Watch and listen to it all.

In England, his name is Stephen Cottrell presently Bishop of Chelmsford soon to be Archbishop of York. In an article on his upcoming elevation, the Church Times reports,

“Bishop Cottrell has also warned that the Church’s stance on same-sex relationships means that it is ‘seen as immoral by the culture in which it is set’ and has suggested that prayers of thanksgiving for these relationships — ‘perhaps a eucharist’ — should be offered. In a diocesan-synod address in 2017, he warned of the ‘missiological damage that is done when that which is held to be morally normative and desirable by much of society, and by what seems to be a significant number of Anglican Christian people in this country, is deemed morally unacceptable by the Church…And, though I am proud to confirm that all of us, whatever our views on this matter, are united in our condemnation of homophobia, we must also acknowledge that it is of little comfort to young gay or lesbian members of our Church to know that while prejudice against them is abhorred, any committed faithful sexual expression of their love for another is forbidden. . . Our ambivalence and opposition to faithful and permanent same-sex relationships can legitimise homophobia in others.”

The Christian Institute expands on the partial quote above as follows, “I am not sure the church has ever before had to face the challenge of being seen as immoral by the culture in which it is set.”

These are astounding words. That one so educated, soon to be so elevated, so highly respected could evince such ignorance so publicly without embarrassment is, well, I am not sure what to call it. On the one hand, he is, of course, worthy of censure. But on the other, that his words are published so widely and he is still embraced so warmly without any apparent sense that something is amiss, what does it mean? Is the indictment more damning to him or to the ecclesial prelates or to the Church of England as a whole?

Has the Bishop taken even a semester’s study in church history? Does he know that Christians have been called haters of mankind, cannibals, atheists even because from the first the Christian Church has refused to bow to the idols of the age? What would Bishop Cottrell say to the Ugandan martyrs who refused to let themselves be sexually corrupted by a homosexual ruler for the sake of Christ? Were these children missiologically obtuse? Ought they to have embraced the “normative and desirable morality” of the king and his court?

Men and women and children have been devoured by wild beasts, burned alive, beheaded, and crucified precisely because they refused to adopt the morality of the age and yet it is by the blood of these martyrs, not by the supine compromise of English clerics, that Christ builds his Church.

And we need not even look to the history of the Church. Has Bishop Cottrell read even a single Gospel? Does he know that Jesus was crucified? Was Jesus crucified because he was “seen as moral by the culture in which he was set”? Was he arrested and tried because he embraced what was “morally normative and desirable”? Not at all. Jesus scrutinized the traditions and laws of the day by the law of God and found them wanting. He refused to submit himself or his disciples to the sabbath regulations, the washings, the dietary restrictions imposed by men and not God. And his “community” hated him for it. He has a demon, they said. His miracles are empowered by Satan, they said. Jesus was not crucified because the people loved him and he affirmed all of their ways.

Read it all.

Christian Today picked up my piece on Bishop Cottrell https://t.co/KAU6XgSIOX

— Matt Kennedy (@lambeth981) December 20, 2019

A regional priest has questioned whether it Is time for the Anglican Church to split, as the debate on the Religious Freedom Bill leaves some of his parishioners feeling anxious over the Christmas period.

The picturesque Saint Matthew’s Church, which lies in tranquil gardens in the heart of Albury, has become a battleground over the identity of the Anglican Church’s future.

The push for the Church to become more progressive has become such a personal fight for local priest Father Peter MacLeod-Miller that he has now removed his clerical collar as he campaigns for equality of LGBTQI+ parishioners.

“It’s such a bad brand,” Father Macleod-Miller said.

“It’s a bit like you walk down the street and people associate you with bad things….”

Read it all.

What does this say about unity in modern religion, generally? https://t.co/BqWI0hvd9c

— Andreas Krokene (@AndreasKrokene) December 23, 2019

So great was Archbishop Freier’s objection that one assistant bishop from Freier’s diocese, Melbourne, was told not to robe, process and be part of the consecration. He was seen, instead, sitting in the congregation. davidould.net also understands another assistant bishop from a metropolitan diocese chose not to even attend under similar pressure.

Archbishop Freier’s objection to the presence of Bishop Behan is in direct contradiction to a motion passed by his own synod only a few months ago, which voted to approve the following:

Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa / New Zealand
That this Synod:
a) Welcomes the newly formed Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa / New Zealand.
b) Assures the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa / New Zealand and its bishop, Jay Behan, of our love and prayers.
c) prays for God’s blessing on all Anglicans in New Zealand as they seek to proclaim Christ faithfully to New Zealand.

davidould.net spoke to a senior member of clergy in the Diocese of Melbourne who described Archbishop Freier’s actions as “not very welcoming, really, is it?!”

