The district of Mayfair offers a keen example of the pastoral problems that crop up in a complex city like London. Christ Church, a nondescript edifice, was built in 1865 to accommodate servants of parishioners worshiping at nearby St. George’s Hanover Square.
In the 1980s the local residential population amounted to little more than a few hundred. Sunday worship gradually fizzled out. For some years the building was used on Friday lunchtimes by a group called Christians in Property, Mayfair being an important location for London property businesses. For all sorts of reasons Christ Church proved to be one of those pieces of church property that proved impossible to redevelop or sell off.
Yet contrary to every expectation, today a thriving congregation meets at Christ Church. There are three clergy and a women’s worker, two lay workers and an administrator. It runs an apprenticeship scheme for people who want to gain experience in full-time ministry. It supports several people engaged in international mission.
[blockquote] “Yet contrary to every expectation, today a thriving congregation meets at Christ Church. There are three clergy and a women’s worker, two lay workers and an administrator. It runs an apprenticeship scheme for people who want to gain experience in full-time ministry. It supports several people engaged in international mission.” [/blockquote]
So, a very encouraging story of how spiritual life is not dead in England. The gospel can be spread and churches can thrive there, despite what some naysayers would have us believe. Great to hear.
[blockquote] “Why the turnaround? In 2001 the Bishop of London agreed to an overture from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in the City of London to plant a congregation in that corner of Mayfair. Most of the people involved in the infusion were young professionals and students previously attending the evening service at St. Helen’s.” [/blockquote]
Ah, so this is a *smart* bishop. He worked with the evangelicals instead of against them. Contrast this with the situation next door in diocese of Southwark, where evangelicals have been oppressed by their bishop, which in turn has led to the latest irregular ordinations.
[blockquote] “The announcement created ripples within the evangelical constituency. Fulcrum, the open evangelical network that supports the proposed Anglican Covenant, women’s ordination and women bishops, greeted the emergence of AMiE with “serious concern.— [/blockquote]
As it would. But what credibility does Fulcrum have? On this issue, it has consistently downplayed or even entirely ignored the problems faced by evangelicals trying to live and minister in liberal dioceses, and Southwark is one of the worst.
If evangelical concerns in Southwark had been listened to over the past 12 years, this situation would never have come about. Fulcrum through its faint (or no) bleatings has done nothing worthwhile to support the evangelicals in Southwark, and thus Fulcrum has helped to bring this situation about.
Mayfair of course, being north of the river, is in the diocese of London, rather than Southwark.
I don’t know much about Co-mission, but as John Martin notes, they do seem to be bringing the people in, particularly the young people, and in this I rejoice, and hope what they offer the Church of England may be taken on board.
[blockquote]Sources in the English House of Bishops suggest that there had been a good chance of a change of approach in Southwark, but these ordinations set things back and caused confusion.[/blockquote]
Well of course, we learn from the Co-mission statement, that the new bishop of Southwark was asked to confirm that he would uphold the teaching of the Church of England and refused to give that confirmation. He is one of four recent diocesan appointments made who are either founding members of Inclusive Church, on the record as not holding to the Church’s teaching, or wibbly wobbly in their statements.
Had anyone remotely “orthodox and reputable” been made diocesans [particularly in Salisbury, Ely, Southwark and Chelmsford] then none of this would have been an issue, and presumably no “unorthodox” ordinations would have been made by the Province of Kenya. If there are “serious concerns”, “misunderstandings”, happenings which “set things back”, and “confusion”, the Archbishop of Canterbury and our House of Bishops have only themselves to blame. If they said what they meant and meant what they said, given us Christian bishops who publicly acknowledge the teaching of the Church of England, there would be no opportunities for “confusion”.
I do feel dismay at the reaction from Lambeth Palace, and Fulcrum’s for that matter. The Archbishop’s response just seems to fulful the passive-aggressive characterisation made by Bishop Anderson. The ingratiating smarming up to Kenya [“The good faith and fraternal good intentions of our Kenyan colleagues are not at all in question,â€] while aiming a kick at the shins of “the promulgators of the ordinations” [“the promulgators of the ordinations were not entirely transparent in their dealings with Archbishop Wabukala”] just bears it out.
Lambeth Palace appear determined to deal with this matter making the same mistakes they made with dealing with the Global South and Gafcon who, as even George Conger admits are no longer listening to Dr Williams.
There is a choice of how to deal with these developments now arrived on our shores, whether to actually tackle the issues which led to this sorry state, or just to continue with the same old, same old, passive-aggressive ducking and diving and for things to fall even further apart on Dr Williams’ watch.
No doubt hackles have been raised both in Lambeth Palace, and within the diocese of Southwark [although the diocese of London seem to have coped better with it] but it seems to me that we can decide to deal with this as a problem, or as an opportunity.
[blockquote] “It seems that there were misunderstandings of the precise requirements of English Canon Law and good practice as regards the recommendation of candidates for ordination,†the statement added. The implication has to be that the promulgators of the ordinations were not entirely transparent in their dealings with Archbishop Wabukala.” [/blockquote]
Why does this “have” to be the implication? Its not at all obvious from the ABC’s statement that this is what he meant. And with all due respect to John Martin, he doesn’t indicate his source for this opinion. However, it is easy enough to make an educated guess:
On its face, the statement was directed at ++Wakabula – a surprising public rebuke to throw at a powerful and respected Primate. It may be, that with over 100,000 Kenyans (most of them Anglican) resident in England, that someone at Lambeth now wants to ‘spin’ that part of the statement as being directed against the ordinands, and thus avod a quarrel with the Primate of Kenya!
[blockquote] “Co-Mission says it had been in negotiations with Lambeth Palace for four years, and appealing to Kenya was a last resort. Sources in the English House of Bishops suggest that there had been a good chance of a change of approach in Southwark, but these ordinations set things back and caused confusion.” [/blockquote]
Well, the “sources” are entitled to their opinion. But this has to be put in context. Firstly, the behaviour of the former Bishop of Southwark (Tom Butler) was an utter disgrace. Secondly, the incoming bishop could have been in no doubt that the onus was on him to show, very quickly, that he was going to eschew that behaviour and start acting in a manner consistent with the teachings that the Church of England professes to hold.
According to the leader of the Co-Mission churches in Southwark, he asked +Chessun a simple yet profound question – would he agree to publicly uphold the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality? Given the history of Southwark, it amounted to a test of orthodoxy.
It was a simple and clear test and +Chessun failed it.
Now the onus is on him. He can still repair the damage. Carrying out irregular ordinations is clearly a rebuke to his authority, but he can swallow the rebuke, and get on with the positive job of working with Co-Mission. These ordinands are incidental – they are only “foreign clergy” after all, and foreign clergy from all sorts of places are regularly licensed to work in the Church of England.
But the really important issue is relations between Dio Southwark and its evangelical churches. These ordinations are just a symptom. Dio. Southwark needs to publicly uphold the teachings and traditions of the church, ordain evangelical candidates in good standing, and encourage the evangelicals to work in areas where there is no other Christian witness. None of these things should be difficult.
It appears that archaeologists have unearthed a new scroll whose author’s description appears to fit that of High Priest Caiaphas:
[blockquote]However, it is not at all clear how the proposed Apostles relate to the proper oversight of the High Priests of the Temple of Jerusalem. Nor is there any definition of what the issues are that might be thought to justify appeal to such an Apostolic panel rather than the use of normal Temple procedures. Furthermore, the baptism of three disciples to the evangelate in Galilee with a view to service in Judea is problematic. It is not clear what process of recognised scrutiny and Levitical formation has taken place and how, in the absence of Letters Rabbinical (the relevant formal letters from the sponsoring High Priest), they have come to be recommended as candidates for discipleship by the authorities of another province.
The issue is one of rabbinical collegiality. There needs to be some further discussion of this development between those involved and the High Priests of the Temple of Jerusalem. The High Priest Caiaphas has had the opportunity to speak with the Son of Man about the situation: the good faith and fraternal good intentions of our Gallilean colleagues are not at all in question, but it seems that there were misunderstandings of the precise requirements of Levitical Law and good practice as regards the recommendation of candidates for discipleship and deployment in mission. It is hoped that an early opportunity will be found to clarify what this new initiative seeks to achieve if it is truly to serve God’s mission in the most effective and collaborative way.[/blockquote]
…“the promulgators of the ordinations were not entirely transparent in their dealings with Archbishop Wabukala 
Oh, I forgot, ++RW sets a fine example of transparency. :-/
“…but it seems to me that we can decide to deal with this as a problem, or as an opportunity.”
Deal with it as late for dinner if you want, my brother, but deal with it as ANYTHING before it becomes the TEC snowball. Big prayers…
Pageantmaster has his finger on the pulse on developments in England and castshelpful light on what is happening there.
FWIW, this is my take on things.
“Fulcrum” – or “Fulmination”, as I now think of it because its public raison d’etre seems to be to cast rhetorical lightning bolts (Lat. fulmina) at conservative evangelicals – carries the water for liberal bishops. It does this by (a) loud denunciations of Co-Mission and sycophantic support for Affirming Catholic bishops like Butler of Southwark; (b) calling itself “evangelical” while dismissing much of the evangelical heritage of the C of E; (c) loudly attacking opponents of women bishops (and making WO now an unassailable doctrine); (d) gradually coming round to accepting homosexual relationships. This last point is evident to anyone reading their website or the contributions that their spokesperson Simon Butler makes to “Thinking Anglicans”.
I do not doubt that most of the people who contribute to the “Fulmination” website did start out as evangelicals – even as Baptists (such as Bishop Nick Bain, who was Tom Butler’s Suffragan in Southwark) – but as they ascended the greasy pole of the hierarchy, they have gradually shed embarrassing associations.
Coekin’s issue in Southwark was realtively straightforward. He wanted ordaiend leaders for the church plants he started. Butler wanted money from Co-Mission congregations (though offering nothing in tretuen, because Co-Mission is self-supporting). Coekin wanted Butler to discipline the numerous partnered gay clergy in Southwark, in keeping with C of E canon law. Butler refused to do so – because he agrees with gay relationships- and he tried to depose Coekin from the ministry, as well as refusing to provide ordination for trained men. so Coekin did an end run around him.
“Fulcrum” was the first and loudest supporter of Butler.
So much for their “evangelicalism”.
What are the elements in the Co-Mission approach to urban church planting?
– identify an area that lacks an evangelical Anglican church
– identify a suitable school hall, non-Anglican church with space, or leisure center to hire a room
– develop clear training of preachers with a robust theology (as Co-Mission has through the Cornhill Training Program) and support gifted people through this (an alternative diocesan training which is usually weak in preaching and teaching)
– provide good Sunday school work to attract young families
– give good scope for musicians and contemporary music.
– be internet savvy.
One last thing. Co-Mission now has plans for a church plant in Putney in South London. St Mary’s Putney was the base for “Inclusive Church”, started by its erstwhile vicar Giles Fraser, one of the BBC’s chosen luvvies, now at St Paul’s Cathedral. Fraser strongly promoted Gene Robinson in the UK, and has long denounced evangelicalism. Young evangelical professionals (who may have attended Anglcian churches as students) now living in that part of London would likely support a Co-Mission plant, as the Anglican world at present there has little to offer them.
“Fulcrum†– or “Fulminationâ€, as I now think of it because its public raison d’etre seems to be to cast rhetorical lightning bolts (Lat. fulmina) at conservative evangelicals – carries the water for liberal bishops. It does this by (a) loud denunciations of Co-Mission and sycophantic support for Affirming Catholic bishops like Butler of Southwark; (b) calling itself “evangelical†while dismissing much of the evangelical heritage of the C of E; (c) loudly attacking opponents of women bishops (and making WO now an unassailable doctrine); (d) gradually coming round to accepting homosexual relationships. This last point is evident to anyone reading their website or the contributions that their spokesperson Simon Butler makes to “Thinking Anglicansâ€.
Thanks, kmh1. Have some forgotten the actual teaching of the Church, or are they simply ignoring it all together, or making things up as they go? I don’t believe that what one is led to understand as, basically, the “questioning nature of Anglicanism” means that one gets to be a member or even a priest of the Church and toss its Faith/teachings on a regular basis. If one is going to do that, why not just find another faith tradition that suits one’s beliefs? But I guess that’s my own dumb, rhetorical question–if you succeed at hijacking your original “tradition”, then you get to feel good about yourself as “Establishment” rather than “fringe”.
There are evangelical churches in Southwark, some quite good ones in fact, but relations between some of them and Co-Mission haven’t always been easy. I presume the ecclesiastical siege Co-mission have been under, presumably in getting people ordained or confirmed, and the failure to deal with this issue in some senses made it inevitable that something would happen. I hope it concentrates peoples’ minds on all sides and they now get a grip.
I don’t think it is easy to write off Fulcrum in such categorical terms. They seem to get it in the neck from both sides, and there are some good people in the organisation.
It needs to be acknowleged that the Fulcrum site still publishes articles from orthodox evangelicals.
The reason Fulcrum has drawn adverse attention from orthodox commenters in this case, is because its AMiE article was a “Fulcrum Statement” without an author, i.e. purporting to reflect the view of the entire organisation. It thus appears to have taken a clear position in the debate, which it is entitled to do, but in such a way as to downplay or ignore the real issues of oppression faced by evangelicals in liberal dioceses.
The fact is, as others have pointed out, that liberal bishops are openly defying the teachings and traditions of the Church of England. It is simply not realistic to address the problem of dissenting behaviour by orthodox congregations, unless at the same time one addresses the problem of open apostasy by the bishops.
Oh well..here’s where the fun starts guys. I got linked through to John Martin’s very fair and balanced article on this site via..wait for it…the Fulcrum website!! Thanks you PageantMaster..at least your comments appear to be considered and fair…and at least for having the decency (a) to acknowledge that there are some fairly decent non Co-Mission evangelical churches in Southwark Diocese and (b) to also have the grace to concede that…shock horror..that there are some “good people” in Fulcrum…I shall return the compliment by saying that I am sure there are some equally good people in GAFCON/AIME too amongst the various ranters, ravers and fulminators!
I know it is going to be a bit of a shcok to have someone coming on here who is not prepared to pat people on the back and confirm them in their prejudices, but I simply cannot let some of the comments made go wiout some form of considered response. I will try my best to keep it in numerical/chronoligal order re the comments that have been posted earlier.
Are we sitting comfortably people…..then I’ll begin!
1. “So, a very encouraging story of how spiritual life is not dead in England. The gospel can be spread and churches can thrive there, despite what some naysayers would have us believe. Great to hear.”
Michael A – Far from being a “naysayer”, in the spirit of fair play, and because they are the only ones willing to at least attempt to communicate to the rest of us mere mortals concerning the actions of AMiE, I have been blogging recently with Richard Perkins (he of “The Urban Pastor” fame), and Pete Matthew at Christ Church Balham, one of the few Anglican conservative evangelicals who actually appear to understand that the gospel is for the urban/working class as much as for anybody else! Our discussions have been refreshingly honest and frank at times, but fruitful and worthwhile I feel.
“Ah, so this is a *smart* bishop. He worked with the evangelicals instead of against them”
Hmm..isn’t this meant to be a two-way street! It would be nice to think that there are “smart” conservative evangelicals around who are willing to work with a more liberal Bishop, than against him on occasions.
2. ” I don’t know much about Co-mission, but as John Martin notes, they do seem to be bringing the people in, particularly the young people, and in this I rejoice, and hope what they offer the Church of England may be taken on board.”
This is a very fair point PM. Being of more New Wine-ish stock myself I am not really a great fan of Co-Missions fairly strong Calvinist basis of belief, but they are clearly doing very well in particular areas where other churches often struggle.
“Now the onus is on him. He can still repair the damage. Carrying out irregular ordinations is clearly a rebuke to his authority, but he can swallow the rebuke, and get on with the positive job of working with Co-Mission.
Hmm Michael A..methinks you assume too a bit too much, namely that Co-Mission would also get on with the positive job of working with him on equal terms, and not primarily their own. Again, it is a two-way street.
