and Windsor Report Recommendations and Scripture
– Places position of Archbishop of Canterbury and Church of England in Anglican Communion in doubt
– Assurances given by Arun Arora and William Fittall turn out to be dissembling, Peter Ould’s report vindicated
Recommendation 16. We believe that there can be circumstances where a priest,
with the agreement of the relevant PCC, should be free to mark the
formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service
but should be under no obligation to do so. Some of us do not
believe that this can be extended to same sex marriage. (Paragraphs
120, 380”“3) [Pilling Report Page 151]
Read it all and the 18 recommendations on pages 149 to 152
The Bishop of Birkenhead has issued a dissenting report at page 119 including:
after much prayer and soul searching, I have concluded I cannot sign.
416. Why have I reached this conclusion? For a number of reasons
which I try to set out in more detail in this statement:â— I believe Scripture and Christian tradition offer a clearer and
better vision from God for the world in his gift of our
sexuality as men and women and that this is sufficient for
directing the Church at this critical time of major cultural
change. In particular, I am not persuaded that the biblical
witness on same sex sexual behaviour is unclear.â— I believe the trajectory in the Report will undermine the
discipleship and pastoral care of many faithful Christians
and, by leading the Church into the kind of cultural captivity
which much of the prophetic writings warn against, weaken
our commitment to God’s mission.â— I believe in the unity of Christ’s Church and think the Report
has not heeded the view of General Synod expressed in
February 2007 that ”˜efforts to prevent the diversity of
opinion about human sexuality creating further division and
impaired fellowship within the Church of England and the
Anglican Communion… would not be advanced by doing
anything that could be perceived as the Church of England
qualifying its commitment to the entirety of the relevant
Lambeth Conference Resolutions (1978: 10; 1988: 64;
1998: 1.10)’.
The Bishop of Birkenhead also contributed a paper ‘Scripture and Same Sex Relationships’ [pages 158-175 of the Pilling Report]
Global South Warnings and Exhortations to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England:
The Statement of the Primates of the Global South in January 2013:
We, Primates of the Global South of the Anglican Communion, are deeply concerned and worried by the recent decision of the Church of England’s House of Bishops which approves that clergy living in civil partnerships can be candidates to the episcopate……
…both the decision to permit clergy to enter civil partnerships and this latest decision which some call it a “local option,” are wrong and were taken without prior consultation or consensus with the rest of the Anglican Communion at a time when the Communion is still facing major challenges of disunity. It is contrary to “the inter-dependence” which we try to affirm between churches within the Communion. Moreover, it does not only widen the gap between the Church of England and Anglicans in the Global South, it also widens the gap between the Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners. Further, it jeopardizes the relationship between us Anglicans living in the Global South and followers of other faiths, and gives opportunities to exploit such departure of moral standards that this type of decision may provide.
The Church, more than any time before, needs to stand firm for the faith once received from Jesus Christ through the Apostles and not yield to the pressures of the society! In other words, the Church needs to be “salt” and “light” and to present a distinctive message from that of the secular world around us.
We strongly urge the Church of England to reconsider this divisive decision.
Archbishop Wabukala’s Letter of July 2013:
we are painfully aware that the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada continue to promote a false gospel and yet both are still received as in good standing by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Furthermore, the Church of England itself, the historic mother church of the Communion, seems to be advancing along the same path. While defending marriage, both the Archbishops of York and Canterbury appeared at the same time to approve of same-sex Civil Partnerships during parliamentary debates on the UK’s ”˜gay marriage’ legislation, in contradiction to the historic biblical teaching on human sexuality reaffirmed by the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
In these circumstances, attempts to achieve unity based merely on common humanitarianism and dialogue, without repentance, sacrifice the transforming power of the gospel….
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
The GAFCON II Communique and Commitment of October 2013:
4.We commit ourselves to defend essential truths of the biblical faith even when this defence threatens existing structures of human authority (Acts 5:29). For this reason, the bishops at GAFCON 2013 resolved ”˜to affirm and endorse the position of the Primates’ Council in providing oversight in cases where provinces and dioceses compromise biblical faith, including the affirmation of a duly discerned call to ministry. This may involve ordination and consecration if the situation requires.’
5.We commit ourselves to the support and defence of those who in standing for apostolic truth are marginalized or excluded from formal communion with other Anglicans in their dioceses. We have therefore recognized the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) as an expression of authentic Anglicanism both for those within and outside the Church of England, and welcomed their intention to appoint a General Secretary of AMiE.
