Tag Archives: Anglican

What is wrong with this picture

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Why I am an Anglican

Posted on by
2

In 1978 I became a Christian. A number of things conspired to push me over the edge: some who were close to me were healed after prayer; a nagging desire to make sense out of the universe refused to leave me alone; I had everything I needed or wanted, was not satisfied and yet the allure of more of the same held little promise. So after a week of wracking my brains on my place, if any, in the cosmos, I concluded that the question of whether Jesus is who he claims to be was somehow central to everything.

After another week of wracking my brains to decide if Jesus’ claims about himself held water, I decided to pray to a God whom I thought might not be listening to persuade me one way or the other. The next day I woke up convinced that Jesus is God and that he died for my sins; a conclusion based on the subjective, but I was as subjectively convinced of this reality as I was of the chair I was sitting on. I also woke up a non-smoker; I had smoked – anything that would ignite – for many years and had become an expert in quitting since I had tried so many times. This seemed to me to be an added seal of authenticity of the influence of someone outside myself; I awoke with no desire to smoke.

The closest church to my house was an Anglican church so I decided to talk to its rector. I was under few illusions about the Anglican church: in the light of my new-found fervour it seemed a tepid, pale imitation of what I was looking for. Nevertheless, St. Hilda’s was within walking distance, so I decided it was worth a look.

I made an appointment to see the rector and had decided that if he was too ecclesiastically sophisticated to be anything other than amused when I told him I had been born again, I would move on. He took me seriously, so I stayed.

Since then I have confirmed that much of the broader Anglican Church in the West espouses positions that I am diametrically opposed to. Social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage; political views such as its anti-Israel stand and pro-left agenda; its pretence of inclusivity while excluding those with whom it disagrees; even its theological views on the resurrection, virgin birth, Christ’s atoning sacrifice and so on – in all these cases I have a differing view. In fact, we have reached the point where the Anglican Church has become a litmus test that assists me in coming to an opinion on current affairs: if the Anglican church agrees with something, I know I probably won’t.

I have been following the Anglican Consultative Council meetings taking place in Jamaica with some interest. Amongst the chaos, one thing is crystal clear: in spite of the pretensions of employing  consensus forming indaba groups, what is really going on are intense political machinations designed to impose a particular stamp on the Anglican future. Unsurprisingly, the TEC seems to be most adept at this; if they have their way, hyper-liberalism will dominate. As things stand now, I suspect the liberal juggernaut will thunder on in North America unimpeded, until it collapses in on itself and  disappears with a final whimper. Lawsuits, same-sex blessings, the ordination of gay clergy, the erosion of orthodox biblical Christianity will all continue for the moment.

When all is said and done, I have little interest in being Anglican. I have absolutely no interesting in church polity (a word that is now number 3 on my most detested words list), conversing with those who pervert the gospel to come to an agreed middle ground, diversity, inclusion, dialogue, discernment groups or indaba groups; all are vanity. I do have a great deal of interest in being Christian, even though I am a flawed and stumbling specimen. Nevertheless, the body of Christ I happen to find myself in is Anglican, I find the 39 articles are propositions I can, for the most part, go along with, I have come to appreciate the combination of structure and freedom to be found in the Anglican liturgy and finally, the Anglican Church of Canada has declared that ANiC is not Anglican.

Since I belong to an ANiC church, by the litmus test I mentioned above, I must be Anglican.

Is anyone listening?

Posted on by
1

I remember in the 1990s I ran a program on my PC for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence).

The idea was that SETI was listening to electro-magnetic energy from space to find intelligent life outside of earth; the program I ran was also running on many other PCs and analysed the data looking for a pattern.

This search for intelligent life is the origin of Rowan William’s Listening Process:

That the Instruments of Communion commit themselves to a renewal of the Listening Process, and a real seeking of a common mind upon the issues which threaten to divide us.

The problem is the inverse of SETI: anyone saying anything intelligible is ignored. Yet, this is Rowan’s hope for containing the chaos threatening the Anglican Communion. It is in vain: the ACoC and TEC are snakes and they are not listening: Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. Ps 58:4.

