A ‘Blogging bishop’ who is a University of Bradford graduate has been announced today as the next Bishop of Bradford. The Rt Revd Nick Baines (53), who is currently Bishop of Croydon, will be the 10th Bishop of Bradford, following the retirement of the Rt Revd David James last July.
Nick Baines is renowned for his media expertise – he is an experienced broadcaster and writer and he blogs and tweets almost daily. He has been Bishop of Croydon (an area bishop in the Diocese of Southwark) since May 2003. He makes use of his experience working with other faith leaders in London following the 9/11 attacks in representing the Archbishop of Canterbury at various international interfaith initiatives.
The second suffragan from the dysfunctional diocese of Southwark rewarded for the disobedience of some in his diocese by being made a diocesan.
Yet another liberal [although not necessarily approving of TEC] promoted by Rowan Williams as he undermines the Church of England as he is undermining the Communion. If you want to know why Baines has been promoted, look no further than his oleaginous simpering over our Archbishop’s performance during the Lambeth Conference:
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/blog.cfm?thread=7456
Your nose has led you +Nick unerringly to the place of best advantage to yourself.
Bradford has changed, a lot, since 1980! I left in ’82 and by and large the changes have not been good.
I doubt that Nick Baines has what it takes to uphold Anglicanism in West Yorkshire. He may as well move out the furnishings now, and let the Cathedral Church of St. Peter become a mosque.
Is Nick Baines a liberal? From what I’ve heard, he began his Christian life as a Baptist and the seminary he trained in was led by George Carey. To judge from his blogging, he’s basically a ‘liberal evangelical’ who treads a path between the liberal leadership in Southwark diocese (south London) and its conservative evangelical parishes. He’s certainly on the political left and strongly pro-WO, and regularly castigates those more conservative than him, but never really engages in a deep level in theological debate with opponents: the Bishop declares (de haut en bas) they just “don’t understand the issues” – or the mysterious ways of the Church of England. Still, he’s personable and not as thinskinned as other liberals. The Church of England has numerous examples of clergy who began (more or less) as evangelicals but became liberal on gay issues as they advanced up the pole: John Gladwin of Chelmsford Diocese, and Roy Williams, formerly bishop of Southwark.
He’s not a theological thinker, he just rides the mood music (and politics) of the old Blair era. Baines himself keeps studiously quiet on LGB questions because there are numerous gay and lesbian clergy in Southwark diocese and the Cathedral was the fortress of the late Dean Colin Slee, scourge of evangelicals, and Jeffrey John. Baines owes his advancement to Bishop Tom Butler, the BBC’s favorite liberal (and now champion of gay clergy) who made him his archdeacon, then suffragan.
Bradford itself will be a mighty challenge because church attendance is very low there, the diocese is broke (and tipped for merger), and there are more Muslims in mosques than Anglicans in church. Will he boldly proclaim the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, and the Atoning Death of Christ on the Cross in that Islamicizing city? It will need courage – and theological depth – to do so.
A probable candidate for a future Archbishop of Canterbury, I understand.
It figures!
Add James Jones of Liverpool to the list of erstwhile evangelicals who have affirmed “gay theology”.
#3 and #5 kmh1
Thanks for some more background. Plans indeed do seem advanced to create a mega-diocese including Bradford.
I have to say this appointment just confirms all we have seen in recent appointments to dioceses. The liberal Archbishops are making a push to remake the HOB of the Church of England in their own image – pro-inclusinve church liberals, usually taught by Rowan Williams, preferably Welsh, and smarmily ingratiating to him.
Real evangelicals with any record of church building or growth need not apply, in fact it looks as if those who should have been considered from the Alpha stable, and Pete Broadbent and the Ven. Michael Lawson are giving up, having been passed over.
One is seeing the same sort of manipulation, not to say shennanigans going on on the “Standing Committee” of the Anglican Communion, presided over by Rowan Williams:
[blockquote]Bishop Paul Sarkar of Bangladesh, as alternate to Bishop Anis was appointed to fill his seat, while the committee asked the Rev. Maria Christina Borges Alvarez of Cuba to join. The minutes note she was a “woman priest from Latin America, a region which was at present unrepresented.†An appointed member of the ACC, the Cuban priest has already served six of the nine years of her term on the council, and will only serve through the next meeting of the ACC in 2012.
The minutes report that questions first raised by this newspaper over the legality of the December 2009 appointment of Canon Janet Trisk to the committee were valid. The former ACC constitution was still in force as of the December 2009 meeting and the “casual vacancy arising from the resignation†of Ms. Walaza “should therefore have been filled†by a lay person, the minutes reported. The new constitution, however, permitted the appointment of Canon Trisk, and the committee voted to appoint her to the “vacancy that currently exists.â€
Australian member Mr. Robert Fordham, whose term of office ended in 2009, continued to serve the ACC as a consultant and as vice-chair of the Finance and Administration Committee.