7,8 & 9 …kmh1..you have me in a real quandary…with regard to point 8 I agree with every word you say and more…especially the internet savvy comment…the Co-Mission website is one of the best contemporary church websites I have seen around. I keep on saying this to anyone who will listen but please could someone have a word with the person responsible for the positively awful “new” AMiE website – it’s not “new” at all, it is just the old St Augustine Society website with AMiE added to the top! If that is how it is going to continue to look then AMiE is already dead in the water and deservedly so…Fuclum’s site is not much better either aesthetically…At least the Co-Mission bods really know what they are about in this respect.
However, as for point 7
“Fulcrum†– or “Fulminationâ€, as I now think of it because its public raison d’etre seems to be to cast rhetorical lightning bolts (Lat. fulmina) at conservative evangelicals – carries the water for liberal bishops. It does this by (a) loud denunciations of Co-Mission and sycophantic support for Affirming Catholic bishops like Butler of Southwark;”
How you, presumably as an AMiE/Reform/GAFCON supporter have the temerity and audacity to accuse Fulcrum supporters of “fulmination” almost defies belief! Have you read Richard Coeein’s article of almost encyclical proportions, both in its tone and content – Pope Benedict himself would have been proud of such a missive! The continous denunciations, declamations and blanket generalisations of any evangelical who could possibly think otherwise as “liberal”, and the implication that no way could they possibly be classed as bona-fide evangelical unless they fully assent to the aims and objectives of AMiE are frankly both sickening and deeply offensive, not to mention untrue bordering on the slanderous at times!
However, re point 9 I genuinely look forward to seeing how the proposed new plant in Putney takes shape. Could be interesting!
10. I really do not wish to deign Bookmark’s dismissive comments with a reply but I ‘ll try…far from finding a faith tradition which suits my beliefs..couldn’t the oposite be argued…given that under 3% of all Anglican parishes have requested Alternative Episcopal Oversight since women were first ordained priests, and given that the early indications show that from the votes of the first 10 Diocesan Synods that have voted so far this year , there is an overwhelming 80% vote in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate…in all 3 Houses…is there any possibility that you could consider lookimg at forming the Reformed Evangelcial Church of England where you can gladly practice your preferred style of Anglicanism, whilst also simultaneously and electrifyingly re-converting the whole of England, while the other 97% of us get on with what we feel God is calling us to do instead?
“Now then are you ready for this people!!?
…point 11
“There are evangelical churches in Southwark, some quite good ones in fact, but relations between some of them and Co-Mission haven’t always been easy. I presume the ecclesiastical siege Co-mission have been under, presumably in getting people ordained or confirmed, and the failure to deal with this issue in some senses made it inevitable that something would happen. I hope it concentrates peoples’ minds on all sides and they now get a grip.
I don’t think it is easy to write off Fulcrum in such categorical terms. They seem to get it in the neck from both sides, and there are some good people in the organisation.”
Can I close PageantMaster, by offering a virtual Wesleyan/Arminian New Wineish type charismatic hug/embrace for these very generous and gracious words. Very well said! There I hope that didn’t cause too much discomfort for you…
Apologies for the length of this but I just had to say something….why do I get the impression I may have just lit some touchpaper of a darkish blue hue!!
4.
Sorry Michael A…I somehow missed reading point 12…
“The reason Fulcrum has drawn adverse attention from orthodox commenters in this case, is because its AMiE article was a “Fulcrum Statement†without an author…2
I have seen a fair few bits of correspondence emanting from AMiE without an apparent author..correct mi if I am wrong but has anyone seen anything written by Wallace Benn re AMiE given that he is chairing the Steering Committee. His absent voice is almost deafening!
And what about the mysterious 3 deacons who have been ordained in Kenya…when will we know their names…hopefully sometime this side of the rapture!
I read on the Holy Trinity Brompton website the other day that the Bishop of Kingston had openly ordained no less than 8 new deacons in a service at HTB recently…they were all named and we had a photograph of them all to boot…any chance of AMiE following their example regarding the 3 new deacons…or is that simply too much to hope for?
“but in such a way as to downplay or ignore the real issues of oppression faced by evangelicals in liberal dioceses.”
Sorry to be such a pedant, but shouldn’t that be something more along the lines of “the oppression faced by some evangelicals in dioceses where the Bishop is more liberal than we are…”
As Pageant Master has already pointed out, there are some fairly good non Co-Mission evangelical churches in Southwark Diocese, presumably along with some good Anglo-Catholic parishes, so to blanket the whole of Southwark Diocese as a “liberal diocese” is maybe a touch disingenous.
#13/14 Hello The Northener, and welcome.
Thanks for dropping in to light some touchpaper of a darkish blue hue, though if you stick around, you may find that people gradually gain some colour – shades of blue, purple sometimes, into a few shades of red.
Just for context this blog you have dropped into is run by Canon Harmon of the Episcopal Church diocese of South Carolina. Most commenters here are Americans, so few will be in AMiE, though there are certainly some in GAFCON, though probably not a majority.
Thanks for the English perspective, to join the Americans, one or two Brits like me, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Singaporeans and so on. I don’t live in Southwark, although I have in the past. I am never quite sure whether ecclesiastically it is diverse or dysfunctional, but there does seem to be a good deal of anarchy, which not everyone seems to mind.
#14/15 So, may I ask: what do you reckon – is Co-Mission and AMiE a problem or an opportunity for the CofE?
“10. I really do not wish to deign Bookmark’s dismissive comments with a reply but I ‘ll try…far from finding a faith tradition which suits my beliefs..couldn’t the oposite be argued…given that under 3% of all Anglican parishes have requested Alternative Episcopal Oversight since women were first ordained priests, and given that the early indications show that from the votes of the first 10 Diocesan Synods that have voted so far this year , there is an overwhelming 80% vote in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate…in all 3 Houses…is there any possibility that you could consider lookimg at forming the Reformed Evangelcial Church of England where you can gladly practice your preferred style of Anglicanism, whilst also simultaneously and electrifyingly re-converting the whole of England, while the other 97% of us get on with what we feel God is calling us to do instead?”
The wisdom(or not) of doing theology by majority vote is another debate altogether.
FYI Northener, TEC does WO and has women bishops; and, even though I am ambivalent on that subject I don’t consider it a deal-breaker. Personally I dislike the Church getting all squishy on the teachings re: same-sex “marriage”. So, just for the record, my “preferred form of Anglicanism” can tolerate WO, but not throwing out 2000+ years of Judeo-Christian tradition and the Scriptures re: marriage. IF WO is your soapbox, you are welcome to it. That doesn’t bother me one way or the other.
And I would agree that there are some wonderful people who write on and are part of the Fulcrum site, but some of their posts and associations I could do without. And if the “Evangelical Centre” includes SS”M” then I think they’re being rather oxymoronic, but that’s just me.
“The Northerner” wrote at #13:
[blockquote] “I know it is going to be a bit of a shcok to have someone coming on here who is not prepared to pat people on the back and confirm them in their prejudices,…” [/blockquote]
No, not at all. Much of the problem over the years in both America and England has been the unwillingness of those in the liberal camp to enter into meaningful dialogue with orthodox christians. So by all means, responses are welcome!
[blockquote] “Michael A – Far from being a “naysayerâ€, in the spirit of fair play, and because they are the only ones willing to at least attempt to communicate to the rest of us mere mortals concerning the actions of AMiE, I have been blogging recently with Richard Perkins (he of “The Urban Pastor†fame), and Pete Matthew at Christ Church Balham, one of the few Anglican conservative evangelicals who actually appear to understand that the gospel is for the urban/working class as much as for anybody else!” [/blockquote]
Of course – the first person you responded to on that blog was actually me. I use the same handle. I assume you are [redacted by Elf – please use the username of commenters]
But what is all this about “they are only ones willing to at least attempt to communicate to the rest of us mere mortals” – why should anyone communicate with you? Richard Coekin is not accountable to you, and the Primate of Kenya certainly is not!
[blockquote] “Hmm..isn’t this meant to be a two-way street! It would be nice to think that there are “smart†conservative evangelicals around who are willing to work with a more liberal Bishop, than against him on occasions.”
[/blockquote]
Of course, indeed there are, and that includes Co-Mission. The problem in Southwark is not “a more liberal bishop”. Rather, it is bishops who take “liberal” to the extreme point of denying the teachings and traditions of the Church of England.
If this had been simply a problem of a “more liberal bishop”, there never would have been an AMiE.
[blockquote] “Hmm Michael A..methinks you assume too a bit too much, namely that Co-Mission would also get on with the positive job of working with him on equal terms, and not primarily their own. Again, it is a two-way street.”
[/blockquote]
No, I’m not assuming anything, but going on hard evidence: When the bishop of London acts in a reasonable fashion, Co-Mission work with him in a positive manner, as do other evangelicals.
We therefore have good reason to believe that IF the Bishops of Southwark had acted in a reasonable manner, Co-Mission would have been able to work with them. The problem is, rather, that the bishops of Southwark have acted unreasonably for a long time, and have brought things to this present pass.
[blockquote] “[@kmh1] How you, presumably as an AMiE/Reform/GAFCON supporter have the temerity and audacity to accuse Fulcrum supporters of “fulmination†almost defies belief! Have you read Richard Coeein’s article of almost encyclical proportions, both in its tone and content – Pope Benedict himself would have been proud of such a missive! The continous denunciations, declamations and blanket generalisations of any evangelical who could possibly think otherwise as “liberalâ€, and the implication that no way could they possibly be classed as bona-fide evangelical unless they fully assent to the aims and objectives of AMiE are frankly both sickening and deeply offensive, not to mention untrue bordering on the slanderous at times!”
[/blockquote]
[ edited by Elf]. Richard Coekin’s article was restrained and to the point. It didn’t indulge in “denunciations, decalamations and blanket generalisations”, nor was that its aim. It did, however, make the important point that Co-Mission spoke with the new Bishop of Southwark with an open mind, and genuinely hoped to be able to work with him. Unfortunately, he made that impossible by refusing to endorse the most basic teachings and traditions of the Church of England. That alone should cause the Bishop to be subject to clergy discipline.
[blockquote] “I really do not wish to deign Bookmark’s dismissive comments with a reply but I ‘ll try…far from finding a faith tradition which suits my beliefs..couldn’t the oposite be argued…given that under 3% of all Anglican parishes have requested Alternative Episcopal Oversight since women were first ordained priests, …” [/blockquote]
If you are going to post statistics, please try to make them accurate. There have been many requests by evangelical churches for alternative oversight, and these include many of the largest churches in CofE. These requests are rarely publicly acknowledged by the hierarchy and therefore do not go into any statistics. Jesmond Parish Church in the North of England for example have been requesting ABY for alternative oversight since 1999.
The fact is that most evangelical churches don’t want women bishops, but don’t really care about it because so far, most of them have been able to function in spite of their bishops (who may not yet be female, but are often very liberal). It is only when the liberal bishops go too far, that the evangelical churches have to take a public stand and remind those bishops that the Church is bigger than they are.
[blockquote] “and given that the early indications show that from the votes of the first 10 Diocesan Synods that have voted so far this year , there is an overwhelming 80% vote in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate…in all 3 Houses…” [/blockquote]
I don’t know where you get 80% from, but the important things is that isn’t law yet, is it? Nor is there any reason to assume that it will: when it comes to the crunch, Synod has to vote to change 2,000 years of church tradition. I doubt that they will be willing to do this.
But if it does become law, then the orthodox evangelical and anglo-catholic churches may leave, but its just as likely that they will:
(a) stay; and
(b) ignore any bishop who does not act in accordance with the traditions and teachings of the Church of England; and
(c) continue to do what they have always done.
[blockquote] “is there any possibility that you could consider lookimg at forming the Reformed Evangelcial Church of England where you can gladly practice your preferred style of Anglicanism, whilst also simultaneously and electrifyingly re-converting the whole of England, while the other 97% of us get on with what we feel God is calling us to do instead?” [/blockquote]
Since the orthodox are probably a majority in the Church of England, why should they leave? They are also in accordance with 99% of its history, and the rest of the Anglican Communion as well, so again, why should they leave?
Anyway, this is all academic – it clear that they are not going to leave, nor are they going to do what the liberals want. So, better get used to it. But if it makes you feel any better to sound off on blogs, then be my guest!
Northerner wrote at #14,
[blockquote] “I have seen a fair few bits of correspondence emanting from AMiE without an apparent author..correct mi if I am wrong but has anyone seen anything written by Wallace Benn re AMiE given that he is chairing the Steering Committee. His absent voice is almost deafening!” [/blockquote]
First, you have missed my point, which was that the unbalanced and biased article on AMiE was a statement from Fulcrum, i.e. it represented the views of that organisation. Whereas when Fulcrum does publish some good evangelical article (which it does from time to time), it only represents the views of that particular author.
Secondly, you appear to be assuming that +Benn is accountable to you – why? The people in AMiE have apparently been in prolonged discussion with ABC (and presumably other Lambeth dignitaries) for several years. I gather that neither Lambeth nor AMiE have deigned to draw you into those discussions, but is there really some reason why they should have?
I haven’t received any phone calls from +Benn either, but I don’t lie awake at night worrying about it!
[blockquote] “And what about the mysterious 3 deacons who have been ordained in Kenya…when will we know their names…hopefully sometime this side of the rapture!” [/blockquote]
Who cares? Deacons were irregularly ordained in Newcastle in 1999, in Southwark in 2005, and I believe at other times also. Their names can be found easily enough and it makes not the slightest difference.
The real issue is, why have a small number of extremist liberal bishops behaved in such an intransigent manner that evangelical churches had to seek irregular ordination for their candidates? Since other bishops don’t have these sorts of problems, what steps are being taken to ensure that the Bishop of Southwark behaves himself in future as a bishop should?
[blockquote] “Sorry to be such a pedant, but shouldn’t that be something more along the lines of “the oppression faced by some evangelicals in dioceses where the Bishop is more liberal than we are…— [/blockquote]
No, it shouldn’t because that doesn’t properly describe what is happening here. A bishop who denies the traditions of the Church on sexuality, and who prevents ordinands in good standing from being ordained simply because they aren’t as liberal as he, is not a mere case of “the Bishop is more liberal than we are…”. Rather, this is a case of: “Our bishop has rejected the fundamental teachings of the church and also declared war on us simply because we are not liberal. He has not acted in a manner both ‘lawful and honest’.”
[blockquote] “As Pageant Master has already pointed out, there are some fairly good non Co-Mission evangelical churches in Southwark Diocese, presumably along with some good Anglo-Catholic parishes, so to blanket the whole of Southwark Diocese as a “liberal diocese†is maybe a touch disingenous.” [/blockquote]
Except that no-one has done so – the way you define it, those using the term ‘liberal diocese’ are including the Co-mission churches in that definition, which they obviously did not intend.
The issue here remains what it always was: The Bishops of Southwark have acted in an extreme and unreasonable manner. They have repudiated the basis of their right to be called bishops. By contrast, Co-Mission churches and AMiE have acted in a restrained and moderate manner in Southwark, going only so far as is necessary to limit the damage done by +Chessun and his predecessor.
[Commenters are requested to deal with one another courteously avoiding personal comments, particularly when dealing with new commenters and using the name with which they sign in on T19 with – thanks – Elf]
#19: Thank you, MichaelA, for bringing some balance and correction to the matter. “The Northener” (surely “The NortheRner”?) may not be aware of the long history between Co-Mission and Bishop Tom Butler, how Butler refused to discipline gay clergy in sexual relationships in Southwark (how could he? he agrees with them and now that he’s retired says so openly), how Butler refused to ordain for the growing Co-Mission congregations, how Butler tried to take away Coekin’s licence away until overruled by the Bishop of Winchester, and how “Fulcrum” ‘names’ like Stephen Kuhrt and Stephen Butler rushed to support him loudly and publicly in this. So if “The Northener” doesn’t like Richard Coekin’s “tone” , I am reminded of that apocryphal sign in a French zoo: “Warning: this animal is dangerous. When attacked it defends itself.” You have to ask what is the point of bishops if they are not going to uphold the faith they have sworn to defend and teach. We have fallen far if we consider it a plus that an Anglican bishop doesn’t actually obstruct mission in “his” diocese”! Whose church is it, anyway?
