Right Reverend Justin Welby a good bet for the next ABC

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From here:

A former oil executive who has been an Anglican bishop for only a year and is strongly opposed to gay marriage is rumoured to be on the verge of being named as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bookmakers Ladbrokes suspended betting on Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, following a flurry of bets that he is to be the 105th head of the Church of England and leader of the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion worldwide.

Lambeth Palace declined to comment on suggestions that an announcement, which would initially come from Downing Street, could be made as soon as Thursday this week after a lengthy selection process which was last month deadlocked over its shortlist of successful candidates.

In case anyone is in any doubt as to the process for choosing an Archbishop of Canterbury, the following guide to choosing an ordinary bishop may prove enlightening:

Continuing Indaba to….. continue

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What a relief. For a moment I thought someone might have put it out of its misery, thereby preventing further conversations aimed at diverting attention away from the dire peril threatening to rend the Anglican Communion asunder.

From here:

The core values of the Continuing Indaba were defined in a paper  by John Mark Oduor of Kenya He summoned the community to meet under the cross of Christ,” for the healing, reconciliation and unity of the community and the world” The core values he identified are:

·       The priority of Relationship

·       The need for Conversation

·       The significance of A Place of Meeting

·       The Appreciation of our Uniqueness within a whole community

·       Forgiveness and healing

[…..]

When the time came for the ACC to vote on a proposed resolution regarding the future of Continuing Indaba, several delegates suggested further additions, including a suggestion from Bp Samson Mwalunda of Kenya, that Continuing Indaba should be a process to undergird all pan-Anglican conferences. There was another suggestion that Continuing indaba should have a commitment to the ultimate resolution of issues.

ACC Chair, Bp James Tengatenga, offered the members a motion to seek to refine the resolution, or to vote on the existing one. By a narrow margin, the ACC voted to not accept any amendments, and a majority then voted in favour of the unamended resolution.

More cutbacks in the Anglican Church of Canada

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Due to its continuing financial embarrassment, the Anglican Church of Canada is cutting back:  the Five Marks of Mission have been reduced to two.

Of the first three:

“To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom” was the first to go because no-one in the ageing ecclesial hierarchy could actually remember what the Good News is, so there seemed little point in continuing to pretend to proclaim it.

“To teach, baptise and nurture new believers” was the next to fall since all extant Anglican seminaries are dedicated to squeezing any vestige of belief out of new seminarians, rendering them, by the time they emerge, incapable of nurturing anything but doubt.

“To respond to human need by loving service” was finally removed too, since Anglican clergy are simply too busy nurturing the doubt in new doubters.

The two survivors are:
“To seek to transform unjust structures of society”
“To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”

The Anglican Church can throw its full weight behind these because both are the responsibility of government.

My journey to hating “journey”

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Have you noticed that, these days, the church seldom talks about a person’s faith being settled on a set of dogma which the person has become convinced represents real objective truth? Instead, because of the church’s reluctance to make a definitive theological statement of any kind – other than that we should not make a definitive theological statement of any kind – we are all on a faith journey.

Well I’m not. I used to be an atheist; when I came to the conclusion that God almost certainly exists I changed my mind. I changed my mind again – or perhaps God changed it – when I awoke, literally one morning, with the certain knowledge that Jesus is God incarnate.

I was not on a faith journey then, I am not on one now and have absolutely no intention of going on one – ever.

Rev. Peter Elliott peddles the canard that gay marriage has made Canada more tolerant

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From here:

Gay marriage has strengthened Canadian society, an Anglican Church leader visiting Dunedin’s St Paul’s Cathedral said yesterday.

The Very Rev Dr Peter Elliott, rector of Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, in Vancouver, preached in St Paul’s Cathedral yesterday.

His visit is part of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) under way in Auckland.

While he did not believe in commenting on a country’s domestic politics, Dr Elliott, who is gay, told the Otago Daily Times legalising gay marriage had increased respect and tolerance in Canada.

In actual fact, the crusade for normalising homosexuality in Canada has resulted in the suppression of free speech, intolerance for any view that deviates from the received dogma that homosexuality is a wholesome lifestyle choice and persecution of those who will not bow before the altar of sexual inversion.

As Michael Coren notes here, there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings against critics of same-sex marriage; the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary, Fred Henry, was threatened with litigation and charged with a human-rights violation after he wrote a letter to local churches stating standard Catholic teaching on marriage; marriage commissioners have been threatened with losing their jobs if they refuse to perform same-sex marriages and a Knights of Columbus hall was fined for not allowing a lesbian couple to celebrate their “marriage” in the hall. Schools – even private schools – will, in all probability, be prevented from expressing their disapproval of homosexual behaviour.

Canada allows freedom of conscience on a person’s view of homosexuality, as long as the person is prepared to live with violating his conscience by not acting on it.

The Anglican Consultative Council dissembling in New Zealand

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From this report, it seems clear that the chief purpose of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting taking place in New Zealand is, at all costs, to steer clear of any discussion that might have some bearing on the plight of the Anglican Communion.

Even worse, the idea that God wishes to convey objective truth to us in the Bible is being replaced by a mushy relativism where no interpretation of what is written is any better than any other.

From Canon Phil Ashey in Auckland, AAC

Dear friends,

I am in Auckland, NZ, at the 15th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC15). The agenda moved into high gear today with presentations on “The Bible in the Life of the Church” (BILC), the Network for Interfaith Concerns (NIFCON) Report “Promised Land?”, an Anglican Communion resource for addressing Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) report on The Instruments of Unity.

I believe that the discussion on BILC revealed an important major conclusion that tips the hand of the ACC’s leadership: that the process of how Anglicans interpret scripture is as important as the substance of scripture. Two conclusions will follow from this premise: (1) Context reigns supreme in how people interpret, and in the diversity of interpretations that flow from diversity of contexts NO interpretation is better than another (a point made by the preselected TEC leader of one of the small groups), and (2) There are no “limits” on faithful interpretation (point made by the preselected Church of England rep from another reflection group).

In this discussion, initial enthusiasm for the affirmation of Bible study gave way to sharp differences over the language in the proposed resolution, and then to frustration that there was not enough time to consider the resolution. Finally, the resolution commending BILC for study and use in all Anglican seminaries, parishes and dioceses was sent back to the resolutions committee. I expect they will return to it tomorrow or Monday.

The NIFCON Report on Israeli-Palestinian relations may have brought the revisionist leadership to the brink of futility. Some revisionists felt the language of the report in each of the three sections stating “What all Anglicans can and should believe about XXX” was too magisterial and simply unanglican. Other revisionists felt the report was too pro-Israel. Others felt we had to do something and not wait another three years. Archbishop Williams intervened and confused everybody. Finally, under intensive questioning, Anglican Communion Office (ACO) staff revealed that the report had already been publicly released yesterday in Ireland – so, in effect, the whole conversation was a waste of time.

The process of AAC15 is being intensively stage managed and choreographed by ACO staff. There have been few opportunities for delegates to actually address the body. Plenary sessions moved immediately into regional or reflection groups. In the reflection groups, each group responded to a different question that was designed by the ACC leadership for them to answer. During the Bible in the Life of the Church report-back from reflection groups, an ACO staff member carefully called upon what appeared to be preselected delegates from mostly Global North provinces. Resolutions were presented by PowerPoint on a screen for a vote, and not distributed in advance. There is simmering frustration among many deputies at the near Orwellian manner in which Kenneth Kearon and the ACO seem to be managing this meeting. The bottom line is that the real issues of the Anglican Communion are being completely dodged, especially the failure of the Instruments of Communion to address violations by The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada.

And so the report on the Instruments of Communion was similar – a 10 minute plenary of nothing more than historical background and explanation of the group’s work, moving immediately into reflection groups and evening prayer.

In terms of what schemes seem to be emerging, I would respectfully suggest the following as a “pincer” movement that ACC/ACO is going to place upon confessing Anglicans:

1. Through Continuing Indaba dialogue and stories, bolstered by the work of the BILC resources, Biblical interpretation of human sexuality and its limits will be rendered value-neutral with no limits on Biblical interpretation within the Communion. Lambeth 1.10 will be declared in effect non-binding;

2. Then, through the new Code of Conduct and the Safe Church resolution, any objection to sexual expressions that are not Biblical will be deemed “harassment,” chilling any speech and bringing consequences to those who, in Anglican communion meetings, dare to raise the subject.

I pray I am mistaken, but that is my best look into the future.

Yours in Christ,

Phil+

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey
Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council

Diocese of Rupert’s Land approves same-sex blessings

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From here:

The blessing of civil marriages between same-gender couples can now take place in diocese of Rupert’s Land parishes that wish to offer them.

Approximately a third of the Anglican Church of Canada’s 30 dioceses now have moved forward with same-sex blessings, an issue that has deeply divided Anglicans in Canada and worldwide.

The 2010 meeting of General Synod, the church’s governing body, did not approve the so-called local option allowing dioceses to grant same-sex blessings. But it recognized that the local option has been exercised by some dioceses and may be used in the future without the approval of the national church.

The reason the “local option” – allowing dioceses to make their own decision on whether to permit same-sex blessings – was not approved at the 2010 general synod is because it would have earned the Anglican Church of Canada a slap on the wrist from Canterbury – albeit a mild one.

To avoid this, the local option was not sanctioned – in the full knowledge that dioceses would make up their own minds anyway. It was an act of cowardice, a passing of the buck, an exploration of a deeper hypocrisy.

As the malaise spreads, it seems pretty clear – to me at least – that the fragile, forlorn hope nursed by naïve conservatives that the Anglican Church of Canada might eventually repent has degenerated into wilful self-deception. Short of a sovereign act of God, the ACoC is charging headlong into the abyss: get out now before you are sucked into the gaping maw created by its gadarene plunge to perdition.

Rowan Williams denies importing a secular fuss into the church

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But who believes him?

Here we have “empowerment of women”, “global industry”, “damage being done to our environment” and “running out of a world to live in”, all of which were secular obsessions long before the church even noticed them. The Anglican Church has taken its cue from secularism ever since it abandoned proclaiming Jesus’ uniqueness in being the only way to the Father in favour of the foggy ambiguity of the fatuous “Five Marks of Mission”.

The Chair of the forum, Archbishop Rowan Williams, agreed saying that environmental issues were bound with issues of moral courage such as land ownership, empowerment of women and global industry.

He said that, considering the damage being done to our environment, “running out of a world to live in is a mark of our unfaithfulness,” adding that Christians should not consider environmental issues “a secular fuss imported into the church”. Followers of Christ should not “shrug our shoulders when we are asked why there is not sufficient food or safe, clean water…That is not what Christians should be. That is why this is a matter of faithfulness to our creator and redeemer.”

 

The Safe Church Network is launched

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Until I read this, I had no idea what a safe church is: I thought it must be a church that dispenses condoms.

No: apparently it is a church that “vulnerable people” can attend and not be abused. Clearly, this is a slap in the face that is not quite hard enough for the burgeoning Anglican masochist community; where will they go to feel included?

The Anglican Communion’s newest network, the Safe Church Network, has announced it is planning a conference in Africa for 2014 around how to make churches safer for vulnerable people.

Australian Garth Blake, convener of the communion’s new Safe Church Network, said during a press conference on October 31, that many parts of the communion have begun talking about how to address the issue of creating a culture of safety in churches and are at various stages of response.