#3 Baucum received the award of the ‘helpful’ including Josiah Idowu-Fearon and Cathy Grieb of TEC and Virginia Theological Seminary.
Mind you, it is unsurprising to the see the link to VTS and Iain Markham who Welby will have known from his James Jones days at Liverpool where Markham was involved in providing materials for Jones’ facilitated conversations to make the diocese more ‘open’ to gay stuff.
It is all part of Welby’s Revisionist Indaba ‘reconciliation’ plan which Baucum has been assisting. They are all old friends.
I expect +Duncan has his own reasons for what he says.
Beware the English when they are being charming. Be charmed, and you are lost.
#4 — where is the announcement of the others chosen?
Having lived in the UK for a decade, I think I have a rough feel for the cultural divide…I knew Markham when he visited St Andrews to read a paper, back in the late 90s.
“This is an historically significant appointment,†said the Most Reverend Robert Duncan, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America. “Tory is known to be a gifted teacher and preacher who is committed to the present day reformation out of which the Anglican Church in North America was born.â€
Tory’s bishop, the Right Reverend John Guernsey, commented: “Tory is a scholar with a pastor’s heart. He has a passion to reach the world for Christ and through his leadership Truro Church is being used by God to bring hundreds to faith in Jesus. I pray for the Lord to anoint his ministry afresh as he takes up this appointment.â€
I, for one, applaud this move. I am part of the same diocese with Tory Baucom+. I think he’s gotten some undeserved bad press from some conservative Anglicans. I trust him, and so does my bishop, +John Guernsey.
Can anyone possibly imagine Tory Baucom being invited to be a preacher at the National Cathedral in DC, or given any similar honor by the nefarious PB? Let’s not be too quick to condemn ++Welby.
#10 I have no information on that, although I doubt any others would warrrant a page long press release on the ABC’s and ACNA’s site together with presumably a press release and substantial PR effort from Lambeth Palace with a lot of spin which is doing the rounds. Archbishop Cranmer has an article here.
I am still awaiting my invite for wine and canapes on the 20th. Oh well.
Interesting: “Commenting on the appointment, Archbishop Justin said: “Tory is a fine scholar, an excellent preacher, and above all someone with a holistic approach to ministry. The close friendship he has forged with Bishop Shannon Johnston, despite their immensely different views, sets a pattern of reconciliation based on integrity and transparency. Such patterns of life are essential to the future of the Communion. I hope and pray that Tory’s presence as one of the Six Preachers will play a part in promoting reconciliation and unity among us.†http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5228/archbishop-appoints-us-priest-as-canterbury-preacher
Be ye reconciled to the Shannon Johnston agenda and all shall be well in the charmin’ COE, eh? Or shall the Baptist’s cry of “repent” again resound? We shall see and hear.
You’re both correct that there is some very suspicious spinning going on here, and that is disturbing. However, let’s try to be fair and extend the ABoC some benefit of the doubt.
PM, you’re correct that Lambeth Palace is trying way too hard to spin this appointment as some kind of grand and momentous event, as if it betokened what “reconciliation” looks like. In actuality, Fr. Baucom (and +Guernsey) have been very clear in their public statements, over and over again, that there is a big difference between peace-making and reconciliation. What Tory attempted was a sincere effort at making peace with +Johnston, but this proved futile when the bishop continued to act in very provocative, unbiblical, unapostolic ways, and showing no repentance at all for his strong support for the pro-gay agenda, etc. Not only did he preside over major public events where the apostate debunkers of Christianity, Dominic Crossan and later +Spong spoke, without +Johnston making any rebuttal whatsoever, but more recently he openly presided over a same-sex blessing for one of the priests in his diocese. For those who haven’t heard ot this latest outrage, Jeff Walton of IRD wrote an expose that included a picture that really says it all. There is the bishop, in cope and miter and holding his pastoral staff, smiling behind the happy (lesbian) couple, both of whom are in white wedding dresses!! Yuch.
