Nolights

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"church in wales As-it-happens update ⋅ October 18, 2022

NEWS 

What does the Church believe?

The Church in Wales

The Church in Wales believes and proclaims the Good News of Jesus Christ, namely: that God is active and personal, a Father who cares for his ... "

It seemed most apt. 

The Church in Wales is in a mess, struggling to quantify its beliefs when its bishops have substituted secularism for the Christian faith as received.

The secular agenda of the bishops is leading their flock away from scripture and tradition by embracing secular trends that are at odds with traditional beliefs held by the majority of Anglicans around the world.

What the majority of Anglicans continue to believe has been rejected by the Church in Wales bishops in favour of woke secularism. The sanctity of marriage has been abandoned. Anything goes in the misuse of  the meaning of 'love'.

I have seen no 'Highlights' of the September 2022 meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales, hence 'Nolights' rather than 'Lowlights'. 

Elsewhere there was the announcement that "The Church in Wales will spend more than £100M of its capital reserves over the next decade to help its churches serve their communities more effectively." 

Throwing money around is not going to save the Church in Wales. The bishops need to get back to basics if they care anything for the souls of the faithful.

Postscript [31 Oct 2022]

Highlights - September 2022 Now available on the Church in Wales website.

Any chance of a true man of God?

The Church in Wales' Bench of Bishops. (Facebook/ The Church in Wales)                                                                                                        Source: Pink News

The Church in Wales meets tomorrow (1st September) to elect/appoint the 10th bishop of Swansea and Brecon following the retirement of archbishop John Davies pictured above in the gold chasuble and mitre.

The chances of electing a spiritual man of God who bears witness to true biblical teaching appears unlikely given the current trajectory of the bench.

Obsessed with the promotion of same sex relationships it is likely that the bench will seek again to further strengthen their hand in readiness for the forthcoming vote on same-sex blessings at Governing Body. 

Now that women have achieved parity on the bench they will have to think of another reason for appointing a fourth woman. Based on experience so far the church in Wales cannot afford to make another mistake. 

The bishop of St Davids has managed to offend many in her diocese while occupying much of her time campaigning as if she were still a Labour candidate having previously failed badly to get elected with just 5% of the vote in 2015.

The bishop of Llandaff has resolutely 'done it her way' here, here and here, to mention a few examples. Like the bishop of St Davids she is a strong LGBT+ campaigner who has condemned others as guilty of prejudice and hatred for not agreeing with her liberal views.

The bishop of Monmouth celebrated and preached on Saturday (28th August) at a Pride Cymru Eucharist held at St John's in the centre of Cardiff where the vicar is transgender. The Gospel reading was taken from Mark 12, The Greatest Commandment which presented the bishop with the opportunity to justify her same-sex civil partnership. *

The divorced and re-married bishop of Bangor claims to have found Biblical support for church gay marriages. If past practice is followed he will be the next archbishop of Wales.

The Electoral College and Governing Body need to reject self serving interpretations of the Bible and take a stand against bishops who reject traditional beliefs as a means of pushing their queer theology in the Church in Wales.

Postscripts

[01.09.2021]

* Bound together in love. Cherry Vann, Bishop of Monmouth, reflects on 'Love' in her address at the Pride Cymru Eucharist. 

[02.09.2021]

Doers of the Word? - Definitely not. 

The sorry state of the Church in Wales and its 'woke' leadership is summed up in under 5 mins on Anglican Unscripted 683 starting around 13.30 mins.

[03.09.2021]

The decision about the next Bishop of @Swanbrec will be made by the Bench of Bishops.

https://twitter.com/ChurchinWales/status/1433755108874072066

The senior bishop, Andy John, explains

https://twitter.com/ChurchinWales/status/1433762233218129932

Based on their previous performance the Church in Wales is spiritually dead.

Betrayal of trust

Martin Bashir and Lord 'Tony' Hall

Inclusivity and diversity, the current watchwords of church and state were eagerly taken on board by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as is abundantly clear from their current output. 

