Tag Archives: Church of England

Justin Welby: the secret of being an archbishop is to be reconciled to your own embarrassment

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From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said it is “embarrassing” that posts in the Church of England are being advertised for less than the living wage despite the Church’s declared commitment to the principle.

[….]

The living wage commitment was included in the controversial bishops’ pastoral letter, ‘Who is my Neighbour?’, released last week.
Speaking at a conference in Birmingham today for business and Church leaders, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the revelation was “embarrassing”. However, the Press Association reported: “But in the light of transparency, which I welcome, I will say we are a complex institution and every parish church and cathedral is an independent charity, as is every diocese.

“We don’t have a centralised method of control.

“I’m not very keen on centralised control where, from far away, you tell people what to do.”

If only Welby took the same view when it comes to the government. The Pastoral Letter issued by Church of England Bishops expends a torrent of verbiage on telling everyone what to do – when it isn’t waxing lyrical on the virtues of centralised control.

As it happens, I reported on the Church’s stingy salaries in July 2014, so Welby has no excuse for being unaware of this: he just needs to read Anglican Samizdat.

The Church of England Labour Party

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The Church of England has issued a pastoral letter – a euphemism for thinly disguised propaganda designed to nudge the unwary into trendy ecclesiastical green socialism – to guide the British public on which party to vote for in the forthcoming election.

As this article notes, the letter is ‘a combination of the policies of the Greens, SNP and the Labour Party.”

Even more damaging is this:

In a particularly cutting remark former Tory minister Lord Tebbit, after describing the Bishops as “mostly wrong” said, “In my experience, when people are not doing very well in their own job, they become very much better at telling other people how to do theirs.”

Tebbit is correct. The Church of England bishops have made such a calamitous mess of the Church of England that it is astonishing that they have the chutzpah to think that anyone would listen to their recipe for creating a better society.

Even worse, a non-Christian who reads this letter and does not share the bishops’ leftist bias – who thinks they are “mostly wrong” – has no reason to listen to anything else the bishops might say: the message of the Gospel, for example, a smattering of which is contained in the letter. By playing at politics, the bishops are jeopardising the souls of those to whom they should be offering the apolitical salvation of Jesus Christ.

Much of what is in the letter is twaddle. The social cohesion the bishops would like to see flourish cannot be achieved through politics. When it existed, it was a result of a common understanding that the moral foundation the society was Christianity. The Church should have defended this with all its might; instead, it pandered to the false gods of diversity, inclusion, equality, eco-justice, multiculturalism and inter-faith nonsense.

Politics alone cannot correct this and, sadly, on the spiritual side of the battle the church has already capitulated to the enemy.

Justin Welby wants businesses to pay more tax

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He is upset that businesses are using foreign countries with more attractive tax laws as a haven for tax saving.

From here:

The Archbishop kept his strongest comments for the role taxes play in ensuring that companies contribute to the societies in which they operate.

“There has always been the principle that you pay the tax where you earn the money,” he told me.

“If you earn the money in a country, the revenue service of that country needs to get a fair share of what you have earned.”

Welby’s point about contributing to the society in which a business operates by paying tax in that country would be more convincing if the Church of England didn’t receive extravagant tax breaks. The church collects £1 billion a year in donations, spends £189 million in salaries, has an investment portfolio worth £5.5 billion and receives £84 million in Gift Aid tax rebates.

The church, of course, is a charity and does not operate for profit – although the £5.5 billion looks suspiciously like profit to me. In spite of its spiritual aspirations – none of which seem particularly in evidence these days – as an organisation, the CofE runs as a business.

It doesn’t help that in 2012 when the government threatened to impose VAT tax on church building renovations, the church pleaded to be exempt from that tax, too.

To be clear: I don’t think churches should have to pay tax. However, since churches are in that privileged position in our society, a church leader who whines about businesses minimising their taxes deserves all the ridicule we can muster: his organisation is a consummate tax dodger.

Ethical investment advice from the Church of England

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Edward Mason is Chair of the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. He recently visited the national offices of the Anglican Church of Canada.

EdwardMasonHenriette620From here:

Whether it is the Rockefeller family joining a campaign to withdraw $50 billion from fossil fuel investments over the next five years or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement pushing for changes in Israeli policies toward Palestine, many people are thinking and talking about where they don’t want to put their money.

[….]

