Tag Archives: Anglican

A Roman Catholic Priest is Welcomed into TEC

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Father Alberto Cutié has been enjoying a little slap and tickle more than his call to celibacy it seems:

Father Alberto Cutié, the Roman Catholic priest who has been a cause of some international scandal since captured on film cuddling his girlfriend, now his fiancé, on a beach, has been accepted into The Episcopal Church in the US. It is likely he will go on to become an Episcopal priest. As The Lead reports, Father Cutié and his fiance were received into the worldwide Anglican Communion by the Bishop of Southeast Florida, the Right Rev Leo Frade, a fellow Cuban.

It is worth noting that when an Anglican priest moves to Rome it is on principle: one may not necessarily agree with the principle, but at least it is not merely self-serving and usually such a priest represents the best Anglicanism has to offer. When TEC welcomes a Roman Catholic priest into its midst it is because he has disgraced himself in his own church.

Damian Thompson reckons this will damage relations between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

It’s difficult to damage something that has already been systematically pulverised into small pieces by the likes of the ACoC and TEC, though.

Rowan Williams’s unwanted political advice

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Anglican Archbishops Rowan Williams and John Sentamu exhorted the British public not to punish avaricious MPs by voting for the BNP.

The Daily Mail conducted a poll that illustrates just how out of touch Anglican bishops are with ordinary people – or, at least with people who respond to Daily Mail polls.

Is the church entitled to tell people not to vote for the BNP:

Vote

Is Rowan Williams doing the BNP a favour?

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Rowan Williams and John Sentamu are urging British voters to shun the BNP: by this time, everyone expects political peroration rather than spiritual insight from Anglican bishops, and this does not disappoint:

The Archbishop of Canterbury called on people to shun extremist parties and to use their vote positively in local and European elections on June 4. In an unprecedented intervention, Dr Rowan Williams joined forces with Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and other religious leaders to condemn the “deeply disturbing” tactics of the BNP.

“Christians have been deeply disturbed by the conscious adoption by the BNP of the language of our faith when the effect of those policies is not to promote those values but to foster fear and division within communities, especially between people of different faiths or racial background.”

In a sense Rowan Williams is getting a taste of his own medicine: for decades liberal Anglican clergy have been twisting the language of orthodox Christianity to their own purposes. “What is the Spirit saying to the church” is one example of many; it is  uprooted from a biblical context (Rev 2) and used to legitimise just about anything a group of wayward clerics wishes to perpetrate. Their use of it has nothing to do with the person of the Holy Spirit, nothing to do with God’s revelation of himself and nothing to do with Christianity. So, deeply disturbed Rowan, welcome to the world of frustration of orthodox Anglicans.

The Telegraph astutely notes that the political meanderings of liberal clergy are liable to drive more people into the arms of the BNP; after Rowan’s sharia law debacle, one can only assume that the BNP is secretly paying him to come up with this stuff.

Even though Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu are not politicians, like most leading churchmen they have supported the liberal consensus on Europe, immigration and national identity, so there is a risk that their appeal may make matters worse. The sort of voters who take advice from well-meaning prelates are not the sort who would be tempted to vote BNP. Those most irritated by the pronouncements of church leaders, on the other hand, may be persuaded to do just the opposite of what the Primates suggest.

An agnostic bishop in the Anglican Church

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Only one, I expect you are thinking; well, only one that has come out:

Richard Holloway says the worldwide Anglican Church has made room for “happy clapping” evangelicals, bells-and-smells Catholics, women priests and, in the United States, openly gay clergy and even practitioners of other faiths. So surely, he argues, it can find room for people like him – Christians who don’t believe in God.

Holloway, contrary to popular belief, has not left the Episcopal Church, as Scottish Anglicanism is known. He may have taken early retirement as Bishop of Edinburgh but the writer remains an ordained priest and consecrated bishop, who still preaches from the pulpit, performs baptisms and weddings and even presides at communion.

“I had a crisis in 1998 and I was in a kind of internal exile for a bit,” he told the Herald yesterday, while en route to Sydney, where he is a speaker at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

“I am in a slightly mellower place with the church right now. I’ve still got my pilot’s licence, so to speak. They didn’t take it away from me.”

But Holloway has abandoned his belief in – or at least certainty about – God and the afterlife, and is now known as a “Christian agnostic”.

“I am not trying to persuade people in the church to adopt my angle,” he insists. “I just want space enough to be honest about my own convictions. The congregation I belong to in Edinburgh knows my position and is hospitable enough to include me.”

And inclusion is what it’s all about, after all.

The resonance with prevailing cultural conceits is evident: Richard wants space to be honest, the honesty is simply an angle and he has no interest in proselytising his particular angle. There is, of course, plenty of space in the Anglican church – mainly because there are plenty of other places other than churches where agnostics can congregate on Sunday; the question is, why doesn’t the retired bishop join them?

I have to give the man full marks for honesty, though: he admits he doesn’t believe in God, an afterlife, Jesus’ divinity, thinks the Eucharist is art and the church a social club. The average Canadian bishop believes as much but doesn’t have the guts to openly admit it.

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.

