Michael Ingham was on the stand yesterday and, according to the report on the diocesan website, he said something rather odd:

The bishop said his own view of homosexuality had been changing at this time. While he had originally been quite conservative on the issue, after 25 years in ministry, having met and counselled homosexual people, “I had come to regard them as normal human beings…

An extraordinary confession since it means that during the previous 25 years of ministry, Ingham must have viewed homosexuals as abnormal human beings. This is not the view of a conservative Christian, who would regard a homosexual urge as a temptation to be resisted not as an indicator that a person less than a normal human being. Ingham’s view for 25 years was – well, homophobic.

This paragraph towards the end is a stark admission of heterodoxy:

Rather, the brief says, Anglican tradition is “dynamic” and the interpretation of doctrine is shaped by the history, society, and culture of the day. “Doctrine cannot be frozen in a single historical form.”

This is a shameless admission that New Westminster has abandoned any pretence of its doctrine adhering to biblical principles: instead it is taken from history, society and the culture of the day. A brazen confession that the diocese is in hot pursuit of the vanities of an increasingly decadent civilisation, never quite catching up, and convincing no-one except a diminishing retinue of salaried help and liberal hangers-on. It is no longer a Christian church.