Tag Archives: Justin Welby

Justin Welby’s anfractuous path to reconciliation

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Rowan Williams spent ten years attempting to synthesise a middle ground between Anglican liberals and conservatives: ten years of conversation, Indabas and listening. It didn’t work because it is no more possible to find a convincing middle ground between the Gospel and an anti-Gospel than it is between the propositions: 1+1=2 and 1+1=4.

Justin Welby seems to have caught on to the fact that Rowan Williams’ efforts fell flat so, instead, he is attempting to reconcile…. something – I’m not sure what. And therein, I suspect, lies the problem. Two people or groups can be reconciled to one another in the sense that they can mutually forgive one another for past wrongs – something that has been a hallmark of Welby’s ministry to date – but contrary propositions can no more be reconciled than they can be synthesised.

So while he may be able to convince the warring factions in the Anglican Communion that they should not hate each other and may even sit in the same room together, I cannot see much hope for reconciling the beliefs that have driven the two sides apart.

And without that, the reconciliation will be a shallow veneer of strained tolerance that will crack at the first hint that someone is about to express a firmly held conviction.

Read the complete address here:

The Crooked, Straight Path of Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is recognition of diversity and a transformation of destructive conflict to creativity. It holds the tensions and challenges of difference and confronts us with them, forcing us to a new way of life that accepts the power and depth and radicality of the work of the Holy Spirit in our conversions.

We speak often in foreign policy of failed states, or failing states. Their common characteristic is the inability to manage diversity and grow with it, enabling it to change them significantly into better places. The core of the American sense of exclusivism is often found within that vocation of being a diverse and thriving nation.

If the Church is not a place of reconciliation it is not merely hindering its mission and evangelism, appalling as such hindrance is, but it is a failing or failed church. It has ceased to be the miracle of diversity in unity, of the grace of God breaking down walls.

Justin Welby appoints a Director of Reconciliation

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From here (my emphasis):

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is delighted to announce the appointment of Canon David Porter as Director for Reconciliation at Lambeth Palace. Canon David will work part time on the Archbishop’s personal staff, seconded by Coventry Cathedral where he remains Canon Director for Reconciliation Ministry – bringing first-hand knowledge of the Cathedral’s eminent and longstanding reconciliation work to Lambeth Palace and the wider Church.

The focus of Canon David’s role will be to enable the Church to make a powerful contribution to transforming the often violent conflicts which overshadow the lives of so many people in the world. His initial focus will be on supporting creative ways for renewing conversations and relationships around deeply held differences within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

It’s early days for Justin Welby so, while I’m prepared to give his ability to sort out the Anglican Communion the benefit of the doubt for the moment, I find it hard not to agree with much of what was said about this at Stand Firm.

Coincidentally, yesterday was the five year anniversary of St. Hilda’s joining ANiC and tomorrow is the anniversary of the Diocese of Niagara’s dumping wads of legal documents on our office desk, demanding our keys, freezing our bank accounts and inhibiting our rector.

What, in that conversation is there left to say, let alone renew? What divides us are not “deeply held differences” that can coexist within the Christian faith: ANiC and the ACoC adhere to different religions, believe different creeds and answer to different masters.

The only thing I can think of to say to the Anglican Church of Canada’s hierarchy is: repent before it is too late. But that is not much of a conversation starter.

Justin Welby: marriage is between a man and a woman

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From here:

The new Archbishop of Canterbury will today issue a challenge to David Cameron by voicing opposition to gay marriage on the eve of the first parliamentary vote on the controversial new law.

In his first official day as leader of the Church of England, the Rt Rev Justin Welby is expected to say that marriage should remain “between a man and a woman”.

As MPs prepare for the vote on gay marriage tomorrow, Bishop Welby will give his first interviews after being officially confirmed in the post at a ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

“If asked, he will say that marriage is between a man and a woman, and always has been,” a source close to Bishop Welby said last night, adding that the Archbishop was expecting to be asked for his views and had prepared his response.

