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.

Another Bleak Midwinter

Of all the Christmas carols the Church of England could have chosen to update for their  #AtTheHeartOfChristmas campaign they chose Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak Midwinter. 

That is what the Anglican Church does best, tinkering with the familiar to replace timeless, simple beauty only to end up with something traditional worshippers barely recognise.

Gustav Holst's In the Bleak Midwinter has a timeless beauty with a clear message which has not been bettered despite the rise of the new version top of the classical charts.

Similarly the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer has not been surpassed by attempts to modernise it. Its language is timeless and comforting, presenting an otherness which modern attempts at revision frequently lack.

Ecumenical News reports that In England and Wales number of Christians falls to half the population, while in US similar pattern shows:

"Figures from 2019 show that only 51 percent of people in England and Wales are Christian, while those with no religion account for more than one-third., Christian Today reported on Dec. 17.

"A few days earlier, Pew Research Center published a survey showing that about three-in-ten U.S. Adults are now religiously unaffiliated, and self-identified Christians make up 63 percent of the U.S. population in 2021, down from 75 percent a decade ago."

This is in marked contrast to the #TeamBelieve campaign which would have us believe that everything in the twitter garden is rosy. 

It probably is for career women in the Church who now have everything they wanted - while it lasts!

Source: Twitter

Postscript [26.12.2021]

Royal approval? 

"While Covid again means we can’t celebrate quite as we may have wished, we can still enjoy the many happy traditions. Be it the singing of carols (as long as the tune is well known);..."

The Christmas Broadcast 2021

Neither male nor female

Joanna Penberthy in PhD secular doctorate attire           Source: Church in Wales

The diocese of St Davids has a new website. After a brief reference to problems imposed by the Covid-19 virus the site features first and foremost the Bishop of St Davids noting: "She is the first woman to be appointed bishop in the Church in Wales, following the Governing Body’s decision in September 2013 to enable women’s ordination to the episcopate."

Similarly at the enthronement of Cherry Vann as Bishop of Monmouth: "guests were all there to see the first woman bishop take her seat – or ‘throne’ – at Newport Cathedral."

Fond of (mis)quoting Galatians 3:28 supporters of the ordination of women have been telling people that there is neither male nor female so why do they have to keep emphasising their sex? It is all about feminism and power regardless of the cost to others.

At the 2017 services of celebration held in Wales' six Anglican cathedrals to mark 20 years since the Church in Wales first ordained women priests, Bishops’ Adviser for Church and Society, Canon Carol Wardman, was the preacher at Brecon Cathedral. Following the example of "bullshitting" Barry Morgan she put her own interpretation on Galatians 3:28.

Self-centred feminist claims about so-called equality and gender fluidity have been brought to a head in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Higher death rates for men brutally emphasise what, to the majority of us, was self evident:  Men and women are biologically different.

Postscripts

[05.05.2020]

The Department of Health and Social Care have announced a review of "emerging evidence to suggest that #coronavirus may be having a disproportionate impact on some ethnic groups, as well as certain genders."

For 'certain genders' read 'men'.

[06.05.2020]

"..our acceptance of our bodies and biological sex is a mere social construct, not a physical reality. It tells young children that they have an ‘inner gender identity’ which may or may not align with their biological sex." - From ‘Free to Be’ produced by a group called EqualiTeach. It is designed for use in our primary schools with the intention of challenging something the transgender lobby calls ‘cisnormativity’. - The Conservative Woman

The cost of change

View enjoyed by Church in Wales Representative Body staff                                                                                                                                  Source: Twitter

The revelation that the former Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion’s first woman primate, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is acting as mentor to Two Church in Wales bishops, Joanna Penberthy, bishop of St Davids and June Osborne, bishop of Llandaff, suggests that the Church in Wales is awash with money.

I hear that the annual rental of their new HQ at 2 Callaghan Square, Cardiff is £500,000 but the lease is for just one year.

Perhaps that explains the letterhead stuck on the nameplate (illustrated) signifying a temporary arrangement as the blind continue to lead the blind into extinction. The departure of the architect of destruction, the former archbishop, offered the opportunity for real change, to right former wrongs. An opportunity lost.

Rumour has it that the staff are not happy in their new home, preferring their previous accommodation in Cathedral Road but no longer at the heart of the nation the Church in Wales continues the pretence that it is a force to be reckoned with, regardless of cost, so it needs to be at the hub, perhaps giving them closer access to BBC Wales following their relocation to the centre of Cardiff.

Some thought that the demise of St Michael's College, Llandaff, Wales' only Theological College, now a conference centre, would have provided the opportunity to relocate there since half the bench will have very fond memories of their leisure time there. 

There has also been a rash of senior appointments under the umbrella of the never popular Mission Areas designed to keep the chiefs happy at the expense of the indians. As the Parish share goes up perhaps some of the indians will go on the warpath but many congregations are either too old or too compliant to make a fuss. Hence the expectation that they will dig deeper, compensating for all those who have lapsed on discovering that their Church has left them.

Archbishop John Davies promised more of the same - but faster. His Llandaff appointee obliges by choosing change as the theme for her Lenten addresses. That is unlikely to be for the better, rather, as the bench chooses.

So far that has led only to decline and disillusionment while those who speak up are constantly accused of prejudice and discrimination without any supporting evidence. When the first woman bishop to be appointed in Wales was challenged she admitted that it amounts to nothing more than holding opposing views rather than nodding compliantly.

No theology is offered, only appeals to secular values of equality of opportunity in the workplace, advancing feminism in the church regardless of the consequences. There is more of the same in the bishop of Llandaff's 'Wales Online' interview: Victim, prejudice, discrimination, inequality, parity, barriers, unwelcome, change, battle, etc, etc.

Spiritual leadership was mentioned without any evidence of its presence. Quite the contrary. The constant decline in people attending church is not helped by women bishops and their admirers droning on about how beastly men are, particularly in the church.

Bishop June said "You can talk about it as a story of decline but actually what it is about is change." How very convenient.

I wonder what she makes of the many remarkable women who have left the church because they do not share her politically motivated, limited views.

Feminizing the Church in Wales continues at what cost?

 Springtime at St Davids Cathedral

In Spring 2018 there will be an unwelcome change for many in what they regard as the holiest site in Wales. A place of pilgrimage beyond politics. The Rev'd Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones, LVO, OBE, currently Priest-in-charge of Cardiff’s city centre civic church of St John the Baptist, will take up her new post as Dean of St Davids. 

That is no reflection on her ability. It is not a question on whether she can do the job but whether she should given that the Church in Wales is merely the current custodian of this place of worship when the Church in Wales represents only a tiny minority of Christians who believe that the Church has been wrong on scripture and tradition for two thousand years.

Canon Jones says in the Church in Wales Press Release today: "The Cathedral and its surroundings so strongly convey the sense of being holy ground. For so many, over so many centuries, it has been a sacred place to sense the presence of the living God who is beyond time and space, and yet who is also intimately close to each of us with the offer of redeeming love. It will be a tremendous privilege to join the community of those who today bear the responsibility of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with pilgrims and visitors from near and far".

For many this sacred place will become a museum used to advance the cause of feminism rather than a place of pilgrimage and worship. The Church in Wales plays a dangerous game. St Davids Cathedral is unlike any other in the province. "Nearly £2,000 per day" is needed for the maintenance, upkeep and running costs of "this wonderful working Cathedral" to quote from their web site. Visitors are essential for survival 

As women in the Church in Wales increase their power, with 'quota' appointments to gain parity, they play a very dangerous game.

The new Dean of St Davids, the Rev'd Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones  (CinW)