The answer to a theology you dislike is not disdain but to present a better grounded theology. If the “New Wine” network can manage that, then fine. But be wary of the looseness of experientialism and starting from experierence, as many neo-charismatics do. Sadly, this is exactly how theological liberalism works too.
As #19 points out, there have been other “irregular” ordinations in England, and the common factor is the refusal of the diocesan bishop to uphold Lambeth teaching.
Hello all across the USA and Canada…and a very good early evening to you all…I am not too good with time differences and you have so many different time zones across the USA it could be any time of the day anywhere so I hope a broad brush “good evening” will suffice.
I have to confess that this is not my first foray into the dangerous waters of, how shall I put it, the more Reformed American evangelical fraternity. In a moment of complete insanity a couple of years ago I signed up to an American blog called Theologica run by a very engaging guy called Michael Patten…who welcomed my somewhat different take on things warmly. I have a lot of time for Michael and a number of people who blogged on the site, but a few of the more rabid Calvinistas on the site eventually caused me to lose the will to live and I desisted. Michael was more of Southern Baptist ilk so it will be good to converse with the American Anglican Reformed evangelcial fraternity. It looks as though it will be could very interesting and daring adventure.
I awoke this morning to find that my comments late yesterday (UK time) had caused a flurry of animated comments in response. Have no fear, I shall endeavour to respond to each of them in turn as soon as I can.
By way of background my name is Phil and I have been a Reader for the past 16 years and a memebr of a Shared Ministry collaborative leadership team in an inner city urban parish just north of Liverpool city centre up here in the harsh, bleak North of England where we have nothing but dark, satanic mills if William Blake is to be believed and taken at all seriously! …And did those feet…walk upon etc…no..I think not! I have many favourite hymns both very ancient and extremely modern, post-modern even, but “Jerusalem” is very much not one of them!
I shall endeavour to post again later in the day when I have a bit more time and by which time mercifully for your sakes, you may well be fast asleep in the dark of the night!
Hi Phil,
Just to clarify, apropos comments from the Elves above: I didn’t mind if you wrote your real name or not; I respect people’s privacy. I just assumed after you said you had been on Richard Perkins’ blog with Pete Marshall that you were happy to disclose who you were, since only the four of us had posted to that particular article!
Anyway, welcome and I for one look forward to reading more of your posts.
Hi Michael
I am indeed the very same Phil who has indeed probably caused a great deal of consternation and uproar for poor Richard on his Urban Pastor site. I shall also reply to your comment about St Marks, Haydock’s “100 Lake and River Churches” strategy which you posted about yesterday on The Urban Pastor site. It it may sound a similar type of planting venture to Co-Mission but it is actually very different and would be very difficult for AMiE to commandeer to implement a new planting strategy in the North West of England. And I do speak from personal experience as St Marks is a great church, and is in our Diocese about 15 miles up the road. I also used to go up there regularly until recently on a monthly basis as part of the Dream Network which is one of their “River” church communities and it was the location for the year long Mission Shaped Ministry Course I attended along with four other members of our church several years ago.
We may end up crossing swords on more than the odd occasion but hopefully they will be fruitful exchanges..
Thanks for your response to my initial comments..I won’t respond to all of your challenges here, just a few..but I do hope to return to the ones I may omit some time in the future. I hope that is OK.
Firstly, may I tackle the issue of accountabilty. I don’t believe that Richard Coekin is accountable to me in any way, shape or form, and I’m sure he thinks so even less! However, in the same manner, neither am I accountable to him in any way which makes it easier for me to comment a bit more critically than soem of those within Co-Mission for example..
However, I would strongly contend that both Richard Coeken in particular, and AMiE in general, ARE very much accountable to the wider Anglican church, especially as they are adamant that they wish to remain within and not operate outside of it, added to which they are trying to persuade us that AMiE will be a spiritual tour de force amongst Anglican evangelicals and that all of us evangelicals should gladly hop on board and enjoy the ride! This is more about common decency and courtesy with regard to communicating information in a competent and professional fashion, than it is about accountability. The Urban Pastor has six updates on it, all kindly provided by Richard Perkins, which is way more information than is on the official AMiE site,
Also, it is not just a case of accountability…it is also a case of openness, honesty, integrity and above all else transparency and the manner in which the 3 deacons have been ordained abroad and then hidden away in the UK lacks any type of transparency and does not inspire me to trust these people too much I am afraid.
I don’t know whether you have read in the CEN this week, the article by the Reform-minded, AMiE supporting Prayer book loving, “Cranmer’s Curate” blogging Vicar of Oughtibridge in Yorkshire up here in the North of England. Juilain supports AMiE all the way, but very very much doubts AMiE’s ability to have much of an impact in the North of England given the very limited presence of conservative reformed evangelical Anglicans on the ground north of Oxford! Pete Matthew at Christ Church Balham did at least had the honesty to confess that AMiE had much to address in this area.
Sadly, what Pete omitted to reveal was how they were going to do this? Are they going to discuss, talk, listen and work with us locally, or all of a sudden, with minimal consultation (and yes.,we do have a right to be consulted about these things on the ground) parachute in their own evangelists and teams for a week or two in the North for a “Show and Tell” session of how to go about “proper gospel preaching mission and evangelism” before scarpering back to wherever they came from? This is the problem..nobody within or outside AMiE knows…and if they do, AMiE sure ain’t telling the rest of us nor do they appear to have much intention of sharing their thinking with us up here.
Secondly, I do fear that you may be living in a state of denial re the Church of England General Synod not going all the way and voting in favour of Women Bishops. I think is a touching sentiment, but an entirely misplaced one. The Houses of Bishops and Laity will pass it no question, and in Diocese after Diocese so far, the House of Clergy, with the sole exception of the Diocese of Europe where the clergy are split exactly 50 50 down the middle, have voted overwhelmingly in favour. What I did not add earlier was that several members of Diocean Synods have put forward amendments trying to obtain further concessions for opponents of the measure and these have all, so far, been overwhelming defeated by fairly massive majorities.
Yes, it may be possible come early 2012 that the House of Clergy will not get the requisite two thirds vote in favour, but it is increasingly not looking that way. And as for the assertion that most evangelicals do not want a female Bishop, I suggest you take a look at the Diocese (closely followed by my own) which is probably renowned for being the most evangelcal in its mission and ministry, (with not one but two solidly evangelical Bishops) in the whole country…namely Southwell and Nottingham. Their Diocesan Synod has voted and the vote of all three houses is over 90% and their Synod consists of many evangelicals across all three houses. Your argument in this area simply does not hold water.
If you were to assert that hardly any conservative reformed Anglican evangelicals desire to see, or come under the authority of a female Bishop, even if she were evangelical down to her toes, warm and personable and highly gifted, then I would agree with you. But I can assure you most definitely there are many, many other equally bona fide evangelicals who long to see gifted, anointed women leaders fulfilling their potential and calling in leadershippositions within the Church of England at all levels, including leading very large churches and as possible future Bishop
I think that most people on here probably accept that the 2012 General Synod vote will be in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate from 2014….and if the House of Clergy were to vote it down, there would be serious, hard questions asked by members of the constituent Diocesan Synod members across the UK as to why their votes counted for so little. Also, 16 other Provinces including TEC have reached the point in the past where they feel it is right to admit women Bishops so why should the Church of England not do something similar at some point? Please Michael, if I am proven wrong in early 2012 you have every right to rub it in my face and proclaim “I told you so” loudly from the rooftops, but I don’t think I will be wrong somehow, especially if very early indications of voting patterns are anything to go by and are borne out by the vote in General Synod in 2012.
And thirdly..what is going to really ironic is this. Come 2014 or shortly afterwards, we will have women Bishops appointed, consecrated and fully accepted by all but a minority of practising Anglicans within the Church of England. On the contrary, we could well by then, depending on how all this unfolds, (because once again the lack of transparency on the part of AMiE as to how they are going to go about this is deeply worrying), have a completely different situation regarding some future AMiE male Bishops. Permit me to elaborate if you will.
This august Steering Committee of English Bishops is to be chaired by Wallace Benn from Chichester Diocese who was due to retire in 2012. He will be accompanied by four already retired Assistant Bishops based in Chester and Winchester Dioceses along with one who used to be in Rochester Diocese but I’m not sure where he is based now (is it something to do with the Roman suffix “Chester” I wonder…), Hardly representative of the South West, Midlands and North East of England by any means considering their laudable aim of re-converting the whole of England! Now these five existing Bishops are undoubtedly legitimately consecrated…but what about their successors once they become unable to carry on due to age, illness etc? Why are there no younger, more energetic Bishops on this steering panel? Or are they in the waiting in the wings I wonder, or maybe even, in somecases, already running the show.. ie Richard Coekin, Rico Tice, Vaughan Roberts, Paul Perkin etc.
Just because they may, sometime in the future, be ordained and consecrated Bishop it will more than likely have to be done abroad, as a Bishop can only be appointed by an Archbisho and I cannot see either Rowan Williams or John Sentamu agrreing to do it. It is much more likely that they will be secreted abroad and ordained by a GAFCON Bishop in Kenya, Sydney, or the Southern Cone area. Surely this will prevent them from claiming legitimacy across the whole of the Anglican fraternity/communion within the UK. They might try, but do you honestly think that will pass muster with the rest of us? They will lack any genuine sense of authentic legitimacy whatsoever in the eyes of the wider English Anglican body.
So in approximately 5 years time, if things continue in the same vein, we could well have at least a couple of female Anglican English Bishops who will be recognised as having been authentically and legitimately consecrated by the majority of the Anglican communion in the UK. Conversely there may well be a small number of new male AMiE Bishops whose authority and epioscopal legitimacy will be recognised only by a relatively small section of one wing of the Anglican church within the English Anglican body, and whose legitimacy will be seriously questioned by the hugh majority of practising Anglicans within England.
Granted they will be recognised more widely amongst the GAFCON fraternity outside of England but it makes for a very interesting scenario don’t you think?
Your thoughts would be most welcome.
Northener wrote:
[blockquote] “I won’t respond to all of your challenges here, just a few..but I do hope to return to the ones I may omit some time in the future. I hope that is OK.” [/blockquote]
That is no problem at all. I get the impression that we still have a fair way to go in getting different interest groups talking to each other. The dialogue can be robust at times, even tough, but it all helps to increasing our mutual understanding.
[blockquote] “However, I would strongly contend that both Richard Coeken in particular, and AMiE in general, ARE very much accountable to the wider Anglican church, especially as they are adamant that they wish to remain within and not operate outside of it, added to which they are trying to persuade us that AMiE will be a spiritual tour de force amongst Anglican evangelicals and that all of us evangelicals should gladly hop on board and enjoy the ride!” [/blockquote]
Well, yes and no. I think you may be overstating what AMiE’s aims are (although perhaps you might be including the general aims of FCA-UK which is fair enough). But there was a very important comment by one of the Co-Mission pastors a couple of days ago on Perks’ blog:
[blockquote] “Re the central London churches who support AMiE – they are supportive of what we needed to do in Southwark, but as things stand they don’ need AMiE. Indeed the Co-Mission churches in London diocese don’t need it either. They have a good relationship with +London, and he supports the work they do. AMiE is a solution for people who have problems locally, it is not a solution for the majority of churches in the CofE. That may change, but we pray it won’t.” [/blockquote]
That is why I keep emphasising that this is an issue of the behaviour of the Bishops of Southwark (i.e. the last one and the current one).
Whenever we see problems of ‘flouting of central authority’ in England, they seem to be purely a response to extremist liberal bishops who openly flout the traditions of the church. And ‘openly’ is the important bit – no-one is making windows into men’s hearts.
For example, when St Oswalds in Newcastle had one of their ordinands ordained by a former bishop from Kenya (late 1998, I think), they said the reason was that the Bishop of Newcastle had privately threatened the ordinand (who was in good standing) that he would not be ordained unless he publicly denounced his PPC and rector! This was directed at the rector having rebuked said bishop for publicly stating that homosexual practice was not sinful.
I would have thought that such behaviour by the bishop had clearly crossed the line of “lawful and honest” within the meaning of the vow of obedience, and the congregation were in turn entitled to take some action.
Incidentally, as I am sure you know better than me, that bishop’s previous posting had been as a suffragan in Southwark! It does seem that most of the trouble emanates from one place…
Hello there Pageant Master…and a fellow Brit to boot…Glad to hear that you have escaped from the travails of Southwark Diocese and are have sought asylum elsewhere? Are you based England or are you part of the Englsih Anglican diaspora somewhere out there in GAFCON-ville? If within this hallowed isle, which Diocese is now your, hopefully much safer and saner abode? It surely couldn’t be worse than from whence you came..could it..are are there warring factions in say..Truro or somewhere that have somehow eluded our steely collective gaze!?
…”Opportunity or Threat…Discuss..” Well I am usually a bit of a glass half full man myself…but I have to say that I was pretty annoyed and narked, a bit maddened even, when I read about the ordinations out on safari in Kenya…especially as the Diaconated Three remain anonymously at large amongst us…one could be living next door to me for all I know…or you for that matter!
There are definite threats however…when news finally gets out (once the Murdoch Hacking-gate furore eventually dies down) to the unsuspecting British public out there , who are all just straining at the leash waiting to be sensationally and stunningly re-evangelised..I think they will be even more confused and switched off, disillusioned and disengaged than they are at present…if that were possible!…
And dare I say this….but I think that this whole AMiE fiasco is far more of a threat to visible Anglican unity than the admission of women to the episcopate is likely to be. “The man’s stark raving bonkers” I hear you exclaim exasperatingly…..well let me elucidate…
As I alluded to in my reply to Michael A earlier today…at some point in the near future, when one of the esteemed panel of English Bishops either keels over or forgets who he is on the way to purchase his morning paper and doesn’t even make it to the newsagents, there will be the necessity to “ordain” a few new AMiE Bishops….not that a few of them haven’t sort of ordained themselves already…oops…that’s very naughty Philip!! Who might I ask is going to do the consecrative deed…AB Rowan….AB John….somehow methinks not!! Will AB Eliud be flown over from Nairobi or AB Jensen descend from the sky by parachute… or, as is more likely, will it be done on the QT? Or will the fledgling AMiE episcopates be secreted out of the country inside a couple of luggage crates aboard a 747 bound for somewhere temperate and warm to be elevated to their Bishopric I wonder?
We then have the issue of, five years down the line…given that…despite Michael A’s stubborn insistence to the contrary,after the measure to ordain women to the Episcopate has been passed fairly comfortably by all three Houses of General Synod in 2012, by 2016, there will be the highly likely prospect of one or two newly, regularly and legitimately consecrated female English Bishops, welcomed with open arms by the vast majority of the English Anglican church (but not recognised in Sydney or Chile…how will they cope?)…whilst at the same time we will also have several male AMiE irregularly ordained Bishops amongst the English flock whose legitimacy most of us will not recognise and whose authority many of us will refuse to accept here in England , but who will be welcomed like long lost brothers should they venture to any part of the Southern hemisphere!…it could only happen in the Cof E, surely…..
I actually do not think it is much of a threat in the long run…and that is linked into the various opportunities it provides….I hope it may make ABs Rowan and John see a bit of sense and appoint a couple of conservative evangelical PEVs…and not before time…If I am honest this is one thing that has struck me forcibly over the last couple of days. It should have been done a lot earlier…having three Anglo Catholic PEVs and no conservative evangelical PEVs deos seem pretty indefensible to me….unles I am missing something. I would like to think it might stop the carping and the whinging which so often emanates from the CE fraternity, but I am enough of a realist to know that there are a fair few other future causes to rally the troops around. ..
The other opportunity is that it is a wake up call to the Cof E. It is about time that us more moderate evangelicals started to accept that there are churches of all persuasions that are moribund and fairly lifeless and won’t be here in 10, 15 or 20 years. And that is not just about the “liberal gospel, or non-gospel” that is being preached etc. I could show you a fair few Conservative evangelcal churches in the Free Church tradition and a number of more traditionalist Anglican churches which easily fit this category. Church planting and Fresh Expression congregations alongside existing “normal” parish congregations will be key over the next 10-20 years. However it also an opportunity to say to the new Calvinist church planters such as Dundonald that it is also perfectly acceptable for a more charismatic-leaning Anglican church nearby , or of any denomination for that matter to plant a new congregation in one of your Co-Missional backyards and they are perfectly entitled to do so..with or without discussion/consultation with you and with or without your express permission.
