Category Archives: Anglican Angst

The trial between New Westminster and ANiC continues

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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.

A list of Anglican Church of Canada clergy who support same-sex blessings

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In January 2007 a number of ACoC bishops, clergy and lay people signed an open letter exhorting general synod to approve same sex blessings. Take a look at the list of people who signed it to see if your rector is there.

Here is the letter:

Living God’s Blessing

Anglicans of homosexual orientation have formally, by episcopal decision, been accepted as equal members of the Anglican Church of Canada since 1979. However, that acceptance did not include accepting any form of sexual expression for homosexual persons, who therefore have never been treated as equal, embodied persons. Though celibacy is understood in scripture to be a vocation (Matt. 19:12), it has been imposed on gays and lesbians, making it not vocation but compulsion, and denying them any sanctioned form of sexual intimacy.

The affirmation in 2004 by General Synod, the church’s highest governing body, of “the sanctity and integrity of committed, adult same-sex relationships” was a step towards real equality. However, since then, there has been a moratorium on further use of blessings outside New Westminster. In the face of the growing split in the Anglican Communion, General Synod 2004 referred the question of blessing same-sex relationships to the Primate’s Theological Commission. Its St. Michael Report has recommended that such blessings are a question of doctrine, but not of core doctrine. This means that General Synod will be able, in 2007, to affirm the blessing of same-sex relationships.

We believe that:

1. Silence contributes to the injustices experienced by gays and lesbians.

2. Truth, love and justice are biblical imperatives not to be jeopardized by clamours for unanimity disguised as “unity”. Unity in Christ, proclaimed as Lord, requires truth and justice for all.

3. We have the obligation to use reason to interpret scripture in the light of new knowledge and understandings.

4. It is unbiblical, unjust, ethically wrong, and morally unsound to impose celibacy on gay and lesbian clergy.

5. Because the core of the gospel message is covenant with God, with family, and with community, the covenants between same-sex couples should be affirmed and blessed by the church, as is the case for heterosexual couples.

The church has acknowledged the sanctity and integrity of adult committed same-sex relationships. Civil marriage for same-sex couples is now the norm in Canada. Thus it is time for the church to accept as valid all marriages performed in Canada, and to bless the marriages and unions of all who request such a blessing. This can happen while the discussion continues about the possibility of the solemnization of same-sex marriages in the church.

For anyone who doubts that the the Anglican church has abdicated its role of setting moral standards for society, pay attention to the last paragraph: the church defers to culture for ethical inspiration.

Here is a chart of the number of clergy who signed this by diocese:

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The next chart is probably more interesting, since it show the percentage of clergy in each diocese that signed the letter. I had to estimate the total number of clergy in some dioceses, so, although it paints an interesting picture,  it isn’t 100% accurate:

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As a coincidental twist of irony, Steve Hopkins from Niagara is a signatory of this missive; he is also introducing an Essentials event next Saturday where I am leading the worship. Delicious.

Rowan Williams on Philip Pullman

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Rowan Williams spoke at the Hay Festival in Wales – not far from where I used to live – and had this to say:

Philip Pullman helps understanding of theology, says Archbishop of Canterbury

Citing Pullman as one of his favourite modern writers, Dr Rowan Williams said he liked his work because it took the church “seriously” at a time when theology was “drifting out” of mainstream thought.

Pullman has been castigated by parts of the Roman Catholic church, particularly in North America, as many consider the trilogy His Dark Materials to be a veiled attack on it.

But, speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dr Williams defended Pullman.

He said: “First of all he takes the Christian myth, or a version of it, seriously enough to want to disagree passionately with it.

When Rowan talks about the “Christian myth” one hopes that he means what C. S. Lewis meant in  Myth Become Fact. Since he didn’t actually mention that, though, I have an uneasy feeling he doesn’t.

It’s not just the RC Church that has criticised Pullman: he is a supporter of the British Humanist Association and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, has been described as one of England’s most outspoken atheists and was described by Peter Hitchens as The most dangerous author in Britain. The only odd thing here is why Rowan Williams is so enamoured of him; Rowan goes on to explain:

Although he stressed he disagreed with Pullman’s atheistic view, he commended his “search for some way of talking about human value, human depth and three-dimensionality, that doesn’t depend on God.”

Merely to ask the question was important, he said.

He agreed with the thrust of Pullman’s novels that religious authorities must not silence the “demons” that people carry with them – the essential “internal conversation” between good and evil.

He said: “The threat in Pullman’s novels is the Authority – people like me in his imagination – which wants to divide the human spirit and cut off and silence that demonic voice, that voice of the imagination.

“And so you end up with these unforgettably poignant pictures of children who have had their demons taken away, who are just lifeless automata.

