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Defying reason it is cultural Marxism gone mad.

So far the only 'men' who have had babies are women who have retained their wombs after transitioning but the success of womb transplants has led some to claim the breakthrough could open up pregnancy to all sexes.

While a tiny minority of people fall into this category the demands of the trendy left are having negative effects on free speech with charges of hate crime for voicing any contrary opinions or simply saying what previously would have been regarded as obvious.

Recently a leading tax expert was sacked by a Think tank for using 'offensive language' after she tweeted that 'men cannot change into women' in a transgender row. In an article and a series of more than 100 tweets she rallied against government proposals allowing people to self-identify as a particular gender.

Jordan Peterson, described as one of the "the greatest thinkers of our time", has been branded a racist, misogynist and an Islamophobe for warning against the dangers of "identity politics and raving ideologues because they are divisive and not grounded in reason or fact".

The government sacked its housing adviser Conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton after he appeared to repeat antisemitic statements and denied Islamophobia was a problem. His reported remarks had been taken out of context.

A Cambridge University social scientist Noah Carl has been dismissed after administrators appeared to capitulate to a mob of activists (students and academics) who mounted a campaign to have the scholar fired for “problematic” research. Not because his research is fraudulent or inaccurate, but because "there’s a risk it could lead indirectly to bad actors promoting views that could incite racial or religious hatred". It matters not whether the scholarship is true; the critical thing is whether it upsets people, Quillette reported.

Australian rugby star Israel Folau was pronounced guilty of a "high-level breach of Rugby Australia’s professional players' code of conduct" for expressing his Christian beliefs based on the Bible, eg,1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

Christian Concern has issued a Prayer Alert for Felix Ngole who was expelled from his social work course for saying on Facebook that homosexual practice and other behaviours are sinful. Christian Concern warn that "Court transcripts expose extent of threat to Christian freedoms".

Double standards prevail. The Saatchi Gallery covered up artworks after Muslim visitors' complaints while ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ by Chris Ofili, an Africanised painting of the mother of Christ that rests on two big slabs of elephant dung was displayed in 1997 despite complaints.

When Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture in 2006 in which he explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith, he was forced to issue an apology in response to the angry reactions.

'Correct' knowledge or belief. What is truth today?

The problem with belief

Iraqi soldiers putting the Cross back to where it belongs in Baghdeda and Karemlesh
after retaking the cities from ISIS.                                                Source: @AliAjeena 

In my previous entry I included a video of an Imam who claims that saying 'Merry Christmas' is worse than murder. One cannot doubt his sincerity in believing that God could not have been born on Christmas Day. It is contrary to his faith. If he understood that God came down from heaven and was made man to share our misery he would be better informed but as a Muslim he regards Jesus as no more than one in a line of prophets.

For Christians Jesus is the Incarnate Word, the 'Son of God'. Hence the condemnation of saying 'Merry Christmas'. For Muslims Muhammad is the last in a line of prophets from Abraham. He is the model of the perfect man whose life should be emulated as far as possible. An unlikely example some 1400 years later for one who married a child bride of nine, had many wives, and who is said to have personally beheaded between 700 and 900 opponents. Nevertheless he is the model for devout Muslims resulting in the barbarism witnessed today.

A recent BBC report, 'An extremist in the family', illustrates the agony of a mother, a convert to Islam, whose son became a jihadist. She said "Islam's part of our daily life. We pray and fast but beyond that, not a huge amount". Her son Rasheed had somehow fallen for the idea of the caliphate, "if you don’t do this journey you are not a believer, not a good Muslim".

For Christians the mother is the good Muslim but for Islamists the real Muslim was her son. He was killed fighting for ISIS. This is the problem with belief. Blind obedience serves only the manipulators. Catholicism, particularly in Ireland, has learnt the hard way. Anglicanism, the middle way, has lost its way while Islam remains resolute against any other way. So much so that renouncing Islam is punishable by death.

