The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, met in Dublin last week with the leaders of the Porvoo Communion of Anglican and Nordic Lutheran churches for private talks. However Dr Williams’ Irish excursion did not bring him a change of scene as the vexing issue of gay clergy followed him to Dublin. While a spokesman for the Church of Ireland told The Church of England Newspaper there would be no formal statement of the gathering of Anglican and Lutheran bishops, sources familiar with the deliberations, held every two years, tell CEN that issues of common national and ecclesial concern were raised at the gathering.
The Lutheran Churches of the Porvoo Group: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are sharply divided over the Swedish church’s decision to authorise rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. The Swedish move has opened a split within the Lutheran World Federation akin the divide in Anglicanism, with the Lutheran Churches of the Global South threatening to break with their Northern counterparts over the issue of gay blessings and clergy. The controversy intensified last week when on Oct 2 by a vote of six to five, the Church of Norway’s Bishops’ Conference voted to recommend to the church’s general synod that non-celibate homosexuals be permitted to serve as bishops, priests and deacons.
The moderator of the Norwegian Bishop’s Conference, Bishop Olav Skjevesland of Agder and Telemark, who attended the Dublin meeting, voted to reject the licensing of gay clergy.
The Church of Norway has three openly gay ministers serving in parochial ministry under the licence of their bishops. The issue will now go before the Church’s Nov 12-17 meeting of General Synod for resolution. In 1995 and 1997 the Norwegian Synod stated that people in registered same-sex partnerships could hold lay positions in the Church, but could not be ordained as clergy.
On Sept 13 the Church’s National Council stated that it believed the consensus within the church over gay clergy had shifted in the past 10 years. It recommended that Synod revise the church’s canons, allowing bishops the local option of whether or not to ordain and licence gay clergy.
The National Council encouraged dialogue saying that ”˜many members of the church are touched directly by this issue and that there are many who feel that their place in the church is at stake’. “Church leaders should work continuously on attitudes and forms of communication, so that fellowship in the church is felt to be open, clear and inclusive,” it said.
–This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper edition of October 19, 2007, on page 8
Note the insidious nature of small changes with each inovation building on the last.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This is another sign of a widening difference over the views of those churches in the Global North with those of the Global South.
This is another sign of a widening difference over views of those attempting to lead churches in the Global North with those who are actually leading those of the Global South.
BfB, this is another sign that the progressive western and northern churches are attempting to lead their churches using only secular views and current trends, not a firm theological belief in God.
[blockquote]“Church leaders should work continuously on attitudes and forms of communication, so that fellowship in the church is felt to be open, clear and inclusive,†[/blockquote]
Quoth Comrade Yezhov
First Secretary of the Executive Committee
National Soviet, Church of Norway
Amazing how the Holy Spirit gets it right while the Global North failed Western culture-ites get it consistently wrong! But – oh, no! – this is the new thang holy spirit stuff that’s gonna pack into the churches stupid enough to fall for it! HAVE THESE FOLKS PAID NO ATTENTION TO ANGLICAN affairs?
Well, they had a lot to talk about, didn’t they? Like how to survive on fewer members and where to get the best lessons in African theology – which is not limited to ECUSA/TEC errors about it!