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.
The Bishop of Bangor, Andy John, at his Enthronement as Archbishop of Wales Source: Church in Wales
This photograph was published in Disaster looms closer after the bishop of Bangor, Andy John, was enthroned as archbishop of Wales in 2022. The picture was taken down from the Church in Wales web site after the archbishop was criticised as being disrespectful.
The Church in Wales had already become a joke, so much so that Anglican commentators such as Anglican Unscripted rarely mention it and its many 'firsts'.
The latest 'first' for the Church in Wales is History is made as Church appoints its youngest ever bishop. Emphasising his same sex relationship we are told that in his spare time, 'David enjoys spending time with his fiancé, Marc Penny, and his cat, Gordon'. Not a 'first'. That record goes to the bishop of Monmouth who lives with her same sex partner.
It was the new bishop who was responsible for first publishing the photograph used in Caption corner 22 December 2023 in his X (formerly Twitter) account which I see has also been taken down. No doubt another regret in hindsight.
Meanwhile the Dean of Llandaff who lives with his partner, Jim, is reportedly on sick leave while facing allegations of serious misconduct.
Not even the Llandaffchester Chronicles could have made this up. The Church in Wales is beyond a joke.
A new order? The bishop of Monmouth at Sacred Synod in 2020 with her civil partner Source:Twitter
Older readers may recall the 1960s BBC TV satirical programme That Was the Week That Was which opened with Millicent Martin singing "That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ..."
Similar feelings have been expressed for the Church in Wales. It's over, let it go. But it is hard to do so while watching self-serving groups use the Church to advance their own particular agendas at the expense of loyal Anglicans who have been shut out.
Revd Stella Bailey, the new Archdeacon of the Gwent Valleys and Director of Mission. Source: C in W
Monmouth news has a message from the newly appointed Archdeacon of the Gwent Valleys and Diocesan Director of Mission, the Revd Stella Bailey: "I am passionate about shaping the church to enable it to preach the gospel afresh for this generation...I keep up to date with emerging social needs and seek ways that I can creatively respond. Sometimes this involves giving a voice to those who are voiceless, acting as an advocate or using my platform to highlight the issue and help bring about change. I teach about the issues of injustice, prejudice and unconscious bias so that the church can be more Christ like in its appearance."
Stella will be moving to the diocese of Monmouth from England with her partner Karen and their two dogs, Lyra and Stewie.
It cannot be a coincidence that the new archdeacon's bishop is also a lesbian living in a civil partnership with her same sex partner. The bishop of Monmouth, Cherry Vann, is Patron of the campaigning Open Table Network (OTN). Along with her sister bishops in Llandaff and St Davids, they preach the gospel 'afresh' to promote secular causes.
An unpublished comment put it this way: "Not sure I fully agree with this, the incoming archdeacon of the valleys has no prior knowledge of the area, the people, the problems let alone the machinations of CiW. But she has one common factor with +newport they both have female partners. A case of like picks like rather than the best suited person. With such people running the church it deserves to be terminated."
There is nothing 'Christ like' about complaining of alleged "injustice, prejudice and unconscious bias" to advance the LGBTQIA+ cause at the expense of other Anglicans who follow traditional Christian teaching in common with the vast majority of Anglicans and other Christians.
Sadly such tactics are not only accepted but are championed by the bench of bishops who are pushing forward their same sex relationship policies whether pew sitters agree or not.
According to a recent Church Times article Ten years on, Harries review has changed the Church in Wales, the Review found "warm, friendly and welcoming communities", not the injustice, prejudice and unconscious bias alleged. But it also found that the Church in Wales was in crisis which led to replacing the universally recognised parish system with unpopular ministry areas.
That policy has been pursued by Church in Wales bishops with gusto while ignoring the recommended reduction in the number of diocesan bishops and restructuring of diocesan administrative areas.
Instead senior staff levels have increased with an un-elected assistant bishop who will, reportedly, join the diocesan bishops on the bench, some of whom are also unelected to this self perpetuating coterie.
It is over but hard to let go.
[Commentators are reminded that anonymous comments submitted for publication must include a pseudonym.]
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.
Four of the first female Eagle Scouts, from left to right: Lauren Krimm, Mia Dawbin, Valerie Johnston and Ysa Duenas. Source: Twitter
(CNN) Valerie Johnston knew she wanted to be a Boy Scout since she was 6. "I always wanted to be able to earn everything that my brother and all his friends were earning," Johnston told CNN. "I had my own book, and I would check off the requirements and everything, so I would wonder like, 'Well why can't I earn these?'"
In 2011 it was reported that more girls than boys became scouts in the past year - the first time this has happened in the movement's history.
When girls were asked about admitting boys they said they wanted "Girlguiding to still be just for girls. So no boys allowed!"
The Girlguiding organisation invites parents to 'register their daughters' but Girlguiding is trans-inclusive.
This drew a 'furious response' on mumsnet with 507 messages. The first reads:
"Sorry for DM link but this is important. Brownies and Guides are going to admit boys if they identify as girls. Girls will have to share 'single sex' facilities including tents & changing rooms with them. Parents won't be told. Oh, and men who identify as women can become Brownie & Guide leaders, where they will get to supervise girls in those tents, changing rooms etc.
