The female American priest chosen as the new bishop for the Vancouver-area Anglican diocese says she attracts people to her church who have been “wounded” by other Christian traditions.

Rev. Melissa Skelton, who leads St. Paul’s Episcopal parish in Seattle, Washington, was elected a bishop in Canada on the third ballot at a vote held Saturday at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver.

Skelton will replace retired Anglican bishop Michael Ingham, who was at the centre of a storm within the 60-million-member worldwide Anglican communion when he became the first Anglican bishop to formally support the blessing of same-sex couples.

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Andreas Leowe, the Dean of Anglican cathedral, will deliver the morning sermon and he spoke to the Star Observer about why they felt it was an important event to host.

“Anglicans live with HIV. That’s the most basic reason, and Anglicans also do a lot of work with overseas HIV communities,” said Leowe, describing work the church does in the Solomon Islands and Kenya.

“There’s a fortunate combination this year in that World AIDS Day falls on a Sunday, which helps us put on a much larger celebration than we usually do,” he added.

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The Anglican Church in New Zealand says its decision on whether to bless same-sex marriages is unlikely to be affected by a Church of England report.

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We are concerned that the media is already focussing on the proposal in recommendations 16 and 17 for permitting public services “to mark the formation of a permanent same sex relationship”, including potentially same-sex civil marriages. The CEEC’s St Matthias Day Statement of 2012, which we submitted in evidence to the Pilling Group, sets out clearly why we believe this would mark a departure from biblical truth and Anglican teaching. It concludes by stating that “Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships or affirming or blessing sexual activity outside marriage is contrary to God’s word. When a church does either of these things it therefore becomes difficult to recognise it as part of the visible Church of Christ”. The fact that such recommendations can be made is, we believe, a surface sign that there are deeper and more serious flaws in the report as a whole.

It is clear that the Church of England is going to face difficult discussions and decisions about human sexuality in the coming year. We look to our bishops, individually and corporately, to be faithful to Scripture, to continue upholding the practice of the Anglican Communion as set out in Lambeth I.10, and to encourage all their clergy and people to do the same.

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In our submission to the Review Group we said the need for a radical change in Christian attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGB&T) people is now urgent. We asked whether the members of the review group are going to advocate that the Church of England recognises the reality of the presence of LGB&T people in the Church or whether they are going to maintain the present culture of secrecy, denial of reality, suppression of identity and the unhealthy attitudes in which many LGB&T Christians remain trapped.

This report does not herald radical change and does not therefore fulfil the expectations of Changing Attitude. There are no practical proposals which will begin to dismantle the present culture of secrecy, denial of reality, suppression of identity and the maintenance of unhealthy attitudes. The group has met people and listened and the unhealthy attitudes remain unchanged as the report demonstrates….

Changing Attitude is disappointed that the Report deals so superficially with transgender (198) and intersex people (197) despite having received a submission from the Sibyls. Changing Attitude England and other LGB&T Christian organizations also identified the need to address transgender and intersex experience and expectations in our submissions. The reality of transgender and intersex experience is directly relevant to the question asked in paragraphs 195/6 ”“ are human beings sexually dimorphic, and in paragraphs 199/200 ”“ is sexual attraction fixed and immutable.

Read it all.

My first reaction to seeing the Pilling Report was disbelief that in the twenty first century any church could put out a report on human sexuality written by a group that appears to have consisted of 8 men and 2 women and expect it to be taken as a serious contribution to the subject….

The notion that marriage is the only way that sexually active people express themselves is surely just one of many strands in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, aimed at the ability to control knowledge of the paternity of children. Its predominance has come about in cultural settings and for cultural reasons that do not always have a great deal to do with faith or with the teachings of Jesus or interpretation of the whole spectrum of biblical, rabbinic and apocryphal texts.

The report, then, is interesting for two reasons. It is the first time that such a report by a Church of England working party contains an open acknowledgement that, where there is a massive shift in social perception such that a practice or set of practices that were previously not acceptable have come to be seen not only as acceptable, but as desirable, then this can leave the church with a problem if it does not listen and engage.

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The UK and Ireland’s first woman bishop has been consecrated by the Anglican Church at a service in Dublin on Saturday.

The Reverend Pat Storey, a rector in Londonderry, was appointed in September.