Readers of davidould.net will have to make up their own mind on whether Archbishop Freier’s decision would leave bishop Jay Behan assured of his love and prayers. The majority that voted in favour of the motion may also take an interest in their Archbishop’s rejection of the position of synod.

Read it all.

Blog: A new Bishop in Sydney, and a Primate who defies his own synodhttps://t.co/WUfQxwJSX2

— David Ould ن (@davidould) December 22, 2019

A member of the Committee for Minority-Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC), Bishop Cottrell has previously warned that the Church was “going backwards” on ethnic diversity in its leadership (News, 17 July 2015). “There is still racism in our Church,” he told General Synod. “It is high time we woke out of our sleep and realised we are guilty of complacency and neglect.”

On Tuesday, he said: “Our record is not good: there is no point in pretending otherwise.” He dared to hope that, “when I do hang up my mitre . . . the Church will look different.” The Bishops enjoyed a “significant power” in making appointments, he observed. “We need to use it much more generously and wisely, to bring more people round the table. . . We will be a much better stronger Church for being more diverse in leadership.”

Bishop Cottrell has also warned that the Church’s stance on same-sex relationships means that it is “seen as immoral by the culture in which it is set” and has suggested that prayers of thanksgiving for these relationships — “perhaps a eucharist” — should be offered (News, 17 March 2017).

In a diocesan-synod address in 2017, he warned of the “missiological damage that is done when that which is held to be morally normative and desirable by much of society, and by what seems to be a significant number of Anglican Christian people in this country, is deemed morally unacceptable by the Church. . .

Read it all (registration).

“I simply don’t find England to be a nation of atheists. We are obviously not a nation of churchgoers either; but we are a nation of people who are hungry for meaning”https://t.co/JLpdRH51it

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 17, 2019

After more than a millennium of male dominance choirgirls now outnumber choirboys in England’s cathedrals for the first time.

The tradition of boys singing in cathedral choirs dates back at least 1,110 years with the first boy choristers singing at Wells Cathedral in the year 909.

There are now 740 boy and 740 girl choristers in English cathedrals, according to church statistics, but The Times has learnt that both of these figures have been slightly rounded up. There are, to be more precise, now 739 girls and 737 boys, marking the first time that choirgirls have outnumbered choirboys.

Read it all (requires subscription).

Exclusive: After more than a millennium of male dominance, choirgirls now outnumber choirboys in England’s cathedrals for the first time in history. https://t.co/j4yxqNunY3

— Kaya Burgess (@kayaburgess) December 20, 2019

Gavin Ashenden, a former Honorary Chaplain to the Queen in the Church of England who was consecrated a bishop in a Continuing Anglican ecclesial community, will be received into the Catholic Church on Sunday.

He will receive confirmation Dec. 22 during a Mass at Shrewsbury Cathedral from Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury.

His wife, Helen, became a Catholic about two years ago in the Diocese of Shrewsbury.

“Having come to believe that the claims and expression of the Catholic faith are the most profound and potent expression of apostolic and patristic belief, and to accept the primacy of the Petrine tradition, I am grateful to the Bishop of Shrewsbury and the Catholic community in his diocese for the opportunity to mend 500 years of fractured history and be reconciled to the Church that gave birth to my earlier tradition,” Ashenden has said.

Read it all.

From there:

Watch Mark Mukan, Director of Mission Operations in Jos, Nigeria, report on the recent baptism of 21 believers from the Gospel Center, Bassa, Nigeria. It is important for us to hear, see and encourage our brothers and sisters around the globe as the Anglican church grows.

Mark could not contain his excitement of the Gospel Center Anglican Church baptism. The baptized were presented with a Bible for their pilgrim journey and Mark reports that their testimonies have been spreading around the surrounding villages. The ceremony included holding a candle a symbol for them to hold forth the light and to share it in areas where God has placed them.

Praise God for what he is doing in the lives of these newly baptized believers!

You can watch the whole video here.

From there:

“With reference to the recent statement from a pressure group, the accusations made against the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell are entirely without foundation. It is untrue that Bishop Stephen suggested to a governor of a Church of England School that his views on sexuality were not welcome and he could leave. Bishop Stephen made that clear at the time and subsequently in an Ad Clerum. It is also untrue that Bishop Stephen suggested to any other clergy that they should leave the Church of England. As he is said at his announcement, the Church of England is a Church for all people, welcoming everyone.

“He upholds the teaching of the Church of England that recognises marriage as being between one man and one woman.

“Bishop Stephen has not endorsed gender transitioning in and of itself for children but has pastoral concern for any child affected by gender dysphoria.

“He holds biblical truth as sacred and is in all matters guided by the gospel. Speaking at the press conference for his announcement he said ‘What binds us together is not our views on this issue or that issue, what binds us together is our faith in Jesus Christ. We say water is thicker than blood. It is our baptism and our belonging to each other that really matters’.”

[The] Rev John Parker resigned as both a governor of the school and as a vicar in the Church of England over the disagreement.

He said at the time: “I was basically told by my bishop that if I wished to faithfully follow the teachings of the Bible then I was no longer welcome in the Church. It felt very much like I was being silenced by the Church and the school.”

Kieran Bush, vicar of St John’s, Walthamstow, later backed Rev Parker’s claim, alleging that Bishop Cottrell had “on more than one occasion, told clergy, including John Parker, that if we disagree with the approach the Diocese is taking on matters of human sexuality we should follow our consciences and leave”.

“There were more than thirty clergy at one of the meetings,” he said in a statement in June released through GAFCON, the orthodox fellowship within the Anglican Communion.

Rev Parker was supported during the dispute by Christian Concern, which has criticised the appointment of Bishop Cottrell as Archbishop of York.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of the rise in rough sleeping, foodbank use and increasing personal debt over the last decade of austerity.

He said: “It has got worse over the last nine years. Rough sleeping has gone up. That is a matter of fact. People will argue about the causes but it is a fact it has gone up.

“Foodbank use has risen. There has been a huge rise in the client base of Christians Against Poverty, the debt-counselling charity. Also, people’s tolerance for minorities has gone down. Minority groups have had a much harder time, asylum seekers, immigrants. The use of vitriolic language has gone up significantly. We have had an MP murdered. I am not saying we are in a crisis, I am just saying the direction of travel is not what we want.”

Asked whether he thought politicians realised the damage austerity has done he said: “Yes. Not all of them, obviously. But the vast majority do and they are really concerned about it….”

Read it all.

Inside this week’s Big Issue, The Archbishop of Canterbury delivers his Christmas message, discussing food banks, austerity and rough sleeping.https://t.co/wDik1OuDvc

— The Big Issue (@BigIssue) December 16, 2019

The Queen has approved the nomination of Bishop @CottrellStephen as the next Archbishop of York, Downing Street has announced.

Read the full #ABY98 release: https://t.co/8VQDG0XNkw

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) December 17, 2019

A Cathedral is to help the Government roll out 5G. Wells Cathedral has offered its land to Voneus, the superfast broadband specialist, to help roll out rural broadband.

The company recently announced that it has been granted powers by Ofcom that will help it accelerate the rollout of superfast broadband services to hard-to-reach UK rural communities by making it easier for Voneus to construct its highspeed infrastructure on public land.

Recently Ofcom made a decision to make more airwaves available in four ‘frequency bands’ including the 3.8-4.2 GHz band, which supports the latest 5G mobile technology and the 26 GHz band, which has also been identified as one of the main bands for the publicly contested 5G in the future.

“With Voneus’ help, we’re turning Wells into a truly digital cathedral with stronger connections to our local community as well as to people living much further afield,” said the Very Rev Dr John Davies, Dean of Wells.

Read it all.

Listen to it all (and note the handout link if desired).

The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, said on Friday morning: “I was pleased to hear Boris Johnson say that he was determined to use his majority to ‘change this country for the better’. I am sure we will all work and pray for this, watching closely what is offered.

“In particular, I will continue to raise the pressing issues of homelessness and rough sleeping, which are causing misery in many parts of our country. In-work poverty is also likely to be high on the agenda of many people in the poorer parts of our country.”

Dr Innes said: “The new Government faces big issues around economic and social justice, and national cohesion, that Brexit has revealed over the past three-and-a-half years.

“I pray that the new UK Government and Parliament will address these formidable challenges in ways that will unify, not divide, and which will seek to find common ground for the common good.”

Read it all (registration).

NEW The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, should seek to address the country’s “formidable challenges” in a way that will “unify, not divide”, the Bishop in Europe, Dr Robert Innes, has saidhttps://t.co/3aUsH20mPA

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 13, 2019

The Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe has announced that Canon Ian Tarrant has accepted his offer to become next Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral and the Diocese of Europe.

Canon Tarrant, 62, is married to Sally and has three grown-up children, all now living outside the UK, and two grandchildren.

Ian and Sally met as teenagers while on a course in the Diocese of Chelmsford. Ian studied physics at Cambridge University, and later trained for ordination at St John’s College, Nottingham.

It was in Nottingham, where Sally had been studying ‘maths, maths, and more maths’, that they met again and got engaged.

They spent ten challenging years working for the Church Missionary Society in the Congo, returning to Nottingham where he became the University Chaplain and where their children went to secondary school.

Read it all.

Canon Ian Tarrant has accepted an offer by the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe to become the next Dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and the Diocese of Europe.https://t.co/huba7vFppJ

— GBC News (@GBCNewsroom) December 13, 2019

Read it all.

It’s always a risk walking around with a dog collar on. People might ask you things. A bishop I know carries a list of the 12 disciples in his briefcase just in case someone puts him on the spot (the biblical list isn’t entirely clear). It’s like politicians being asked how much a second-class stamp is. Clergy dread being asked something they probably should know but forgot long ago.

I was once in court as an expert witness, testifying on behalf of a member of our congregation seeking asylum on the basis of conversion to Christianity. The Home Office lawyer was scathing when he couldn’t name six disciples and used this fact to challenge the genuineness of his conversion. In fact, he’d named five, which I thought was pretty good. I asked our congregation the following Sunday. They got as far as Simon Peter, Andrew and John – most remembered Judas – but after that it was a stretch.

“Can you be illiterate and be a Christian’’? demanded the lawyer. I was totally bemused by the question. Of the two billion Christians in the world today, a large proportion are technically illiterate. And for the first four centuries of Christianity, not a whole lot was written down in any case.

Read it all.

Great article by Lucy Winkett from @StJPiccadilly
‘It’s like politicians being asked how much a second-class stamp is. Clergy dread being asked something they probably should know but forgot long ago.’https://t.co/UNTsByf2My

— London Diocese (@dioceseoflondon) December 12, 2019

The Living Ministry programme tracks the progress of groups of clergy ordained in 2006, 2011 and 2015 and women and men who entered training for ordination in 2016, seeking to understand what helps clergy to flourish in ministry.

The latest research from the project includes responses from 579 ordained clergy and 113 people training for ordained ministry in the Church of England.

The quantitative study includes research into physical and mental, relational, financial and material and spiritual and vocational well-being as well as responses to questions about ministerial effectiveness.

Read it all and take the time to look through the whole report (64 pages).

Just before Christmas 1919, George V signed the Enabling Act into law. This conferred on a National Assembly of the Church of England the power to adopt “Measures” through a Legislative Committee, which would pass to an Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament for scrutiny and rapid progress into law.

This single piece of legislation still forms the bedrock of the Church of England’s modern representative system. It came with a great fanfare of acclaim, led by a pressure group headed by the charismatic future archbishop William Temple. In consequence, it is often seen as a decisive and unexpected leap forward in the Church’s self-understanding.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Enabling Act was a vital piece of legislation for the Church of England, and has good claim to be the most important piece of legislation passed by Parliament for the Church in the 20th century. But it was the result of a long evolution in church polity and ecclesiastical authority, and of the careful development of practical solutions to problems of governance by the Church’s leadership. In its essential conception, it owed little to Temple.

Read it all (registration).

“The real difficulty has been the wider failure of Temple’s vision: declining numbers in the past 50 years have drained church governance of the chance of broadening and deepening its roots in the community at large”https://t.co/bfffR7sb9E

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 10, 2019

From there:

The House of Bishops met from Monday 9th December to Wednesday 11th December at Lambeth Palace.
The House considered progress to date in the Living in Love and Faith project through discussion, prayer and reflection. The House discussed safeguarding with a presentation from the National Director of Safeguarding.

On the eve of the general election, the House reviewed the national situation politically and prayed for the good of the country.

Other items on the agenda included Renewal and Reform and the Implementation and Dialogue Group Report.

Jo Chamberlain has been appointed as the National Environment Officer for the Church of England, taking forward the strategy developed by the Environment Working Group. This is a new post reflecting the Archbishops’ Council’s focus on the environment as a theological and mission priority.

Jo joins the Mission and Public Affairs team from Christian Aid and the Diocese of Sheffield where she volunteers as their Environment Adviser. She will work closely with the Environment Consultant, David Shreeve, and link with the Cathedrals and Church Buildings team where Open and Sustainable Churches Officer, Catherine Ross, forms the third part of a new environment staff ‘hub’.

Read it all.

The legal system in Nigeria is cumbersome, costly and inefficient. Victims are rarely able to afford the means to justice and redress. While governments must accept a share of responsibility for this catastrophe, the onus lies largely with the multinational oil companies that dominate the scene. They drill and export the oil and gas. They own the inadequate and poorly maintained and poorly guarded infrastructure that have allowed oil spills and other forms of pollution to become systemic for people in Bayelsa.

All too often they do not respect their fundamental human rights and are getting away with a pollution footprint with global consequences, including climate change. Yet those who bear the immediate cost are the people of Bayelsa, where human life appears to be disposable in the pursuit of wealth.

Repentance, reparation and remedy for damage done for decades is long overdue. Too many people treat distant parts of the world like giant rubbish dumps. If you or I behaved like that in our locality, albeit on an infinitely smaller scale, we would be rightly prosecuted for fly-tipping.

We are all temporary tenants on this planet and will be held accountable for its management. Future generations will look at the state of their inheritance and will want to know who in the past benefited from its irresponsible exploitation and who paid the price for it. If there is still an opportunity for the present generation to make amends, we had better get on with it with the utmost urgency.

Read it all.

With 116,500 Instagram followers, many more than the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev Chris Lee has built a cult following with his “60-second sermons”, short selfie videos in which he chats about the Bible and his faith.

He insists fans are drawn more to the power of the gospels than to his good looks, but Mr Lee, 36, who is married and has two young daughters, has been sent messages saying “I love you” by adoring fans. He said: “It’s never a horrible thing to be told you’re good-looking, but I think most people follow me because of my content, because I speak to them on a deeper level.”

Read it all (requires subscription). You may find out more about the parish in which he serves there.

https://t.co/TTKOFg0oWB

— Catherine Jones (@cathyjones173) December 9, 2019

Cathedrals across Britain are selling their historic fixtures and fittings to cover maintenance costs, it has emerged.

Newcastle’s St Nicholas Cathedral, which dates back to the 1400s, is to sell 35 of its Victorian-era oak pews to raise money ahead of a £6m renovation.

Project chiefs say the decoratively carved benches, made in the 1880s, could become garden furniture or be used in hotels and restaurants.

They will be sold on a first come, first served basis for upwards of £450 and it is hoped the sales will raise up to £20,000.

Read it all.

Newcastle’s St Nicholas Cathedral, which dates back to the 1400s, is to sell 35 of its Victorian-era oak pews to raise money ahead of a £6m renovation.https://t.co/VuB6Yfka1j

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) December 8, 2019

Take the time to enjoy them all and note that several have links to handouts that accompanied the talks.

Sept 16 The ReNew Conference in England starts today. This conference is for faithful Anglican leaders in England. Pray for good fellowship and partnership in the gospel. Archbishop Ben Kwashi is speaking at the conference. Pray for him as he brings a global Anglican perspective. pic.twitter.com/rbKYy1OHIt

— GAFCON (@gafconference) September 15, 2019

Read it all.

A missions team from Christ Saint Pauls, Yonges Island, sends picture during their recent trip to #Nigeria https://t.co/7dS1sdC68d #anglican #southcarolina #ministry #service #sharing #gratitude pic.twitter.com/ANfNeqPYIH

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 7, 2019

GAMBLING should be treated as a “major health issue”, like smoking, the Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, has said. He was speaking after figures were published which suggest that most people in England gambled last year.

The Health Survey for England 2018, published on Wednesday, showed that 53 per cent of people had gambled in 2018, including buying lottery tickets. More men gamble than women: 56 per cent of men against 49 per cent of women.

For the survey, 8178 adults (aged from 16) and 2072 children were interviewed in England.

Dr Smith said: “With almost half the country gambling, it looks as if this is becoming a major health issue, which requires a response akin to tackling smoking in the last century.

Read it all.

From: The Right Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Ripon.

BARRY Ewbank asks (The Yorkshire Post, November 30) “how do we come to a decision as to which churches stay open and which ones close?” Church buildings are both a blessing and a burden to local communities, yet at a fundamental level, and particularly so in rural contexts, these buildings represent a profound commitment to place.

Read it all.

Our churches are very much open for business says @LeedsCofE Bishop of Ripon – Yorkshire Post Letters https://t.co/piPv5kjbYm

— Janet Gough (@Gough_Janet) December 4, 2019