The Executive Committee of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) warmly welcome the appointment of Rod Thomas as the new Bishop of Maidstone and look forward to the new opportunities his role may create as we seek to work together to promote the gospel through local Anglican churches.
Prebendary Rod Thomas has served on the Executive Committee of AMiE since 2012. He was a delegate at the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) in 2013 at which the Primates of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans recognized the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) as an expression of authentic Anglicanism both for those within and outside the Church of England.
AMiE General Secretary, Canon Andy Lines said,
“We are delighted by the appointment of Prebendary Rod Thomas as the new Bishop of Maidstone. The appointment opens the door to a new era of co-operation between AMiE and the Church of England.”
Chairman of AMiE, Rev Justin Mote said,
“AMiE exists to promote gospel growth by supporting Anglican churches and individuals both within and outside present Church of England structures. No one is more committed to that task than Rod Thomas. We are excited by the possibilities offered by his appointment and look forward to AMiE churches benefitting from his Episcopal ministry in the future.”
Thinking Anglicans blog is quietly going ballistic.
But back to the real world, it would appear that the hierarchy of CofE have assessed a real likelihood of losing congregations if it does not make some sort of peace with Reform/AMiE/Church Society.
“Losing” could mean actually departing, or just getting seriously disaffected and not contributing anything except the bare legal minimum.
Pray that this does not have any adverse effect on the resolve of recent ReNew conferences, to plant Anglican churches (inside or outside of CofE) with a view to re-evangelizing England.
Being on the executive committee of AMiE, presumably Preb. Thomas knew of and approved Bishop Ellison’s attendance at the installation of the new rector of Christ Church Salisbury. The action for which the Bishop of Salisbury has lodged a disciplinary complaint against Bishop Ellison under the CDM.
It will be interesting to see how that complaint is now dealt with, after one of the sponsors has been elevated to the episcopate. Surely the response must come down to one of three things: (i) take away Bishop Ellison’s licence to minister in the CofE (ii) leave his licence intact but tell him not to do it again; or (iii) make a lot of noise but don’t actually do anything.
If (ii), I suspect that Bishop Ellison will go right on ahead and do it again, as soon as the occasion arises. He is quietly spoken but does not appear to be a man who is easily intimidated.
The fourth possibility is that the complaint quietly disappears into a mass of red tape and is never seen again.
The Chairman of Church Society posts a statistic which gives a good idea why the CofE is in the position it is now:
[blockquote] “Rod is the only complementarian evangelical to be made a bishop since Wallace Benn in 1997. This appointment is part of the package of compromises agreed recently by General Synod, through which women bishops have been introduced into the Church. It is a great pity that despite Synod’s overwhelming approval of the first Pilling Report, Talent & Calling, in 2007, which called for more conservative evangelicals to be considered for such roles, there has been no such appointment until today.” [/blockquote]
He then identifies why complementarians (i.e. those who believe the Bible teaches male headship) are unlikely to be overly impressed by this appointment:
[blockquote] “The Five Guiding Principles of the House of Bishops, which are intended to maintain the Church’s delicate stability on the women bishops issue, commit the church to the “flourishing†of those who find it difficult to reconcile the introduction of women bishops with the Bible. It may be asked whether a single isolated new bishop is mere tokenism. Surely ‘flourishing’ implies rather more than the reluctant toleration of one among more than a hundred bishops?” [/blockquote]
See http://churchsociety.org/blog/entry/topical_tuesday_bishop_rod_thomas