In another video 'Wolves in Sheep's Clothing' the Imam who condemned people for saying Merry Christmas rails against the 'enemies of Islam'. He names Jews, Christians, Hindus and the secular, atheistic world at large who "disagree among themselves on everything except that Islam is a target and is to be removed from the world map". Finally he tells his audience that the real wolves in sheep's clothing are not Jews, Christians or Hindus but the Shia, a different Muslim sect.

Muslims believe that, unlike Moses and prophets who heard from God directly, Muhammad heard through an intermediary, Gabriel. In these revelations Allah changes his mind many times leaving followers with the problem of abrogation which results in taking the more recent (violent) verses in preference to earlier (peaceful) verses. Consequently the religion of peace in the Quran gives way to the sword:  "The later verses, known as the “Sword Verses” (9:5 and 9:29), were considered by Muslim scholars to have cancelled the previous verses mandating kindness and persuasion. Expansionist jihad became the explicit norm." 

By contrast with uncorroborated revelations received by Muhammad, Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of eight Old Testament prophesies. The probability of fulfilling all eight prophesies has been calculated as 1 x 1028 or 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. 

Jesus Christ came into the world not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them. He made another prophecy which has been fulfilled: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." This prophecy could not be clearer but nevertheless, Muslims regard Muhammad as the last prophet without question. That is the problem. 

For years Islam has been treated as above criticism, validated for its pre-'Sword' verses about kindness and persuasion. But there is a glimmer of hope. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has come out and said "It's time to stop saying Isil has ‘nothing to do with Islam’".

It is ironic that people who have largely lost their Christian faith judge Islam from a traditional Christian perspective accepting what they are told about peaceful Islam while ignoring the evidence to the contrary which has been exhibited all around the world for hundreds of years. 'Christian Daily' explodes the peace loving myth in an article "Muslim migrants display 'pure hatred' of Christians". An Arabic translator who has been living in Germany for more than 20 years explains that Muslim migrants secretly despise Christians and believe that the country should be Islamised.

Muslims need to know about Christianity. They should be encouraged to question their own faith instead of attacking others and question the imposition of penalties for renouncing Islam contrary to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion".

Godless Guides?

The Queen and Princess Margaret.
 Picture: Associated Newspapers / Daily Mail /Rex Features

"I promise that I will do my best, to love my God, to serve the Queen and my country, to help other people and to keep the Guide Law."

A story in the Telegraph just about sums up the absurdity of life in Britain today especially for Christians. Because a girl "felt unable to take part in her Brownies enrolment in north Somerset due to the religious content of the Promise" the Girl Guides Association is reported to be considering reviewing the wording of its affirmation for new members, to remove religious references. What next? Immigrants and secularists objecting to Her Majesty the Queen being "Defender of the Faith"? 


Baden-Powell must be turning in his grave. The Guide Promise has already been amended from 'To do my duty to God' to 'To love my God', in order to accommodate different faiths leaving secularists free to have a stab at changing the foundation of Guiding again but oddly, not Scouting which retains the original Promise. Give them time! The Scouts are now a mix of boy scouts and girl scouts although the Girl Guides remain exclusively sexist reflecting what has happened in the rest of society. Thanks to that enemy of democracy, political correctness, we no longer have the heroine, actress, headmaster or chairman but curiously we still have the Baroness.

For many in today's eunuch led liberal church, belief in the one true God has become an optional extra but belief in one God means just that. As Christians we should be above the political correctness that implies the legitimacy of other faiths. People may believe what they want in a free country but tolerance has been perverted to allow our Christian heritage to be eroded by do-gooders who have nothing to offer other than a suffocating desire to impose their bland sterility on Christians. Much of this is a consequence of  the feminist campaign for the ordination of women which has resulted in the spiritual decline of the Episcopal Church in America and continues to emasculate the Church of England as WATCH and GRAS demand their own way here.

"On my honour, I promise that I will do my best

To do my duty to God and to the Queen,

To help other people

And to keep the Scout Law"

Scouts of my generation felt 'honour' bound to keep their 'promise', two words that the new breed of Anglicans in the churches of England and Wales have consigned to the PC dustbin only to be replaced by deception.