She was elected by the Church of Ireland as Bishop of Meath and Kildare, in the Republic of Ireland.

Read it all.

Clergy would be free to bless same-sex relationships under proposals published by the Church of England, which were immediately condemned as “divisive” by Anglican conservatives.

The Church faces years of debate and new splits exceeding even those caused by women bishops as it attempts to adapt to modern mores on sex without losing its fast-growing conservative evangelical wing.

The report, by a working group set up by bishops, was chaired by the retired civil servant Sir Joseph Pilling. Although it does not describe such acts of worship as “blessings”, the report says there could be circumstances where a parish priest “should be free to mark the formation of a permanent same-sex relationship in a public service”.

Read it all (subscription required).

In a previous statement the College indicated that it was the practice of the individual Bishops at that time neither to give official sanction to blessings of civil partnerships, nor to attend them personally. The Church does not give official sanction to informal blessings but each Bishop would nevertheless expect to be consulted by clergy prior to the carrying out of any informal blessing of a civil partnership in his diocese. The College is of the view that a decision as to whether or not to attend such an informal blessing should be a personal decision of the individual Bishop in question.

Read it all from Kelvin Holdsworth.

“Inclusive Church welcomes the publication of the report from the commission led by Sir Joseph Pilling. It is a reflection of careful listening to many voices in church and state, though listening and learning remains an ongoing task. We also look forward to the House of Bishops response and the guidance which will be issued to churches. We hope that this will enable all Christians to find ways of celebrating the covenantal love between people which reflects the love of God for all people.”

Read it all.

From here:

We note that the Pilling Report has been released and we recognize the substantial amount of work that has gone into the consultation and writing of the report.

We can state at this stage that we stand with the historic, orthodox faith in its Anglican expression, under the authority of Scripture, to which the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty Nine Articles and the Ordinal bear witness. We affirm the teaching of the Church of England that the appropriate context for a sexual relationship is only in a lifelong, faithful marriage between a man and a woman. This teaching will continue to be true, and is endorsed by the large majority of Christian churches historically and globally, as confirmed by the Nairobi Commitment of GAFCON 2013.

The summary of the Report that has been released suggests that a number of conclusions on the way forward have already been drawn, and that a programme of “facilitated conversations” will enable people with different views on sexuality to remain in the church together. The impression is given that a matter on which Scripture and tradition give clear theological and ethical direction is open to compromise by negotiation. However we would like to take time to study the document in detail before giving a full response.

Read it all.

The Church needs to decide. If sex outside of the marriage of a man and woman is sinful, then the Church should support, commend and hold up as a clear example of discipleship those who despite being same-sex attracted refuse to let their bodies sin in this way. Alternatively if the Church thinks that some forms of sex outside of the marriage of a man and a woman are not sinful then it should have the courage of its convictions and tell those of us who have made the choices we have that we are wrong and misunderstand God’s call on out life. But the one thing it cannot do is fudge the issue and permit both contradictory positions at once. That is an utter theological nonsense.

Read it all.

Clergy should be permitted to provide a public service to mark same-sex relationships, a House of Bishops working group has recommended.

The recommendations in The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality, known as “the Pilling report” after the group’s chairman, Sir Joseph Pilling, are modest. They speak of the need for “pastoral accommodation”, but do not propose any change in the Church’s teaching on sexual conduct. Although the report does not speak of “blessing” gay relationships, Sir Joseph said on Thursday that he would not write a letter of complaint to a journalist who used such a term.

Other recommendations include repentance for homophobia within the Church, the avoidance of “intrusive questioning”, and further debate…

Read it all.

and Windsor Report Recommendations and Scripture
– Places position of Archbishop of Canterbury and Church of England in Anglican Communion in doubt
– Assurances given by Arun Arora and William Fittall turn out to be dissembling, Peter Ould’s report vindicated

Recommendation 16. We believe that there can be circumstances where a priest,
with the agreement of the relevant PCC, should be free to mark the
formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service
but should be under no obligation to do so. Some of us do not
believe that this can be extended to same sex marriage. (Paragraphs
120, 380”“3) [Pilling Report Page 151]

Read it all and the 18 recommendations on pages 149 to 152

The Bishop of Birkenhead has issued a dissenting report at page 119 including:

after much prayer and soul searching, I have concluded I cannot sign.