“And that’s evil, that’s the essence of evil.”

Here is a prime slice of Rowan muddle: human imagination, he says, depends on the presence of demonic influence and the essence of evil is the expunging of that influence – a bizarre view for a Christian. God is the author of imagination not a Screwtape-like dialogue; to labour under the illusion that the demonic is an intended part of the human spirit that must remain for a person to be truly human, is a thoroughly sub-Christian view.

He concluded: “I feel that that awareness of the inner conversation, the inner dialogue, that has to be part of a sensible, credible modern dialogue about the soul.”

This little insight does explain Rowan’s preoccupation with “conversation”: he has one running in his head all the time.

Dr Williams made his comments about Pullman after telling the Hay audience that he thought theology had become less relevant to the “intellectual mainstream” since the 19th century.

Well, no wonder.

An Anglican Professor of Church History has noticed that the Anglican church is falling apart

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Alan Hayes is Professor of Church History at Wycliffe, University of Toronto, and he has this to say about the plight of the Anglican Church of Canada (Page 3):

And now, in 2009, the Anglican Communion gives a very good impression of falling to pieces. Some of this gets blamed on debates about sexuality, but, if you’ve followed me so far, you’ll know that I see deeper and more enduring causes than that.

What’s the way forward? If our problem is what I suspect – that we’re depending on a Vatican II theology which was never really ours to begin with and which is now showing signs of age—then the way forward is theological too. We need to rediscover, together, the faith of our Church. We need to agree on what we stand for, and we need to discern our distinctive theologically grounded mission.

I doubt that techniques of church growth or strategies of relevance will move us ahead until we’ve had our own Anglican Vatican II, and that will mean prayer, self-criticism, ressourcement, and aggiornamento.

This is the first time I have seen Alan openly admit that the ACoC is imitating something that is falling to pieces. Of course, for many of us, it is quite clear that the ACoC isn’t doing an imitation, but actually is falling to pieces: just as Bob Dylan observed you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, you don’t need a professor of church history to tell you what the rotten smell is in the ACoC.

His point that we adopted something that isn’t ours – Vatican II – and that we need our own version is interesting but impossible: we don’t have a Vatican. It has become transparently apparent that there is absolutely no working authority structure in the worldwide Anglican communion; someone other than Rowan Williams might have had the guts to impose order, but it is quite clearly beyond Rowan.

When we see this sort of thing:

the Roman Catholic Church’s new and totally unexpected spirit of self-criticism, its re-thinking of Christian basics, its ressourcement (its return to essential sources, especially Scripture), and its aggiornamento (its passion to come to faithful terms with the modern world).

We may persuade ourselves that in this there is a glimmer of hope, in phrases like return to essential sources, especially Scripture; the glimmer is dimmed when we read: passion to come to faithful terms with the modern world. Rather than plainly say that the ACoC has departed from historic orthodox Christianity, we have something sufficiently slippery that it can used by liberals whose view of coming to faithful terms with the culture is to capitulate to it.

Liberals like Michael Burslem, whose article by a stroke of fortuitous irony, appears on the same page:

In Anglicanism we have neither an infallible pope nor an infallible Bible. The Word of God is our supreme authority, not exclusively the Bible. This is the Logos of St. John’s prologue, which he defines as Jesus Christ. However, since his Ascension he is no longer with us in person, but he did promise to send his Holy Spirit, who is the Logos in the world today. The Spirit certainly speaks to us through Holy Scripture, but also through other means, such as our culture and traditions, other people, (especially our spouses) through visions, dreams, through music, poetry, drama and literature; through the wonders of science; yes, and through common sense. He deals with us individually. There is no ‘one size fits all’ which would be if the Bible alone were our supreme authority.

Here we have entered the realm of sanctified subjectivity: contemporary cultural prejudice justified by the rubber stamp of a bogus holy spirit.

Alan’s way forward, We need to rediscover, together, the faith of our Church, is more of a way sideways:  with nothing explicit in mind, it would be used by liberals to conform the church to contemporary preoccupations while making the claim of returning to the church’s roots.

The Anglican Church: finding the middle ground that upsets everyone

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The Anglican church’s obsession with what it calls “social justice” inevitably translates into making pious political pronouncements rather than actually doing anything for itself. This is largely because, having abandoned its spiritual heritage for trendy pop-culture causes, it has withered into impotence and can do little more than stand on the sidelines and whine.

In keeping with its mealy-mouthed approach to everything, it can’t actually bring itself to come down definitively on one side or the other of an issue, preferring instead to find an ersatz Hegelian no-man’s land from which it can appear to be sympathetic to all and sundry.