Vacating his post as BBC Director General in 2020 Lord Hall said there had been "big, big changes" at the corporation since he took over in 2013. His tenure as director general began at a time the corporation was "in crisis".

He referred to "tense" negotiations with the government around dropping free TV licences for the over 75s, the 'n-word' controversy and gender pay equality.

Diversity of thought was needed within the BBC in addition to racial diversity, said Lord Hall.

What of integrity?  

The BBC has betrayed our trust.

The crisis referred to by Lord Hall pales in the light of the Dyson inquiry which found that the BBC fell short of "high standards of integrity and transparency" over Martin Bashir's 1995 interview with Princess Diana. Bashir was found guilty of deceit and breaching BBC editorial conduct to obtain the interview.

An internal investigation by Tony Hall before he became the BBC's director general was said to have been "woefully ineffective". There was a "covering up".  

Bashir joined ITV in 1999 but in 2016 he returned to the BBC as religious affairs correspondent, despite his apparent dishonesty and deceitful behaviour, qualities not unknown in the Church of England.

Described in the Mail as the 'pointless' Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby has been criticised for turning his back on a school chaplain who was reported to a terror unit after questioning his school's new LGBT policies

The Rev'd Dr Bernard Randall was sacked because he had delivered a sermon in which he told pupils they were allowed to disagree with the school's new LGBT policies, particularly if they felt they ran contrary to the Church's values.

The Christian Legal Centre, which has taken up Dr Randall's case, appealed for Archbishop Justin Welby, along with the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, to publicly support Dr Randall. All three senior figures declined to give Dr Randall their backing

So Dr Randall becomes yet another victim of a Church that has betrayed its traditional Christian beliefs for inclusivity and diversity.

Another betrayal of trust.

Fit for purpose?

Archbishop of Wales, Rt Rev Barry Morgan, at the National Eisteddfod                      Credit: Daily Post

In a 2011 BBC video clip (here) the Archbishop of Wales claimed that we needed to look to see if the Church in Wales (CinW) is "fit for purpose" and if we are using our resources in the best possible kind of way because investment income is falling, the pension bill is rising and therefore more money is needed by the church. Dr Morgan said the organisation needs outside help to cope with the decline in clergy, waning investments and falling congregations. He warned that the Church needed to be ready for significant change and take whatever proposals the Review may come up with seriously to make it fit for a future in Wales.

Unsurprisingly in 2012 the Review duly reported that the Church is “burdened and hampered” by too many aspects of organisation, and the parish system, as originally set up with a single priest serving a small community, was no longer sustainable.

No time has been lost in dismantling the parish system while cutting parish clergy but the top-heavy management structure remains in tact and peripheral appointments abound. For an example see the Llandaff structure here. No wonder the CinW has no future.

According to research reported in the 'Church Growth Modelling' Blog, the CinW will be extinct within a generation. The date of "around 2040" may prove to be optimistic. If a rumour circulating proves to be correct, CinW regular Sunday attendance figures are down by a massive 10% on the 2013 figure of 31,000 to only 28,000.

There are a number of factors. There is a limit to the willingness of members to support an organisation which has become so divorced from their Credal beliefs that it ceases to be credible. Many orthodox Anglicans have remained in the CinW because it has been their spiritual home since their baptism. They have found no suitable alternative but there comes a point when habit becomes unsustainable.

Also, the sense of 'belonging' to ministry areas, which will depend for their existence on lay worker assistants, does not have the same spiritual dimension as being able to call on one's parish priest if needed. *

It is obvious to many that the decline of Anglicanism in Great Britain has accelerated as the Church has become 'more relevant' to society. If this trend is continued and the Archbishop successfully convinces the Governing Body that same-sex marriage is the best thing since sliced bread, steeper decline seems inevitable.

So fit for purpose? No. Money may make "the world go round" but it does nothing for the "prosperity of the soul", a point seemingly lost on the Bench of Bishops.

* Postscript [11.08.2015]
   See 'Lots of Lay Leaders Licensed' here.