I grant that there is troubling evidence that, to say the least, the ABoC is failing to sound a clarion call to decision similar to Joshua’s “Choose you this day whom you will serve!” If he continues to waffle and futilely try to get oil and water to mix, if he continues to issue a vague and unclear trumpet call, few of us will come forth to do battle beside him (1 Cor. 14:8).
But I still prefer to give him a bit more time and the benefit of the doubt. As I wrote above, let’s not rush to judgment. Let’s extend to the man at least as much courtesy as the American justice system gives to alleged criminals. In our courts, defendants have to be PROVEN guilty, beyond any reasonable doubt, and are presumed innocent until then. I contend that we should, in the name of the charity that “hopes all things” as well as endures all things, extend ++Welby that same grace. Yes, there are disturbing signs of waffling, to say the least, but I don’t think the man has been proven guilty yet of being a “useful idiot,” or mere puppet, who is being used, unwittingly, to continue to kick the institutional can down the road. ++Welby is no Rowan Williams. Thanks be to God.
Follow up. Matt (#12),
You’re right to highlight how dubious and misleading the press anouncement is in more ways than one. For one thing it implies that Fr. Baucom and Bp. Johnston are chums, real friends, etc., and it completely glosses over the big chill that has come over their fragile, now very strained, relationship. Lambeth Palace conveniently leaves out the fact that Tory Baucom complied promptly with +Guernsey’s insistence that he break off his attempted peacemaking with +Johnston after the latter continued to engage in scandalous, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing ways. I’m not sure how much of this dubious and misleading spin is due to ++Welby himself, and how much of the blame instead falls to his PR staff, but you’re right, Matt, that the main thing is that we continue to see ++Welby stuck in the same old futile and confusing game, using the word “reconciliation” when its unjustified and inappropriate. Any reconciliation worthy of the name must be a two-way street, with a real resolution of the differences that caused the estrangement, and both sides acknowledging their part in the breakdown of the relationship.
This plainly hasn’t happened between Fr. Baucom and +Johnston, for the latter has shown no signs of real repentance whatsoever. Instead, the man is the sort of smooth talker that Paul warns us about in Romans 16:17-18, where we are urged to have nothing to do with such men, who deceive the simple-minded and naive and pervert the gospel.
However, as I said above to PM, let’s try to be fair and give ++Welby a chance. There will come a time when he is faced with a decision that can’t be evaded, a momentous fork-in-the-road choice, either siding unmistakably with the cause of orthodoxy and the Global South, or not. I’ll grant that in my opinion, he should’ve made his choice and taken his stand before now, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll continue on this same hopeless dead-end road throughout his watch.
Let’s remember that our Master, while willing to lay his life down for us at the right time on the cross, also evaded death when it was premature. According to John’s Gospel, more than once, the Lord slipped away somehow when a crowd in Jerusalem gathered up stones to kill him, since he knew “his hour had not yet come.” Perhaps ++Welby has been granted such knowledge that his hour hasn’t yet come either. In any case, let us hope that when the fateful moment of truth finally comes, that he won’t falter or shrink back, but will follow Thomas Beckett, Thomas Cranmer, and other illustrious predecessors in his sacred office, in bearing faithful witness to the gospel, no matter what the cost, to him personally, or to the CoE.
Jesus was right. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And the CoE won’t stand much longer. Two mutually exclusive gospels are contending for mastery within her, and there is only room for one to be on top. Oil and water simply don’t mix. Never have. Never will.
#15, Fr. Handy, if indeed Dr. Baucom obeyed his bishop and drew back from further official contact with Johnston, that is helpful to the discussion. However, Welby’s citing the previous contact with such fervor in this appointment is not a good sign. After so many years of disappointment and “indaba” nonsense from Lambeth, only transparent and honest straight talk will convince me that anything has changed. Perhaps it is unfair to Welby for him to inherit an atmosphere of distrust, but it is there, and only straightforward action, not nice talk, will improve the situation.