The result is not appeasement but universal derision. The latest example is the ACC-14  pontification on the Middle East which has equally upset the left:

Palestinian rights deserve Anglican action

A obsession with even-handedness is stopping Anglicans taking a firm stand on Israel’s disregard for Palestinian rights.

At the 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting, held in Jamaica earlier this month, a resolution on the Middle East was passed, criticising the Israeli occupation. An original version of the resolution was originally submitted by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN), but as the language was felt by some to be too “strong”, a new resolution was put forward and adopted.

And right:

The Anglicans’ Ritualistic Denunciation

  1. The Anglicans, meeting in Jamaica for their international Consultative Council, ritualistically denounced “current Israeli policies in relation to the West Bank, in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions, [which] have created severe hardship for many Palestinians and have been experienced as a physical form of apartheid.”

Arab League pleas for peace were praised by the Anglicans, of course, while Israel was sternly instructed that it must “end its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” “immediately” freeze all settlement activity in “preparation” for a Palestinian state, remove the “separation barrier,” end Palestinian home demolitions, and close all military checkpoints in the Palestinian territories.

And what did the Anglican elites demand that the Palestinians and their Arab patrons offer in return? Apparently nothing.

Compare all this Anglican fire against Israel with a nearly concurrent Anglican Consultative Committee resolution about Korea, whose regime in the North often makes the West Bank seem like Club Med. It urged Korean “reunification,” commended Anglican relief for the “starving population in North Korea” without explaining why they are starving, lamented that the “political situation” in the Korean peninsula had “worsened” without explaining how, implored that “all countries” “desist from confrontation,” and urged a “permanent peace.”

Is it any wonder, then, that when the Anglican Church makes one of its rare proclamations on spiritual matters, no-one listens.

Anglicans synthesising muddle from the Bible

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Canadian Bishop Sue Moxley had this to say about bible study at ACC-14:

We began this morning with Morning Prayer as we were to have a closing Eucharist at 4pm. The Bible Study focus was Mark 16: 1-8. One question was “If you were Mark, would you have ended with verse 8, or would you have ended the Gospel differently?” That was a nonstarter as some members refused to even think about tampering with the Gospel. The last question was “What will you be taking home to share in your churches about the Gospel of Mark or how Anglicans read the Scripture?” That discussion included the realization that Anglicans with different views of Scripture can read and share ideas together as long as no one thinks they have the only truth of the reading.

This approach to reading the bible is symptomatic of the muddle we find ourselves. It treats the bible as a thesis whose meaning is in question. Then, in using what appears to be a Hegelian dialectic of discussing thesis and antithesis, we come to a synthesis – an Anglican middle ground.

The problem is, the bible does not present a truth which changes depending on who perceives it or the culture in which it is read: it is a statement by a person – God – who had something particular in mind when he caused it to be written. When Bishop Sue says “as long as no one thinks they have the only truth of the reading” she is making at least two mistakes:

The first is that a reader of scripture can have a “truth of the reading”. It is the writer that has the truth of the reading and it is the reader’s job to understand that truth.

The second is the implication that if a reader firmly claims to have understood the truth that the writer was conveying, he is necessarily wrong. He could be mistaken, of course, but the purpose of discussing a reading is not to come to a middle ground of dissenting views, but to determine what meaning the writer intended.

Rowan Williams and most of the Western Anglican church is determined to find reconciliation through this kind of synthesising to a middle ground. It isn’t going to work.

Anglican Church of Canada: a predictable report on the theological justification of same-sex marriage

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The entire nonsense it here for those who would like to subject themselves to it.

Interestingly, the preface contains the following:

Faith Worship and Ministry first sought, and then received, clarification from CoGS that the subject is the marriage of same-sex couples, not all legally qualified persons. The church wants to reserve the right to define for itself who the proper subjects of marriage are, rather than leave this to the state.

And buried inside we find this:

Canadian civil law has provided for the marriage of same-sex couples since 2005. The church, in applying the doctrine of marriage in this context, understands the purposes of marriage delineated in Paragraph 1 of the Preface to relate equally, though not identically, to these new circumstances. Such marriages provide for mutual fellowship, support and comfort. They are also open to the care and upbringing of children. For those who understand themselves to be so called, such a relationship provides an environment in which sexuality may serve personal fulfilment in a community of faithful love.

The second quote appeals to the state for creating the context where the ACoC is being nudged to accept all those who are legally married. By the time the preface was written, someone must have caught on to the trap the ACoC had set for itself: polygamy might be next.

So now the ACoC “wants to reserve the right to define for itself who the proper subjects of marriage are”. The reason for this is fairly simple: there are numerous ACoC homosexual clergy, relatives, friends and hangers-on who need to justify their behaviour and they don’t give a fig for future importunate polygamists whom they are quite prepared to leave out in the cold – heartless bunch.

