Woke Welby and his 'white Jesus'

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby                                 Source: Rebel Priest

From The Jerusalem Post: The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the Anglican Church should reconsider its portrayal of Jesus as a white man.

It is not clear for whom he was speaking when he expressed his belief that Anglicans thought of the Son of God as a white man. The archbishop and most of his trendy episcopal colleagues long since abandoned the faith as orthodox Anglicans along with the Church in Wales and the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC), both of which have become irrelevant as Churches for the faithful.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Justin Welby said that in light of the Black Lives Matter protests, the West needed to question whether the traditional portrayal of Jesus as a white man by Western churches was the correct approach to take.

The archbishop added, “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings."  He did not think that "throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it" but thought "that’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship. It is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”

Commenting on the Black Lives Matter campaign to remove statues to figures deemed controversial, he said that people should forgive the 'trespasses' of those who were being commemorated, rather than remove statues, but added that the church would be reviewing the monuments it holds.

When asked if people should forgive the trespasses of those immortalised in the form of statues, rather than tearing them down, Welby said: "Some will have to come down. We can only do that if we've got justice, which means the statue needs to be put in context.

"Some names will have to change. The church, goodness me you know, you just go around Canterbury Cathedral, there are monuments everywhere or Westminster Abbey, and we're looking at all that, and some will have to come down."

Described as the Woke Archbishop the Archbishop of Canterbury, Welby is “ashamed of our history” and of his supposed advantages as a straight white male.

He has become leader of the self loathing brigade, apologising for anything and everything in the past that is questioned in the woke culture.

He preaches the gospel of woke and slanders his own flock. With no supporting evidence he asserted "There is no doubt," that "when we look at our own Church we are still deeply institutionally racist."

Bending the knee to the latest trend is not leadership. It is capitulation.

Source: BBC/LORNA MAY WADSWORTH

It encourages gestures such as that in St Albans Cathedral where a copy of a picture of the Last Supper showing a black Jesus was placed at an altar "in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement" presumably without knowing what the BLM movement stands for.

According to BBC News the artist used a Jamaican-born model for the basis of her interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's 15th Century work because she wanted "to make people question the Western myth that [Jesus Christ] had fair hair and blue eyes".

Jacob Epstein's 'Christ in Majesty'

 One aspect lost in the controversy about the suitability of artwork is the effort put into producing the work and possible motivations behind it. It may represent an interpretation by the artist or sponsor or result from a specific commission.

If someone in a free society objects to a work they are at liberty to criticise it. Once gone the opportunity for criticism is lost, along with the hard won freedoms which allow extremist pressure groups to behave as they do.

The example of ISIS destroying artefacts they disliked should be a warning of the destructive power now being unleashed, something religious leaders should be speaking against, not for.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew born in Bethlehem of Judea. He would have been neither black nor white but somewhere in between - see So what colour was Jesus?

 As the Religious News Service (RNS) aptly put it: We can’t cancel ‘white Jesus,’ but we can keep telling our church’s story.

Year of Pilgrimage - not

Social distancing was not required at the Llandaff diocese clergy 'pilgrimage' school in Santiago de Compostela                                            Source: Twitter

The Diocese of Llandaff 's Year of Pilgrimage has fizzled out. The Coronavirus lock down saw to that.

In what she described as an 'ambitious' plan, the bishop of Llandaff flew all diocesan clergy, plus various hangers-on, to Santiago de Compostela as a precursor to the Year of Pilgrimage which was designed to 'reinvigorate its work and worship' as part of the Church’s 2020 centenary celebrations.

Some hope.

With extra time on their hands during the pandemic clergy could read about the depressing pilgrimage of the Church in Wales from birth to death in a book edited by Professor Norman Doe under the title A New History of the Church in Wales: Governance and Ministry, Theology and Society.

At £74.99 for the hardback edition if anyone is still interested in the Church in Wales a paperback version is available at just over £25.

Chapter summaries can be found here.

The fall of the flag

History restored at the Hundred Stone!                                                                                                                    Source: Church in Wales/Picture: Alison Evans

The symbolism says it all in this Diocesan press release, 'History restored at the Hundred Stone'. The Cross of St David lying in the dirt.

Historically the fall of the flag meant defeat. It could be a metaphor for the Church in Wales.

A Call to Persevere

The bishops of St Asaph, St Davids, Monmouth, Llandaff (Abp), Swansea & Brecon and Bangor.
 Credit: South Wales Argus

The Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of the Church in Wales to "all the faithful" concerning admission to Holy Communion of all the baptised "by virtue of their Baptism alone" has been published on the Diocese of St Davids web site. It can be read here. Its contents remained secret until it was introduced at the recent meeting of the Governing Body (GB) of the Church in Wales raising some suspicion that another round of duplicity might be expected from the Bench of Bishops.

Fine details have yet to emerge but whatever one's views on the subject one thing is clear, the Bench of Bishops has been inconsistent. They hark back to history and tradition to support their case in this instance while scripture and tradition have been confined to the bin on just about every other matter under Archbishop Barry Morgan's guidance.

Dr Morgan's final GB Presidential Address provided an excellent opportunity to sum up the current state of the Church in Wales as he prepares for his retirement as the longest serving primate in the Anglican Communion. That, instead, he chose to bend Holy Scripture to support his views on the divisive issue of same sex marriage rather than address the decline in membership of the church under his leadership suggests that his political agenda always takes precedence over the spiritual well-being of his flock.

Rumour has it that Dr Morgan wants one more liberal feather in his hat before he retires in January, the appointment of the first woman bishop in Wales. The diocese of St Davids will become vacant when Bishop Wyn Evans retires in October. Originally a monastic community founded c. AD 589 by Saint David, the Patron saint of Wales, St Davids has been a centre of pilgrimage since the Cathedral was built the 12th century. The shrine was regarded as so important that it was decreed that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome, three were equivalent to one to Jerusalem. St Davids remains an important centre of pilgrimage to this day.

When David died in the year 589 the monastery is said to have been 'filled with angels as Christ received his soul'.  St David's final words to his followers were: 'Be Joyful.  Keep the Faith.  Do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.'

If a political gesture is allowed to take precedence over faith in the appointment to the See of St Davids it will be the final nail in the coffin for the faithful.

A Call to Persevere

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

 From The Letter of Jude