416. Why have I reached this conclusion? For a number of reasons
which I try to set out in more detail in this statement:

● I believe Scripture and Christian tradition offer a clearer and
better vision from God for the world in his gift of our
sexuality as men and women and that this is sufficient for
directing the Church at this critical time of major cultural
change. In particular, I am not persuaded that the biblical
witness on same sex sexual behaviour is unclear.

● I believe the trajectory in the Report will undermine the
discipleship and pastoral care of many faithful Christians
and, by leading the Church into the kind of cultural captivity
which much of the prophetic writings warn against, weaken
our commitment to God’s mission.

● I believe in the unity of Christ’s Church and think the Report
has not heeded the view of General Synod expressed in
February 2007 that ”˜efforts to prevent the diversity of
opinion about human sexuality creating further division and
impaired fellowship within the Church of England and the
Anglican Communion… would not be advanced by doing
anything that could be perceived as the Church of England
qualifying its commitment to the entirety of the relevant
Lambeth Conference Resolutions (1978: 10; 1988: 64;
1998: 1.10)’.

The Bishop of Birkenhead also contributed a paper ‘Scripture and Same Sex Relationships’ [pages 158-175 of the Pilling Report]
Global South Warnings and Exhortations to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England:

The Statement of the Primates of the Global South in January 2013:

We, Primates of the Global South of the Anglican Communion, are deeply concerned and worried by the recent decision of the Church of England’s House of Bishops which approves that clergy living in civil partnerships can be candidates to the episcopate……

…both the decision to permit clergy to enter civil partnerships and this latest decision which some call it a “local option,” are wrong and were taken without prior consultation or consensus with the rest of the Anglican Communion at a time when the Communion is still facing major challenges of disunity. It is contrary to “the inter-dependence” which we try to affirm between churches within the Communion. Moreover, it does not only widen the gap between the Church of England and Anglicans in the Global South, it also widens the gap between the Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners. Further, it jeopardizes the relationship between us Anglicans living in the Global South and followers of other faiths, and gives opportunities to exploit such departure of moral standards that this type of decision may provide.

The Church, more than any time before, needs to stand firm for the faith once received from Jesus Christ through the Apostles and not yield to the pressures of the society! In other words, the Church needs to be “salt” and “light” and to present a distinctive message from that of the secular world around us.

We strongly urge the Church of England to reconsider this divisive decision.

Archbishop Wabukala’s Letter of July 2013:

we are painfully aware that the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada continue to promote a false gospel and yet both are still received as in good standing by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Furthermore, the Church of England itself, the historic mother church of the Communion, seems to be advancing along the same path. While defending marriage, both the Archbishops of York and Canterbury appeared at the same time to approve of same-sex Civil Partnerships during parliamentary debates on the UK’s ”˜gay marriage’ legislation, in contradiction to the historic biblical teaching on human sexuality reaffirmed by the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

In these circumstances, attempts to achieve unity based merely on common humanitarianism and dialogue, without repentance, sacrifice the transforming power of the gospel….

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

The GAFCON II Communique and Commitment of October 2013:

4.We commit ourselves to defend essential truths of the biblical faith even when this defence threatens existing structures of human authority (Acts 5:29). For this reason, the bishops at GAFCON 2013 resolved ”˜to affirm and endorse the position of the Primates’ Council in providing oversight in cases where provinces and dioceses compromise biblical faith, including the affirmation of a duly discerned call to ministry. This may involve ordination and consecration if the situation requires.’
5.We commit ourselves to the support and defence of those who in standing for apostolic truth are marginalized or excluded from formal communion with other Anglicans in their dioceses. We have therefore recognized the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) as an expression of authentic Anglicanism both for those within and outside the Church of England, and welcomed their intention to appoint a General Secretary of AMiE.
6.We commit ourselves to teach about God’s good purposes in marriage and in singleness. Marriage is a life-long exclusive union between a man and a woman. We exhort all people to work and pray for the building and strengthening of healthy marriages and families. For this reason, we oppose the secular tide running in favour of cohabitation and same-sex marriage

TEXTS:

Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10 ‘Human Sexuality’ [n.b. links to the resolution on ACO websites no longer appear to work]

This Conference:

– commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;
– in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;
– recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We
commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
– while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
– cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
– requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
– notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process

Letter of Rowan Williams in 2006

“In my judgement, we cannot properly or usefully re-open the discussion as if Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 did not continue to represent the general mind of the Communion.”