RE: “In actuality, Fr. Baucom (and +Guernsey) have been very clear in their public statements, over and over again, that there is a big difference between peace-making and reconciliation. What Tory attempted was a sincere effort at making peace with +Johnston . . . ”
Um . . . no.
Certainly after Johnston was embraced as a Christian brother, his ministry promoted, his status as a Christian leader upheld, and cooperative “Christian” mission efforts were engaged in, after Baucum purported to engage in “reconciliation” with a false teacher residing in the church as a real pastor and shepherd, after these actions were described with loud public trumpetings as “reconciliation” from Welby, Baucum, *and* Johnston, after the humiliation of Johnston’s yet again demonstrating how notorious an anti-Gospel person he was, and after it was pointed out that “reconciliation” with a “Christian brother” had nothing whatsoever to do with Johnston, since he clearly does not believe the Gospel, Baucum and his supporters *attempted* to pull back from the whole “reconciliation” schtick and emphasize the vaguer and more general “peacemaking” bits of their former public rhetoric.
This was emailed, and blogged repeatedly, by their supporters, but sadly for them, the clearly stated “reconciliation” philosophy which both Welby and Baucum believe, affirm, and promote was already so much “out there” on the evil Internet, that it was impossible to do more than just attempt to conflate it all, muddy the waters, and back slowly away.
Nothing could be spelled out more clearly than Welby’s notions of what he deems to be “reconciliation” both by his clearly written descriptions of his theology towards same [i]and[/i] by his appointment of Baucum as a Canterbury preacher, modelling [i]precisely[/i] what Welby deems to be “reconciliation” and which Baucum and his supporters promoted as such . . . [before it started looking so very very awkward].
For one thing it implies that Fr. Baucom and Bp. Johnston are chums, real friends, etc., and it completely glosses over the big chill that has come over their fragile, now very strained, relationship. Lambeth Palace conveniently leaves out the fact that Tory Baucom complied promptly with +Guernsey’s insistence that he break off his attempted peacemaking with +Johnston after the latter continued to engage in scandalous, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing ways.
I believe it is you who misrepresents the relationship between Baucom+ and +Johnston. Baucom+ called him brother. He introduced him into the English flock with no warnings of the heresy he preaches. Let’s be honest and not seek to put lipstick on this thing. Both Baucom+ and +Guersney were quite content to embrace and herald the relationship between Baucom+ and +Johnston claiming his believe in the creeds made him worthy of being embraced totally ignoring the fact that +Johnston’s denial of the Authority of Scripture caused his Christology to fail. Do not seek to hide the fact that it was only when +Johnston associated himself with Crossan that +Guersney decided he had to act. Scandalous and sheep-in wolves clothing ways? Indeed. But do not make +Johnston into the Lone Ranger. Baucom+ and his bishop have much to be accountable for in the matter despite the fact they would love to pretend it was “peacemaking.” Tell me, has Baucom+ advised his British friends that the man he introduced into their midst no longer carries his goodhousekeeping seal of approval?
I am in the Diocese of the Mid Atlantic in the ACNA. Baucum+ had believed that +Johnston was someone who truly believed in Jesus as Lord, although +Johnston obviously was clueless about homosexuality. When Crossan was allowed to speak to the clergy in Virginia, Baucum was genuinely horrified. It was announced that he had been misled, because no one who truly believes the gospel would have Crossan speaking in his diocese. I guess people just missed that event. And to make his heresy even clearer, after Baucum+ said he had been fooled by +Johnston, +Johnston allowed Spong to speak in a cathedral in Richmond during Holy Week about why Jesus never really said the last seven words from the cross.