However, the legality of this second December 2009 appointment as vice chairman is also in doubt, as the ACC’s constitution rule 14.3 requires committee chairs to be members of the ACC—a position not held by Mr. Fordham as a consultant.[/blockquote]
This is of course all from the man who brought you “Indaba”.
Strange to say, Pageantmaster, the ‘Affirming Catholic’ vicar who drove me way from church was taught by Rowan Williams!
#7 Well now, even more strange you might say is that Ms Alvarez is a “ co-opted member“, not an elected member of the ACC, so somewhere along the line, the only right Ms Alvarez has to sit on either the ACC or the Standing Committee is because previously someone decided to put her there. Who might that someone be, do you think?
What is more, I cannot even see Cuba listed as one of the members of the Anglican Communion Council in their schedule. Do they even have the right to elect anyone to the ACC?
According to the ACC website, members of the ACC are elected from the provinces on the membership schedule to the “constitution”, and the current members are those listed as attending the last meeting in Kingston
Cuba seems to be some sort of joint venture between TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada and others, but was this appointment valid on behalf of any province which is a member of the ACC schedule? Would they have been entitled to elect anyone? Did this appointment go through the relevant Province?
Anyway, she is a woman, and from somewhere near South America, so perhaps there is some overriding principle such as that suggested by Jan Butter:
[blockquote]OBSERVANCE of the Anglican Consultative Council’s bylaws are discretionary, a spokesman for the organisation tells The Church of England Newspaper, when they are inconsistent with its political agenda.
ACC spokesman Jan Butter told CEN the future membership rules of the organisation which seek to promote gender parity take precedence over its existing rules.[/blockquote]
Indeed, it is called making up the rules as you go along, something Rowan Williams is invariably associated with, just as we see with the appointments being made to the Standing Committee, as with the Church of England dioceses.
Although, perhaps the unstated overriding ‘principle’ behind the replacement of Mrs Nomafundu Walaza by the Rev Ms Alvarez is that a faithful laywoman from Africa is replaced by a clergywoman from a TEC and ACoC client church – revisionists in place of Christians, as with the CofE HOB. It gives Schori and Hiltz one more vote on the Druids Council for the Anglican Communion, even if it is for one more year, albeit a critical year.
Btw back to Bradford, if you read down Nick Baines comments at #1 there is an unwarranted attack on Canon Michael Poon and what he had to say at Lambeth. Baines of course cannot hold a candle to Poon as a theologian, but that does not stop him expressing his supercilious dismissal of what Poon says.
[blockquote]I have just made the mistake of reading some of the threads and, belatedly, Michael Poon’s contribution.
Firstly, Art, I read the Orombi article fully and my question remains. I am not the only one here asking it.
Secondly, Michael Poon rehearses this tired accusation that people beyond the ‘Anglo-American axis’ are not heard or listened to. The last two weeks have been precisely a seriously attentive listening to these voices. It has been a revelation to many westerners. It has also given us the opportunity to (a) question the assumptions we bring to both texts and encounters, (b) subject our national prejudices to public scrutiny, and (c) press non-westerners to discover what lies behind and beneath their understandings of Bible, Church, society, etc. That is what this conference has been about and I think Rowan (in his second Presidential Address) was trying to voice positions at the extremes and ensure that they were heard. He might have failed, but it was worth a try. Had Michael Poon tried to voice my ‘position’, I might have been making a similar complaint to his about Rowan.
I expressed respect for John Chew in an earlier posting. Add Ian Ernest (Archbishop of the Indian Ocean) – excellent, in my limited experience. Both live out of real grace.[/blockquote]
As we have seen, Canon Poon was exactly right – the Global South view continues to be ingnored by Lambeth.
Such is the quality of those Rowan is appointing to the Bishops’ House.
Nice one Rowan!
The more one thinks about this, the more smelly it gets. It it is now admitted that at the December 2009 meeting, the old and probably the current [if as I suspect they got the legalities wrong] constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council was in place, then under that constitution, Bishop Ian Douglas was certainly debarred from representing TEC, having formerly served as a clergy member and not having served out a required period before being considered for reappointment.
Make-the-rules-as-you-go-along Rowan at it again. What a can of worms.
Wriggle wriggle.
btw I should correct #9 – Trisk replaced Walaza; Alvarez replaced Bishop Azad Marshall of Iran, but the concerns in both cases about revisionist appointments remain.
I would say, having read all of the above, that Nick Baines is a dead cert for the next ABC!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Ox24WIBEQ&feature=player_embedded