Disobedience by Archbishops

Archbishop John Sentamu in House of Lords Debate on Same Sex Marriage June 2013:

“What do you do with people in same sex relationships that are committed, that are loving, that are Christian?”.

“Would you rather bless a sheep and a tree but not them? That is a big question to which we are going to come and the moment is not now. We are dealing with legislation as we’ve got.”

Archbishop Justin Welby in House of Lords Debate on Same Sex Marriage:

“It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage”

Two interventions this week from men who inhabit very different worlds, yet have common diagnoses for the problems faced by the institutions to which they belong.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been waging a war against secularism, against the marginalisation of Christianity in national life, and the bigotry shown to individual Christians in the workplace. In particular, he led a rather unpleasant campaign against gay marriage, seeming to elide such reform with the sort of prejudice that censures airport staff who wear crucifixes. This week, however, he raised his sights, to warn his Church that it faces extinction within a generation unless it tackles the decline in support from the young….

Read it all.

EMILY BOURKE: The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Phillip Aspinall, is the most senior religious leader to come before the Royal Commission.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: If I might use a commercial analogy: if people think that the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia is the CEO of Australia’s Anglicans, then nothing could be further from the truth. The Primate has very, very limited powers.

EMILY BOURKE: Nevertheless, under questioning Dr Aspinall provided some insights into the Anglican Church.

PHILLIP ASPINALL: The politics are very difficult and it’s very difficult to get any kind of uniform approach to any matter.

Read it all.

The growing Church in Gambella, Ethiopia, “overwhelmed by poverty, natural disasters, and tribal conflicts”, is in need of support, according to Bishop Mouneer Anis.

The Most Revd Mouneer Anis is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, as well as Primate of The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & The Middle East.

Read it all and also read and enjoy the pictures there.

Hymn books could soon be a thing of the past as churches switch to high-tech services with the words on giant screens, assisted by an iTunes app.

The fashion for ”˜hands-free worship’ has led to a decline in book sales. But it is said to have improved the singing, as congregants look up at a screen instead of down at the page.

Some vicars also prefer screens because they are less likely to spread germs and are said to be environmentally friendly.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Aston, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, chair of the Panel for World Mission and the Anglican Communion, said he was delighted that so many bishops had taken up the challenge.

In a Church of England interview https://soundcloud.com/the-church-of-england/white-ribbon-campaign, Bishop Andrew speaks about the White Ribbon Campaign and explains how he had been approached by colleagues from the worldwide Anglican Communion who are concerned about gender violence.

Read it all.

After 50 years in the church, an Anglican priest says he doesn’t know if he can say he’s a Christian.

The priest, who was central to handling a group claim from people who suffered abuse in a NSW Anglican children’s home, has announced he is quitting the clergy.

In a surprise revelation at Monday’s hearing into how the Anglican Church dealt with victims of abuse at a children’s home in Lismore, the former registrar of the Grafton Diocese, Pat Comben, said he had relinquished holy orders.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of York has said that the Church of England is one generation away from extinction. His solution was more evangelism, more God. He is completely wrong.

The solution is for the church, as in the past, to move with the times and now drop the outmoded belief in God and a conditional afterlife, but keep the moral and ethical thrust of its founder, as well as of other good people of philosophy and science both earlier and later.

Read it all.

An East End rector is entering the race for the Christmas No 1 as a rank outsider, taking on Lily Allen, Robbie Williams and the winner of The X Factor to challenge for the top slot in the charts.

The Rev Niall Weir, rector of St Paul’s in West Hackney, London, is hoping to repeat the success of his first and only Christmas chart hit to date, which earned £30,000 for his local community in 1991.

He has assembled a choir of 60 people, including the homeless, recovering drug addicts, vulnerable adults, pensioners and others who belong to the wide variety of charitable groups and organisations that use Stoke Newington church hall for their meetings.

Read it all from the [London] Times(requires subscription)

While the Tory leadership may still sometime say that Britain is a Christian country and send out copies of the King James Bible to schools, there is little sense of a religious underpinning to current Tory thinking. If David Cameron has sought to hark back to a pre-Thatcherite tradition of Tory paternalism, he has done so without reference to its Anglican roots. Indeed, the confusion surrounding his ”˜Big Society’ agenda may in part be down to its secular articulation (especially odd given that faith groups are expected to do so much of the work).