Interestingly, I spoke to Ian Markham about this. In spite of his confusion on homosexuality, my experience with him is that he believes Jesus is Lord. He said that although he (Markham+) allowed Spong to talk at VTS, since people in TEC would be asking about Spong’s teaching, Ian later gave the rebuttal. I asked him about the situation at the cathedral, and he said that in that situation he would have rebutted that too.
Although I was thrown out of VTS in 2004 after I had been there for two years, for pointing out that people would be leaving TEC if they did not change course and that TEC also flubbed their understanding of science regarding homosexuality, once Dean Horne realized what had happened she reinstated me and said that never again would a teacher go whispering behind a student’s back. If they had something to say, it should be said immediately and privately, or there was no concern. Of course, I was allowed to give my opinion even if others did not like it. Had I not returned to VTS, I would never have written my articles, because teachers at VTS helped me. Overall, it is a stressful place for someone who is actively standing against TEC’s favorite agenda, but when I was in Tim Sedgwick’s class he didn’t talk about homosexuality at all. The only thing he said was that he had learned from me to be careful about science. This is a snippet of what happened in the book that I wrote about my experiences in TEC. The leaders did a lot of bobbing and weaving and even attempted at times to confuse me about what they were doing, but that only led to my conversation with the primates.
Right now there is a plan to have me speak in a congregation in TEC and to a group of about 80 priests in TEC. I have never been a speaker, but then I would have laughed myself silly if I someone had told me one day I would write a book. When God calls us to do something, we have to go. And I will.
Always interesting to see who is in the queen’s new year’s honours list.
Not a surprising appointment between two allies who share the same definition of “reconciliation.”
I see +Duncan has been positively quoted on this appointment.
#3 Baucum received the award of the ‘helpful’ including Josiah Idowu-Fearon and Cathy Grieb of TEC and Virginia Theological Seminary.
Mind you, it is unsurprising to the see the link to VTS and Iain Markham who Welby will have known from his James Jones days at Liverpool where Markham was involved in providing materials for Jones’ facilitated conversations to make the diocese more ‘open’ to gay stuff.
It is all part of Welby’s Revisionist Indaba ‘reconciliation’ plan which Baucum has been assisting. They are all old friends.
I expect +Duncan has his own reasons for what he says.
Beware the English when they are being charming. Be charmed, and you are lost.
#4 — where is the announcement of the others chosen?
Having lived in the UK for a decade, I think I have a rough feel for the cultural divide…I knew Markham when he visited St Andrews to read a paper, back in the late 90s.
“This is an historically significant appointment,†said the Most Reverend Robert Duncan, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America. “Tory is known to be a gifted teacher and preacher who is committed to the present day reformation out of which the Anglican Church in North America was born.â€
Tory’s bishop, the Right Reverend John Guernsey, commented: “Tory is a scholar with a pastor’s heart. He has a passion to reach the world for Christ and through his leadership Truro Church is being used by God to bring hundreds to faith in Jesus. I pray for the Lord to anoint his ministry afresh as he takes up this appointment.â€
#5 here and here Professor Seitz.
I, for one, applaud this move. I am part of the same diocese with Tory Baucom+. I think he’s gotten some undeserved bad press from some conservative Anglicans. I trust him, and so does my bishop, +John Guernsey.
Can anyone possibly imagine Tory Baucom being invited to be a preacher at the National Cathedral in DC, or given any similar honor by the nefarious PB? Let’s not be too quick to condemn ++Welby.
David Handy+
#7, thanks Pageantmaster.
I was asking about the Welby appoinments alongside Baucum. Not previous ones.
#10 I have no information on that, although I doubt any others would warrrant a page long press release on the ABC’s and ACNA’s site together with presumably a press release and substantial PR effort from Lambeth Palace with a lot of spin which is doing the rounds. Archbishop Cranmer has an article here.
I am still awaiting my invite for wine and canapes on the 20th. Oh well.