Justin Welby can challenge David Cameron until the cows come home and it won’t make any difference. Challenging the government is easy for an Anglican bishop because no-one in the government cares, is listening or believes it will make a whit of difference. Archbishops of Canterbury have been whining at governments for centuries about one thing or another – to no effect other than to create the illusion that they are busy doing something. What is less easy – and more relevant for the church – is a challenge to the North American bishops who promote homosexual marriage.

Perhaps Welby is just practicing on David Cameron before getting down to the real business of sorting out the likes of Katharine Jefferts-Schori and Fred Hiltz; I’m not particularly optimistic that that is the case, though.

The Queen should be the next archbishop of Canterbury

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Why? Because she seems to have a firmer grip on the significance of the Incarnation to ordinary people than either the current or soon to be Cantuar.

In her Christmas message, after a brief recap of the year, she spoke of Christ’s example in serving others:

“This is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son ‘to serve, not to be served’. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ.

“It is my prayer this Christmas Day that his example and teaching will continue to bring people together to give the best of themselves in the service of others.

In contrast to the Queen, Justin Welby simply couldn’t resist blathering on about cherished leftist articles of faith: wealth and the implied need for its redistribution, foreign aid, justice and the poor, inequality and higher taxes for the wealthy – encased in a thin veneer of Christianity.

Fred Hiltz meets with Justin Welby and warns him about ACNA

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Hiltz-WelbyOne of Fred Hiltz’s recurring nightmares is that Canterbury recognises ANCA and ANiC, making ACNA an official North American Anglican province with ANiC as one of its dioceses. In order to forestall this calamity, Hiltz has taken his “ongoing concern” to Justin Welby.

It’s worth noting that a contributing factor to the judge’s decision to award the ANiC church buildings to the Diocese of New Westminster was that they are held in trust for “Anglican worship”. By the judge’s reasoning, since the ACoC is the only recognised Anglican Church in Canada, Anglican worship and doctrine, no matter how perversely bizarre, is set by it and no-one else.

If ACNA is recognised by Canterbury, it would mean that the beloved nonsense emanating from Hiltz’s beloved church would no longer be the sole official measure of Canadian Anglicanism.

Welby, apparently, is “very appreciative” of ACoC contributions to the Anglican communion. Things like the pioneering work on suing Christians, ejecting them from their buildings, inhibiting world famous theologians such as J. I. Packer, filling the ranks of its clergy with partnered homosexuals and performing the Vagina Monologues in a cathedral.

There aren’t many Anglican Provinces that can make those claims.

From here:

The leader of the Anglican Church of Canada has emerged from his Dec. 6 meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury-elect, Justin Welby, feeling “very optimistic about his leadership.”

Archbishop Fred Hitz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, noted Welby’s “extensive ministry of reconciliation” and told the Journal that, “I get is a sense that he wants to be personally pro-active to build relations.

[….]

During his meeting with Welby, Hiltz said he mentioned ongoing concern about efforts by the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to be recognized by the Church of England. Composed of Anglicans who have left the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church in the U.S., ACNA describes itself as “an emerging Province in the global Anglican Communion.”

Hiltz said he requested that if bodies of the Church of England are to meet with representatives of ACNA, “in fairness, they should also meet with us to get a better picture.” Welby was “very appreciative” of the place of the Anglican Church of Canada in the Communion and the contributions it has been able to make, added Hiltz.

 

What the Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria will not be a part of

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Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, eschewing Continuing Indabas, The Listening Process, Diversity, Inclusion, Telling our Stories, Deepness, and Conversations, does something profoundly jarring: he lets Justin Welby know exactly where he stands.

From here:

But speaking on the BBC, Nigerian Anglican leader Nicholas Okah made it clear how he views the road ahead.

“The homosexual agenda that is being promoted here and there in the church, and by different governments here and there, if that is the agenda he is coming to promote, of course we will not be part of it,” said Okah.

