The delegation was well received by the Nigerian High Commission in London. There was a brief meeting and an interactive section. The group also visited the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. Our message:
The need to allow Nigerians to worship “the Nigeria way” in abandoned Church buildings or allow them a scheduled time in parish Churches where they could express themselves unreservedly in worship, to save us from the unceasing and intense bleeding of our young executive Anglicans moving over to the New Generation Churches due to what they describe as “cold” worship style. Our request was viewed positively by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England. We also visited the Lord Bishop of London and the Bishop of Southwark. Other places visited include Manchester and Birmingham. In summary the Archbishop requested us to put our proposal into writing. He assured us that it is a practical proposal. We addressed a group of Nigerians of different age brackets in London, Manchester and Birmingham and had a special session with representatives of Nigerian Clergy in the UK. Our visit was said to be timely. But a few had their reservations.
Another issue which has emerged in this visit is the status, sponsorship and future of the Nigerian Chaplaincy in the UK. At the moment they are enjoying the last part of the generosity of the CMS, and the grace and benevolence of St. Marylebone. These are issues requiring urgent attention.
It shouldn’t be too complicated for Nigerian priests to be licensed to serve such communities. It might daw a thorn as it were. West Indian and other Commonwealth in origin Anglicans have not found it difficult to join and in some cases invigorate Cof E parishes so the need for separate groups ought to be worked out only where no suitable diocesan parish isn’t available.
For me on the Communion front the money quote was this:
[blockquote]GLOBAL SOUTH
Under the leadership of the Global South and CAPA, a decision was taken to stay away from the Dublin Primates’ Meeting after sharing some thorny issues with the Archbishop of Canterbury through an official letter after our meeting at Singapore and face to face at Entebbe, Uganda. The issues raised in our Singapore letter which were also discussed at Entebbe were not treated with the seriousness they deserved. Quite apart from the raging issues of human sexuality there was the whole issue of the Agenda for the meeting.[/blockquote]
Followed by:
[blockquote]CAPA
We remain an active branch of CAPA. Five of our Bishops were in Nairobi for a CAPA training programme in the first week of February. The report submitted by Bishop Adekunle on behalf of the participants described the one week training as very helpful. The CAPA Primates will meet in Nairobi in April to assess the situation in the worldwide communion to continue to plan its work of mission and evangelism.
GAFCON
Gafcon is alive and well. There will be leaders meeting this year in New York, which will have an ecumenical character. Church leaders other than Anglicans who share our stand on the contentious issue of human sexuality and same-sex unions will be invited. The full Gafcon Congress will hold almost certainly in Jerusalem again in 2012. We ask for your prayers, for effective planning and execution.[/blockquote]
and then there was this:
[blockquote]CANA
The ministry of CANA under the able leadership of Bishop Martyn Minns and his wife is going on well, within the obvious limits of funds, facilities and manpower. At the appropriate time issues of additional manpower and the whole range of issues about finance vis-à -vis the desire for additional grouping (emerging “diocesesâ€) will be discussed. We repeat our appeal to our Lord Bishops to apply restraint in granting preferment to clergy abroad, especially in the USA as it has really made the clergymen there quite unruly. We also repeat the appeal for Bishops to respect CANA as a jurisdiction and avoid tendencies that are un-Anglican.[/blockquote]
What can he mean?
But the most important parts of the address in my view are his prayer requests for free and fair elections in Nigeria [which seem to have taken place according to early reports] and for the elections to be conducted without widespread violence. I also thought his sermon from Ezekiel well worth reading and pondering, as much for Nigeria as for the Communion.
Thank you Dr Harmon for bringing this to our attention. Too often we hear cries from western Anglicans: “What is the Global South doing? Why do we never hear from the Primates?” The truth is that they are doing an awful lot, but that we often do not know how to get the information about it. Unfortunately, we in the rich technological west are becoming a bit of a backwater in terms of world-wide Anglicanism.