And by far the biggest opportunity is, at long last, for some really straight talking to take place within the opposing evangelical constituencies and also with the wider Anglican community as a whole. I have been heartily fed up at not being able to openly discuss these issues for fear of fracturing further etc. It’s too late for that now.
I was initally particuarly angered by Richard Perkins’ blog exultation in delighting that AMiE had “parked their tanks on the lawn of Lambeth Palace”. Initially,if I am honest I saw it as a threat…it’s also the sort of thing that totalitarian regimes and military juntas do to take or retain power over the populace – typical of the Nazis in Western Europe, the Communists in Eastern Europe, or failing, tired regimes such as we have seen during the recent Arab Spring. It felt that this was an act of spiritual terrorism almost, making outrageous demands and attempting to hold the rest of us to ransom.
But then it casn also be viewed as an opportunity..because the question now is what do we do in response to the gauntlet that has been thrown dow?. Do we cower in fear and trembling at the strength and might of the military force encroaching onto our territory…erm..no…lets face it, it is pretty ageing equipment they have, although there is younger, sleeker, more modern equipment on the way by means of reinforcement it would seem.. or do we slowly but surely adopt an “Arab Spring, Tahrir Square” approach, and slowly but surely rise to the challenge, grasp the nettle and issue a call to metaphorical arms to the rest of the Anglican evangelical non AMiE-consituency and determine to face the oppoonents down, agree concessions in negotiaton where they are appropriate, but seek to send those that have advanced into a reasonable form of retreat until they are virtually off the Palace lawn altogether and soon become no more than a minor irritation.
Do I think that AMiE have waht it takes to re-evangelise the whole of England? They haven’t even got much of a presence north of Watford Gap yet? There is a lot of negotiation to be done and theerein lies the window of opportunity I feel. Why not do something completey radical…I know..let’s stop fighting each other and work together collaboratively on the same side..why don’t we try attempt tomplay to our strengths ..with the Anglican Reformed Evangelicals targeting the South and and East of England, and the Anglican Wesleyan Arminians following the example and tradition in a contemorary, conteatually relevant manner, of the late, great John Wesley himself and focus on the North and West of England, and try and emulate the similar spiritual successes that he had amongst the edgier, urban classes. Who knows, perhaps then we might together make inroads, in company with Christians of every other denomination throughout the land..(as part of the wider church in England…they do exist you know!!!) towards re-evangelising England. Just a thought on which to finish…
Phil Green wrote on the issue of women bishops in England:
[blockquote] “Secondly, I do fear that you may be living in a state of denial re the Church of England General Synod not going all the way and voting in favour of Women Bishops. I think is a touching sentiment, but an entirely misplaced one.” [/blockquote]
It’s a sentiment shared by many liberals, in case you hadn’t noticed! And no, I am not living in denial. In fact, I am very surprised that you are so confident you know what the house of laity will do, in particular – my impression is that most people in England do not share your level of confidence, although of course their reactions to that differ markedly.
As I pointed out above, the women bishops measure will either be passed or it won’t be. What is clear is that large numbers of evangelicals and anglo-catholics won’t accept it, even if it is passed. If a measure is passed that contradicts 2,000 years of church tradition, then it can be unpassed again. We will never stop, and eventually we will see it overturned in every province of the Anglican Communion.
[blockquote] “Your argument in this area simply does not hold water.” [/blockquote]
Yes my argument does, because my argument is that you don’t know how this vote in 2012 is going to turn out – and you don’t! Sorry for the dose of reality, but there it is.
[blockquote] “I think that most people on here probably accept that the 2012 General Synod vote will be in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate from 2014….and if the House of Clergy were to vote it down, there would be serious, hard questions asked by members of the constituent Diocesan Synod members across the UK as to why their votes counted for so little.” [/blockquote]
On your first point, that is not what I am told – and most of my contacts in England are not “reformed conservative evangelicals”. And on your second point, yes I think you are right – those Diocesan Synod members would have to ask themselves hard questions. Not as to why their votes counted so little – you know the reason for that – legally, their votes count for nothing at General Synod. But as to why they were so out of touch with so much of their constituency. It’s a well known phenomenon in politics.
You do however highlight the problem for those in favour of women bishops: They can’t afford to drop a single trick – they have to win a 2/3 majority in EACH house at general synod: laity, clergy and bishops, which they have never done before. If they fail at any of those hurdles, the measure is dead and they can start again.
[blockquote] “Please Michael, if I am proven wrong in early 2012 you have every right to rub it in my face and proclaim “I told you so†loudly from the rooftops,…” [/blockquote]
Why on earth would I do that? My main point is that you don’t know how the vote is going to turn out in 2012. It should be obvious that neither do I!
[blockquote] “Come 2014 or shortly afterwards, we will have women Bishops appointed, consecrated and fully accepted by all but a minority of practising Anglicans within the Church of England.” [/blockquote]
I rather doubt that. There are many huge churches in UK that do not accept women bishops. Anyway, we shall see, won’t we?
Phil Green wrote:
[blockquote] “Sadly, what Pete omitted to reveal was how they were going to do this? Are they going to discuss, talk, listen and work with us locally, or all of a sudden, with minimal consultation …” [/blockquote]
You have asked me to comment on this and much similar material below it in your post. The short answer is that I can’t, because I am not in AMiE. But your whole post begs the question: Have you any reason to think that AMiE plan to “parachute in their own evangelists and teams for a week or two in the North for a “Show and Tell” session … before scarpering back to wherever they came from?”
For example, is that the way they have behaved in the past?
I hope you see my point here – your posts are full of assumptions about terrible things that you say will happen, but you don’t actually seem to have any evidence or reason to make these assumptions.
I really can’t see the point in responding to the rest of your post because it appears to be mainly an ecclesiastical version of “push polling”!
Northener also wrote:
[blockquote] “I have to say that I was pretty annoyed and narked, a bit maddened even, when I read about the ordinations out on safari in Kenya” [/blockquote]
I can understand this. But you have to bear in mind that the Church of England profoundly affects the rest of the Anglican Communion. It should not be surprising that other members of the Anglican Communion in turn take an interest in what is happening in England. The problem again comes back to open tolerance of liberalism. Putting forward Jeffrey John or Nick Holtam as bishops, openly stating that homosexual practice is not sinful – what else would you expect?
[blockquote] “when news finally gets out … to the unsuspecting British public out there …I think they will be even more confused and switched off, disillusioned and disengaged than they are at present…” [/blockquote]
I think we can be confident that will not occur. Otherwise, one would expect that the Co-Mission churches would have folded in Southwark after the 2005 ordinations by a bishop from CESA. Instead, their work has been greatly blessed. The unevangelised public don’t care one hoot about ructions between bishops and provinces. They just want to know if Christianity at the local level will work for them.
[blockquote] “And dare I say this….but I think that this whole AMiE fiasco is far more of a threat to visible Anglican unity than the admission of women to the episcopate is likely to be. …..well let me elucidate…” [/blockquote]
The problem with what follows is that it is out of touch with what is actually happening in England and in the Anglican Communion. Firstly, the idea that the new female bishops (who will almost certainly be liberals in the mould of +Chessun) will be “welcomed with open arms by the vast majority of the English Anglican church” is just fantasy. Female bishops may well be tolerated by numerous evangelical and anglo-catholic churches, if they do not interfere with their parochial activities (which is a big “if”), and if alternative oversight is provided in appropriate cases.
And then we are told that these female bishops will be “not recognised in Sydney or Chile…how will they cope?” Hello? The majority of provinces in the Anglican Communion have very serious reservations about several things that are happening in England. There is no guarantee that CofE will still be in full communion with most of the Anglican Communion by 2015 – the fate of TEC beckons for CofE if its leaders keep repudiating their church’s historical traditions and teachings.
[blockquote] “whilst at the same time we will also have several male AMiE irregularly ordained Bishops amongst the English flock” [/blockquote]
Given that I don’t think anyone has ever suggested this, it appears to be rather McCarthy-esque!
Micahel
I am not saying that they will “parachute” in, just that they might. The latest trend amongst the conservative evangelical wing is for “A Passion For Life” weeks of activities. This works really well in certain contexts but week long gospel preaching missions are good as far as they go, but surely at best all they can do is complement longer term strategies for mission and evangelism on the ground.
You still haven’t even attempted to provide any answer as to how AMiE intend to go about their aim of “-evagelising England”, especially as their influence up here is pretty minimal at best. They can’t make such grand claims without attempting to put any flesh on the bones can they?
And as for your ridiculous assertion that you will not stop until you see it overturned in every Province within the Anglican Communion..well you haven’t had much success so far have you? Correct me if I am wrong but there are 16 Provinces who ordain women Bishops…in how many of these provinces has the legislation been repealed to date Michael? So we wil have a situation..oh you are a Bishop… but now you can’t be a Bishop any longer because we have overturned the legislation. How likely is that. Come on Michael…get real!!
Northener,
Thanks for your clarification – I wouldn’t have thought that the previous history of Co-Mission churches at least indicates any tendency to do parachute evanglism. On the contrary – they seem to be about church planting.
Re “grand claims about evangelising England” – I would have thought that that is what every committed Christian in England is aiming to do, and that each of you will do it the same way Christ evangelised the world – starting very small and going ahead bit by bit.
Re women bishops (and this relates to your comments about the broader communion rather than just CofE), I don’t follow your point: We agree that the christian church has not had women bishops for 2,000 years; we agree that in the last few years 16 provinces out of 38 in the Anglican Communion have adopted some sort of innovative provision for women bishops (and in each case facing singificant internal opposition) – and you think the fight is over! We haven’t even reached “the end of the beginning” yet.
“Firstly, the idea that the new female bishops (who will almost certainly be liberals in the mould of +Chessun)”
Really Michael? And when you mean liberals do you mean everyone who is not as conservatively evangelical as you say they have got to be? And as for women Bishops being tolerated by most evangelicals, I profoundly disagree. Many evangelicals will be more than happy to serve under a female Bishop, just as many of us serve happily under female incumbents already. I sat this morning in an assembly given by a female evangeical vicar of the church school where my daughter attends. She is doing great work there and the message she preached even you would have grudgingly approved of I reckon. Maybe you think she shouldn’t be there at all in that position…I’m just so glad that God takes a different view as He is clearly mightily blessing her ministy as well as that of Co-Mission. What part of that can’t you “tolerate” or accept?
#26 The Northener
Thanks for your full response, although I admit feeling slightly daunted at replying to the 18 inch comments you and MichaelA go in for.
Thanks also for your concern, but I am not a refugee – I worship at mainstream CofE evangelical churches in and around London, and occasionally in the West Country as my travels take me although I think I would probably call myself a prayer book Anglican, which is rather where I came from. Nevertheless I enjoy the variety of worship in the CofE, and in particular its fabulous choral tradition. I lived in Southwark for a short time quite a while ago but did not worship there, I checked out the local churches but used to head over the river which was just as close.
Regarding your questions on AMiE bishops and ordinations, you would really have to ask someone in AMiE, but I doubt either would be problems for them – as for being ordained in Kenya, well, people go off there to get married on Safari, so I would have thought it would be nice to be ordained on Safari as well. Of course there has always been much swapping of clergy and even the consecration of English clergy as Kenyan bishops, so I am not sure why Kenyan ordinations to the diaconate should be so radical. It is of course for the ABC to respond to the request to licence these Kenyan clergy made by the Primate of Kenya, to which his response is still pending, although he did rather dig out the ‘problematic, don’t understand how it will all relate/work out’ waffley response he used when the Ordinariate was proposed, suggesting that CofE bishops should be consulted in Ordinariate decisions, to which I suspect the CDF and Vatican blew him a raspberry. I suspect the Primate of Kenya was slightly more polite.
You raise the interesting question of church order. I have to say that listening to some comments by people like Giles Fraser fulminating on Radio 4 I thought absolutely hilarious – the irony of those who have little regard for the letter of the Gospels nevertheless defending the letter of canonical tradition, something he has not bothered with when it was him breaching it, just did not seem to register at all. I think we are seeing some knee jerk reactions, but as I suggested in my post above I think it is worth reflecting on the serious breakdowns in how we got here, and what the consequences will be for the future in assessing how we should respond.
I do think you rightly identify some of the challenges for the CofE, with some declining churches and congregations, and perhaps whether we need to think outside the box of how we do church, and that may have implications for how we organise ourselves in parishes and geographical dioceses.
The modern patterns of church have tended to organise themselves by affinity rather than geography, of which New Wine is a prime example. Moreover, I don’t even think we have even scratched the surface of how the internet culture will change church, both in terms of evangelisation and Christian support groups and forms of ‘church’.
The reality is people now spend their time on computers, and to engage them, that is where you have to be. I really don’t think we have any idea what this will look like. Even physical churches and dioceses are now engaging more heavily even within themselves on their websites. Anabaptists have a problem with that in believing ‘church’ must be physical meeting, but I am not aware of any Anglican theological objection to that, although Holy Communion does not lend itself to this medium.
Regarding PEV’s and Women Bishops, I think the problem is that the battleground in Synod has not been and is not now about whether to have them or not, but on what provision is provided to those who cannot accept them, and so far the statutory old ‘flying bishop’ idea has been ruled out save for an inadequate ‘Code of Practice’ which does not address the theological issues of those calling for alternative episcopal oversight. That is the problem.
I have to say, a few years ago I was very proud of my church and the reasonable and English way we handled such issues through innovative solutions like PEV’s or flying bishops, but that is no longer the case, and attitudes and intolerance has hardened. Of course the responses to this growing intolerance have also hardened. That is what is behind tanks on the lawn, first from the Pope and his Anglican charity-funded Ordinariate, and now is behind the issues of AMiE. Co-Mission is just the current focus of that basic problem. As for the women bishops legislation achieving the 2/3 majorities in all three houses of Synod, I think that will depend on what alternative provision is made, just as I think will what AMiE means in the CofE. I am afraid that failure to provide for people WILL result in division here, just as it has in the States and Canada. When we stopped being English and Christian with one another and followed the approach of TEC, we brought the divisions of TEC here, although they are still at an early stage and something can still be done about the future we choose for ourselves.
As for the question I posed for you – I am not a Calvinist, but I do admire what some of those Co-mission and other churches are achieving and think that we do have a choice on whether to regard recent developments as a threat, and alienate the opportunity and example such churches offer us in showing us how to engage with evangelism. If this will be our approach, I can imagine the situation in 50 years time when we ask ourselves why we repeated the mistake we made with the Wesleys and Methodism.
Alternatively and perhaps harder, we can accept that we just are where we are – the situation we have with the Ordinariate and now AMiE is the result of mistakes we have made, and whatever we do we are now in that situation and have to decide how to deal with it. If we take that approach, then I think that indeed this may well be an opportunity. As I tried to speculate in #5 above slightly mischievously, I am far from sure that Jesus would have had much time while he was on earth for the ecclesiastical turf arguments we get hot under the collar about.
There is also in the background, the serious question of whether recent diocesan appointments have now brought a whole new raft of problems along the lines of those which led to many of the divisions such as those of Southwark, Newcastle, and Worcester; but that is another issue in the background, and if diocesans had been appointed who were unequivocal in supporting the doctrine of the CofE they have so recently promised God they will uphold, then none of this would be an issue, but we are where we are. I do believe we have an opportunity however, rather than just a problem.
I also think we have to remember that if we are not to be a middle class enclave, we have to remember the lost opportunity losing the Methodists was, to whom the ordinary citizens flocked.
I have long thought that the problems we have arise from the loss of confidence of ourselves and our leaders in the efficacy and reliability of the Gospels. With that we have allowed our eyes to wander from Christ. I pray we and especially our leaders recover that confidence and place Christ back as the centre and the head of our church. As we are promised in 2 Corinthians 7:14, if we do that then all will be well.