Imagine there’s no Anglican Church

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Reverse psychology evangelism from Liverpool:

The bells of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral are to ring out to John Lennon’s anti-religious anthem Imagine.

The bells will play the 1971 song, which begins “Imagine there’s no Heaven”, as part of an arts festival on 16 May at 1200, 1230 and 1330 BST.

A cathedral spokesman said: “Allowing Imagine to be pealed on our bells does not mean we agree with the song lyric.”

The song has drawn criticism from some religious figures as Lennon himself has called the anthem “anti-religious”.

Liverpool Cathedral said it had carefully considered the “sensitivities” surrounding the song’s lyrical content.

“But we recognise its power to make us think. As a cathedral we do not shrink from debate. We recognise the existence of other world views,” added the cathedral spokesman.

This, of course, opens a whole new technique for evangelism in the 21st century: you make the atheist’s case for them instead of the case for Christ – to make people think. I wonder why no-none thought of that before. I expect Liverpool Cathedral helped pay for the atheist bus advertisements.

What is wrong with this picture

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The fiasco at ACC-14 in Jamaica has been roundly criticised by so many people, it’s hard to select particular comments. Here are some:

Philip Ashey:

It is a deficit of leadership. With all due respect, whether his actions were disingenuous or simply inept, the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot lay the blame for today’s missed opportunities for healing, reconciliation and the failure to adopt a text for an Anglican Covenant on anyone but himself.

Jesus said “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No'” (Matthew 5:37). Such integrity is at the heart of Godly leadership. How sad that it is missing in the leadership of the Anglican Communion. Pray for the leadership of our beloved Communion.

Robert Lundy:

This is the state of affairs in the Anglican Communion. Wise, learned, and, capable people abound in the councils of the Church. But when the time comes for them to address critical issues including ones of doctrine, morality, the authority of Scripture, the uniqueness of Christ as Lord and saviour of all, and Christians suing Christians, they call for more conversations and delays, rather than action.

Charles Raven:

Throughout the Jamaica meeting it was clear that the revisionist leaning Lambeth leadership was determined to control the outcome. For instance, Philip Ashey, a Ugandan representative resident in the United States was not allowed to take his seat despite being validly selected under existing ACC rules and precedent, causing Archbishop Henry Orombi to write in protest to the Archbishop of Canterbury, describing the decision to reject Ashey as ‘nothing short of an imperialistic and colonial decision that violates the integrity of the Church of Uganda.’

Mark Thompson:

We have once again been shown how firmly apostasy and deception is embedded in the international structures of Anglicanism. There is no hope for the future there. Generous-hearted faithful Anglicans have been willing to keep trying for a resolution through those structures and once again they have been betrayed at the highest level. The goodwill of faithful men and women has been presumed upon and taken as a sign of weakness or a lack of resolve. We need to pray for those who have been so seriously disillusioned this week.

It goes on and on. However, the Canadian delegate has this to say:

Well, we did it! As most of you know, I’m a process person, and would have not believed it possible. But today we did superb work and ended up with the resolutions on both the Windsor Continuation Group and The Anglican Communion Covenant.

An assessment so radically different from almost everyone else’s, that it’s hard to believe she was at the same meetings. I fear it’s the euphoria that accompanies getting one’s own way: no 4th moratorium on the lawsuits, no teeth left in the Covenant draft – actually no Covenant at all. A monumental waste of time except for the ACoC and TEC delagates who, when this is over will write the victor’s history, a fantasy awash with delusion and hypocrisy – just like the churches they will be returning to.

Who wants to go to a heaven full of clerical flotsam?

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I disagree with most of this article in the Irish times, but it makes some amusing points.

THERE IS no such thing as a Divine Being. So get a life, Dermot, or at least stop trying to foist your beliefs on everyone else.

I should apologise for that unseemly outburst: I’ve really no fixed view on whether or not there is a God, and neither could I care less one way or the other.

Which means, of course, if there is a Hell then I’m destined for it. And that’s fine by me. Who in their right mind would want to be stuck forever with the religious crowd anyway?

What could possibly be worse than having to spend eternity in the company of ayatollahs, archbishops, pontiffs, preachers, and their legions of glass-eyed, po-faced acolytes?

The big mistake the author is making, of course, is that the place he is happy to be destined for in the next life will probably be chock full of the clerical salmagundi he, understandably, wants to avoid in this.

I have a soft spot for Anglicanism, and not just because I’m a nominal member. It must be the only Christian denomination where, at least until recently, you didn’t even have to believe in God. Try to live up to the teachings of Jesus and nobody within the Anglican Communion cared whether you were a believer or not just so long as you didn’t make too much noise about it.

Anglicanism, the religion for the nominal atheist.