Category Archives: Anglican

And to think I used to find "God of concrete, God of steel" irritating

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The sin of idolatry is not confined to physical graven images; today we are much more likely to construct an abstract god who is an anthropomorphised version of us: provincially small-minded and consumed by the petty obsessions that dominate the culture-bound Western churches of the 21st Century.

Thus, we discover that a song has been commissioned to celebrate a god of the Anglican Consultative Council. It is entitled, Lord of Our Diversity and goes like this (updated to include the whole thing):

“Lord of our diversity unite us all we pray
welcome us to fellowship in your inclusive way
Teach us all to have respect to love and not deride
Save us from the challenges of selfishness and pride
Sanctify our listening and help us get the sense
of perplexing arguments before we take offence
Teach us that opinions which at first might seem quite strange
may reflect the glory of your great creative range
May the Holy Spirit now show us the way preferred
May we follow the commands of your authentic word.”

This has it all: diversity, inclusion and relativism; a cornucopia of drivel worthy of a place in the next Anglican hymn book.

The Anglican Consultative Council is doing the Discernment Group Jig in Jamaica

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Three years ago the Anglican Church was invited to observe the ponderings of the ACC, but was not allowed to participate because of its wayward determination to bless same-sex couples. The ACC chairman, John Paterson, who obviously sympathises with the ACoC and TEC, indulged in some hand-wringing:

I was saddened personally by what took place at ACC13 in Nottingham. I chaired the session at which a vote was taken to “endorse the Primates’ request that ‘in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the ACC, for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference'”. Your representatives were not permitted to speak or to vote on that resolution. It was carried by two votes. The effect of it was to ostracise the American and Canadian representatives, who were forced to live apart and walk apart.

Now, however, all is forgiven and the ACoC and TEC have been welcomed back into the ACC’s bosom as a reward for behaving themselves and observing the moratorium on same-sex blessings. Apart, in the ACoC’s case, from the dioceses of New Westminster, Montreal, Niagara, Rupert’s Land, Ottawa and Toronto who are observing the moratorium through experientially discerning whether they should observe it by doing what they are not supposed to do. Or something. But the rotters in the Southern Cone are still intervening.

The conference will also consider the report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG). While organizers did not say what the delegates would be considering, Canon Kearon said that the report’s view of the three moratoria was that the moratorium on the consent to the consecration of a bishop in a same sex relationship had held, that the moratorium on the public rites of same-sex blessings had held by and large, but that cross-border interventions had not ceased but had gotten worse.

Canada’s lay delegate is delighted to be no longer anathema:

Canadian Anglicans are being greeted with warmth and stated relief that we are here to participate fully, and not suspicion or disgust as we experienced in Nottingham three years ago when we sat as observers)

And is in denial over the ACoC being a ‘problem’ – in a genteel Canadian way, eh:

Personally, said Ms. Lawson, “I have some concerns that I’m going to talk to people about and that is that the bulk of the responsibility for dealing with ‘problems,’ and I think the Canadian church is considered ‘a problem’ – although we don’t think so – [is] in the hands of the majority of primates, bishops and clergy of the Joint Standing Committee, which is being given increasing power….”

The hot topic at ACC14 is the Anglican Covenant which provinces will have to sign if they wish to be in with the Anglican in-crowd. Of course, by the time the Anglican Covenant sees the light of day and the ACoC has dithered over whether to sign it, the only people left in the church will be Marvin the Robot, otherwise unemployable assorted bishops and clergy, and three same-sex couples:

It would be up to two meetings of General Synod, the Anglican Church of Canada’s governing body, to decide whether or not the church should sign on to the covenant, a process that could take at least six years.

A homosexual priest appeals to Rowan Williams for justification

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A homosexual Anglican priest and his catamite draw comfort from Rowan Williams:

Interview with Greg Lisby, Rector at Church of the Ascension, Cranston

Kiersten Marek: My first question is: I recently read this article in The Atlantic called “The Velvet Reformation,” about Bishop Rowan Williams and the question of whether the Anglican church can become open to gay marriage. The article referenced an essay by Rowan Williams called “The Body’s Grace” in which Williams talked about how intimate relationships are about experiencing grace and that this grace should be accepted as part of both gay and straight relationships. He wrote:

“Grace, for the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted.”

I wonder if you can comment on how this idea strikes you, both as a church leader and as a partner in a gay relationship.

