The Great Church in Wales Giveaway

Original source: X (formerly Twitter)

The Church in Wales has announced that it is to invest almost £10m in four projects designed to promote growth in church attendance in Wales. 

The Church explained that "The grants are being made from the Church Growth Fund, in which the Church is investing £100m to support projects in a once-in-a generation opportunity to resource confident and consistent evangelism throughout Wales."

The diocese of Monmouth is dedicating £1 million to 'help grow new worshipping communities' by targeting local schools.

This news has not been universaly welcomed.

The South Wales Argus described it as a 'Cynical move' to use schools to ease 'plummeting' church membership. 

Their community content editor writes: 

"Campaigners have urged local authorities to ensure schools 'will not be used as mission fields', after the Church in Wales announced plans to 'build stronger links' with schools in South Wales.

"The diocese plans to install a 'Schools Engagement Pioneer' in areas including North Monmouthshire, Islwyn and Abergavenny to focus on 'relationship-building with primary and secondary school-age pupils in a manner which goes beyond school assemblies'."

A spokesperson for he Diocese of Monmouth explained that it has secured funding of more than £1m to help grow new worshipping communities by building stronger relationships with schools.

What is a Church in Wales 'worshipping community' today and what sort of relationships?

Recently a pride service was held at Newport Cathedral. Their same sex partnered bishop preached. The Celebrant was transgender.

For building 'inclusive' relationships in the Church in Wales see this entry published six years ago. The then preacher now occupies an influential post at Newport Cathedral while the concelebrant has been appointed bishop of Bardsey.

For the love of Christ?

Lambeth: Reply to an open letter to Justin Welby

The female bishops pose for their group portrait. Photo: Neil Turner/The Lambeth Conference                                                     Source: Episcopal News Service

Perhaps it is a generational thing but I have to admit that I am not a fan of Sandi Toksvig's brand of humour. Having watched bits of QI occasionally her success seems to me to be more to do with lesbianism than comedy. 

An admitted humanist Ms Toksvig has written a 'Dear Justin' letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury telling him of his mistakes at the Lambeth Conference. 

Before playing the usual victim card she writes: 
"So, you and your other religious pals got together at the Lambeth Conference and the main take away seems to be that gay sex is a sin. It was a sin in 1998 and you just wanted to make it clear in 2022 that no-one in you finely frocked gang has moved on from that. Seriously, with the state the world is in, that is what you wanted to focus on? You didn't have other more pressing matters like, I don't know, war or poverty?..."

What the LGBTQ+ lobby fails to understand is it is not about sex it is about marriage.

Civil Partnerships were created for same-sex couples who were not legally allowed to marry. They have legally recognized unions with rights similar to those of marriage. 

Having gained such acceptance the LGBTQ+ lobby are not satisfied. For them, marriage is the ultimate stamp of approval. For Christians marriage is the union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

But the activists stop at nothing. What we have is a re-run of the campaign for the ordination of women. Originally they campaigned for deaconesses to be ordained deacons. Step by step they succeeded in advancing to the priesthood and the episcopate using the same strategy of stealth and deception. 

The result of their efforts can be seen in the women only photograph taken at this year's Lambeth Conference. The number of women bishops attending has grown to 97 in 2022 from 11 in 1998. "We’ve increased exponentially," said Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry. So much for just wanting to be deacons.

Same sex relations are now characterised as 'Human Dignity', just one of the 'Calls' in the Lambeth Conference programme. The agenda includes much more but for bishops in the Church in Wales and other provinces that have decided by committee that same sex marriage is compatible with Christian teaching, it was the main item for them and they went to Lambeth determined to push their agenda regardless of the cost to the Anglican Communion.

Like TEC in the US the Scottish and Welsh provinces are comparatively wealthy but with steeply declining memberships. They are counted in thousands compared with much poorer, more orthodox provinces in the Global South where membership is counted in millions.

Many of the bishops from poorer areas came to Lambeth intent on upholding the sanctity of marriage. Much was done to thwart them but they continued to fight under Christ's banner as Christians promise in our baptism.