Naturally, much of the address is concerned with issues that relate solely to the province of Nigeria, the largest grouping of active Anglicans in the world. We give thanks for their ministry, but can make little other contribution but to pray for them.
But there is plenty that concerns us in the west also. I note with interest that:
1. The Province of Nigeria is seeking separate worship time for Nigerian Anglicans in England. I expect ABC will try to stall them – he no doubt can immediately see the parallels with what happened in USA 10 years ago where CANA became one of the building blocks for ACNA. But in the long run, its also dangerous for the ABC to stall – if the Nigerians lose patience they may simply form their own Anglican body formally outside of CofE. I expect ABC wants to avoid such a precedent being set!
2. The Provincial leadership is not happy with the activities of some of the clergy in CANA (although apparently not critical of +Minns) and is moving to rein in the Nigerian bishops from ordaining or commissioning activities.
3. The CAPA Primates (12 or 13 of the Global South Primates depending on whether ++Anis is included) will meet in April in Nairobi to discuss the “worldwide communion”.
4. There will be a Gafcon meeting in 2011 with non-Anglican groups in order to galvanise opposition to the homosexual agenda across the churches.
5. There will be another Gafcon Jerusalem conference in 2012.
6. The Global South Primates will meet with the Chinese government in September 2011 to discuss ministry there. I expect that ++Chew will be very involved in that even though no longer a Primate, as he has always felt a great burden for it.
So, on pan-communion issues, we have a CAPA conference in April 2011 (i.e. very shortly) and a Gafcon Jerusalem Conference in 2012. No mention of what will happen in between, but the obvious thing to fill the gap is the next Global South Encounter. So, second half of 2011 for a full meeting of the Global South? There is nothing on the GS web-site about it yet. I guess we wait and see.
By the way, the undermining of the House of Bishops of the Church of England by Rowan Williams continues with the appointment of gay campaigner Nick Holtam as Bishop of Salisbury
http://www.salisbury.anglican.org/news/new-bishop-of-salisbury-announced
There is a bit more about him here:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/30983/
from here:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/30960/#419357
and he has reengineered the mission statement of his church here:
http://www2.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/page/church/belief/belief.html
This is the latest of a series of Affirming Catholic/pro gay bishop/SSU affirming bishop appointments undertaken under Rowan Williams and John Sentamu.
This just confirms the reason why Rowan Williams pushed our already compromised House of Bishops to relax the prohibition of divorced clergy or those with divorced wives [as Nick Holtam’s wife is] from becoming bishops.
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/34773/#433830
and
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/34794/#433885
This now brings me to a personal decision as to whether to join FCA which I will be making in the next few weeks. It is quite clear that there will be no future for the Communion until Rowan Williams is removed and the governance of the Communion placed back in the hands of its constituent provinces.
I suppose that one thing people will want to know, in addition to the fact that Nick Holtam is a founding member of Inclusive Church, is whether he has ever participated in holding a blessing of a same-sex union, in considering whether they can accept him exercising episcopal oversight as an Anglican Communion bishop. Certainly he does not accept Anglican Communion teaching – but has he gone further and actively disobeyed it?
Pageantmaster,
Thank you for this information. Everytime you or others in CofE publicise things like this, it is a small step towards the eventual defeat of the liberals. They hate their deeds being exposed to the light.
Whether or not you and I live to see it, I have no doubt that the liberals will be defeated in CofE.
I think we also have a cultural issue to consider. The CofE reflects Englishness, an impatience with “law” and “method” and the attempt in choosing bishops to reflect a balance between factions and parties, and in recognizing abilities beyond controversial matters. In short the English Church is much less political and legalistic than we are here.
It ought to be noticed that orthodox churchmen still become bishops. In larger dioceses suffragans exercise much more pastoral care than diocesan bishops and they tend to be sensitive to what we might call “local option.” True the hot button issues exercise those on both wings but the life of the typical English parish is even further removed from such issues that TEC parishes are. It is in the cities that the extremes show themselves, but the CofE has many more practical checks and balances against the hegemony of party than TEC.