Hope that helps as how I see it – in about an 18 inch comment.
PM
Sorry, that biblical reference is 2 Chronicles 7:14!
“The NortheRner”: less is more. If you want people to read your useful viewpoints, cut to the chase.
MichaelA and Pageantmaster have made a number of perceptive points.
Women bishops were really going to be inevitable once women’s ordiantion was accepted. Why? Because while clergy numbers in England have declined steeply, there has been a great expansion in non-stipendiary clergy trained on part-time courses. Most of these are women and the courses are generally liberal and Scripture-lite. This has been confirmed by surveys of the beliefs of English clergy. The NSM women are in their 50s and 60s and generally liberal in outlook. I fear that for many of them, their task will be to care for dying churches.
Result: many hundreds of soft-liberal women clergy have now been ordained and they will vote for like-minded people for the clergy houses in the diocesan synods and General Synods. It is really to do with the creation of a different electorate.
Pageantmaster is also correct that the issues that largely gave rise to Co-Mission, AMiE, to Charles Raven’s church in Kidderminster (I think) and to Newcastle in the north of England have to do with liberal bishops like Butler and Burke trying to exert political muscle on conservative evangelicals opposing their gay advocacy, then getting some push-back. “Fulcrum” have just carried water for these liberals.
This is what “The NortheRner” should address. And if he doesn’t like Co-mission’s theology, then he should out-think it and out-exegete it. One thing Co-Mission – and related enterprises in England, like St Helen’s Bishopsgate in London and Christ Church Durham – does take seriously is theology and training in preaching, and in raising up young men in particular as present and future church leaders. (Of course, these are just the kind of men the liberal bishops DON’T want to see ordained, but not because they are ‘heretical’ or ‘immoral’….)
“We agree that the christian church has not had women bishops for 2,000 years; we agree that in the last few years 16 provinces out of 38 in the Anglican Communion have adopted some sort of innovative provision for women bishops (and in each case facing singificant internal opposition) – and you think the fight is over! We haven’t even reached “the end of the beginning†yet. ”
I do love the phraseology you use Michael – “..have adopted some sort of innovative provision for women Bishops” should that not read “16 out of 38 Provinces have legitimately consecrated women Bishops”?
And as for the “despite significant internal opposition”…bit….as if that should stop it going ahead in any way just because people are opposed to it! Jesus spent the majority of his last three years on earth, or so the Gospels would appear to indicate, facing down and challenging significant internal opposition…it didn’t stop him saying and doing what he did…although admittedly it did cost him his life in the process.
And what vicar of a small to medium sized to large Anglican church, when faced with a reordering project to attempt to transform a building into a place more suited to contemporary 21st century mission, has not had to face significant internal opposition, especially when one realises that one’s favourite pew where one has faithfully and religiously sat for the last 45 years is going to be removed never to be seen again…shock..horror!
If we are cowed and put off by “significant internal opposition” what is the point of doing anything? Nothing would ever be achieved. We may as well not get out of bed in the morning!
Also, the thought did strike me..as good Anglicans we have a liturgy for virtually everything under the sun ranging from baptising a baby to the funeral of a beloved pet, but I have yet to see a liturgy created especially for the occasion of the de-consecration, or shoud that be desecration, who knows, of a Bishop. Perhaps you and your fellow “fighters” could write one for us to use – obviously it goes without saying that it will have to be written for either a liberal, a woman (a service for a liberal woman Bishop would be particularly exciting to observe..complete with ducking stool perhaps…), but it could come in useful for a recalcitrant erring evangelical Bishop on occasions, unless he/she dramatically confesses at the last minute, and recants and repents from his/her terrible sinful ways with seconds to spare.
I have to say, for curiosity’s sake it will be a great opportunity for some grand processional pageantry, and is a liturgical service of celebration I would quite like to behold…on a number of levels…especially the “de-laying on of hands” part by the AB. How would you be able to do that? Seriously though, if you and the many opponents are serious in your intent to not stop fighting until the legislation is repealed in each of the 16 Provinces, soon to be 17 perhaps… then this is a liturgy that needs to be written…and pronto!
Getting back to “some sort of innovative provision for women Bishops”, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the very recent provision of PEVs for the opponents of, firstly women priests, and now Women Bishops an example of “some sort of innovative provision” for opponents of the ordination of women as Priests and/or Bishops. Innovative provision appears to be OK when it suits! And even by my Maths 16 out 38 Provinces means that not far short of half of all Provinces now consecrate Women Bishops…good job you are in fighting mode…that’s a lot of legislation for you and your friends to roll back over the coming years…
Seriously though..this is what drives me to the point of utter despair is this…this is not “contending for the sake of the gospel”…this not a “gospel issue”…this is because I am afraid you appear to delight in being in permanent battle mode, and enjoy hunting for heresies and heretics at any and every opportunity, and are permanently spoiling for a fight, or at least that is how it often seems.
[blockquote] “Really Michael? And when you mean liberals do you mean everyone who is not as conservatively evangelical as you say they have got to be?” [/blockquote]
Why would I mean that when I wrote something different? Just asking… ;o)
I’ll clarify in case I wasn’t clear enough: what I meant by “liberals in the mould of +Chessun”, was someone who is extreme enough to openly disagree with the Church of England’s traditional teaching that homosexual practice is sin.
kmh1.
In my earlier response to your comment I did at least have the grace to acknowledge that there were some things I agreed with you about esp re Co-Mission…. From your general approach “NortheRner” being indicative of it, it would appear pompous condescension does come somewhat naturally to you…In fact “death by condescension” while trying to read the missives of some of the AMiE leading lights is what irritates the most on occasions.
So…you have met all these female NSMs have you…or just uncritically taken at face value the results of a survey..and pray…do enlighten me further..who were these surveys of clergy beliefs carried out by, and whose objective razor sharp forensic analysis came up with the conclusions you espouse I wonder?
As for the raising up of young men…I had a Eureka moment the other week. I was talking to a female vicar friend of mine, whose church is very much growing…heaven forbid… and whose preaching is powerfully anointed…and in passing she shared this with me..
She was waiting with a grieving funeral party outside a local crematorium waiting to take the committal service. The previous cremation ended and the retired (mercifully!) male (surprise surprise!) priest who had conducted the ceremony, in front of the grieving family waiting for their loved one to be committed, began to loudly berate her and hold her in particular, and all her female colleages in general, of totally destroying the church…in front of a grieving family I ask you!!…and what kind of superior theological training has this august cleric received I ask?
Secondly, my father died after a very short illness recently and the funeral service was taken by the female vicar who I serve under as a Reader. By common consent she was brilliant and I know for a fact that she is very highly thought of both within the church and in the much wider local community. When a colleague in work asked me how the funeral had gone, I informed her of how good the vicar had been, She then told me the verey different experience she had at her own father’s funeral.
The service was taken by a male cleric, who spent as little time with the family as he could possibly get away with beforehand, rushed through the service at the crematorium as quickly as he could, whose lack of care and preparation resulted in him getting nearly every significant name, date and important detail completely wrong during the complete fiasco that followed, and presumably got paid handsomely for the privilige of single handedly destroying a collective moment of family grief. That takes some doing by anybody’s standards! And these type of men have been getting away with this kind of things unpunished for and undisciplined for years!
Her husband and his best friend retired to the local pub shortly after the service and who should be there but the male vicar who had conducted the service…obviously an ordained man who believes in getting his priorities right!
Conversely, the dimension that female vicars and female Readers for that matter have brought to funeral and bereavement ministry is immense.
With regard to the first example…so angry was I with the account of this retired male priest, (who in my view should have had his licence to officiate immediately withdrawn by the Bishop so that his ministry came to an abrupt and immediate end with no prospect of it ever being returned), that I have decide to challenge the appalling misogynistic behaviour that women priests are subjected to, especially the dismissiveness and partonising putdowns, whenever and wherever I come across it.
I am guessing that you would be in favour of “taking his age into account”, “trying to feel his obvious pain” aahh..poor thing…or even secretly patting him on the back and telling him to keep up the good work!
I look forward to your response.
Northener,
I don’t know why you are getting so hot under the collar about women bishops, and now women clergy. Unless you have been living in a cave for the past ten years, you know that there are many Anglicans throughout the world who don’t agree with one or both of these. This includes many people in England. Leave aside arguments about how many are in the pro-WO and anti-WO camp, the point is, you should know you can expect to meet them on blogs.
[blockquote] “If we are cowed and put off by “significant internal opposition” what is the point of doing anything? Nothing would ever be achieved. We may as well not get out of bed in the morning!” [/blockquote]
You misunderstand me. I was responding to your contention that women bishops are here to stay because 16 provinces consecrate them. In response I pointed out that women bishops are not widely accepted even in all those 16 provinces.
Take Australia for instance: In theory, since 2007 each of our dioceses can choose to accept women bishops. Most of the 23 haven’t done so, and at least four have made it clear that they will never do so. I believe Australia has just one female bishop, who was consecrated by the highly liberal diocese of Perth in 2008. She remains in Perth as an assistant to the Archbishop. There may never be any more.
[blockquote] “Getting back to “some sort of innovative provision for women Bishops”, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the very recent provision of PEVs for the opponents of, firstly women priests, and now Women Bishops an example of “some sort of innovative provision” for opponents of the ordination of women as Priests and/or Bishops.” [/blockquote]
I agree. The Christian Church in 2,000 years has never had women bishops, so the idea of a PEV for those who cannot in good conscience accept their ministry must by definition be an innovation.
[blockquote] “this is what drives me to the point of utter despair is this…this is not “contending for the sake of the gospel”…this not a “gospel issue”…this is because I am afraid you appear to delight in being in permanent battle mode, and enjoy hunting for heresies and heretics at any and every opportunity, and are permanently spoiling for a fight, or at least that is how it often seems.” [/blockquote]
Isn’t this rather strong language, simply because people don’t agree with you about women bishops? The church has got along fine without them for 2,000 years, and now because not everyone agrees with a recent innovation, we are the contentious ones – forgive me if I don’t agree!
Hello Northener
While you are thinking about my response in #33/34 I thought it might be helpful to address just a few other things you raise:
Experience of Men and Women in Ministry
I agree with your reaction to the examples of pastoral ministry you cite in #39. Taking funerals is actually a good opportunity for evangelism and showing love and kindness to those who attend funerals, and it is often the time when people want reassurance and people from outside the church are asking questions. In favour of those taking them, I do have to say though that I do come accross extreme dissatisfaction from some non-stipendiary clergy and readers [is that the up to date term?] that they are used for things by the stipendiary clergy they don’t want to do and end up doing a disproportionate share of funerals rather than the general services they went into ministry for.
As far as quality goes, in my experience you can get both good and bad ministers and it is not dependant on whether they are men or women. As far as families are concerned, it is for them to agree and brief the clergy, and sometimes they do not do this and do not take much interest, though that does not excuse lack of pastoral care at the front end. I am not aware of any restriction on clergy having a pint, and indeed I often join them for one.
I do not think that there is any difference in quality and care between men and women in ministry – you find the good and the substandard in both. In any event, fitness and quality are not what the arguments about women ministers and women bishops are about.
The theological arguments for and against women bishops
The arguments about this are not about fitness or suitability of individual women but about theology. There are some who object to women in ministry for prejudicial or mysogenistic reasons, but this has not been what the discussion in the church has been about.
Broadly the theological arguments in regard to women in the episcopacy have fallen into two groups:
1. The Catholic understanding of ministry as an ‘Apostolic Succession’ from the male apostles handed down by the laying on of hands down the generations by those commissioned by the first disciples. In particular for bishops – the laying on of hands on a new bishop by at least three other bishops, themselves validly consecrated in the succession. This succession has always been male until relatively recently and bishops who are not able to trace their consecrations back in this way are termed ‘vagantes’. Why does this matter to the Catholic Anglicans? Well it is because of the Catholic understanding of the Priesthood and the Eucharist, in which the role of the priest is leading the people under a bishop leading the diocese in the collective sacrifice of the Eucharist. The valid action of a bishop and priest in this understanding is absolutely key to the validity of the sacrament of the Eucharist.
2. The ‘Headship’ passages in the bible which suggest that ministering is to be undertaken by men. This argument generally is found at the evangelical end, who are perhaps less concerned with the Catholic issues in #1 above. This relies in particular on the instructions of St Paul in how churches and ministry is to be ordered.
I think one has to remember that the two main denominations of Christians in the world, the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, both take this issue very seriously and would not ordain women, much less women bishops, and ecumenically, going along this path just does put us further outside that mainstream in world Christianity, whatever we do.
For myself, I am not particularly bothered about women priests, or women bishops but I do accept that my view should not be determinitive, but subject to 1. my acceptance of the right of my church to teach on this issue; and 2. My belief that we should indeed be ‘one’ with other Christians and I do not want to see further division between ourselves and the Catholics and Orthodox who we have been trying to build bridges with and restore mutual communion of doctrine, ministry and sacraments with. On a practical level I have to say however that I have been completely unimpressed by the ruthless and unpastoral attitude of those liberal activist women pushing Synod [particularly in “WATCH”] and who are slated to become the first women bishops. I just believe given what I have seen of their conduct that none of that first generation group should be bishops, although there are women I have come across in the church who aside from the theological issues would make very good bishops.
If you are interested in understanding the theology behind the church’s discussion on this I would recommend reading the ‘Rochester Report commissioned by the CofE which went into the issues in depth. There is a shorter digest of the report here
Alternative Provision
I think you are under a bit of a misunderstanding when you are talking of PEV’s. PEV’s were a provision under the previous ‘Act of Synod’ for those who could not accept the minsistry of women priests. Under the proposed women bishop legislation, the PEV scheme will end, and there will be no such provision. The PEV scheme is not on offer in the current women bishops legislation to be considered by the dioceses and Synod next year.
This is why there has been such a furore, and why the Pope has intervened in the Church of England to set up the Ordinariate; it is also a large factor in the setting up of AMiE.
What is proposed under the women bishops legislation currently being considered is that there be a ‘Code of Practice’ under which a woman bishop’s authority and position in a diocese is accepted by everyone, including those who take advantage of the Code of Practice. The woman bishop will in effect ‘delegate’ some of her authority to a dissenting parish, to allow another male bishop to exercise episcopal acts in that parish like confirmations. As you can see this neither satisfies the Catholic concern about the chain of apostolic succession and authority, nor the headship arguments.
This is where the problem lies, and it is why people like me who would not personally have a problem with women bishops would object to the current scheme, and it is indeed why the legislation may not achieve the 2/3 majorities in all three houses it needs next year to come in. Some such as the Bishop of Chester [this month’s diocesan mag] while in favour of women’s ministry and women bishops have warned against pushing this through at this time with these divisive issues unresolved. In their determination to drive through the women bishops legislation in the form it is now going through with provision which does not satisfy the decent Anglicans for whom their theology means that the provision causes them fundamental problems, WATCH, Affirming Catholicism, and for that matter Fulcrum have made it more difficult to support the current legislation, and even if it passes, WILL create division in the Church of England, and a further eroding of our example and authority with other members of the Communion.
cont..
cont from #41 [too long for the comment limits]
How we deal with one another
You argue about why get up in the morning if you are not prepared to do things, even in the face of opposition. Well, I am not sure this is the issue.
I do come across the argument, particularly in evangelical circles [there are even courses on the subject] that it is necessary, for the greater aim, of driving change through the church, even roughshod over the problems of members of the church.
I have to say, I disagree completely. This is a cold, heartless, and un-Christian zealot’s attitude. We are told to wait for the slowest of us, and not to put obstacles in the path of other Christians. We are indeed to show the same love to others as we are to ourselves, and in this way to reflect the love God has for us.
Your pew example is a case in point – there are indeed cases where beautiful and valuable pews have been removed in a radical re-ordering of a traditional church. Net result – no new congregation, because the old one is upset and have left that church, and indeed any other church for the way they were treated, and no weddings, because people wanted the ‘traditional church’ experience. I am not saying change should not happen, but consideration must always be shown for others.