6.We commit ourselves to teach about God’s good purposes in marriage and in singleness. Marriage is a life-long exclusive union between a man and a woman. We exhort all people to work and pray for the building and strengthening of healthy marriages and families. For this reason, we oppose the secular tide running in favour of cohabitation and same-sex marriage
TEXTS:
Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10 ‘Human Sexuality’ [n.b. links to the resolution on ACO websites no longer appear to work]
This Conference:
– commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;
– in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;
– recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We
commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
– while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
– cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
– requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
– notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process
Letter of Rowan Williams in 2006
“In my judgement, we cannot properly or usefully re-open the discussion as if Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 did not continue to represent the general mind of the Communion.”
Disobedience by Archbishops
Archbishop John Sentamu in House of Lords Debate on Same Sex Marriage June 2013:
“What do you do with people in same sex relationships that are committed, that are loving, that are Christian?”.
“Would you rather bless a sheep and a tree but not them? That is a big question to which we are going to come and the moment is not now. We are dealing with legislation as we’ve got.”
Archbishop Justin Welby in House of Lords Debate on Same Sex Marriage:
“It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage”
[i]Queer theology is becoming a distinctive genre in its own
right[/i]
Right up there with the Lesbian Hermeneutic according to the report.
So, if I understand this line of reasoning, any aggrieved group, [i]any[/i], can pull out a lens through which to view scripture and thus obtain the endorsement which they seek?
I really can’t see how to square this with the testimony of the Book of Revelation.
Oh dear! The report was insufficiently nuanced, and someone noticed what it actually says. Not the intent at all. Heads will roll.
So Peter Ould’s prediction was right on.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord
Joshua 24:15
#4- Pity that the bishops of the CoE are unfamiliar with the book your quote is taken from.
Well it’s the TEC script almost to a letter. Anyone remember when the TEC House of Bishops angrily denied that TEC permitted blessings of same sex relationships because no liturgy had been approved by General Convention?
If the local option can get its nose in the tent the rest of the camel isn’t far behind. It will lead to an official blessing liturgy in 4 or 5 years and a marriage liturgy shortly thereafter.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2 Timothy 3:12-13
But CofE members who object to female priests or bishops should totally trust the organization to take care of them.
Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.â€
1 Corinthians 15:33
One cannot tell the history of the LGBT movement in the Anglican Communion without listing the ad hoc groups
–the Lambeth Commission (2003-4), which looked at polity, but not the theology of sexuality or sin;
–the consultation group commissioned by the Joint Standing Committee to write a paper on the covenant (2005), thereby moving approval for the covenant from the primates to the ACC;
–the Communion Subgroup reporting to the primates at Dar es Salaam (2007) that the General Convention of TEC had met the requirements of the Windsor Report;
–an ad hoc committee (not the Covenant Design Group) considerably revised section 4 (the disciplinary section) of the proposed Covenant (2009)
–now the Pilling group.
[blockquote] 11. Whilst abiding by the Church’s traditional teaching
on human sexuality . . . [/blockquote]
[blockquote]13. The Church needs to find ways of honouring and affirming those Christians who experience same sex attraction . . . who in good conscience have entered partnerships with a firm intention of life-long fidelity.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]16. We believe that there can be circumstances where a priest . . . should be free to mark the formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service[/blockquote]
One cannot affirm and publicly mark same sex partnerships whilst abiding by the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality. I’ve come to expect it, but nonetheless am still amazed by the lies told by ecclesiastical authorities.
In skimming the Pilling Report, I could not help think of an [url=http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/blog/comments/look_not_to_cantuar]article[/url] I wrote almost eight years ago regarding the “Windsor processâ€:
[blockquote]I have recently read two articles that suggest analogies for our present situation in the Communion. The first is from [i]The Economist[/i] (21 January 2006, page 33) comparing “hard power†and “soft power†approaches to Iran. While noting the value of combining approaches, the article characterizes true believers in soft power thus:
[i]To those who think like this, the talking can never stop. Some Europeans still say that military action is inconceivable and threats of sanctions are unhelpful. This seems a characteristic European cast of mind. Nothing is ever decided. The European project is never finished. And even if something seems to have been tried and failed, there is always a chance to try – and fail? – again.[/i]
This strikes me as characteristic of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion office in dealing with the provocations of the North American churches since Lambeth 1998. Needless to say, there is a steep price to be paid further down the road for a dogmatic policy of appeasement. That price, in my view, will be the dissolution of the Communion. [/blockquote]
Now that the United States is governed by a President who “leads from behind†(even behind the French!), we get the Munich, er, the Geneva agreement. [url=http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365132/surrender-geneva-mark-steyn]Mark Steyn[/url] in fact treats Neville Chamberlain kindly when compared to our fearless leaders:
[blockquote]The Munich Agreement’s language is brutal and unsparing, all “shallâ€s and “willâ€s: Paragraph 1) “The evacuation will begin on 1 Octoberâ€; Paragraph 4) “The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order.†By contrast, the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, plus Germany) “Joint Plan of Action†barely reads like an international agreement at all. It’s all conditional, a forest of “wouldâ€s: “There would be additional steps in between the initial measures and the final step…†In the postmodern phase of Western resolve, it’s an agreement to reach an agreement — supposedly within six months. But one gets the strong impression that, when that six-month deadline comes and goes, the temporary agreement will trundle along semi-permanently to the satisfaction of all parties.[/blockquote]
We wizened Yankee veterans of [url=http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=94136] “Continuing the Dialogueâ€[/url] (remember that?) can tell our wet-behind-the-ears British cousins where the Pilling Report will lead. The only question of idle interest in comparing it with Munich and Geneva is whether the Pilling authors [i]want[/i] the full acceptance of same-sex marriage in the Church. Surely Chamberlain and Obama would have preferred if the Supreme Leaders in Germany and Iran had voluntarily renounced their aggressive plans. It is not clear whether the Pilling group were bowing to or rejoicing in the “rapidly changing context†of the postmodern quest to abolish marriage. Either way, the result will be the same.
I believe there is a call. Please pray, if you will, for us all in the Anglican Communion and particularly for the Church of England – for repentence and for humility, and for us to turn to God who is always faithful, loving and wants nothing more than for us to turn back to Him. Thank you and bless you. PM
Listen to the LORD, you leaders of Israel! Listen to the law of our God, people of Israel. You act just like the rulers and people of Sodom and Gomorrah. “I am sick of your sacrifices,” says the LORD. “Don’t bring me any more burnt offerings! I don’t want the fat from your rams or other animals. I don’t want to see the blood from your offerings of bulls and rams and goats. Why do you keep parading through my courts with your worthless sacrifices? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils! Your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath day, and your special days for fasting — even your most pious meetings — are all sinful and false. I want nothing more to do with them. I hate all your festivals and sacrifices. I cannot stand the sight of them! From now on, when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look. Even though you offer many prayers, I will not listen. For your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims. Wash yourselves and be clean! Let me no longer see your evil deeds. Give up your wicked ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows. “Come now, let us argue this out,” says the LORD. “No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool. If you will only obey me and let me help you, then you will have plenty to eat. But if you keep turning away and refusing to listen, you will be destroyed by your enemies. I, the LORD, have spoken!”
Isaiah 1:10-23 NLT
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.
2 Chronicles 7:14-15
An assortment of prayers for the Church of England may be found [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/?s=Church+of+England]here[/url]. Some specific prayers of repentance: [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/abortion-in-england/]abortion in England[/url], [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/church-of-england-anglican-communion-repentance-for-dividing-israel/]dividing Israel[/url], [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/our-wounded-anglican-history-the-king-of-england-beheaded/]civil war[/url], and [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/england-our-pagan-roots/]idolatry[/url]. There are plenty more; just dig around the first link.
[blockquote] “Would you rather bless a sheep and a tree but not them? That is a big question to which we are going to come and the moment is not now. We are dealing with legislation as we’ve got.†Archbishop John Sentamu [/blockquote]
Would he bless a sheep that loves a tree?
In TEC, the theological leftists managed to conceal their true goals until it was too late to stop them. That seems to be different here, i.e. the true goal of the majority who wrote the Pilling Report has been outed. Well done, Peter Ould.
In the States we have an aphorism that states: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Question for our UK readers: will exposure of the true agenda of those who wrote the Pilling Report reduce the likelihood of its approval?
Its not so much the small number of hardened liberal activists in CofE, but the much larger number of docile collaborators (often styling themselves ‘moderates’ or ‘evangelicals’) who are laying the groundwork for an English version of ACNA. Most of the bishops of CofE fit into the latter category.
In other words, an alternative Anglican polity in England, endorsed by large Anglican churches overseas, which siphons off the hard-working (and hard-giving) committed Anglicans from CofE parishes.
The ‘moderates’ will wail and moan and profess shock as it begins to happen. But they have caused it. They have had ample warning, yet they act like recalcitrant children.
#15-
I daresay that if Noah had taken a pair of rams, and no ewes, on the ark, there would not be many sheep around nowadays, no matter whether John Sentamu blessed the rams or not.