#7 While that view may have once been true, it is no longer the case. In fact it is now rubbish.
We have had the controversy over the appointment of an ‘inclusive’ activist as diocesan Bishop of Chelmsford and a number of suffragans. In addition this appointment is the third preferment in the last 18 months of one of the founding steering group of Inclusive Church whose members can be seen here
[blockquote]InclusiveChurch.net was born on 11th August 2003 at a Eucharist in Putney. On 15th September a small group of supporters met to consider this overwhelming response, and concluded that Inclusive Church was here to stay. At that meeting we elected a small interim steering group: Rev’d Angus Aagaard, April Alexander, Rev’d Philip Chester, Ven Stephen Conway, Rev’d Joe Hawes, Rev’d Nick Holtam, Rev’d Dr Giles Fraser (chair), Anne Kiem (treasurer), Rev’d Simon Pothen, Rev’d Dr Hugh Rayment-Pickard, Rev’d Richard Sewell, Rev’d Dr Jane Shaw, Very Rev’d Colin Slee, Rev’d Dave Tomlinson, Rev’d Richard Thomas (secretary), Mark Vernon, Charles Walmsley, Rev’d Colin Coward, Rev’d Mary Robins.[/blockquote]
Stephen Conway, suffagan Bishop of Ramsbury, also in Salisbury Diocese was made diocesan Bishop of Ely, now Nick Holtam has been made diocesan Bishop of Salisbury one of the largest and most senior sees in the CofE; Giles Fraser was made Canon Treasurer of St Paul’s Cathedral. Of course, Stephen Conway managed to get himself into hot water just before his appointment by approving a church service to follow the proposed same sex partnership which his chum from Inclusive Church, elderly Colin Coward from Salisbury Diocese, intended to ener into with a young man [in his 20’s] from Nigeria in need of a visa. Perhaps he will have some hope now that Nick Holtam will decide to do the wedding himself, just like the Tangerine Bishop of Massachussets has just done – that is if the Home Office ever decides to let the young man in need of a permit into the country.
We used to have precedent and checks and balances and for that matter structures, just like the Anglican Communion used to have, in the days BR – before Rowan.
My son is a vicar in the CofE. I come “home” regularly. My “rubbish” as you so kindly put it is based on my experience beyond the hot house of factional controversy.
#9 Then you will know that the traditional rotation of churchmanship of bishops has not been followed in these cases. These appointments have nothing to do with the traditional checks and balances of the Church of England and to suggest that they are is indeed ‘rubbish’, your son notwithstanding. it has everything to do with the breakneck attempt to shoehorn Affirming Catholic and Inclusive Church types into the House of Bishops before Rowan Williams is given the boot, which can come none too soon.
Moreover Rowan Williams has followed the same pattern here as he has in the attempt to subvert Synod by trying to get his suffragan appointed as head of its business committee, which then drove through the Synod decision to endorse appointment of divorcees and the like with the clear intention of pushing up Holtam – exactly the same lawless behaviour we have seen with his treatment of the Communion Instruments, the Jamaica ACC meeting, the Dublin Primates Meeting and the appointments of Janet Trisk and Ian Douglas to the Standing Committee, rules notwithstanding.
Wvparson wrote:
[blockquote] “It ought to be noticed that orthodox churchmen still become bishops [in CofE]” [/blockquote]
That is very encouraging to note. Who in your view are some of the orthodox bishops in CofE?
RE: “the hot house of factional controversy . . . ”
What a . . . [i]fascinating[/i] . . . way of describing the presenting theological issue that has triggered an unprecedented divide in the Anglican Communion.
How telling.
Thanks, Pageantmaster, for pointing out the numbers within *just one* raving revisionist organization that have been appointed bishop within the past 18 months. Could you come up with the same list for those who have been appointed bishop from, say . . . Reform, or Forward in Faith, in the last 18 months? ; > )
#13 Um, I am having difficulty with that one Sarah. Occasionally a bone is tossed out to make the odd suffragan and some of the flying bishops who flew off to Rome have been replaced, but no, no diocesans who are orthodox, let alone from the organisations you mention have been made up. Moreover, although hope springs eternal there is no prospect of this. There are some outstanding people about, including those who have built up the international Alpha and Langham ministries or have been running evangelical churches [and I don’t mean the softer ones]. Two good candidates were the Ven. Michael Lawson, Chairman of the Church of England Evangelical Council who appears to have given up hope and gone off back to parish ministry in Guildford, and of course suffragan Bishop Peter Broadbent who was imprisoned by the Bishop of London, that same Highgrove goosefat-bearded bishop who wrote of Holtam:
[blockquote]”Nicholas has made a significant contribution to the Diocese of London having spent most of his 30 years of ministry here. During the last 16 years at St Martin-in-the-Fields he has continued to build up the parish’s public ministry, not least in the renewal of the buildings, while nurturing the many regular and visiting members of his congregation.
“Furthermore, he has never let us forget that the church also exists for the benefit of its non-members, especially the marginalised, the oppressed and those who have fallen on hard times.
“He will bring this substantial experience to the Diocese of Salisbury and we assure him of our continued support and prayers as he prepares to take up this new role.”[/blockquote]
There is no prospect of preferement under the machinations of Rowan Williams of anybody who is not pro Inclusive Church, Affirming Catholic, a bloke or gal who lurks in a Cathedral or those few revisionist churches like St Martin’s or Welsh, and probably all of the above. That is where we have got to as church law has been replaced by Druid’s rule, and of course it is how we have got where we are as a Communion.
Pageantmaster wrote: “some of the flying bishops who flew off to Rome have been replaced”. None of those ‘flying bishops’ have been replaced; their duties have been shared among existing suffragan and retired bishops.
I hear from my parents that our home see of Durham has yet to be filled after Tom Wright’s departure.
Whoever is chosen to occupy the Prince Bishopric should be a fairly good indication of whether Pageantmaster or Father Tony are closer in their predictions.
It is a see with a tradition of scholar bishops (Lightfoot and Wescott in the late 19th century), but there has been a measure of theological schizophrenia in the more recent past with Michael Ramsey and Tom Wright standing in contrast with John Habgood and David Jenkins.
So whoever gets to sign himself +Dunhelm . . .
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Thank you Jeremy, please update us on what happens.
I note Durham also holds the relics of St Cuthbert and St Oswald, and is a link with Lindisfarne, the island which inspired the evangelisation of most of Britain, directly or indirectly. May it prove to be so again.
This isn’t completely new. The Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993 gave the assurance that there would be no discrimination against candidates for senior office based on their views about women’s priestly ordination. In fact in the years following 1993 no evangelicals opposed to WO were appointed as diocesan bishop, just one evangelical opposed to WO was appointed as a suffragan bishop along with a handful of Anglo Catholics.
The Perry Report on episcopal appointments noticed that between 1993 and 2000, of 31 diocesan bishops appointed, only 2 new bishops did not ordain women and both were appointed before 1995. The General Synod Report “Talent and Calling” (2007) noted that, excepting the “Flying Bishops”, between 1994 and 2007 only two diocesan bishops who did ordain women chose to nominate suffragan bishops opposed women’s ordination. It suggested that of 303 senior clergy (deans, archdeacons and residentiary canons) perhaps just 10 were “traditionalist catholics”. Finally though it argued that women clergy were under-represented in senior appointments and on the Preferment List (that is the list of clergy eligible to be considered for senior appointments) conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Anglo Catholics were [i]even more[/i] under-represented.
As I say, the absence of conservative evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics from senior appointments is nothing new.
#8 You ought probably to add the Rt Rev’d Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford since October 2010. Though he was not a founder of Inclusive Church, he is a member of Affirming Catholicism, as are the Rt Rev’d Stephen Conway and the Rev’d Nick Holtam.
I believe that the last year has seen the appointment of no members of Forward in Faith or Reform as diocesan Bishops. However three members of Affirming Catholicism have been so appointed.