Consider again new church plants into struggling churches. There have been instances where a new evangelical seed congregation has been transplanted into a traditional church with a few faithful souls who have one service on a Sunday once or twice a month. Sometimes these older and faithful congregants and their needs have just been ignored as the pew have been ripped out, the altar stripped and the high-tec sound equipment installed. However if you look at what the HTB congregations do you will see that for the older congregation, they are not chucked out, in the reordering, they are given a traditional communion service first thing in the morning, not once or twice a month, but every week – win win!
The same is true of the provision for women bishop dissenters – if the issue is not tackled the result with be further moves to the Ordinariate, and it is quite clear that the GAFCON Primates are not prepared [any more than the Pope was] to stand by an for traditional Anglicans to have no Anglican provision for them and the only alternative on offer to be Rome.
If these things happen, we will have dissension, division, and we will send our church into the downward collapsing spiral the Anglican US and Canadian churches have gone into. It has all happened before, in North America, and it will happen here, whether you, I or anybody else wants it, and I can’t think that anyone does.
Morning all! or evening…or good afternoon…depending upon where in the world you happen to be,
Pageant Master and everyone else…please accept my apologies for not responding before now….I decided to take a day’s sabbatical from blogging (ie I didn’t blog yesterday evening GMT) in order to take a breather and allow personal time for a little more light and a little less heat shall we say…..I also hasten to add that I have a full time job to attend to as well as a wife and 9 year old daughter, church committments and, when I get the chance leisure interests…of which blogging has become very much one of them…You will also forgive me but I unashamedly am eclectic in my blogging tendencies and also dip in and out of The Urban Pastor, Fulcrum, Bishop Nick Baines’ blog and this worrying habit is only likely to increase as I yesterday discovered the Ugley Vicar which also may cry out for some of my limited time…
and my my…what have I started…I note that the number of blogs to this post has shot up in recent days, most of them by people responding with steam coming out of their ears at something I may have uttered in all innocence…I tend to have that effect on people…
Also Pageant Master….apologies…it is now contagious….your last two responses are almost equalling mine in length, but I ‘m not sure I will be able to match your magisterial eloquence…I can see your are a BCP man by the prosaic flow of your contribution…and no…that is not me being gently mocking…it is good to see…
one thing I did note however, was the lack of “less is more” being aimed in your direction as it was in mine earlier…hmmm…maybe a slight consistency issue there I wonder…
Anyhow I shall try to respond as best I can but just so that certain contributors don’t completely lose the will to live, I may separate them into several post if I may….
Like you I too enjoy the variety of worship in the C of E, and although the choral tradirtion is not my favourite cup of tea, I am indeed an ex-choriboy and still remember the furore that was casued when of my own volition…at 14…I decided enough was enough and announced that I was quitting then choir . We had deputations from deeply distressed choir ladies on our doorstep pleading in vain with me to change my mind…and with my parents to make me change my mind! I kid you not!
Very recently, a week after my father died, I needed to be somewhere anonymous and decided to head up to the Cathedral…now you may think I am a bit of a pew-ripping-outer post-modernist buffoon, with some justification, but I am aware that one for the congregational types which is steadily increasing and growing throughout the UK are Cathedral congregations…and having spent an enjoyable morning I can understand why.
The congregation was about 150 strong and added to that were about a dozen tourists, who had me enthralled as I had expected them to come and go, dip in and out etc as the service progressed..However, Ithe stood at the back by the refectory and stood, seemingly engrossed for the whole service. I was deeply impressed! There were one or two minor irritations..such as the usual scenario of two cracking hymns..O worship the King to start with and the simply magnificent O Praise Ye The Lord to end with with..being tragically sandwiched with two hymns I did not know…nor have any desire to ever sing again…which were clearly designed for the choir to show off their prowess without any thought to us poor congregants whatsoever. I haev no problem with choirs showing off their prowess…it is part of their raison d’etre after all…but at least for congregational hymns give us ones that we have at least asporting chance of being able to join in with….The second ple I would have with the xchoral tradition is this. If you are going to have Sung Eucharist and sung mattins could you pleas, please..PLEASE ensure that the leading it can actually sing!!! And I mean sing!! I have been to several such services where within 10 minutes of the service starting it has become simply embarrassing…and I am not talking about missing the odd note here…anyone can be guilty of that…I am talking about a vocal equivalent of the late, great Les Dawson here…..almost completely tone deaf!… If yopu can’yt sing it yourself..either say it..of find someone else who can!! There, rant over!
Apologies people…during the previous post I was in the middle of correcting the typos emanating from my speed-typing when I somehow hit the “send” button midway through! Apologies to you all, but especially to PM if it appeared that I was responding to his earlier most eloquent offering in Serbo-Croat!
Now..where were we..ah yes..moving on from the beauties and frustrations of the choral tradition. This next snippet of information may astound you, but first and foremost I, allegedly, am an economist by background, my interest in theology is merely a sideline, and the marketing man in me has just, thanks to you PM, spotted a niche market which could do with expoiting. I am thinking of sending a quick email to all those nice, young, single, oh-so-terribly keen and enthusiastic AMiE future curate types currently at Oak Hill in training, to offer them the prospect of a double whammy…an offer they simply can’t refuse…a safari honeymoon where they can get ordained by an African AB who just happens to be in the vicinty at the same time! Sounds like a real winner to me…
With regards to the very pertinent problems you raise re church and the computer age..I hope you don’t mind me saying this…but do keep up…Where have you been? The Anglican church as a whole have been engaging with this for the best part of 10 years now. Indeed it was the thrust behind, and influence much of the thinking which led to Mission Shaped Church Report..
Now I don’t know about you…but my heart sinks to positively subterranean levels whenever I pick up a weighty tome produced by some committee of eminent bods and scholars within Anglicanworld…however if there is one report I would insist every Anglican, in the true Anglican spirit, should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it is MSC.
Now I know you might balk at the fact that the commission behind the report was chaired by Bishop Cray who may be way too liberally evangelical for most on here to stomach, but it lead to the formation of the development of the “mixed economy” and the Fresh Expressions agenda, which whether we like it or not folks is going to shape and drive much of what happens in the future and is already beginning, and will continue to address, much of what PM was referring to in terms of re-imaging the church in terms of social and relational networks and communities. It is, and will continue to be quite a challenge.
And one thing more I ‘d like to say on this. The term “mixed economy” ie traditional and inherited forms of church and new, innovative Fresh Expressions of church, including church plants attempting to live and co-exist and grow together I think is almost prophectic in it’s vision and content for both the present and the future if the Anglican church is to not just survive, (which is exactly what the General Synod was challenged to think about recently by The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham) but to grow and thrive in the future.
And who was it who was primarily such visionary thinking???…now then let me think…it was the same man who is so roundly vilified at any and every and opoortunity on this site…a certain Rowan Williams….and that when he was Bishop of Monmouth before he somewhat foolishly agreed to accept the poisoned chalice and traverse the border to Canterbury…..More soon…
#43/44 Northener – thanks
Commenting
One thing which I find helpful commenting is to cut and paste the brief extract of what I am replying to, and separate out replies to one commenter from another. Preceding a comment with reference to the number of the comment referred to. Breaking comments into small defined sections also helps people know where they are. Please take this as not a criticism, but an encouragement.
#43
[blockquote]yesterday discovered the Ugley Vicar which also may cry out for some of my limited time… [/blockquote]
I spent a number of months reading this site before I started commenting. I comment sparingly elsewhere, but it is definitely a conversation, and can be worthwhile, and educative, and you can meet some great people on all sides.
[blockquote]I did note however, was the lack of “less is more†being aimed in your direction as it was in mine earlier…hmmm…maybe a slight consistency issue there I wonder… [/blockquote]
Probably because mine are usually fairly brief, unless I want to develop a theme or have a lot to fit in, nevertheless brevity is a virtue. Probably comes from a legal background.
Cathedrals and choirs
[blockquote]at 14…I decided enough was enough and announced that I was quitting then choir[/blockquote]
It is what teenagers do. I did something similar when with a huge load of extra curricular activites I decided I wanted some time for myself.
[blockquote]Very recently, a week after my father died[/blockquote]
You have my thoughts, and my prayers, as do your family.
[blockquote]steadily increasing and growing throughout the UK are Cathedral congregations…and having spent an enjoyable morning I can understand why. [/blockquote]
They certainly are. I go to the London cathedrals for evensong when I can. Most attending are tourists, but it is definitely a shop window for the church. I have felt that it would be good if this was backed up with follow on evangelism in lectures or ministry in a side chapel or crypt. We are missing a trick and could do much more.
#44 Northener following on:
Mission Shaped Church and Fresh Expressions
[blockquote]With regards to the very pertinent problems you raise re church and the computer age..I hope you don’t mind me saying this…but do keep up…Where have you been?[/blockquote]
Watching what is going on. It is dangerous to make assumptions before you know a bit more about people 🙂
[blockquote]The Anglican church as a whole have been engaging with this for the best part of 10 years now. Indeed it was the thrust behind, and influence much of the thinking which led to Mission Shaped Church Report.. [/blockquote]
MSC is a good report and +Graham Cray has done a good job. We certainly talk about it, but it is hard to know how these initiatives are doing because we don’t properly submit or collect statistics, one of my complaints for a while. What we see is that whenever the main church statistics come out, someone from Church House bleats that they give an unfair picture and things are better than they seem because fresh expressions initiatives are not included – hardly suprising when no one bothers to collect the statistics properly in that Widow Twanky way in which we do things.
[blockquote]Now I know you might balk at the fact that the commission behind the report was chaired by Bishop Cray who may be way too liberally evangelical for most on here to stomach[/blockquote]
Again, why not let people here and Bishop Cray speak for themselves? As a recent arrival you are making quite a number of assumptions.
[blockquote][The Mission Shaped Church report] lead to the formation of the development of the “mixed economy†and the Fresh Expressions agenda, which whether we like it or not folks is going to shape and drive much of what happens in the future and is already beginning, and will continue to address, much of what PM was referring to in terms of re-imaging the church in terms of social and relational networks and communities. It is, and will continue to be quite a challenge.[/blockquote]
I think that is right, however just how far this has been rolled out is hard to know for the reasons set out above. Dioceses are under no obligation to, and are not all reporting on these initiatives. Information collection is chaotic. No business could afford to be run like this.
What I do know is that when I look at the internet, on streaming facilities like Ustream you will find everyone streaming Sunday Services, except, guess who?
There is an exception – Jesmond Parish Church one of the Co-mission sorts of churches, who have managed to do this and have a good website, without an MSC report, Bishop Cray, ‘Fresh Expressions’ or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Hence, if you will forgive me, my scepticism, I don’t see any reason for self-congratulation or complacency for the CofE. Could do better has to be the assessment!
[blockquote]And who was it who was primarily such visionary thinking???…now then let me think…it was the same man who is so roundly vilified at any and every and opoortunity on this site…a certain Rowan Williams….and that when he was Bishop of Monmouth before he somewhat foolishly agreed to accept the poisoned chalice and traverse the border to Canterbury[/blockquote]
Well, you may not have noticed it, and very few others did such was his impact on that Province and its attendance figures which continued their steady decline to below 50,000, but he was prior to becoming the ABC, the Primate of Wales.
He certainly talks a good line as ABC, but I think his record speaks for itself. He is busy consecrating Inclusive Church activist and general liberal troublemaker Nick Holtam a bishop today, I believe.
I don’t want to be negative, Northener, but we have to be realistic about the real state of the church and not look at these iniatives through rosy spectacles. You are right about the direction we have to travel in, but there is going to have to be a lot of hard work, and a considerable change in approach before we really take back the initiative from the new churches and movements springing up around us in British Christianity.
PM, Northerner, Michael A and kmh1,
Thanks to all of you for the very instructive commenting on the Co-Mission initiative and the current state of play and the future prospects for historic Anglican teaching and practice in the CofE. As an American in TEC in Bp. Mark Lawrence’s Diocese of South Carolina, I look forward each day to the latest exchanges among you.
PM
I appreciated very much your encouragement of Northerner, especially the gentle exhortation:
#47 hereistand
Thank you and God bless you – you are in a great diocese with a good bishop.
There have been a lot of good posts on this thread, typed from the heart. I don’t mean disrespect to any of them when I say that Pageantmaster’s post at #41 was exceptional. In particular, the section headed “The theological arguments for and against women bishops” was a masterful summary of the different viewpoints in CofE and their inter-relationship with each other. It is a complex situation, and all groups have to live and work with each other.
PM’s post not only fit with my limited experience of CofE over the years, but also has strong echoes in the Australian situation. Each diocese is proceeding very carefully, and thinking about what this means for the church as a whole and their relationship with the other dioceses: Those whose senior clergy favour women bishops have not gone further since the single consecration in 2008; conversely, those vehemently opposed (both evangelical and anglo-catholic) have not walked out or declared impaired communion.
I obviously have my own position which is different to PM’s, yet I cannot but admire the way he has stepped back and shown us all the bigger picture.
Hello, Northener – I am glad you are contributing to this trans-atlantic (nay, global) Anglican conversation. I won’t say much here because this is at the end of a very long thread that is already well below the digital fold, and noone may bother to read this.
But may I urge you (and myself):
1. to be concise and factually-focused in comments – long comments probably go unread.
2. don’t make too many assumptions about contributors – some of us can see both positive and negative features to Rowam Williams, Tom Wright etc, which we have expressed before.
Please keep contributing and sharing and English perspective – and observe how Tec ideas are being exported to England. You may find this whole bishops in civil partnerships thing just such a Trojan horse.
Michael
I agree…the legendary PM’s precis of the theological arguments for and against women Bishops is truly masterful. I sincerely hope we can continue to live and work with each other but it is going to be hard going at times I feel. Clearly many within the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church have felt that they can no longer do so and have found a new home outside of the C of E…but more of that later as I intend to respond to some of the comments about not being concerned enough about Catholic unity and staying in harmony with the Catholic and Orthodox churches etc …which will be centred around the issue of how can there ever be true unity with a church which still does not formally or officially acknowledge or recognise the ordination vows of Anglican priests as being legitimate. Tacit ignorance of this official church teaching by Roman Catholic priests and people on the ground is simply NOT a good enough reason I am afraid.
But more of that later…
kmh1…
I am so glad to hear your transatlantic voice again..I thought I may have overstepped the mark with my previous comments and that you had decided never to have anythiong to do with such a British idiot again!
And yes. isn’t it good to be able to have such a global conversation about the wise and wonderful, yet simunltaneously weird and wacky world that is Anglicanism.
And thank you for your balanced comments about the agust messrs Willams and Wirght. I have not seen too many positive comments on here about Rowan Williams in particular, but I haven’t been on long and maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough.
In the interests of brevity I shall go now…but I will be posting my thoughts on PM’s most recent insightful offering.
PM for PM is what I say!! He couldn’t do much worse than the current incumbent!
Hey.how is this for brevity…
What is it that constitutes a “great” diocese…?
What makes a Bishop of that Diocese “good”…?
How can he or she graduate from being “good” to becoming “great”…?
And finally…who decides??
PM
Now that the dastardly consecrative deed has been done by the ABC and that the equally dastardly general liberal troublemaker Nick Holtam, against your wise counsel, now officially the Rt Rev Nick Holtam, Bishop of Sarum and all its surrounding environs, are you going to change your plea to “I told you not to say yes to Nick Holltam”..or “why didn’t the rest of you wretched lily livered evos join me in saying no to Nick Holtam and stop this nonsense before it’s too late”
And on the question of “general liberal troublemakers”
Which would you rather have..troublemakers in the liberal mode, or those who… according to Norwegian police, have regularly frequented right wing Christian funamentalist websites and kill scores of innoncent young people on a small island from which there is no means of escape from the manifestation of his evil, warped thinking?. Aren’t these type of people the troublemakers we should be much more wary of? Ansd apparently, there is not history of mental illness with this man and he has, according to his own lawyer, been seeemingly planning this atrocity for quite some time.
I am NOT saying that any on here would want to be associated in any way with this man, but the roots of his ideology are in the, dare I say it, extremes of the Reformed, Calvinst conservative right, both politically and theologically as was the perpetrator of the Oklahoma bombings.
