"Gay marriage is here to stay",

thus says the Bishop of Buckingham (hat tip to Anglican Mainstream).

Well know for his trendy social intercourse the Rt Rev'd Dr Alan Wilson graced the Queering Paradigms network to deliver the keynote speech in which he claimed that "nothing bad happened in the UK after the introduction of same-sex marriage two years ago and that the Church of England is slowly accepting the concept" before adding the latest LGBT clerical mantra, "it was merely a matter of time before the controversy surrounding gay and transgender unions would turn to acceptance everywhere, even in his church".

The fact that same sex marriage is tearing the Church apart is obviously irrelevant to +Buckingham.

The Queering Paradigms network is "dedicated to examining the current state and future challenges of Queer Studies from a broad trans-disciplinary and polythetic perspective, and by interrogating numerous social, political, cultural and academic agendas". Professor Bee Scherer introduces himself as the founder of Queering Paradigms and Professor of Religious Studies and Gender Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University.

In the video the professor explains Queer Theory as "An academic area challenging traditional concepts of binary genders and other ideas around sexuality". He described it as "a daring and rebellious form of thinking about who we are and assumptions about fixed gender". Rebellious indeed.

That anyone can hold such a position let alone indoctrinate our young people with such notions is bad enough but to be supported by a bishop of the Church of England expounding views contrary the Church's position on marriage shows the level to which some of our bishops have sunk. Will any stand up for the faith?

Digging their own grave

                                                                  Photo: Church in Wales

Saturday witnessed an unexpected milestone, over 900,000 page views for the Ancient Briton blog which was started in 2010 after some friendly banter about the way the world was going. My aim was to air the grievances we had discussed while attempting to avoid being left behind by the grandchildren as technology advanced. Clearly I am not alone. My thanks to all the commentators who have added their views in support or to the contrary.

Inadvertently a platform has been provided for free speech for Anglicans who have become marginalised in their own Church as ambitious clerics drive their own liberal agenda. "If you don't like it you can leave" used to be the response to traditionalists. For those who have remained their resolve is being tested further.

Also on Saturday the Church Growth Modelling blog published Conversion to the Diversity Ideology
Part 2 - Justification of Hypotheses. Here is an extract:

The Church in Wales is an Anglican church, and like many UK denominations, is indicating decline to extinction [8].  Last year the attempts by its leadership to introduced same-sex marriage were stalled by significant opposition from diocesan representatives. Since then the bishops of the church have issued a pastoral statement that indicates the Church’s conversion to Diversity in the public sphere [9].

Notably there was the display of the rainbow flag as the identification badge (C).  The unenlightened laggards within the church are subtly discredited with statements like  “the Church is not yet ready to accept same-sex marriage” (D). There is a general confession of, and apology for, past damage the church has done to gay people (B). Though the actual offences, and the people involved, are not identified, leaving the reader to re-write history for themselves in order to make sense of the statement (A).

We 'unenlightened laggards' are regularly condemned from on high for holding a contrary opinion to the new Diversity Ideology. "Lacking in love and understanding" we are the new sinners according to devotees of the Queer Bible, yet these are the people who will have "killed off" the Church within a generation. 

It's a funny old world which is why I started blogging in 2010 and have continued to do so despite the many gagging attempts of people who have no interest in free speech from the top down.

International Gin Day 2016

A dry Fr Brown?

Today, 11 June 2016, is World Gin Day, one of the most important days in the calendar for Catholics. The sun has gone down over the yardarm so time to celebrate with a G&T in true Anglican/RC style. 

Cheers to all my readers and traditionalists everywhere!

Scottish Episcopal Church votes to consider accepting SSM

The bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC).                                                                                                                                          Source: SEC

"Today the Scottish Episcopal Church, meeting in its General Synod in Edinburgh, takes the first step in a process which may lead to same sex couples being able to marry in our churches and to our clergy being able to enter into same sex marriages [SSM]. It is a two-year process. In 2016, the voting needs to produce a simple majority in each of the three 'houses' – laity, clergy and bishops. The second and final stage in the process will be reached in 2017 when two-thirds majorities will be needed in each house". - The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews,Dunkled & Dunblane and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Full report here.

Bishop Chillingworth writes: "Within churches, human sexuality issues have the capacity to expose deep fault lines in our understanding of faith. Some see the full inclusion of LGBT people as a matter of justice. Jesus was a person always open to those excluded by others – the lepers, the adulterous woman, tax collector and sinners. Would he not have been also open to LGBT people? Others point to the authority of scripture which in some places warns against same sex relationships. They call us to an understanding of God's law and life as it has been understood from the creation. So this is an important moment for our church. "

The problem with the 'full inclusion' argument is that Christ healed the sick and told the sinner to sin no more. In what category does LGBT fall? LGBT people can hardly claim to be excluded when they are driving the agenda. The legal effects of a civil partnership are almost identical to marriage. To agitate for SSM is counterproductive.

The bishop concludes: "It is not just about whether we can find agreement, it is about whether what we do is within our understanding of our faith."

Unfortunately for Anglicanism, faith has become too malleable. Ultimately will there be anything left if SSM in church is adopted?

Postscript [11.06.2016]

GAFCON offers alternative oversight to Scottish Anglicans

Indoctrination

Early in May the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool announced the "Historic Appointment of Bishop Susan Goff as Assisting Bishop of Liverpool", an appointment criticised by many as  having "crossed a line" for recruiting a pro-same sex marriage bishop.

The above video was recorded three years ago when +Goff visited Liverpool before the Church of England voted in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate. Her message was that people should hold on because it was "going to happen" after seeing a woman in a purple shirt and a mitre!

We now have women  bishops in England and approval in Wales where the faithful in the dioceses of St Davids and Llandaff hold their breath in trepidation at the thought of one or other of ++Barry's feminist prodigies being thrust upon them. The campaign driven by WATCH for women deacons, priests and bishops is being mirrored by the LGBT lobby as gay clergy work towards same sex marriage in church.

At the end of May Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, preached at Liverpool Cathedral on the healing of the centurion’s servant (Luke 7) claiming that there was a likely sexual relationship between the two so Jesus must have approved of it, thus turning the healing of the sick into a case for same sex marriage (SSM). He went so far as to claim that those who oppose SSM are inhumane and un-Christian and should just get on with it as Christ did. His theory has been expertly dissected by Psephizo on his blog.

Advocates of SSM like to claim that it will be accepted in the same way that re-marriage in church after divorce is regarded as normal today. Jeffrey John expects the CofE to offer gays a "half-way dedication service" before fully accepting SSM in the church. He concludes by quoting a gay priest who preached a similar message in the 1970s implying that, given time, SSM in church is inevitable, a line regularly preached by gay clergy led by the bench of bishops in Wales and fed to impressionable young students in a process of secular indoctrination.

The Catholic Church is reported to be on the slippery path trod by Western Anglicanism. Pope Francis has announced he will create a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, "signaling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution's practice of an all-male clergy".

This is the thin edge of the wedge. Starting with women deacons, Anglicanism has, drip by drip, resulted in the admission gay and lesbian bishops who are calling for SSM in churches. Giving an inch leads to disaster.

Postscript [13.06.2016]

Sri Lankan Theologian Blasts Jeffrey John's Interpretation of Centurion and Servant Sex

Major error: another shade of grey

John Major an Edwina Curry. She felt 'forgotten' when Major was premier.                 Source: BBC

Sir John Major, ex-Premier and holder of England's highest award for chivalry, The Most Noble Order of the Garter, is the latest has-been to be rolled out by the 'Remain' Campaign.

"Deceiving the public and verging on the squalid" sounds like an act of contrition for his four-year affair with former Conservative minister Edwina Currie when he was a whip in Mrs Thatcher's Government and she a backbencher.