"How is this possible? There is an epidemic of sexual abuse. We are still in the fall-out of Rotherham, Saville etc yet we are enabling men to have access to every safe space for girls. AIBU?" [Am I being unreasonable?]
Writing about the passage of the "(In)Equality Act'" through the US House of Representatives in Virtueonline the "So-Called 'Equality Act'" is described as 'The Most Dangerous Bill of Our Time':
"It will affect every aspect of human existence from cradle to grave...No area of existence in this life will be free from the reach of its tentacles... The key point to recognize about the bill is that it will codify into law that you are a bigot, the moral equivalent of a racist. Read the full article here.
Here in Great Britain misogyny is to be treated as a hate crime. As Archbishop Cranmer wrote in his blog: "Misogyny is to be outlawed. Excellent. Now, what does it mean?" Read his opinion here.
Opponents of the ordination of women have often been accused of misogyny even though many opponents are women and married men.
'Misogyny' and 'discrimination' are frequent accusations from feminists in response to genuine theological disagreement, using secular criteria to appeal to society.
But the Church is losing her influence. Wales Humanists are celebrating what they describe as a "major development for secularism in Wales" after the Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru) passed a bill that "officially includes humanism in the school curriculum of all public schools in Wales."
Wales Online reports: Traditional boundaries between subjects are scrapped and there will be instead six new areas of learning and experience (AoLEs). Mandatory in the new curriculum will be "Religion, values, and ethics" and "Relationships and sexuality education".
Formal RE lessons will be scrapped and replaced with “religion, values and ethics” so humanism will be given the same importance as Christianity and Islam.
In Canada a father has been arrested for “misgendering” his own 14-year-old child by calling her his “daughter,” and referring to her with the pronouns “she” and “her.”
The father had "previously discovered that his daughter’s school had been showing her sexual and gender identity education materials known as “SOGI 123,” which the report referred to as transgender 'propaganda videos'.
"By the 7th grade, the school had changed his daughter’s name in the yearbook without telling her parents, and “socially transitioned” her with the input of gender ideologue psychologist Wallace Wong, who advised the pubescent child to take testosterone."
The Beautiful Story is a 30 minute film made by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) in response to the liberal drift of the Church of England referred to in my previous entry, Hurt and unnecessary suffering.
According to the CEEC the Church of England reached a 'big and important milestone' with the release of their resource ‘Living in Love and Faith’, a 'new dialogue around human experiences of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage'. They write:
"We are now getting close to the point where we shall finally have to make up our minds about same-sex sexual relationships in particular, and this is going to affect every parish in the land, every ministry, every incumbent, and every PCC. One option for the future is that we simply accept that the Church has a range of views and that we must learn to live with difference. But that is a bit like saying that we don’t really need to make up our minds at all. And provided you don’t think about it too much, it sounds attractive.
"But is it possible to say and do a number of contradictory things at the same time? Think of the continued pain and confusion that will bring those most directly affected. ? Do we believe that sex outside of marriage is part of God’s design for human flourishing or don’t we? Can you affirm a variety of views, in the same congregation without doing more harm than good? Can the historic biblical teaching on sex and marriage that we inherited from the Apostles survive at all when the Church speaks with so many different voices?
"Most important of all, would it be right to lose confidence in God’s design for human flourishing at this critical moment in our nation’s history? "
An accompanying leaflet (with a ‘road map’ of the video and discussion questions) is available from the CEEC website www.ceec.info.
Same sex partnerships are to be welcomed but activists take any opportunity to further their cause. Witness feminism in the Church and how civil partnerships were bent and twisted in demands for same sex marriage.
Pope Francis has not changed his stance. When Archbishop of Buenos Aires he advocated same-sex civil unions in an attempt to block a same-sex marriage law.
"Anyone living together in long term arrangements should have legal protection. This can include siblings or mother and daughter, as well as those in other kinds of relationships being protected eg in tenancy or visiting rights. Such legislation, however, should not mimic marriage."
From a Church in Wales tweet: "Thanks to @MuslimWales for hosting an outstanding event last night to celebrate Wales' interfaith relationship - great to welcome Bishop Rowan Williams back as a guest speaker too."
No doubt the Muslim Council of Wales will have been thrilled to welcome Archbishop Rowan Williams as a guest speaker at their annual dinner but well known for his left-wing, inclusive views one has to wonder why was he invited.
For the majority of Muslims homosexuality is incompatible with their faith so the Anglican Church's views on homosexuality will be abhorrent to many Muslims.
In Birmingham, Muslim mothers succeeded in stopping LGBT lessons which they claimed were promoting gay and transgender lifestyles among primary school children.
In Wales parents' right to remove children from sex and relationships education (RSE) could be scrapped under reform plans. The Muslim Council of Wales, Christian Institute and the Catholic Education Service are opposed to the right of withdrawal being removed.
The Church in Wales, along with the National Secular Society, have backed the idea.
They said RSE helped young people "develop an understanding of tolerance and diversity" making it "fundamental to the core purposes of the new curriculum".
The Church in Wales is well known for its tolerance and diversity in its acceptance of the gay culture the bench is signed up to. Otherwise people have to make their own arrangements as the Ven Peggy Jackson succinctly put it.
The merciless killing of 50 Muslims in New Zealand has rightly been condemned but there was no similar outpouring of grief for the 140 Christians killed by Muslims in Nigeria.
According to the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) more than 300 Christians have been killed by extremists in February and March of this year alone.
Persecution of Christians is rampant but it goes largely unreported while the alleged persecution of Muslims is monitored by the government backed charity Tell Mama which claimed 593% rise in anti-Muslim hate crime across Britain in the week after the Christchurch shooting.
Claims that Muslims are a peaceful, persecuted minority have clearly resonated with many people. The majority of Muslims live peacefully but any attempts to present a more balanced view of Islam's ideology are met with claims of Islamophobia.
The Church in Wales should know better but they continue to show more respect for a faith that denies the divinity of Christ than for orthodox Anglicans. They are simply ignored.
Despite being well known for her LGBT advocacy I understand that jolly June Osborne was also present at the Muslim Council dinner.
A prime mover of the ordination of women with alternative episcopal oversight for those who could not in conscience accept the innovation, I wonder if Rowan Williams had a word in jolly June's ear about persecuted Anglicans in the Church of Wales? I doubt it.
Do you see the archbishop chatting-up the ex-minister? He hasn't a clue what he has started. Llandaff next! Photo source: Wales Online
Love is the thing. Presiding bishop Michael Curry drawled it out at the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle:
The liberal infiltrators who have targeted Anglicanism continually talk of love, rolling all forms of love into one. It embraces every desire.
The liberal propaganda machine is spread widely, so much so that when discussing gender fluidity with a group of secondary school pupils they confidently predicted that pansexuality would become the norm. [See Postscript: Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids]
Schools, television, newspapers, church, in fact everywhere, 'education' has become the means of encouraging almost anything and everything except traditional marriage resulting in a massive increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
'Love' without qualification is all. We should not be surprised, then, when impressionable teenagers interpret the message as 'do as you please'.
The zeitgeist has been promoted shamelessly by people, including clergy, as a means of advancing their own preference. 'Get used to it', is their response. 'People will think nothing of it in time' as if that were justification for not defending traditional marriage, the foundation of family life.
If these people are right, why are church pews emptying?
In a recent twist, the Right Rev Rachel Treweek reportedly argued that only God can provide unconditional love. Previously she has argued that the Church of England should stop using male pronouns when referring to God in order to counter the erroneous belief that the Almighty has a gender.
From The Times (£). You can’t have love without faith, says woman bishop
"The first woman to become a senior Anglican bishop has questioned whether people can really have love or hope if they do not believe in God. The Right Rev Rachel Treweek shattered the so-called “stained-glass ceiling” when she was made Bishop of Gloucester in 2015, less than a year after the Church of England had voted to allow women to join its House of Bishops. At the time, she said that she would encourage British Christians to “speak out with confidence about their faith” after years of reticence over mounting robust public defences of Anglican belief."
She seemed to be implying that people in extraordinary loving relationships, with whoever/whatever must have a greater belief in God.
Following a tweet from Humanists UK which said how "deeply, profoundly offensive it was to the 53% of people in the UK that have no religion" the bishop has since denied that she said anything of the sort.
In an anxious video response the bishop wondered aloud "if without faith we can really know deep hope and love", which appeared to take her back to what she said she did not say.
Unable to stop digging a deeper hole for herself she mentioned love sixteen times referring to her 'own brokenness', the 'bomb attack in Manchester' and 'bishop Michael Curry's Royal wedding sermon'.
Persecution has reared its head in another controversy. Church of England evangelicals are claiming that they being "forced out" for being gay.
"Jayne Ozanne, 'an influential Church of England evangelical who is gay', has promised to raise the issue at the General Synod next month and ask whether churches are breaching the official guidelines of the House of Bishops. Speaking to The Sunday Times, she had "learnt of dozens of cases recently" and said she expected a #MeToo" moment for the Church to be stirred up."
The Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas, had criticised a letter extending welcome to same-sex couples last month by Lichfield diocese. Bishop Thomas, who chaired the conservative Evangelical pressure group Reform until 2015, was responding to recent guidelines issued by the Bishops in the diocese of Lichfield to all clergy and lay ministers which seek to end “intrusive questioning” on sexual practices.
The Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Revd David Ison, expressed concern about the Bishop of Maidstone’s comments on the Lichfield diocesan letter seeking to define “radical Christian inclusion”. In a blog contribution, he also criticises the Church of England bishops more generally for “institutional dishonesty” about clergy in same-sex relationships, which, he says, is damaging to mental health as well as corrupting of the institution.
With so much talk of love and inclusion you might have thought that a place at the table could be found for traditionalist Anglicans but not a bit of it.
The only chance of a welcome is to become a Muslim or ignore one's conscience and fall in behind those who already have.