Obama sounds like Rowan Williams

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A modern foible is to take two irreconcilable viewpoints, either of which could conceivably be correct, and pretend to synthesise them into a middle ground which almost certainly is not. This is peddled as some kind of virtue: it’s common in the Anglican Church and appears to be an Obama preoccupation:

President Obama used the controversy surrounding his Notre Dame address Sunday as a lesson on the need to bridge cultural divides in America, as he urged graduates to seek common ground on issues, like abortion, that stir passion on both sides.

What common ground could there possibly be between those who believe life begins at conception and therefore should be protected, and those who believe a foetus is a cluster of disposable cells. This apparently:

On the specific issue of abortion, Obama urged the public to at least agree that it is a “heart-wrenching” decision for any woman, and that the country should work to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies and making adoption more available.

“When we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe — that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground,” Obama said.

Rowan Williams expresses similar sentiments in trying to bring together those who agree and disagree with same-sex blessings in the Anglican Church:

The challenge is, “how can those who share that cost, that sense of profound anxiety about how to make the Gospel credible, how are they to come together for at least some measure of respect to emerge, so that they can recognize the cost that the other bears and also recognize the deep seriousness about Jesus and the Gospel that they share?”

In both cases, the common ground has nothing to do with the actual issue, but is merely the intensity with which each side holds its belief. In reality this is little more than a sleight of hand on the part of liberals to pacify the opposition while the real agenda continues unimpeded.

Both Obama and Williams have placed a higher value on attaining a bogus middle ground than on truth: it explains how the West has lost its way and how the Anglican church – hot in pursuit – has too.

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 Israel bashing

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One of the resolutions from ACC-14 in Jamaica displays the usual one-sided condemnation of Israel:

The Anglican Consultative Council…

laments the fact that current Israeli policies in relation to the West Bank, in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions, have created severe hardship for many Palestinians and have been experienced as a physical form of apartheid.

calls on Israel to:

end its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

freeze immediately all settlement building with the intention to abandon its settlement policy in preparation for a Palestinian state

remove the separation barrier (wall) where it violates Palestinian land beyond the Green Line

end home demolitions, and

close checkpoints in the Palestinian territories

The hypocrisy is made all the more remarkable by the tortuous series of unnatural mental acts that the Anglican hierarchy goes through in order to see both sides of the case for performing unnatural homosexual physical acts, yet has no hesitation in being fiercely and vituperatively prejudiced when it comes to Israel.

Melanie Phillips has this to say:

Yet again, the Anglican establishment has singled out Israel for scapegoating, defamation and demonisation. A Resolution on the Middle East passed three days ago by the Anglican Consultative Committee parrots, as usual, Arab and Muslim propaganda against Israel – now the default position of Anglicanism as it genuflects to the force that is intent upon destroying it. Not all Anglicans by any means support this resolution which has been passed in their name: Anglican Friends of Israel has protested:

24

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10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (Season Opener)
Terrorists known cryptically as TEC-ACoC take hostages in Jamaica.

12:00 a.m. -1:00 a.m.
Hostages are identified: Truth; Gospel; Honesty; Integrity (the original one).

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Terrorists assail hostages with a newly developed mind-numbing bio-weapon: the Indaba. Civilians all over the Island are wailing and clutching at their heads.

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Counter-terrorists are dispatched from far flung reaches of Christendom with a single purpose: rescue the hostages.

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Terrorists and Counter-terrorists do battle; Indabas are wielded to dreadful effect. The carnage is terrible.

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Counter-terrorists wheel in the big gun: the Fourth Moratorium.

5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The Fourth Moratorium suffers defeat through trickery and sleight of hand. One of the counter-terrorists, although he speaks 5 languages, didn’t know what “litigation” means and no-one bothered to explain it.

6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Counter-terrorists wheel in the other big gun: Section 4 of “The Covenant”.

7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Battle rages around Section 4; the Indabas go at it hammer and tongs decimating all in their path.

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Section 4 falls.

9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Terrorists counter attack with Resolution A.

10:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m. (Mid-Season Cliffhanger)
Resolution A suffers apparent defeat but is actually smuggled out of the room and secreted in Resolution C which has disguised itself as Resolution B.

1:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Resolution C calls for the hostages to remain in terrorist custody until they die from too much conversation.

2:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.
Arch-terrorist Rowan the Enforcer deploys the ultimate weapon: he speaks.

3:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.
It is all too much after the Indaba attack: terrorists and counter-terrorists alike writhe on the floor in agony. Some bite off their own tongues. Rowan the enforcer smiles benignly

4:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m.
A temporary truce is called while all descend on the local population to pillage their food supplies.

5:00 a.m. – 6:00 a.m.
Back at it. Stunned journalists try to make sense of the carnage.

6:00 a.m. – 7:00 a.m.
Truth; Gospel; Honesty; Integrity are battered and still hostage.

7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.
The terrorists have won: the hostages will be subject to extreme interrogation techniques to break down their resistance – dialogue, group discernment and if all else fails, the Listening Process, said to be capable of boring the balls off a buffalo in 30 seconds.

8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. (Season Finale)
The terrorists begin to write accounts of the battle that make them appear like the good-guys. Everyone goes home wondering what just happened.

Did anyone understand that? It doesn’t matter: what is important is the violence, blood, gore, torture, screaming and the fact that 24 will be returning for another season next year.

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.