Church in Wales Governing Body and Christian Aid

The Bishop of Monmouth at GB in 2017 (left) and the Bishop of Bangor (right), +Richard's cover for absence, in 2019     Source: Twitter #govbody

Christian Aid Week 12-18 May 2019

"This year’s Christian Aid Week focuses on standing together to help families weather future storms – #StandTogether."

What is truth?

This video is the subject of the 2016 'Featured Post' highlighted in the Right Hand Column: If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything. 

The presentation concludes that it should not be hard to tell a 5' 9" white guy that he is not a 6' 5" Chinese woman. But clearly it is. Why?

Three years on there are increasing reports of intimidation and exclusion for stating what previously would have been regarded as obvious.

Sexing at birth is a normal part of life. One's classification as male or female is duly recorded on one's birth certificate. With gender fluidity, people identifying as genderqueer or non-binary express feelings at variance with their birth classification which everyone else is expected to agree with regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Defying reason it is cultural Marxism gone mad.

So far the only 'men' who have had babies are women who have retained their wombs after transitioning but the success of womb transplants has led some to claim the breakthrough could open up pregnancy to all sexes.

While a tiny minority of people fall into this category the demands of the trendy left are having negative effects on free speech with charges of hate crime for voicing any contrary opinions or simply saying what previously would have been regarded as obvious.

Recently a leading tax expert was sacked by a Think tank for using 'offensive language' after she tweeted that 'men cannot change into women' in a transgender row. In an article and a series of more than 100 tweets she rallied against government proposals allowing people to self-identify as a particular gender.

Jordan Peterson, described as one of the "the greatest thinkers of our time", has been branded a racist, misogynist and an Islamophobe for warning against the dangers of "identity politics and raving ideologues because they are divisive and not grounded in reason or fact".

The government sacked its housing adviser Conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton after he appeared to repeat antisemitic statements and denied Islamophobia was a problem. His reported remarks had been taken out of context.

A Cambridge University social scientist Noah Carl has been dismissed after administrators appeared to capitulate to a mob of activists (students and academics) who mounted a campaign to have the scholar fired for “problematic” research. Not because his research is fraudulent or inaccurate, but because "there’s a risk it could lead indirectly to bad actors promoting views that could incite racial or religious hatred". It matters not whether the scholarship is true; the critical thing is whether it upsets people, Quillette reported.

Australian rugby star Israel Folau was pronounced guilty of a "high-level breach of Rugby Australia’s professional players' code of conduct" for expressing his Christian beliefs based on the Bible, eg,1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

Christian Concern has issued a Prayer Alert for Felix Ngole who was expelled from his social work course for saying on Facebook that homosexual practice and other behaviours are sinful. Christian Concern warn that "Court transcripts expose extent of threat to Christian freedoms".

Double standards prevail. The Saatchi Gallery covered up artworks after Muslim visitors' complaints while ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ by Chris Ofili, an Africanised painting of the mother of Christ that rests on two big slabs of elephant dung was displayed in 1997 despite complaints.

When Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture in 2006 in which he explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith, he was forced to issue an apology in response to the angry reactions.

'Correct' knowledge or belief. What is truth today?

Dreams to reality

Rev. Mary Glasspool (right)  the second openly gay bishop elected in the US Episcopal Church. (AP)

"ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) -  Pope Francis said on Tuesday more study was needed on the role of women deacons in the early Christian Church, which eventually could affect decisions on the role of women today.

"Francis and his predecessors have ruled out allowing women to become priests. But advocates of women priests say a ruling that women in the early Church were ordained ministers might eventually make it easier for a future pope to study the possibility of women priests."

The movement for the ordination of women has a clear track record. Claim victimhood, gain support of secularists, substitute equality for theology, foot in the door, deacon, priest, bishop, LGBT rights, gay church, exclusion of orthodox Anglicans, decline and collapse. Queering the Church continues unabated.

From Another screw in the Anglican coffin (2011): "The slow death of the Anglican church looks set to continue. While the role of bishops and priests becomes ever further divorced from traditional religious reality congregations continue to haemorrhage."

The writing on the wall has been clear for some time.

Postscript [09.05.2019]

On the plane again
"Catholics would do well to pay greater attention to the programme which resulted in the ordination of women in the Church of England." - ignatius his conclave

Countdown to Compostela

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela                                                                                                                                                                    Source: aleteia.org

Reminder to all clergy and laity of the Diocese of Llandaff

Priests from more than 100 churches in Llandaff will be travelling to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain for their Clergy School which takes place from Monday, 13 May to Friday, 17th May, 2019. It will take the form of a pilgrimage

Much of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is closed due to renovation work as will be parishes in the diocese of Llandaff.

Clergy may wish to take a few extra Euros to purchase a guide book as a memento of what they have missed. Alternatively a free virtual tour of the pilgrimage Cathedral is available here, courtesy of turismo.gal.

The clergy school will provide a welcome break for exhausted clergy who have been unable to take time off after Easter.

Accommodation at Hospederia de San Martin de Pinario and charter flights are provided at diocesan expense but clergy are responsible for their own domestic arrangements.

During Lent the faithful should have been making Pipe-Cleaner Persons from 12 inch pipe cleaners as temporary cover for clergy pilgrims.

Some other points to consider:

Arrange for an idle parishioner to care for the vicarage cat(s).

Cancel the milk and any newspapers.

Check medication supplies; sick notes are to be avoided.

Currency for G&Ts and other clergy essentials.

Funerals should be deferred.

Priestly care for the poor, the sick, the needy and those in trouble must wait.