Justin Welby intends to listen attentively to the “LGBT communities”

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A community is either a group of people living near one another or a group of people with the same interests. Since lesbians are interested in women, homosexuals are interested in men, bisexuals are interested in both and transsexuals are confused about who they are interested in, that amounts to four “communities”. He seems to have forgotten that the sexual deviancy alphabet has gone forth and multiplied to include at least LGBTQQIP,  Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Pansexual; by this time next year there will undoubtedly be more. Where will he find the time to listen to them all?

And what about the heterosexual “community”? Will he listen to them? Probably not; no-one listens to them.

I suspect “LGBT communities” was a circumlocutory way of saying Changing Attitude.

It would have been far more interesting, refreshing and radical if he had announced that he wants to listen attentively to same-sex attracted individuals who are attempting – with little help from the church – to resist the attraction. Too much to hope for, I suppose.

From here:

On another divisive issue within the faith, he said that there must be “no truck with any form of homophobia, in any part of the church” while seeming to acknowledge the difficulty that view causes foreign adherents.

“What the church does here deeply affects the already greatly suffering churches in places I’ve mentioned like Nigeria,” he said. “I support the House of Bishops’ statement in the summer in answer to the government’s consultation on same-sex marriage. But I also know I need to listen very attentively to the LGBT communities, and examine my own thinking carefully and prayerfully.”

 

Justin Welby’s assessment of Rowan Williams

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From here:

I want to say at once that one of the biggest challenges is to follow a man who I believe will be recognised as one of the greatest Archbishops of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

He is some one with a deep love for Jesus Christ, an infectious spirituality, extraordinary integrity and holiness, immense personal moral and physical courage, and of course one of the world’s principal theologians and philosophers.

To be fully serious, the church world wide owes him a great debt, more than it knows, and I shall be continuing to seek his advice and wisdom. I can only wish him, Jane and the family a wonderful end to his time at Canterbury and joy in their new roles.

One can only hope that he was simply being polite.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury

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As of this writing, it hasn’t been officially announced, but it seems reasonably certain that the Bishop of Durham, Justin Welby is to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Welby was baptised at Holy Trinity Brompton, is supposedly a charismatic evangelical and, having been in  business rather than academia, unlike his predecessor has his feet planted firmly on the ground. It is even possible to understand what he says without getting a headache.

All this seems like good news for theologically conservative Christians.

Yet, during his tenure as Dean of Liverpool, he authorised John Lennon’s atheist dirge, “Imagine” to be played on the church bells and gave his blessing to the Night of the Living Dead Halloween service.

While speaking to the TEC house of bishops in March 2012, he proclaimed himself disabused of the “myth that TEC is only liberal” and his enthusiasm for Indabas, either of which are enough to convict him of naivety, obsequiousness or both.

Giles Fraser likes him – not a good sign – and tells us that Welby thinks the Occupy movement was on to something and, in keeping with the Church of England’s obsession with rich bankers, is sitting on a commission to sort out corruption in the banking industry. Welby is a firm believer in “systemic or corporate sin”, a notion that, for a Christian, I think is rather peculiar insofar as the idea of Jesus dying for the sins of the Bank of England seems to me to be derisory.

The BBC informs us that, while Welby has defended the church’s right to oppose same sex marriage, “he has also been keen to accommodate opposing views expressed from a position of deeply held faith” – it doesn’t matter how wrong you are as long as you sincerely believe you are right, type of accommodation. Not a particularly encouraging thought for ACNA and ANiC who decided that the consecrating of a homosexual bishop and the blessing of same sex unions were not things that could be accommodated.

The harshest words I have seen in the mainstream media have come from a retired priest, Peter Mullen, who is convinced that Welby is one of the “Left-wing modernisers, devotees of all the secular fads such as diversity, social cohesion, political correctness and, of course, apostles of that sublime superstition, global warming.”

Time will tell, but on the face of it, it seems unlikely that those of us in North America who have left TEC and the ACoC will find a staunch ally in Welby. His speciality seems to be Reconciliation; the problem is, until there is repentance, a change of heart in at least one of the parties, it’s difficult to see how reconciliation is possible no matter how gifted the reconciler.

There is at least some good news: there are subtle intimations that the new Archbishop of Canterbury is a Christian.