“We don’t expect perfection,” Mason said, “but we expect a positive direction of travel and a willingness and desire to make that positive journey. So with BP, it was reforming their safety procedures, which they put a huge amount of effort into.”

Henriette Thompson, director of public witness for social and ecological justice for the Anglican Church of Canada, noted that there is a renewed focus on investment issues for the Canadian church because the joint declaration on responsible resource extraction made with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) at the 2013 Joint Assembly commits the churches to “advocate for responsible and ethical investment and actions by individuals, faith communities, corporations, and governments both in Canada and around the world.”

Mason is working hard to “disincentivise” the use of fossil fuels:

From here:

While engagement with companies is an important component of an ethical investment response to climate change, it is not sufficient. We believe that engagement with policy makers is even more important: only policy makers can put the price on carbon that is needed to disincentivise the use of fossil fuels.

Doubtless he would have visited Canada earlier had it not been for the fact that he paddled himself across the Atlantic in a sustainable canoe constructed from renewable bark harvested from an organically grown Amazonian Hymenaea tree lovingly cultivated from a seed in his own back garden.

One would think that Western Anglicanism, having largely replaced the hope of heaven later with the illusion of utopia now, would be enthusiastically supporting the use of fossil fuel. No other technology has benefited billions of people as fossil fuel has. Even the lenses in Edward Mason’s glasses are probably made of polycarbonate, derived from the demon petroleum; let’s see how well the disincentivising goes without your glasses, Edward.

What it takes to be a heroic vicar in the Church of England

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According to Giles Fraser, a fellow – albeit rather strange – vicar, all it takes is to be “married” to another man and admit to meeting interesting people while dogging. For the sheltered few who are unacquainted with the unappetising term dogging, it’s something most self-respecting dogs would have little interest in:

the practice of carrying out or watching sexual activities in semi-secluded locations such as parks or car parks, often arranged by e-mail or text messages.

From here:

Heroes of 2014: Richard Coles

A happily partnered gay vicar, former pop star and cool radio presenter, Richard Coles is the patron saint of psychological integration.

Most trendy pop stars don’t ask for a new washer-dryer when being signed by their record label. Most Anglican vicars don’t admit to having met the most delightful people out dogging. How does Richard Coles get away with it, with being so many things at he same time?

Pop star and vicar. Lanky, awkward country bumpkin crossed with politically engaged boy-about-town. Confidently high and low brow. Both Radio 4 and Magic FM. A happily partnered gay man in a still deeply homophobic institution. Beneath the effortless exterior of radio-presenter cool must lie a plate spinner of Olympic talent.

Or maybe that should be past tense, because his national treasure status is partly built on the ability to integrate a set of comedy polarities into one quirky and glorious whole. Which means there is always hope for the rest of us. And not just fellow vicars – but everyone who thinks and feels several different and often seemingly contradictory things at the same time: ie everyone. He has become the patron saint of psychological integration.

What excites Giles Fraser’s imagination – well, other than dogging of course – is our hero’s capacity for living with inner conflict, the only virtue left for liberal Anglicans whose chief delight lies in embracing the anarchy of professing one set of beliefs while living by the light of their opposites: anti-existential Anglicanism.

One in 50 Church of England clergy don’t believe in God

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In what can only be understood as a latent death wish, the Church of England employs vicars who are atheists, don’t believe God is personal, don’t believe God can be known and don’t believe Jesus is the only way to the Father.

At the same time, the church, obstinately blind to the obvious, is bewildered by the dramatic decline in Sunday attendance: a recent report states, ‘there is no single recipe for growth; there are no simple solutions to decline.’

From here:

One in 50 Anglican clergy in the UK believes God is merely a human construct, according to a new survey today.

Just eight in ten believe there is a personal God and a further three in 100 believe there is some spirit or life force.

And in spite of two millennia of Church doctrine based on determining the mind of God through the Scriptures, nearly one in ten believes: “No-one can know what God is like.”

The YouGov survey of more than 1,500 Anglican clergy commissioned by the Westminster Faith Debates for the current series on the future of the Church of England shows growing acceptance for other faiths, with more than four in ten believing that while Christianity is the “best path” to God, other religions may offer paths as well.

I wish someone would run a similar survey for the Anglican Church of Canada.

Bishop of Buckingham says strange things about same-sex marriage

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First, he seems to think that the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus Christ – is not so much the fact that we are reconciled to the Father through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross, but that Christianity, the Church, or indeed, God himself, places no restraint on our doing pretty much whatever we feel inclined to do – including marrying people of the same sex.

Second, forget all that “one flesh” nonsense, sex is not at the heart of marriage at all,  companionship is. That is why married couples are mainly celibate, a regrettable misunderstanding that lead to the extinction of the human race around 200,000 years ago.

Third, when we feel guilty, we needn’t repentant of what we’ve done that caused the guilt. All we have to do is attend an Anglican Church where the priest will infuse us with a gooey sensation of self-worth, assuring us that it’s fine to keep on doing what is making us feel guilty – particularly if it’s have gay sex; sorry, companionship.

From here:

Bishop of Buckingham the Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson this week spoke at a debate on the issue at Kidlington’s St John’s Church.

A prominent supporter of gay marriage, he told worshippers at the Broadway church that the Christian tradition holds “the root of marriage is not sex but companionship”.

He said: “The idea that marriage is about friendship has become extremely powerful in England.”

Christians must symbolise “good news”, he said: “One of the really painful things I have had to learn is how the Church can be really bad news to people”.

This can “stir feelings of guilt and lack of self worth”, but he said: “God has made us like that. If he wanted to make us another way he would but he didn’t.”

Bishop of Gloucester, Michael Perham under investigation for sexual assault

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From the BBC:

The Bishop of Gloucester has been interviewed by police investigating two allegations of indecent assault.

The Right Reverend Michael Perham announced on Friday he was to “step-back” from his duties with immediate effect.

A 66-year-old man attended a police station in Gloucester on Tuesday but was not arrested, police said.

The Diocese of Gloucester said as it was a police matter it would not be commenting further.

The Church of England, demonstrating that it really can move quickly when it has the proper motivation, has changed the web page for the Bishop of Gloucester to say this:

Perham after

Until very recently the page looked like this:

Perham before

In case anyone is tempted to jump rashly to the wrong conclusion, the Church of England categorically denies that its bishops are carefully selected from a genetic pool known for its involuntary, excessive, prurient, lascivious and frequently deviant interest in sex, one that is matched only by overpaid celebrities and Catholic bishops. Stop laughing.

Married gay priest to sue the Church of England

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Of all the absurd things that the Church of England says and does, it is interesting that Rev Jeremy Pemberton has chosen to mount a legal challenge to the Church’s following its own clearly stated rules. Surely he is not motivated by self-interest?

Rev Jeremy Pemberton and wifeFrom here:

The first priest to marry his same-sex partner is to issue a legal challenge to the Church of England after his offer of a job as an NHS chaplain was withdrawn when his bishop refused the necessary permission. The Rev Jeremy Pemberton, who married Laurence Cunnington in April, was informed on Friday that Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS trust had withdrawn its offer of a job after Bishop Richard Inwood had refused him the official licence in the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. “It this is not challenged,” Pemberton said on Sunday, “it will send a message to all chaplains of whom a considerable number are gay and lesbian. This is an area of law that has not been tested and needs to be.” Anglican clergy are allowed to enter civil partnerships, but the House of Bishops has forbidden them to marry their same-sex partners, at least until a two-year discussion process within the church has been completed.

Justin Welby hopes women bishops won’t be an ecumenical stumbling block

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From here:

In a letter sent to Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said he hopes the vote to allow the ordination of women bishops would not prove a stumbling block to future “full communion” between the Anglican and Catholic churches.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Most Rev Justin Welby admitted in the letter that the vote at the General Synod earlier this month to allow women bishops was a “further difficulty” as far unity is concerned.

In the letter to Francis and other church leaders from around the world, the Archbishop said: “We are aware that our other ecumenical partners may find this a further difficulty on the journey towards full communion.

“There is, however, much that unites us, and I pray that the bonds of friendship will continue to be strengthened and that our understanding of each other’s traditions will grow. It is clear to me that whilst our theological dialogue will face new challenges, there is nonetheless so much troubling our world today that our common witness to the Gospel is of more importance than ever.”

I’m sure Justin Welby is correct in saying that a unified witness to the Gospel is needed now more than ever. It seems to me, though, that when the Church of England voted in favour of women bishops, they were setting their own parochial agenda above the unified witness to the Gospel to which they claim to be so committed. Justin Welby was not ignorant of the fact that ordaining women bishops would further fracture Christian unity: women bishops were more important that a common witness to the Gospel and, in that sense, more important than the Gospel itself.