Why the Anglican Communion Covenant is not going to work

Posted on by
Reply

There may be none left who doubt that, but for those who do, the following is instructive:

Canon Kearon stated that Rev Ashey was not qualified as his membership of the Church of Uganda was as a result of a cross-border intervention by the Church of Uganda in the United States, a practice which had been consistently disapproved of by the instruments of communion since 2004.

So far so clear. However, it was also drawn to Canon Kearon’s attention that another infringement of the requirements of the instruments of communion had been the continuance of the lawsuits against orthodox churches in North America by TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. The cessation of these lawsuits was a requirement of the Dar-es-Salaam Primates Meeting in 2007 as part of the compliance required of TEC and the ACoC with the Windsor Report and thus a condition for the re-entry of TEC and ACoC delegates to the Councils of the Communion ( they had been asked to withdraw from ACC 13 at Nottingham, but attended as visitors). How was it that TEC and ACoC had not complied with a requirement of the instruments of communion, yet had been readmitted, and that Uganda was not complying with the embargo on cross-border jurisdiction and yet its selected delegate was barred? The answer given that Uganda as a province had not been barred, only its delegate who was a product of cross-border intervention.

What comes across in all this is the lack of fairness and even handedness. TEC and ACoC are in constant breach of Lambeth 1.10, and by the secretary general’s own admission at the Saturday press conference, had in some cases continued to authorize same-sex blessings in defiance of the moratorium. They have not complied with the Primates’ call from Dar-es-Salaam to desist from lawsuits, but instead have increased them. Yet they are readmitted to full membership.

The group that is to decide on whether the covenant is to be adopted has made “cross border interventions” the unforgivable transgression in the mess that bedevils the Anglican Communion. The fact that the ACoC and TEC have not lived up to their part of the bargain by stopping the lawsuits and stopping the authorising of same-sex blessings is glossed over: also missing is the acknowledgement that the latter is what caused orthodox parishes to seek shelter in a different province in the first place.

The bias of the Anglican Consultative Council is clear: the ACoC and TEC receive a get out of jail free card.

Considering the duplicitous and slippery nature of both the ACoC and TEC, what is to stop them signing the Covenant while having no intention whatsoever of adhering to it? After all, that is how they have treated the moratoriums: they break them and attempt to conceal the fact by crouching behind meaningless concepts like “experiential discernment”; and the ACC smiles upon them benignly.

Why would we expect anything different with a signed Covenant? The best response we could hope for from the ACC would be a few tut-tuts, and then back to the main business of eco-justice networking, prophetic gender equality and singing appalling hymns.

Anglican eco-bigotry

Posted on by
2

The Anglican church, ever willing to bend to the latest fad, has declared that the environment is a top Anglican priority:

Secondly, we want to try our best to make sure that all Anglicans see this (the environment) as their primary work because some people don’t think it is.

Oops, forgot about the Gospel – better mention it otherwise people will say we are no longer a church:

They actually think that somehow preaching the Gospel – which, of course, is our number one task – makes this work of a lesser importance. It’s one of the five marks of mission of our church, and safeguarding the integrity of creation is a core Gospel issue.

We all know what this is really about, though – nudge, nudge: Down with Capitalism! Workers of the World Unite! Viva Che!

In addition to that, I’m here to emphasize that the economic crisis the world is facing at the moment is an environmental opportunity because we actually can redirect our priorities. Clearly, the old capitalist system has failed and we don’t need to actually go back to it.

How can I join this Angli-Gaia revolution? You need an Internet connection, even though it was spawned from the evil, carbon belching, capitalist, military-industrial complex ARPANET:

Q: What would membership entail?

A: First, the person has to be able to connect to the Internet. We can’t really communicate with people successfully without using it.

In case anyone has any doubts that this is a totalitarian junta, be aware that, once in control, they will dictate what you sing:

every parish is required to do an environmental audit, which has to do with what they teach, what they preach, what they sing,

What you drive:

what cars they use, whether they could change their cars,

And even when you are singing in the celestial choir, they will be fiddling with your grave:

Graveyards, particularly, can be little oases of the protection of threatened species.

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

Posted on by
3

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
6

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

Posted on by
1

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

Posted on by
2

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.