Bishop of Monmouth appointment

A tweet from Governing Body:

#govbody agreed that the right to appoint to the see of Monmouth will not pass to the bench of bishops until 31st October to give time for Monmouth diocese to have time to prepare properly for the Electoral College.

Time for reflection! 

No doubt there will be the usual calls for gender parity by adding a third woman bishop to the bench. 

The consequence of such a move would result in three women bishops in perpetuity in southern Wales, assuming that whenever a female bishop retires she would be replaced by another female bishop to maintain gender balance.

To break this undesirable cycle and provide a better balance for the future, a male bishop is preferable after two female appointments using subsequent appointments to provide a more even balance throughout the Province.

Given the Governing Body's resounding rejection of Archdeacon Peggy Jackson's motion which would have put an end to mutual flourishing, this is an opportune time to take note of the Archbishop's Presidential Address in which he urged members to be ready and willing to listen, "even to things you don’t want to hear...Take upon ourselves that yoke and to take up that cross", to "listen more particularly, listening to the voice of the Father; listening to the voice of the Teacher; listening to the voice of the Spirit; and listening to each other’s voices too."

The appointment of an orthodox bishop would help heal the divisions that have been created unnecessarily. Orthodox opinions need to be heard and balanced against current trends rather than dismissed as irrelevant as defined by the Jackson coterie.

That was the implication of the consultations held to discuss the appointment of women bishops in the Church of Wales. Diocesan meetings called to discuss the Code of Practice consistently called on the Bench of Bishops to provide a traditionalist bishop to minister to Anglicans who wished to retain the original Apostolic integrity of the Province.  

Archbishop Barry Morgan and his bench sitters ignored pleas of the faithful and embarked on a strategy which resulted in Jackson's final assault on orthodoxy at Governing Body.

Taking over the reins after his new Dean of Llandaff, Janet Henderson, spectacularly resigned two months into post, Morgan decreed that the Cathedral Office was not to publish the names of officiants at each of the Cathedral services. His purpose was clear.

Twin integrities were anathema to Barry Morgan as was the appointment of the Provincial Assistant Bishop to provide sacramental assurance and pastoral care for those who in conscience could not receive the sacramental ministry of women in common with the majority of the world's 85 million Anglicans. 

Bishop David Thomas died broken hearted and much of the Church in Wales died with him.

Belatedly there is an opportunity to move forward in hope that the years of decline can be turned around. 

It is too good an opportunity to miss and certainly not one to be bungled.

Archdeacon Jackson's divisive motion beaten

Archdeacon of Llandaff with club

Tweets from Governing Body of the Church in Wales indicate that Peggy Jackson has failed in her latest bid to divide the Church in Wales.

Votes cast:

For               19
Against        63
Abstentions 20

Conscience is not dead.

She should now graciously drop her club and heed her Archbishop's advice:
listen to the voice of God, of the Teacher, of the Spirit and each other’s voices too.




Postscript [10.05.2019]

From Church Times:

Archbishop John Davies who abstained on the vote over the proposals said after the Governing Body meeting that, as far as he was concerned, there was no need to change the code of practice.

He rejected suggestions that the debate had exposed a lack of trust between various factions in the Church. The code of practice was purely in the hands of the bishops and could be torn up tomorrow should they so wish, he said, a situation that was bound to cause concern to traditionalists. “There is, perhaps, a lack of security”, he added.

Archdeacon Peggy Jackson insisted that it was not her intent to drive conservatives or Anglo-Catholics out of the Church. 'Anglican Unscripted' commentators [@ position 19] viewed it differently: having won the battle she was intent on shooting the prisoners.

Are you listening Archbishop?

Yoke with plough formed as a cross drawn by a pair of oxen                                                                                                                       Source: The Hans India

Using analogies of yoke and cross in his Presidential address to the Governing Body of the Church in Wales archbishop John Davies said  "Readiness and willingness to take upon ourselves that yoke and to take up that cross does however demand certain things of us. I referred, a few minutes ago, to an important process which I want to strongly commend to and urge upon you. It’s the process of listening; more particularly, listening to the voice of the Father; listening to the voice of the Teacher; listening to the voice of the Spirit; and listening to each other’s voices too." 

Following the plough drawn by yoked oxen inevitably results in trudging through piles of excrement, something Christians seeking the truth increasingly have to wade through. 

'Listening to each other's voices' in the Church in Wales has become a one-way communication system in which orthodox Christians are expected to hear the words of revisionists and accept them in good grace even if they contradict the voices of the Father, the Teacher and the Spirit.

This sounds very much like another softening up process, particularly when the archbishop adds:

"Readiness and willingness to demonstrate that respectful and gracious attentiveness of mind, soul and spirit, to the Father, to the Teacher, to the Spirit and to each other, may sometimes mean uncomfortably humbling ourselves by being attentive to and listening to things we don’t like and would rather not even hear; things with which we might disagree profoundly. There are almost certainly items on the agenda of this meeting which some of us will, undoubtedly, view in such ways. But hear about them we must, and be respectfully attentive to those who think differently, we must, shining upon them the light of the Father’s wisdom, the light of the Teacher’s love and the light of the Spirit’s grace."

In their Update from the Bench on Same Sex Relationships Statement the bench "pledge to keep listening, listening to everyone, listening for God."

The Governing Body will learn tomorrow what Church in Wales pledges are worth after Peggy Jackson's divisive motion is put to the vote.

If this is to be a new beginning, fine, but so far there has been no obvious humility on the part of the bench or their enforcer, the Archdeacon of Llandaff. A good start can be made by dropping Jackson's motion.

If it is to be more of the same - but faster, there is no hope for the Church in Wales.

Are you listening Archbishop?