I would point out to the CoE Synod that this is the composition of the committee that drafted this, and the planned “facilitated conversation,” follow standard Delphi Technique practice. The committee was stacked with a bunch of revisionist bishops, and headed up by a revisionist facilitator- whose job it was to make absolutely, positively sure that the words “same sex blessing” and “gay marriage” did not slip into the report. The result was predictable, purposely ambiguous language that gives full license for same sex blessings and gay marriage under the code words “mark” and “pastoral response.” The use of ambiguous language is so that “moderate” bishops can lie to their constituencies that the report doesn’t say what it actually said.
The “facilitated conversations” will work like this:
A few tables will be set up at Synod for “hard core” conservatives. This will enable the leadership to place the most vocal opponents together so they can preach to the choir.
The vast majority of tables can then be set up with a majority of revisionists and minority of conservatives. Depending on the talent of the facilitator, these can be close numbers, as long as they are engineered to give the revisionists a slight advantage. Similar in concept to gerrymandering congressional, and I assume Parliament, districts, so that one parties voters get concentrated in a few districts, and the other party has a slight majority in many districts, allowing the party that set the thing up to maintain power long after they lose their actual majority among the overall populationa.
The facilitators, almost by definition already in the revisionist camp (ie- Communications degrees, already accept the concept that there is no such thing as right and wrong, specifically trained to bring about a compromise via Hegelian dialectic), will have, from the leadership, the predetermined answer that they are supposed to guide everyone to.
The outcome looks like this:
The few tables that are all or almost all conservative, are strongly against the proposal. But the vast majority of tables report that they favor the proposal, although most report some slight objections were raised, but the revisionists are willing to offer the “generous compromise” position, of ambiguously allowing same sex blessing and gay marriage under the facade of “marking relationships” and “pastoral response.”
You want to stop it- then stop it, but that is the plan, and that is what “facilitated conversations” and “small table groups” are all about. The facilitators are already in one camp, and the outcome is already predetermined unless it is openly derailed. You have to be willing to openly challenge the process from the very beginning, you have to be willing to openly challenge every word that comes out of the facilitators mouth, you have to be willing to be impolite, and you have to be willing to call out liars when the facilitator says things like “all at our table were committed to accepting this generous compromise in order to maintain the unity of the Church of England.”
First and foremost- you have to stop allowing the revisionists to set all the rules of the game in their favor.
+I would point out to the CoE Synod that this is the composition”
should, of course, read:
I would point out to the CoE Synod that the composition
apologies, I was on a roll….
Tjmcmahon,
I have been at such facilitated sessions and they are frustrating indeed.
Re: “…openly challenge everything…”
I remember the story of some guy who turned tables over when things weren’t going well in God’s house.
Doing that at a CofE facilitated gathering I admit might be borrowing a page from the TEc activists’ playbook, but hey, that is what turning the tables is all about.
Thank you Bishop Sinclair and God bless you.
In a western US TEC diocese, the bishop decreed that Scripture could not be brought into “facilitated conversation” – participants could only talk about their experience. In at least one church, no one showed up for the conversation when the “facilitators” appeared. When a resolution supporting the traditional understanding of marriage was sent to convention, it was referred to a “resolutions” committee and appeared on the floor as a resolution mandating “facilitated conversation”. The Pilling Report repeats the script.
There is no biblical precedent for facilitated conversation. The facilitated conversations, like the appointed ad hoc committees, are tools to manipulate the outcome.
On leaving the movie Hunger Games Catching Fire, a friend commented, “Just like the Episcopal Church–totally rigged game.”
Mostly what I have to say is “What TJ said”. :/
What will happen here is they will attempt to pass something that looks like a fudge, but it actually leans way revisionist. And then later down the road, when they apply the ramrod, the mantra will be “But, why is this a question? We already passed ‘X’.”
I’ve heard this song before, as above–“no discussion of Scripture”, just “experiences”. Oh, that’s rich. We already know that, as a female, I am “made” to have as many partners as I want, male or female; even though mine would be exclusively male–despite whatever my marriage vows were. This line of reasoning, let alone true exegesis, is not even reasoning, it’s a free-for-all bulldozer trying to get its own way. Say my “experience” is that I’ve had 95 other lovers besides my spouse…because that is my “experience”, and Scripture has nothing to do with it or nothing to say about it, does that automatically mean that all those relations are marriages, “unions”, or blessed?!! Oooo, let me wake my spouse and see how he takes that… :/
#24 States there is no biblical precedent for facilitated conversation.
Dr Phil Groves argues there is:
http://www.anglicannews.org/comment/2014/01/what-should-we-do-when-christians-disagree.aspx