Interesting: “Commenting on the appointment, Archbishop Justin said: “Tory is a fine scholar, an excellent preacher, and above all someone with a holistic approach to ministry. The close friendship he has forged with Bishop Shannon Johnston, despite their immensely different views, sets a pattern of reconciliation based on integrity and transparency. Such patterns of life are essential to the future of the Communion. I hope and pray that Tory’s presence as one of the Six Preachers will play a part in promoting reconciliation and unity among us.â€
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5228/archbishop-appoints-us-priest-as-canterbury-preacher
Be ye reconciled to the Shannon Johnston agenda and all shall be well in the charmin’ COE, eh? Or shall the Baptist’s cry of “repent” again resound? We shall see and hear.
PM (#11) and Matt+ (#12),
You’re both correct that there is some very suspicious spinning going on here, and that is disturbing. However, let’s try to be fair and extend the ABoC some benefit of the doubt.
PM, you’re correct that Lambeth Palace is trying way too hard to spin this appointment as some kind of grand and momentous event, as if it betokened what “reconciliation” looks like. In actuality, Fr. Baucom (and +Guernsey) have been very clear in their public statements, over and over again, that there is a big difference between peace-making and reconciliation. What Tory attempted was a sincere effort at making peace with +Johnston, but this proved futile when the bishop continued to act in very provocative, unbiblical, unapostolic ways, and showing no repentance at all for his strong support for the pro-gay agenda, etc. Not only did he preside over major public events where the apostate debunkers of Christianity, Dominic Crossan and later +Spong spoke, without +Johnston making any rebuttal whatsoever, but more recently he openly presided over a same-sex blessing for one of the priests in his diocese. For those who haven’t heard ot this latest outrage, Jeff Walton of IRD wrote an expose that included a picture that really says it all. There is the bishop, in cope and miter and holding his pastoral staff, smiling behind the happy (lesbian) couple, both of whom are in white wedding dresses!! Yuch.
I grant that there is troubling evidence that, to say the least, the ABoC is failing to sound a clarion call to decision similar to Joshua’s “Choose you this day whom you will serve!” If he continues to waffle and futilely try to get oil and water to mix, if he continues to issue a vague and unclear trumpet call, few of us will come forth to do battle beside him (1 Cor. 14:8).
But I still prefer to give him a bit more time and the benefit of the doubt. As I wrote above, let’s not rush to judgment. Let’s extend to the man at least as much courtesy as the American justice system gives to alleged criminals. In our courts, defendants have to be PROVEN guilty, beyond any reasonable doubt, and are presumed innocent until then. I contend that we should, in the name of the charity that “hopes all things” as well as endures all things, extend ++Welby that same grace. Yes, there are disturbing signs of waffling, to say the least, but I don’t think the man has been proven guilty yet of being a “useful idiot,” or mere puppet, who is being used, unwittingly, to continue to kick the institutional can down the road. ++Welby is no Rowan Williams. Thanks be to God.
Davide Handy+
Follow up. Matt (#12),
You’re right to highlight how dubious and misleading the press anouncement is in more ways than one. For one thing it implies that Fr. Baucom and Bp. Johnston are chums, real friends, etc., and it completely glosses over the big chill that has come over their fragile, now very strained, relationship. Lambeth Palace conveniently leaves out the fact that Tory Baucom complied promptly with +Guernsey’s insistence that he break off his attempted peacemaking with +Johnston after the latter continued to engage in scandalous, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing ways. I’m not sure how much of this dubious and misleading spin is due to ++Welby himself, and how much of the blame instead falls to his PR staff, but you’re right, Matt, that the main thing is that we continue to see ++Welby stuck in the same old futile and confusing game, using the word “reconciliation” when its unjustified and inappropriate. Any reconciliation worthy of the name must be a two-way street, with a real resolution of the differences that caused the estrangement, and both sides acknowledging their part in the breakdown of the relationship.