If the will of the Anglican Communion as a whole counted for anything the Welsh bishops and their like would be regarded as a tiny, unrepresentative minority and told where to go.

Instead, synodical processes are manipulated by liberal bishops to drive forward their own agendas. They influence public opinion by appealing to humanists and those who have no religion, increasing secular resentment then claim that the Church is out of step. It is not. They are.

This deception is exemplified by the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church who tweeted "Tonight I feel a burden lifted of what might happen at this conference and determined that we continue to be an example of diversity, an example of enabling people with differing opinions to remain part of the same Church... 'love means love' to use the latest catch phrase. Watch this video clip in which the primus claims that nobody is to be thrown out of the Communion and that there will be no sanctions for what people do. 

Complete garbage. 

Whilst pandering to the LGBTWQ+ lobby, thousands of Anglicans who identify with the traditional, orthodox faith, as in the Global South, have been left with no spiritual home. They have effectively been expelled whilst those continuing to attend services are made complicit.

Similarly the archbishop of Wales tweeted "I welcome this afternoon's #LambethCall affirming of the dignity of all people". He was quickly followed by affirming underlings.

If only these idiots could leave Christian marriage alone there would be no problem.

Misery areas: a clarification from Lord Harries

Lord Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford                          Source: LGBTConservatives

 The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth, author of the 2012 Church in Wales Review has written to the Church Times about Maintaining ministry despite declining numbers. He wrote: "It was very good to read that the Church in Wales has made such progress in implementing the recommendations of the review that I chaired ten years ago (News, 11 March). At the same time, I can very much understand the frustrations of those clergy who have found that the new system has not worked for them (Letters, 18 March). 

Lord Harries goes on to "clarify" a few points:

"Our main recommendation was that the parish system as we have known and loved it is no longer sustainable. We recommended that every parish should continue to have a worshipping community, but that it should in most circumstances be led by a self-supporting priest or licensed lay minister. We envisaged really big ministry areas, with 20 or more parishes, which would have a small team of paid clergy, who would be appointed first to this and only then to one or more of the parishes, if they were large enough.

"We realised that there was a danger that clergy would just go on being asked to take on more and more parishes in a way that was unsustainable rather than be part of a structure that required a different mind-set. Obviously, the success of this new system depends on each worshiping congregation’s being able to raise up its own leadership team, and we did not underestimate the real difficulty in doing that in rural areas with tiny congregations.

"In their letter, the clergy who are not happy about ministry areas point to a lack of growth, even decline, under the new situation. But we did not believe that the new structure would by itself bring about growth. Our concern, quite simply, was with the sheer survival of the Church in Wales in what is going to be a very difficult period for a long time to come, for reasons that have nothing to do with the structure of the Church, but have to do with our failure to recapture the imagination of our culture for the Christian story.

"Congregations may remain small for some time, but they will be there, and 'A small church is not a failed church,' a lesson that I learnt from Tony Russell, a colleague when I was Bishop of Oxford.

"I believe that the Church in Wales is to be congratulated in facing up, ten years ago, to the seriousness of the situation and that there are important lessons to be learnt by the Church of England from our recommendations, particularly in rural areas."

Noted for his liberal views, Lord Harries believes in so-called 'equal' marriage and "warmly welcomed" the Marriage (same sex couples) Bill.

Also, from Wikipedia: "On 11 February 2017, Harries was one of fourteen retired bishops to sign an open letter to the then-serving bishops of the Church of England. In an unprecedented move, they expressed their opposition to the House of Bishops' report to General Synod on sexuality, which recommended no change to the church's canons or practices around sexuality. By 13 February, a serving bishop (Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham) and nine further retired bishops had added their signatures; on 15 February, the report was rejected by synod, plunging the Church of England into 'turmoil'."

Lord Harries does not comment on the 'do as we please' Church in Wales bishops and its top heavy structure.

Physician heal thyself!