Not a bit of it. He was attacking the Brexit campaign.

Pot calling the kettle black?

Postscript [06.06.2016]
Edwina Currie gives John Major reason to blush

Yesterday's clerics' errors

 Lord Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford                                Picture credit: Endeavour Public Affairs

The former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, features in the Oxford Times "weighing in on EU vote". He is among 37 "faith leaders" who in an open letter to the public have called on Britain to stay in the EU. Lord Harries is a former collaborator of the Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan who together with Dr Morgan's predecessor and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, signed the open letter. Considering this trio's judgement on the ordination of women and their liberal agenda resulting in the parlous state of Anglicanism, particularly in Wales, it is difficult to afford much credibility to their opinions on the European Referendum.

As for the former Bishop of Oxford, an ardent promoter of same sex marriage, his opinions would be better left in the ivory towers of Oxford. This is the cleric who suggested that the Coronation of Prince Charles should be opened with a reading from the Koran, as a ‘creative act of accommodation’ to make Muslims feel ‘embraced’ by the nation.

There will be plenty to 'embrace' based on report from Migration Watch, "The Refugee and Migrant Crisis in the EU – The Potential Implications for the UK". It claims that up to "half a million refugees and their relatives" could move to Britain after 2020 in a "secondary flow of refugees" because of EU rules on the free movement of people. While Germany, Greece and Italy had borne the brunt of Europe's refugee crisis, those granted asylum could settle in the UK in the coming years once they had acquired EU citizenship.

Based on his 2015 Christmas plea the Archbishop of Wales will be thrilled to read that Cardiff, Swansea and Newport have been named as three out of 10 places in the UK with the highest number of asylum seekers per head of population.

The 2011 census recorded 45,950 Muslims in Wales, far more than the 30,468 average Sunday attendances in 2014 reported by the Church in Wales. Most of the Muslims in Wales are spread between Cardiff (23,656), Newport (6,859) and Swansea (5,415) with smaller communities in the valleys and across rural and North Wales.

In their appeal to the electorate the faith leaders claim that "faith is about integration and building bridges, not about isolation and erecting barriers. As leaders and senior figures of faith communities, we urge our co-religionists and others to think about the implications of a Leave vote for the things about which we are most passionate."

TOSH! As the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks rightly pointed out on the BBC Newsnight programme last night, "multiculturalism has been a failure". He referred to the warning by Trevor Phillips, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, that "British Muslims are becoming a nation within a nation". Trevor Phillips said we are "in danger of sacrificing a generation of young British people to values that are antithetical to the beliefs of most of us, including many Muslims".

The Remain campaign has lost much credibility by basing their claims on scare stories, foggy forecasts and guesstimates. There may or may not be problems if we leave but these pale into insignificance compared with the ramifications of uncontrolled immigration which have not been properly addressed.

Still in denial of the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities in the years 1915 and 1916, Turkey hopes to join the EU. That would result in 78 million mainly Muslim people, and rising, eligible to go where they please in Europe compared with Turkey's population of less than 30 million in 1960.

As Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan says, "Family planning not for Muslims". In Great Britain Census figures reveal a ‘startling’ shift in Britain’s demographic trend with almost a tenth of babies and toddlers born in England and Wales being Muslim'. Combining immigration figures with the higher birth rate it is understandable that some forecasters predict that Christianity is set to be a minority religion in Britain by 2050 as Islam and atheism rise.

The Justice Secretary Michael Gove has claimed that he has been forced to allow terror suspects to enter Britain because European Union rules left him powerless to intervene. During his time in the Cabinet Mr Gove "experienced frustration" at Britain’s "inability to refuse entry to those with a criminal record and even some who are suspected of terrorist links".

The only way to bring order to our borders is to "quit the EU", says former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith.

Postscript [06.06.2016]

From the Rev Dr Peter Mullen: Bishops are no laughing matter