Until recently, this secularisation had gone unnoticed, concealed under the broader process of Cameron’s modernisation of the party, but the pushing through of gay marriage has changed all that. If the debate reveals anything, it is that the tables have turned; the Conservative party appears to have out-liberalised the Church of England. Cameron’s argument that gay marriage is an inherently Conservative idea is a legitimate one (which certainly reflects popular opinion, including Christian) but he has found it difficult to sell to those ”˜swivel-eyed loons’, the Tory rank and file. They feel at odds with the party leadership in a way that many once felt at odds with the bishops. It is no wonder that many are now converting to Ukip.

Gay marriage may be seen by some as representative of the divorce of the Tory party from its Christian principles but, more importantly, it suggests that the gulf between its leadership and the grass roots may be religious as much as political.

Read it all.

However, it was his comments about youth work that caught the imagination of the British press.

“As I look at the church today the most urgent and worrying gap is in young peoples work. So many churches have no ministry to young people and that means they have no interest in the future. As I have repeated many times in the past ”˜we are one generation away from extinction’. We have to give cogent reasons to young people why the Christian faith is relevant to them,” the archbishop said.

Ignoring Lord Carey’s principle points The Times, Daily Mirror, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and Daily Mail focused on his assertion that “[t]he Church of England could be one generation away from extinction.” Just about all of the press reports and commentary misconstrued what Lord Carey was trying to say. Renewal, growth, evangelism — even optimism — was at the heart of the archbishop’s Shropshire speech, not doom and gloom.

Read it all.

Faith should be seen as an integral part of peace-making in the Middle East, said Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom in a unique presentation at the annual meeting of the Church of England’s highest legislative body.

“I no longer think the standard negotiator’s toolbox is wide, deep or rich enough to solve the most difficult disputes,” said Ambassador Daniel Taub on Wednesday afternoon, who offered his reflections on negotiating in the Middle East, and spoke about his emerging conviction about the role of faith in reconciliation.

“Faith and our faith texts offer untapped tools for transforming our dialogue.”

Read it all.

Almost exactly a year after the fall of the draft Measure to enable women to become bishops, described at the time as a “train crash”, the General Synod has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new package to put the legislation “back on track”. It includes a brief Measure, and a House of Bishops declaration.

After a debate on Wednesday morning, only eight members voted against a motion to welcome the proposals, and 25 recorded abstentions; 378 voted in favour.

Speaking at a press conference after the vote, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Revd James Langstaff, who chaired the steering committee that produced the new package, said: “The train is on the track and moving forward, and we know there are some stations to pass through along the way, but we can see the end of this particular journey.”Read it all.

O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike; Surprise us also with thy joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Church of England pays its top bureaucrat over £10,000 more than the Prime Minister receives despite launching a series of attacks on high executive salaries, it has been disclosed.

Papers laid before the Church’s General Synod, which has been meeting this week, show that eight lay officials across the Church’s London headquarters and its financial arm receive more than 100,000 a year.

Questions were raised about the level of pay for top Church officials after William Shawcross, chairman of the Charity Commission, recently warned that charities risk bringing good causes into “disrepute” by awarding further pay rises to chiefs on six-figure sums.

Read it all.

Supporters of female bishops have made obvious gains ”“ but why do the opponents believe they’ve done well too?
…the more politically savvy among them understand that this compromise allows them to live and flourish another day.

The backlash against them after last November’s fiasco was so strong that moves were made to unseat Dr Philip Giddings, a prominent conservative evangelical who is also chairman of the synod’s house of laity.

The Guardian has seen Giddings’ reflections on the legislation, intended for fellow evangelicals only. He is quite clear that without conceding on this issue his faction would have suffered horribly in the upcoming synod election.

He writes: “The issues which will be (indeed already are being) brought before us in relating to marriage, family, human sexuality; and, even more critically, the uniqueness and sufficiency of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. To sustain a biblically orthodox position for the Church of England on those issues we need to maximise our representation in future synods. To achieve that, we need to deal with the women bishops now and get it off the agenda.”

Read it all