Don’t get me wrong, there are equally as dangerously loony memeres of the charismatic right wing fringe, but they have to be challenged and they have to be stopped….asap!
Give me Nick Holtam’s “allegedly” dangerous social gospelism any and every day of the week!
#53 Northener
Thank you for your kind comment, but I would not make a good PM – I don’t have the skill set. I was thinking of taking down the Holtam flag from my moniker last night, but since you like it so much, I will keep it for a bit longer.
Commenting and blog posting are not like writing. Generally because people read on computer screens, long posts and comments which stretch too far beyond the bottom of the screen become hard to read and handle, even with breaking up into sections. Also, while they are useful to back up what one says, people generally do not seem to follow links. Maggie Dawn had a great talk on the differences in writing for blogs [second one in] here
The acts of the killer in Norway are not those of a Christian, of any stripe, whatever he called himself. I am disappointed you raise it – it has nothing to do with anyone I have ever come across in the church.
I have no problem with the good work St Martins-in-the-Fields has does; I do have a problem with the dastardly scheming which surrounded his elevation and those of a number of others recently. It has been a bid for power by the extreme left seeking to turn the CofE into EngTEC. This issue is not going away, and is one of the things which will come back to bite us as a church.
PM – I concur that we know that this is not the work of a Christian, but those we are seeking to reach with the gospel may not think that.
Also, maybe you need to get out a bit more – you may not have met Roman Catholic hating memebrs of the Free Presbyterian dominated Orange Order – I grew up in Liverpool surrounded by lots of these people. Also you may not have met them but you may have seen or heard of people carrying bannaers “God hates fag”. Their churches may be largelymade up of family memebers and other such dysfunctional relations but they consider themselves as part of the church, and so do many others outside the church.
Or are we in agreement that there are a fair number within the “church” who are not in the church as well as people who may be in the “church” but who are not in the kingdom?
#55 The Northener
see my comment here
[blockquote] “I concur that we know that this is not the work of a Christian, but those we are seeking to reach with the gospel may not think that.” [/blockquote]
Good point. That is why it is so important to be clear about what we believe and what we do not. There are some who would tell us that virtually everyone is a christian, no matter what their beliefs.
[blockquote] “Also, maybe you need to get out a bit more – you may not have met Roman Catholic hating memebrs of the Free Presbyterian dominated Orange Order – I grew up in Liverpool surrounded by lots of these people. Also you may not have met them but you may have seen or heard of people carrying bannaers “God hates fagâ€.” [/blockquote]
This even more emphasises my point made above. No educated person could confuse Co-Mission or other orthodox evangelical groups with the churches you describe, because they are clear about what they believe, and what they don’t.
[blockquote] “Or are we in agreement that there are a fair number within the “church†who are not in the church as well as people who may be in the “church†but who are not in the kingdom?” [/blockquote]
I should think so.
Northener wrote,
[blockquote] Don’t get me wrong, there are equally as dangerously loony memeres of the charismatic right wing fringe, but they have to be challenged and they have to be stopped….asap!
Give me Nick Holtam’s “allegedly†dangerous social gospelism any and every day of the week! [/blockquote]
That is the problem, as I see it. Nick Holtam’s social gospelism encourages loony members of the right wing fringe. Such people can be reasoned with, but not by presenting them with equally loony beliefs of the left (which simply elicit an unthinking and violent reaction). Rather, they have to be won over by sensible, rational and godly theology, which is where orthodox evangelicals and anglo-catholics come in.
“That is the problem, as I see it. Nick Holtam’s social gospelism encourages loony members of the right wing fringe. Such people can be reasoned with, but not by presenting them with equally loony beliefs of the left (which simply elicit an unthinking and violent reaction). Rather, they have to be won over by sensible, rational and godly theology, which is where orthodox evangelicals and anglo-catholics come in.â€
You seriously don’t believe this do you Michael?
These people can be “reasoned with� This guy by all accounts had been planning this for years…
..and as for this term…the “orthodox evangelicals†(pray tell me..what are the rest of us who believe, live out and preach Christ Crucified, Risen, Ascended and Lord just as much as you seek to do, and will strive to do so until our dying breath!) ,..Along with the Anglo Catholics, they can’t have done much “reasoning†with this bloke can they?….
,,and also, please do not try to shift the blame onto Nick Holtam et al…the personal responsibility for this, and accountability for this, and thinking behind this act lies solely with to the man who carried out this act and any accomplices he may have had. Nobody else!
Also, how can you “sensibly and rationally†reason with someone who is “unthinking�
This guy is actually quite intelligent. He is supposedly educated to degree level and possibly above. He is no mug. He ran his own business.
Rational thinking is a mindset which is alien to these people, and I don’t see much evidence of getting these people to “stop and thinkâ€.
And how many orthodox evangelicals and Anglo Catholics are truly involved in such activity I wonder? And how successful are their efforts?
[blockquote] “You seriously don’t believe this do you Michael?” [/blockquote]
You seriously don’t believe otherwise, do you? The loony left is never an antidote to the loony right. They just feed off each other. That is one reason why the common sense and sound doctrine of orthodox Christians is so important.
[blockquote] “These people can be “reasoned withâ€? This guy by all accounts had been planning this for years…” [/blockquote]
Once again, your post jumps all over the place and conflates terms. I referred to members of the right wing fringe in general. If you are talking about just “this guy”, then you are talking about a single mass murderer. I assume you do know something about them – i.e. that they are very rare (infinitesimal compared to the “right wing fringe”, and not limited to it either) and virtually undetectable.
If your last paragaph in post #53 referred to only potential mass murderers, then it was nonsense – nothing that you have advocated has any value for preventing mass murder.
[blockquote] Also, how can you “sensibly and rationally†reason with someone who is “unthinking� [/blockquote]
Since I never wrote that anyone was “unthinking”, I hope you can understand why I will not be answering this. You may wish to re-read my post.
[blockquote] “Rational thinking is a mindset which is alien to these people, and I don’t see much evidence of getting these people to “stop and thinkâ€.” [/blockquote]
Naturally, because you conflate mass murderers (a tiny group, not restricted to particular beliefs) with a broad class of people that you don’t like.
[blockquote] And how many orthodox evangelicals and Anglo Catholics are truly involved in such activity I wonder? And how successful are their efforts? [/blockquote]
You clearly haven’t understood what I wrote above. I suggest re-reading it. As it happens, this chap appears to have had liberal theological beliefs, and to have lived in a country dominated by liberal christianity. But I don’t read too much into that – these people are very rare, and they can belong to any creed (or no creed at all) or political affiliation.
Incidentally, why have you brought this topic up on this thread, and not on the thread which is devoted to it?
Northener also wrote:
[blockquote] “..and as for this term…the “orthodox evangelicals†(pray tell me..what are the rest of us who believe, live out and preach Christ Crucified, Risen, Ascended and Lord just as much as you seek to do, and will strive to do so until our dying breath!)” [/blockquote]
That is entirely a matter for you. It seems clear that you see yourself as different to orthodox evangelicals, but since I don’t know your precise beliefs, I can’t comment on why you see it that way.
[blockquote] “Along with the Anglo Catholics, they can’t have done much “reasoning†with this bloke can they?….” [/blockquote]
Let me get this straight: you are complaining that members of the Church of England have failed to talk with a man who has lived in Norway his entire life? Pardon me if I don’t follow your logic…
[blockquote] “,,and also, please do not try to shift the blame onto Nick Holtam et al…the personal responsibility for this, and accountability for this, and thinking behind this act lies solely with to the man who carried out this act and any accomplices he may have had. Nobody else!” [/blockquote]
Thank you. At several places on this and on the Norway thread you have insinuated that the accountability and thinking behind this act lies in some way with other people, whose theology and/or political beliefs you dislike. That was of course nonsense.
I have merely pointed out that, insofar as your reasoning had any validity, it applies with equal or greater force to liberal Christians. But I think the truth is that your reasoning was misconceived from the start.
northerner, as someone who has connections with Norway I’m finding your arguments here and elsewhere not only a little bit offensive but, frankly, bizarre. You clearly have little understanding as to what it is that Breivik actually believes and how unrepresentative he is of orthodox Christian thinking.
Instead of taking advantage of an appalling and wicked situation in order to make cheap and nonsensical jabs at traditional evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, who have nothing whatsoever to do with the atrocities of this madman, how about you say a prayer for those who are actually suffering right now (many of whom will be Christians).
I am NOT attempting to make cheap jabs…but these people are part of “our” problem as a church. To hide our head in the sand and pretend otherwise is as foolish as it is dangerous. The best side of the church is seen by the compassionate support the Lutheran church in Norway and many others besides, traditional evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics amongst them are providing to those grieving in Norway.
Finally farstrider, what about the many many deeply and equally offensive comments that are made the less “traditional” but equally authentic evangelicals and more liberal Catholics on here. How characteristically odd that you remain silent about those. Why not take the people who make such comments to task. Or is that too much to ask for?
There have been some disgraceful comments at times made about many decent, faithful people who they do not even know yet think they have the right to denigrate as if they have the divine right to do so.
You don’t have to go far in America for instance to find the likes of Westboro “Church” and Dove “church”. Yes there areb oads of other great churches Stateside, but there are many others which are dubious to say the least.
I know everyone abhors what has gone on in Norway, but it is something we, and I mean “we”. all of us, have to face up to and actively challenge whenever and wherever we come across it. The church, and the world, will be a lot better place if we do.
And that also goes for my wing of the church, for all the health/weath/prosperity gospel rubbish that is espoused…which only takes root and spreads because nobody challenges it..that is all I am trying to say. I am sorry of you feel that this is unwarranted but I believe it to be true.
And Michael, as for this guy having “liberal” leanings, he stated yesterday that he aligns hmself with the “Knights Tempar” in his crusade against islam. who, correct me if I am wrong, are on the loony fringe of the Roman Catholic church, not the liberal wing.
Much has been made on his own website that he described himself as “conservative and Christian”. The fact that he is certainly not the latter is obvious, but whether conservatism politically mixes with religious/Christian conservatism (and please note the word “extreme” I am not getting at anyone here before you start pounding the keyboards) can be atoxic, dangerous mix.,,just as dangerous as liberalism politically and Christian liberalism is.
Aand please farstrider..please do not make assumptions about my prayer life. Who gave you the right or the authority to do so?
Of course I am praying for the many Norwegians affected by this both in Norway and elsewhere who are affected by this awful tragedy…please do not be so presumptious… and I am hoping to be able get along to the Norwegian church here in Liverpool, which they are opening up specially on Wednesday to pray and sign a book of condolences which is being opened for anyone to partake in should they wish to do so.
Maybe my prayers will not be answered as quickly or be heard as compassionately as yours undoubtedly are but I will still be offering them up.
Northener’s wrote at #63:
[blockquote] “I am NOT attempting to make cheap jabs…but these people are part of “our†problem as a church.” [/blockquote]
Who are “these people”? You appear to change the definition (if you even have one) from sentence to sentence.
[blockquote] “Finally farstrider, what about the many many deeply and equally offensive comments that are made the less “traditional†but equally authentic evangelicals and more liberal Catholics on here.” [/blockquote]
What “equally offensive comments”? I challenge you to show even one. A number of people have made the point that orthodox evangelicals and anglo-catholics have significant disagreements on doctrinal issues with liberal evangelicals and liberal catholics. Indeed, we do not consider the liberal versions to be either “evangelical” or “catholic” in a meaningful sense. You may well object to that. But it is a world away from your insinuations that there is a connection between orthodox Christians and the mass murderer in Norway.
[blockquote] “There have been some disgraceful comments at times made about many decent, faithful people who they do not even know yet think they have the right to denigrate as if they have the divine right to do so.” [/blockquote]
Really? Which “disgraceful comments” are you referring to?
[blockquote] “I know everyone abhors what has gone on in Norway, but it is something we, and I mean “weâ€. all of us, have to face up to and actively challenge whenever and wherever we come across it.” [/blockquote]
Whenever we come across mass murder? What on earth are you talking about?
[blockquote] “You don’t have to go far in America for instance to find the likes of Westboro “Church†and Dove “churchâ€.” [/blockquote]
To the contrary – You have to go a long way to find churches like these. You have simply picked the two most controversial congregations you can find (not even Anglican) and then blithely assume that a large number of American churches (presumably including anyone whose doctrine you don’t like) are the same as them. Without any rational reason to do so. You are doing exactly what you have complained about in others.
[blockquote] “And Michael, as for this guy having “liberal†leanings, he stated yesterday that he aligns hmself with the “Knights Tempar†in his crusade against islam. who, correct me if I am wrong, are on the loony fringe of the Roman Catholic church, not the liberal wing.” [/blockquote]
Firstly, its Knights Templar, not Knights Tempar. From the word “temple”.
Secondly, the Knights Templar are not in any “wing” of the Roman Catholic Church – they ceased to exist in the 14th century.
Thirdly, the man in Norway made it quite clear that he does not accept the authority of scripture or of church tradition, but picks and chooses what he wants to believe out of them all. That is liberalism.
[blockquote] “Much has been made on his own website that he described himself as “conservative and Christianâ€.” [/blockquote]
As do some liberals. Some of them also describe themselves as “evangelical”, “anglo-catholic” and many other things besides. This chap can describe himself as anything he likes. He can claim to be a buddhist nun, but that doesn’t mean he is one.
[blockquote] “(and please note the word “extreme†I am not getting at anyone here before you start pounding the keyboards)” [/blockquote]
?? Would you mind pointing out to me where you used the word “extreme” in your post?
[blockquote] “can be atoxic, dangerous mix.,,just as dangerous as liberalism politically and Christian liberalism is” [/blockquote]
Of course. Any belief can be so – that has been our point. You were the one who tried to draw a connection between this mass murderer and “conservative evangelicals”, which has no foundation.
Northerner,
[blockquote]Aand please farstrider..please do not make assumptions about my prayer life. Who gave you the right or the authority to do so?[/blockquote]
Two points: 1) I didn’t make assumptions about your prayer life. I suggested that you pray instead of making wild and inappropriate linkages between traditional Christians and a madman. 2) As to rights and authority, I suppose the same person who gave you the same with regards to you accusations. Kettle meet pot.
As Michael has pointed out, Breivik isn’t associated with the historical Knights Templar; he claims to have formed a group (the truth of which we can’t assess yet) which he has called the Knights Templar. He sees this group as defending “cultural Christianity,” but distinguishes it from a religiously Christian group. He has described himself as pro-gay. He supports a Christian ethos that de-emphasises belief and doctrine and exalts reason, as per the Enlightenment. How exactly is he “conservative,” theologically?
As to how we should respond, we should do precisely what we have been doing: disavow his behavior and point out the very wide chasm that lies between him and genuine Christian belief. To dance around as though he signifies a problem within the Church is wrongheaded and unhelpful. It bolsters Breivik’s propaganda rather than the truth of the matter.
[blockquote]…these people are part of “our†problem as a church.[/blockquote] Because he used the word “Christian”? Breivik, again, is a madman. He doesn’t represent a Christian demographic. Suggesting that he represents a wider “Christian” threat is ridiculous.
[blockquote]Finally farstrider, what about the many many deeply and equally offensive comments that are made the less “traditional†but equally authentic evangelicals and more liberal Catholics on here. How characteristically odd that you remain silent about those. Why not take the people who make such comments to task. Or is that too much to ask for?[/blockquote]
Yes it is too much to ask for because there is no comparison to be made between theological debate and suggesting that what happened in Norway is somehow related to traditional Christian beliefs. One is useful (iron sharpening iron), the other is appallingly bad form, not to mention illogical.
Comment migrated response from here
Northener said:
#41 As I said, I will think about your comment. Meanwhile if you can find it [CEEC’s website is not the most outstandingly easy to find things on] why not consider whether their following motion is something which is a good idea? They are probably more representative of Evangelicals than I am. Do you know if Bishop Kings and Dr Paul are going to be more constructive at the New Wine meeting than just banging on about the Code of Practice?
#42
I have looked at the CEEC website and I really like and admire Michael Lawson’s refreshingly wise and gracious approach and appeal. I share his sentiments.
As you indicate, it is not the best website user friendly wise, but then again, neither is Fulcrum’s.
The only thing I would have liked would be for the Following Motion suggested text to a lot more specific about the amendments opponents feel that the House of Bishops should make to the legislation. It feels too vague, general and wishy washy to me.
If the House of Bishops make amendmentsnd bring them to the Synod for further discussion followed by possible clarification, how can they know whether they will be acceptable if it is not made clear what is required.
With regard to messrs Kings and Paul…I hope they are constructive.
I am none too keen whe anyone bangs on about something continually…including myself!
I shall let you know when I return in about a couple of weeks time.
#69 Northener
I do find a disconnect between your post asking for suggestions diocesan synod can take on board to take account of peoples’ needs here and the pay them off or require them to knuckle under comment here. It is sometimes quite hard to get to grips with what you write as a consistent view.
Nevertheless, responding to your comment on the CEEC following motion, I would say that for the purposes which you express the need for clarity, the CEEC strikes exactly the right note for a diocesan synod here
In essence it is not for each diocesan synod to attempt to come up with a draft scheme or piece of legislation; it is open to a diocesan synod to submit a motion to synod if it does wish synod to debate such a proposal.
Instead the following motion does strike exactly the right note in my view, and is in effect a “think again” request to the HOB and Synod qualifying its approval in general terms of the women bishops principle.
For the purposes of such a diocesan following motion, it should not be specific [less often in drafting being more], but it does call for a legal scheme to be put in place, and I would suggest that the correct people to be consulted rather than me on the details of that scheme are those for whom it is designed, and those who will be affected by it. These include the diocesan bishops of the HOB and the individual parishes and priests whose needs it is designed to meet. Although all the latter are not necessarily in those bodies, there are organisations within the church which already have an extensive set of published views and apparently have already given their views in the consultations already established including that initiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury with some of the evangelical groups. To clarify who should be being talked to, they include CEEC and its constituent members, Forward in Faith, the bodies in synod representing the Catholic end of the church and the synod evangelical bodies. It is only by clarifying what will and won’t satisfy their needs in terms of sacramental assurance at the catholic end and headship belief at the evangelical end that one will get a scheme that those who are being asked to live under it will have their needs looked after by the wider Church of England.
I don’t want to speculate on specific schemes beyond saying that the major objection to a legal scheme, that it detracts from a geographical diocesan’s status is not necessarily the case:
1. The royal peculiars including that of Westminster Abbey do not detract from the Bishop of London or the Archbishop of Canterbury’s status even though the royal writ rather than theirs runs there.
2. There are affinity groups within the CofE who also operate outside and across a geographical diocesan’s writ: the PEVs [flying bishops] appointed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York; the military chaplaincies, and some of the “fresh expressions” and indeed the Church Army.
Moreover, the male diocesans have lived with such arrangements without complaint or feeling that their authority is being threatened in the way that WATCH, Affirming Catholicism and some parts of Fulcrum have been concerned with for women bishops. I am not sure why it should be an issue for women bishops rather than male ones.
As I say, it is not my decision but I suspect that some sort of PEV arrangement would be the answer. We already have a long established and working system and I am not keen on reinventing the wheel, when we already have a scheme which is tried and trusted.
But a legally established arrangement needs to be enshrined in the legislation. A code of practice of delegated authority at the behest of a woman [or male] bishop would not be adequate:
1. firstly because it does not address the issues of sacramental assurance and of headship; and
2. secondly and more practically because some of those slated to become women bishops have already written that they will not be taking what parishes say at face value but will be seeking to explore ways through their differences. In other words they can’t be trusted to keep to a voluntary code of practice and will play merry hell resisting those who want such oversight, much as we saw in Southwark with Tom Butler and in Worcester with Peter Selby, and in Chelmsford over an ordinand with John Gladwin.
In many ways this is an issue for the HOB to sort out, because it is a problem of their making. I am reminded of the advice of Bishop Tom Wright that if this issue is engaged by the Church of England at this stage of the divisive life of the Communion it is likely to be disasterous and divisive. His warning was ignored, and his prediction has been pretty much borne out. However, we are where we are, the Ordinariate and AMiE have come out of the resulting mess, and as ever we do not have to continue along the same path but have an opportunity to deal with one another in a Christian way, waiting for our brothers and sisters and not putting obstacles in their paths. I hope that Liverpool diosesan synod, Fulcrum, the HOB and the wider CofE have a think about this.
#41
Pageant Master…
Can you hear the fanfare of trumpets!!??
Here is the beginning of my long-awaited response to your queries.
Unfortunately in between them will be sandwiched New Wine so I will start today and probably continue next week if that is OK.
Re Experience of Men and Women in Ministry
Like you I have encountered a number of NSM/LLMs/OLMs and Readers who are frustrated that they are asked to do things that the stipendiary clergy aren’t too keen on. The other frustration is where NSM/OLM/LLM ordination appears to be viewed by some stipendiary priests/ministers as an “inferior calling” – to which I would retort OK you try and keep down a full time job, spend quality time with family, pay your mortgage, and do your church business of an evening and weekend. It can, and often is, done very skilfully and sensitively by many, so I can understand their frustration.
The other frustration is with those who maybe are not fortunate enough to enjoy a good working relationship with their stipendiary incumbent colleagues. I am very fortunate to have been licensed to a church which has for many years now had a strong committment to collaborative clergy/lay ministry and leadership. I know of a number of others who at times find it very difficult to feel fulfilled in their minsitry which is desperately sad I feel.
A plea here to both clergy and Readers, male and female…it is not just about “us” and “our” leading, preaching, teaching and other ministries. One of the things that delighted me most (amongst many things) in reading the tributes to John Stott was how he went about actively encouraging, enabling, developing and building up lay leadership at All Souls as well as clerical leadership. It surely must be imperative in any church that the people of God are fully equipped for works of service.
Indded, I would contend that this is one of the primary roles/tasks of any ordinand…and he/she is to be joined in that task by Readers and others too…Readers are not the only form of lay ministry that God can somehow use…and I speak as one…I get really frustrated sometimes at how precious some Readers (and some clergy too) get about their own ministries..when in effect, a large part of their own existence and calling is to seek out, develop and release the giftings and minsitries of others, both in the life of the church and out into the wider community too. Maybe that is because some are frustrated and feeling marginalised..but it is still a worrying feature nonetheless.
One other plea if I may…please can we stop seeing Reader ministry in particular primarily as a natural stepping stone on the way to ordination. For some that is the case, and they begin their journey as Readers, but for the majority of people in our churches, many Readers included, there is a lay calling which is permanent, and is every bit as valuable as valuable as any other calling, and we need to be providing structures and training which seek to release each and every lay member to fulfil their own high calling should they wish to do so….and no…once you show some potential for leadership or ministry it should no necessariy be a case of “OK…let’s”Reader” them or “ordain them”. That is the right course for some, but a one size fits all approach to this can be pretty disastrous in my view.
I agree also PM re the paucity of information that some bereaved family members provide. This clearly doesn’t assist Clergy and Readers in carrying out what is already a very difficult task. However, I remember one female ordinand friend of mine going round to a bereavement family where there had clearly been a lot of tension in the family, but the deceased person, not a regular church member, had specifically wanted a funeral at the Parish Church. The remaining family members clearly felt that this was somewhat hypocritical. It was therefore very difficult for my friend to glean or elicit information from the family members (almost like attempting to draw blood from a stone whilst simultaneously pulling teeth), that was in any way helpful or constructive other than the most basic of details.
I so agree re there being no difference in standard between male and female ordinands or Readers ..there are excellent and sub-standard amongst both–that’s life etc and it is more about the theological arguments involved.
One of my concerns is that, should the WO vote go through, that the right women are chosen to be Bishops in terms of their skillset, giftings, anointing, temperament, reasonableness etc. The same argument goes for the male Bishops too.
I will however find it difficult if opponents of WO are prepared to argue that a women evangeliCal Bishop is unacceptable, but a liberal male Bishop can be tolerated, although not desired, purely on the basis of their gender. That doesn’t wash with me I am afraid. That it is somehow OK to believe all the fundamentals of the faith and be unacceptable as a Bishop whereas you can deny the Resurrection but tolerated because you are male.
You may choose to respond …aaah yes but we should be finding this out beforehand and only ordaining orthodox evangelical or Anglo/Catholic Bishops…but I am afraiad we have to deal with the Church of England as it is…not some idealised form of it that does not yet exist, even though we feel we must strive for it.
We are where we are and we have to face up to that I feel.
And now onto the meaty stuff…the theological arguments for and against ordaining women as Bishops, Alternative provision and also How we deal with one another re#42.
I shall do it on another post…coming soon!
I am taking the liberty of cross-posting The Northener’s response to my #41 and my following comments in this thread from this thread as it may be more helpful to deal with them together:
[blockquote]60. The Northener wrote:
PM re #53 & 54
At long last you may cry…some thoughts from Northerner re your comments on the theological arguments for and against women bishops…
Here’s a starter for ten…
†The arguments about this are not about fitness or suitability of individual women but about theology. There are some who object to women in ministry for prejudicial or mysogenistic reasons, but this has not been what the discussion in the church has been about.â€
I ‘m afraid I cannot let this sentence pass without some form of comment. Firstly thank you. You are the first opponent of WO, whether it be to the priesthood or the Episcopate who has had the decency and the honesty to come clean and admit that that there is some degree of prejudice and misogyny in the mix at times.
Even if they may be in the minority permit me to ask this if I may. When such attitudes are encountered by the majority of opponents who do not hold such prejudices, but prefer to base it on theological arguuments, is such behaviour openly challenged in any way, whatever form it may take? Or is there a tenednecy to go ignore it for fear of being seen to be too “soft†on the WO cause.
Let’s face it..muted, embarrased silence is not much short of tacit approval is it not?
These people are allowed to get away with some pretty offensive language and behaviour, both amongst their own supporters and towards women priests in general hence the experience of my female vicar friend at the crematorium referred to in an earlier post.
You have hit the nail right on the head in my view, when you say this has not what the discussions in the church have been about. The problem is that the church should have been having such discussions…and they should have been leading to some probing questions.
Such as, why do women priests generally not report such behaviour, especially such as that of the retired male priest at the crematorium, especially where it is not just a one off but a regular occurrence at Parish, Deanery or Diocesan level? And if they did, would any Bishop be prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action against such “misogynistic, prejudicial†behaviour? I wonder?
Just because you don’t believe in women as priests and/or Bishops does NOT in any way, give anyone the right to verbally abuse, demean, or humiliate women ordinands. I do not see or hear the many decent opponents of WO taking on these elements within their own side, or indeed whether there are is any future intention to do so, especially if women are at some point admitted to the Episcopate in the C of E.
“Broadly the theological arguments in regard to women in the episcopacy have fallen into two groups:â€
“Well it is because of the Catholic understanding of the Priesthood and the Eucharist, in which the role of the priest is leading the people under a bishop leading the diocese in the collective sacrifice of the Eucharist. The valid action of a bishop and priest in this understanding is absolutely key to the validity of the sacrament of the Eucharist.â€
As you would probably expect, although I respect the right for many to hold this view, I am not much of a proponent of it myself.
Although I passionately feel that the Eucharist/communion is to be celebrated, I think too much is made of the role of the priest. As I mentioned in my last post, I would contend that the role of the priest in the Catholic tradition is way too focused purely on the sacramental aspects of the priestly ministry and far too much attention is paid to the role of the priest himself
I don’t quite know how this happened, but our Treasurer, in order to obtain funding for one of our Associate Ministers while he was with us, applied for funding from the Additional Curates Society, one of the most Anglo Catholic societies around!
She successfully got it too and frequently passed the latest issue of the ACS magazine around to members of the leadership team..The chief mantra each time of this august body was “Dear Lord, give us priests…give us priests..give us priests…to which could be added…and just in case you didn’t hear us first time…give us some more priests…â€
Clearly the notion of a fulfilled laity being released to fulfil their own calling using their numerous giftings and ministries in collaboration with,and under the leadership of, priests/ordained ministers, clearly wasn’t even remotely on their radar.
The focus of so much authority, influence and power being focussed in one man or maybe two at parish level at best is worrying, and at worst is extremely dangerous. Opposition on sacramental grounds, although understandable , is not convincing I feel.
And I have long been in favour, both on theological and practical grounds, of an episcopally authorised and licensed from of localised lay presidency at communion/eucharistic services.
It would help resolve many of the problems in rural areas in particular, where communion services are restricted due to lack of a priest to preside at them, and would be preferable to reserved sacrament as it would be presided over by someone who is known, loved and respected within the congregation/area/locality.
I am sure many on here will disagree somehow!
I will comment on the evangelical objections re male headship shortly, but unfortunately it will have to be early next week as it is now Wednesday morning and I am heading off to New Wine in about an hour.[/blockquote]
I also cross post my response from that thread:
#60 Hello Northener
May I suggest that since you are giving “some thoughts from Northerner re your comments on the theological arguments for and against women bishops”, that we discuss them on the thread where they are to be found here as we agreed earlier?
I am also busy so may take some time to respond, but there may be some merit in you taking the time when you are not rushed to get to New Wine, to go back in detail through the arguments linked in that post dealing with the issues of Apostolic Succession and Headship held not only by those in the CofE who have problems with women bishops, but also with the majority of the world’s Christians in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Hopefully with a bit more time spent you will also be more able to engage fully with the theological issues and to avoid saying things like:
[blockquote]Firstly thank you. You are the first opponent of WO, whether it be to the priesthood or the Episcopate who has had the decency and the honesty….[/blockquote]
when I had earlier in the same thread said:
[blockquote]For myself, I am not particularly bothered about women priests, or women bishops but I do accept that my view should not be determinitive, but subject to 1. my acceptance of the right of my church to teach on this issue; and 2. My belief that we should indeed be ‘one’ with other Christians and I do not want to see further division between ourselves and the Catholics and Orthodox who we have been trying to build bridges with and restore mutual communion of doctrine, ministry and sacraments with.[/blockquote]
although I do accept that it is hard to keep up with the line of argument from different people when responses are posted to comments on umpteen different other threads.
May I also make a plea to you. I have been reading Fulcrum’s statements on unity in the Church of England and on women bishops. It seems to me that there is a disconnect on the one hand between Fulcrum’s determined opposition to any statutory provision such as we already have with PEV’s for those who have conscientious theological objections to women bishops, even to the extent of reacting angrily to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York’s proposals for such a compromise at the penultimate Synod, while on the other hand saying that it is essential that unity in the Church of England must be maintained at all costs.
My question to Bishop Kings, Stephen Kuhrt, Ian Paul and other members of the Fulcrum leadership team is this:
What are you prepared to do to maintain unity in the Church of England?
If you see any of them at New Wine, at the seminar on women bishops, please ask them, and encourage them to engage here with their answer. Alternatively if they do not wish to engage in such open and honest discussion on T19, perhaps you will report back on what they say?
Northener wrote at #71,
I applaud this, and you have put your finger on the precise reason why AMiE exists.
I agree that it would be hypocritical for an evangelical to oppose women bishops, yet accept male bishops who reject orthodoxy.
This is why orthodox evangelicals have publicly spoken out against bishops who openly reject orthodoxy. Take for example, the churches in diocese of Newcastle who told their bishop in 1998 that they could not accept his Episcopal authority and ministry, after he had publicly stated that homosexual practice within a loving, permanent relationship is not sin. Or the churches in Southwark in 2005 who declined to accept the authority of their bishop in so far as he used it to support liberal teaching.
AMiE is just a more recent manifestation of the same trend. It shows that orthodox evangelicals at least are being true to their convictions.
I don’t follow this. You were discussing women bishops – at the present time they are not legal in the Church of England. There is no guarantee that they will ever be legal.
It also appears (although I might have misunderstood you) that you are suggesting that we should accept a situation where bishops are not orthodox. I don’t see why that follows – it may indeed be the case that non-orthodox bishops are widespread in CofE, as you seem to imply. But its not the first time that the Church has faced a situation like this (actually, many times in its 2,000 year history) and the answer is simply that we have to work to ensure that those believe what is right and live what they believe are the ones who get preferment.