Fr. Greg Lisby: To know you are significant and wanted -isn’t that what we all desire? In the lore of creation, found in the book of Genesis, God said it is good for a human to have a partner (it isn’t until the second creation story that it specifically says male and female). God desires for us to be in relationship with another. It is in relationship, whether intimate or not, that we can glimpse the reality of God’s presence. So, whether it is an opposite-sex or same-sex relationship, all possess the potential for manifesting God’s presence. When that presence is realized, acknowledged, then the sense of worth and vulnerability that opens us to God’s grace is made possible. This, I believe, is what Archbishop Williams is getting at.

The whole interview is worth reading, if only to reinforce why the Anglican Church in North America has become an international laughing stock. Of particular interest in the section above is the fact that, no matter what public face Rowan Williams puts on the crisis tearing his church apart, his private views on homosexuality are being used by gay priest activists to justify their behaviour.

Going hand in hand with this is the trivialising of the meaning of Christian grace. Rather than its true meaning of God’s unmerited favour, it has been turned into the nugatory, “to know you are significant and wanted”, and is used in this context as a justification for homosexual activity; a ghastly perversion of a central truth of the Gospel for no other reason than self-indulgent antinomianism.

Substituting tolerance for truth

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The person who wrote this is retired from a job as hired help for a certain denomination; guess which one (it begins with “A”):

Something far more radical and painfully sacrificial is needed if we are to ever engage meaningfully. We need to bring about a world of mutual, outward-going respect, a warmth that far surpasses mere tolerance. And I think here of kenosis, or self-emptying.

Traditionally the term has been used to denote the process whereby God empties himself of his divinity in order to experience the reality of our humanity. But in eastern orthodoxy and the writing of the mystics it refers more to a fresh spiritual beginning, a cleansing of our negative thought patterns so that we slough off all resentment, mistrust, prejudice and exclusivity, leaving the soul free for divine love to pour in.

The compassion and acceptance generated by this soul-purging would undoubtedly bring to birth a new era in inter-faith relationships. It would enable us to understand that truth is elusive and imprecise, and not the prerogative of any one religion, and it would allow us to see that all bigotry and fanaticism is anti-God.

If you guessed Anglican, you were correct. The writer, David Bryant is a retired Anglican vicar who is obviously uncomfortable with the proposition that Christianity is true while other religions are not: to think in such a way is fanatical and bigoted – just like St. Paul and the other apostles.

With the benefit of 2000 years of Christian thought to draw on, Rev. David Bryant has concluded “that truth is elusive and imprecise”; after all, what is truth?

The skating vicar

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Roger Preece is evidence that the Church of England still has holy rollers.Add an Image

Roger Preece, 44, has been dubbed The Rolling Reverend after skating up and down the aisle of his church in roller blades.

Parishioners at St Mary’s Church, Bowden, near Altrincham, Cheshire, had expected a conventional sermon on the Resurrection.

But midway through his service the Rev Preece slipped on his blades, stepped out of the pulpit and took to the boards.

The one-time investment banker hit upon the roller-blading idea as a way of illustrating the astonishment that would have greeted Christ’s Resurrection.

I doubt that Rev. Roger needed to go to these lengths to astonish his congregation: the mere fact that an Anglican vicar believes in the resurrection is astonishing enough.

An Anglican Entmoot

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The Anglican Consultative Council is meeting in Jamaica in early May.

At the last meeting, the ACoC and TEC were not allowed to play because they had been naughty boys; this time, however, after all the “gracious restraint” that has been exercised by both provinces – in the form of court battles, the continued blessing of same-sex unions and lack of censure of gay bishops and clergy –  the provinces are being welcomed back into the sand pit for a romp with the other primates. Which goes to show that the ACoC and TEC are not so daft after all: if you waffle incomprehensibly for a long enough time, everyone will forget why you were booted out in the first place and you will be welcomed back as one of the boys again; or girls; or hermaphrodites.

The last time the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) met, in 2005, Canadian and American delegates sat on the sidelines. They were there to “attend but not participate” after their churches were censured for their more-liberal stand on the contentious issue of homosexuality.

At this year’s meeting, scheduled May 1 to 13 in Kingston, Jamaica, Canadian and American delegates are joining representatives from 36 other provinces of the Anglican Communion, but the issue that brought about their exclusion in 2005 remains very much on the radar

Once the delegates have all arrived, each on a separate aeroplane, they will be engaged in vital discussions on Anglicanism in the 21st century – such has global warming, continued listening on human sexuality (I understand there will be microphones in the bedrooms) and  relieving poverty – in between Island tours, visits with the Governor-General and the catered dining.

The document I found particularly interesting was The Bible in the Life of the Church.

The essential question that needs to be addressed by ‘The Bible in the Life of the Church’ project is, ‘What do we mean when we say that we are a Church that lives under Scripture?’

The document goes on to describe a 3 year project by a 10 – 12 member steering committee and 5 – 6 regional groups.

The really essential questions are actually: what has the church being doing for the last 500 years and why has it taken this long to discover that the Anglican Church has no idea how to use the Bible?

I think the answers are obvious: for the last 500 years the Anglican Church has been using the bible as the guidebook for how to live. This study is intended to find a way out of that narrow perspective in order to embrace all that the 21st century has to offer – like gay sex – without being noticed.

George Pitcher bids a cheery farewell to Bishop Nazir-Ali

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George Pitcher’s pitch:

Dr Nazir-Ali’s departure signals the end of Anglicanism’s damaging schism, says George Pitcher.
Again, it’s important not to read too much in to Dr Nazir-Ali’s resignation itself. He has had the See of Rochester for 15 years; at not yet 60, he has another career in him yet. But can anyone seriously suggest that, had those biblical traditionalists of the southern hemisphere, known collectively as the Global South, prevailed last year in overthrowing the authority of Canterbury in favour of an African-led Communion, he would have abandoned his important foothold in the English Church?

No. Dr Nazir-Ali, scourge of homosexual liberalism and what he sees as the Muslim threat to Christendom, pitched his tent with the African rebels, under the flag of the unfortunately named Gafcon, but now finds that army dispersed and demoralised.

In the upside-down world of liberalism, a rebel and schismatic is someone who holds to 2000 years of established Christian doctrine, while a crumbling colonial edifice entrenched in an old boy network of back-slapping bishops that boast about making up their own rules is the standard-bearer of all that is proper and decent.

In fact, it is the largely decadent western expression of Anglicanism that is rebellious and schismatic; it is the one that has departed from received doctrine.

Once Pitcher has established that it is “important not to read too much in to Dr Nazir-Ali’s resignation”, he does just that. I have no idea why Dr Nazir-Ali’s has decided to change careers and neither does Pitcher, I imagine. One thing that Pitcher’s article does reveal, though is that a liberal finds the idea of eschewing ecclesiastical power – which is not much different to secular power – impossible to understand unless it is because the power has failed to achieve its ends. What seems to beyond Pitcher’s grasp is that God may have called Nazir-Ali to do something else and Nazir-Ali is more interested in what God wants than a pointed hat.

As for Gafcon’s army being dispersed and demoralised, there are millions of Gafcon/Foca Anglicans who are completely unaware of that – because it isn’t true.

Stephen Sizer, the Evangelical left and Israel

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Some reverend gentlemen find politics irresistible:

“Why have Britain and America become the focus of so much hatred from the Islamic world?” Sizer further asked. “Why are our countries the target for Islamist terrorism – despite our commitment to the rule of international law, democracy and human rights?” For Sizer the reasons are clear: “The answers to these questions remain inexplicable unless we factor in what is now probably the most influential and destructive movement amongst Christians today – Christian Zionism.”

There are a number of problems with Stephan Sizer’s position on what he calls Christian Zionism:

This first is in the article above: he wilfully resists common sense explanations. Thus, he sees the cause of the hatred directed against the West by Islamists as explainable only by a conspiracy of Christian Zionism; for some reason he cannot see the obvious – and true, in my opinion – reason that Islamists hates a free society simply because it is not Islamist. Such a concept should be easy to grasp for an evangelical Christian, since it is a straightforward application of Jeremiah 17:9.

The second is less obvious: it is the couching of left wing political tendentiousness in biblical language in order to give it the weight of theological authority. Simply put, Sizer is saying God is on the side of his politics:

That is why I believe passionately that we must find peaceful, democratic, non-violent, constructive ways to express their anger and frustration at the appalling suffering in Gaza during the recent attacks and the ongoing military occupation of Palestine which denies millions of people their basic human rights. We must not to seek revenge or retaliation as this will only play into the hands of extremists on both sides. Violence breeds violence. Jesus said “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

The above sounds very fine, particularly the last sentence. But the facts are questionable and the implication is that the violence so far has been entirely on the part of Israel, giving Hamas an opportunity to take the high moral ground by not retaliating; once they come out from their hiding places behind babies and civilians.

The alliance between the West and Israel is a political one between democracies that share similar values; it isn’t based on biblical prophesy as Sizer would have us believe:

“Christian Zionism is [essentially] a political movement within Protestant evangelical Christianity that views the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, [mandated by God] thus deserving our unconditional economic, moral, political, and theological support.”

While there is nothing wrong with Christians having political opinions, a minister whose political message overshadows – and is disseminated under the pretence of being inspired by – the gospel damages the gospel, the credibility of the minister and renders the numinous commonplace.