This plainly hasn’t happened between Fr. Baucom and +Johnston, for the latter has shown no signs of real repentance whatsoever. Instead, the man is the sort of smooth talker that Paul warns us about in Romans 16:17-18, where we are urged to have nothing to do with such men, who deceive the simple-minded and naive and pervert the gospel.
However, as I said above to PM, let’s try to be fair and give ++Welby a chance. There will come a time when he is faced with a decision that can’t be evaded, a momentous fork-in-the-road choice, either siding unmistakably with the cause of orthodoxy and the Global South, or not. I’ll grant that in my opinion, he should’ve made his choice and taken his stand before now, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll continue on this same hopeless dead-end road throughout his watch.
Let’s remember that our Master, while willing to lay his life down for us at the right time on the cross, also evaded death when it was premature. According to John’s Gospel, more than once, the Lord slipped away somehow when a crowd in Jerusalem gathered up stones to kill him, since he knew “his hour had not yet come.” Perhaps ++Welby has been granted such knowledge that his hour hasn’t yet come either. In any case, let us hope that when the fateful moment of truth finally comes, that he won’t falter or shrink back, but will follow Thomas Beckett, Thomas Cranmer, and other illustrious predecessors in his sacred office, in bearing faithful witness to the gospel, no matter what the cost, to him personally, or to the CoE.
Jesus was right. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And the CoE won’t stand much longer. Two mutually exclusive gospels are contending for mastery within her, and there is only room for one to be on top. Oil and water simply don’t mix. Never have. Never will.
David Handy+
#15, Fr. Handy, if indeed Dr. Baucom obeyed his bishop and drew back from further official contact with Johnston, that is helpful to the discussion. However, Welby’s citing the previous contact with such fervor in this appointment is not a good sign. After so many years of disappointment and “indaba” nonsense from Lambeth, only transparent and honest straight talk will convince me that anything has changed. Perhaps it is unfair to Welby for him to inherit an atmosphere of distrust, but it is there, and only straightforward action, not nice talk, will improve the situation.
RE: “In actuality, Fr. Baucom (and +Guernsey) have been very clear in their public statements, over and over again, that there is a big difference between peace-making and reconciliation. What Tory attempted was a sincere effort at making peace with +Johnston . . . ”
Um . . . no.
Certainly after Johnston was embraced as a Christian brother, his ministry promoted, his status as a Christian leader upheld, and cooperative “Christian” mission efforts were engaged in, after Baucum purported to engage in “reconciliation” with a false teacher residing in the church as a real pastor and shepherd, after these actions were described with loud public trumpetings as “reconciliation” from Welby, Baucum, *and* Johnston, after the humiliation of Johnston’s yet again demonstrating how notorious an anti-Gospel person he was, and after it was pointed out that “reconciliation” with a “Christian brother” had nothing whatsoever to do with Johnston, since he clearly does not believe the Gospel, Baucum and his supporters *attempted* to pull back from the whole “reconciliation” schtick and emphasize the vaguer and more general “peacemaking” bits of their former public rhetoric.
This was emailed, and blogged repeatedly, by their supporters, but sadly for them, the clearly stated “reconciliation” philosophy which both Welby and Baucum believe, affirm, and promote was already so much “out there” on the evil Internet, that it was impossible to do more than just attempt to conflate it all, muddy the waters, and back slowly away.
Baucum clearly and publicly equated his actions towards Johnston with “reconciliation.”
http://americananglican.org/interview-of-the-revd-tory-baucum-and-bishop-shannon-johnston/
His supporters and enablers clearly and publicly equated his actions towards Johnston with “reconciliation.”
http://tbaucum.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-meaning-of-celebrate-truro-sunday.html
The Archbishop of Canterbury clearly and publicly equated his actions towards Johnston with “reconciliation.”
http://www.durham.anglican.org/userfiles/file/Durham%20Website/News%20and%20Events/From%20the%20Bishops/Bishop%20Justin/PENTECOST%20SERMON%202012.pdf
Finally, it has been made [i]crystal[/i] clear by Archbishop Welby that [i]his[/i] definition of “reconciliation” is not at all what Scripture speaks of — and he finds such “reconciliation” acceptable behavior to take towards notorious false teachers and leaders masquerading as Gospel-believers within a church.
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5023/faith-in-conflict-conference-at-coventry-cathedral#Address
http://centeraisle.net/2012/07/09/from-todays-issue-the-answer-to-division-in-the-anglican-communion-is-mission/
Nothing could be spelled out more clearly than Welby’s notions of what he deems to be “reconciliation” both by his clearly written descriptions of his theology towards same [i]and[/i] by his appointment of Baucum as a Canterbury preacher, modelling [i]precisely[/i] what Welby deems to be “reconciliation” and which Baucum and his supporters promoted as such . . . [before it started looking so very very awkward].
I believe it is you who misrepresents the relationship between Baucom+ and +Johnston. Baucom+ called him brother. He introduced him into the English flock with no warnings of the heresy he preaches. Let’s be honest and not seek to put lipstick on this thing. Both Baucom+ and +Guersney were quite content to embrace and herald the relationship between Baucom+ and +Johnston claiming his believe in the creeds made him worthy of being embraced totally ignoring the fact that +Johnston’s denial of the Authority of Scripture caused his Christology to fail. Do not seek to hide the fact that it was only when +Johnston associated himself with Crossan that +Guersney decided he had to act. Scandalous and sheep-in wolves clothing ways? Indeed. But do not make +Johnston into the Lone Ranger. Baucom+ and his bishop have much to be accountable for in the matter despite the fact they would love to pretend it was “peacemaking.” Tell me, has Baucom+ advised his British friends that the man he introduced into their midst no longer carries his goodhousekeeping seal of approval?
I am in the Diocese of the Mid Atlantic in the ACNA. Baucum+ had believed that +Johnston was someone who truly believed in Jesus as Lord, although +Johnston obviously was clueless about homosexuality. When Crossan was allowed to speak to the clergy in Virginia, Baucum was genuinely horrified. It was announced that he had been misled, because no one who truly believes the gospel would have Crossan speaking in his diocese. I guess people just missed that event. And to make his heresy even clearer, after Baucum+ said he had been fooled by +Johnston, +Johnston allowed Spong to speak in a cathedral in Richmond during Holy Week about why Jesus never really said the last seven words from the cross.
Interestingly, I spoke to Ian Markham about this. In spite of his confusion on homosexuality, my experience with him is that he believes Jesus is Lord. He said that although he (Markham+) allowed Spong to talk at VTS, since people in TEC would be asking about Spong’s teaching, Ian later gave the rebuttal. I asked him about the situation at the cathedral, and he said that in that situation he would have rebutted that too.
Although I was thrown out of VTS in 2004 after I had been there for two years, for pointing out that people would be leaving TEC if they did not change course and that TEC also flubbed their understanding of science regarding homosexuality, once Dean Horne realized what had happened she reinstated me and said that never again would a teacher go whispering behind a student’s back. If they had something to say, it should be said immediately and privately, or there was no concern. Of course, I was allowed to give my opinion even if others did not like it. Had I not returned to VTS, I would never have written my articles, because teachers at VTS helped me. Overall, it is a stressful place for someone who is actively standing against TEC’s favorite agenda, but when I was in Tim Sedgwick’s class he didn’t talk about homosexuality at all. The only thing he said was that he had learned from me to be careful about science. This is a snippet of what happened in the book that I wrote about my experiences in TEC. The leaders did a lot of bobbing and weaving and even attempted at times to confuse me about what they were doing, but that only led to my conversation with the primates.
Right now there is a plan to have me speak in a congregation in TEC and to a group of about 80 priests in TEC. I have never been a speaker, but then I would have laughed myself silly if I someone had told me one day I would write a book. When God calls us to do something, we have to go. And I will.
Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan