Category Archives: Anglican Churches

Another reason for Reform churches to withhold money from the C of E

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… as threatened in Reform’s letter to the General Synod, could be that they won’t have the money to pass on to their dioceses. Why not? Because possibly more than half of their congregation members will stop their regular giving – if the situation in this report becomes typical. The report is from the Daily Mail, so it does need taking with a pinch of salt – but this could well be a worrying departure for conservative churches.

To summarise, Rev Angus MacLeay, the incumbent of St Nicholas, Sevenoaks, who is a leading member of Reform and one of the signatories of the threatening letter, had outraged his female parishioners by issuing

a leaflet to his congregation saying that women should ‘not speak’ if questions could be answered by their husbands.

The Mail claims that the leaflet has been published on Reform’s website, but I can’t find it there. MacLeay’s curate also preached a sermon along these lines, which is apparently on the church’s website (but I haven’t listened to it). As a result, according to the Mail,

Dozens of offended female parishioners have this week cancelled their direct debit subscriptions to the church in protest at the pair’s remarks.

I don’t know quite how big the Sevenoaks congregation is. It is clearly not a small one – they have five Sunday services and are planning a sixth. But there are few Anglican churches which can afford to lose dozens of direct debits, especially in the current financial climate and with rapidly increasing demands from dioceses. And this ball could keep rolling, as more and more women stop their giving, and probably also leave the church.

Of course I wouldn’t want to suggest that they compromise their beliefs for the sake of money. I suppose they could have found a less provocative way of putting it. However, it must be hitting home to leaders like MacLeay quite how offensive to most people today, even evangelical Christians as I presume the women involved are, is the concept of the submission of women.

I suppose they would reply that we should expect to be persecuted for the gospel. But first we need to be very sure that it is biblical truth that we are being persecuted for. The following extract from the booklet looks biblical but is in fact a subtle distortion of the biblical message:

Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church.

This is of course based on Ephesians 5:22-23, with “in everything” imported from verse 24. But see what has been omitted. First of all, “as you do to the Lord”, which limits submission to what is godly. Then “his body, of which he is the Saviour”, which shows how Christ was one not to demand submission of others but to give himself for them. And then most importantly the context, in verse 21 and addressed to husbands as well as wives:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21 (TNIV)

Is Reform divided over women bishops?

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I reported a few days ago on The Reform letter on women bishops. This has generated an interesting discussion in comments here and in private e-mail, as well as on other blogs.

Now Matt Wardman reports on something I had also noticed, and asks Why did Reform Leaders not all sign the Women Bishops letter? He names two well-known conservative evangelical Anglicans, Rev David Holloway and Rev Paul Perkin, who are incumbents of large churches and trustees and/or council members of Reform, but who are not listed as signatories of the letter. The large contributions that these churches surely make to their dioceses could have increased the sum that the signatories were threatening to withhold, 0.22% of the Church of England’s budget, to make it look a little bit less like a drop in the ocean.

Church Mouse lists several other Reform leaders who didn’t sign the letter – some of them because they are not incumbents. Julian Mann, one of the signatories who blogs as Cranmer’s Curate, also comments on the missing signatures, but not by name, and speculates on the reasons.

Of course it may simply be that Rev Rod Thomas, who wrote the letter, was unable to contact Holloway, Perkin and others in time to get their signatures. After all we can presume that they are rather busy looking after their large churches. So possibly there is no real division here.

Richard Connolly, commenting on Matt’s blog, suggests a reason for division, that the Reform leadership may not be united in its opposition to women bishops. But, as I commented in response (link to the Reform Covenant added),

If any of these Reform leaders are not actually opposed to women bishops there is some hypocrisy going on there. According to the page on Reform Trustees and Council Members, “The Council and Trustees each year sign the Reform Covenant …”, and one article of that covenant is:

The unique value of women’s ministry in the local congregation but also the divine order of male headship, which makes the headship of women as priests in charge, incumbents, dignitaries and bishops inappropriate.

But I would think it more likely that the Reform leaders are divided over what tactics to choose at this time. See for example how these tactics have been criticised by one Reform-oriented vicar.

I note that the Reform statement does not oppose women assistant clergy. Indeed, two of the Reform council members are ordained women – but neither of these are incumbents, and so they could not sign the letter.

The Reform-oriented vicar I mention is of course my old sparring partner John Richardson, the Ugley Vicar. I don’t know if he is actually a member of Reform, but this article by him and this one are on the Reform website. In his post he is openly critical of the Reform letter, not because he has any doubts in his opposition to women bishops, but because he sees the tactics in the Reform letter as counter-productive, with the threat in it likely to hurt Reform more than the Church of England.

Now I won’t presume to give Reform my advice about their tactics for reaching a goal I do not support. But John’s analysis of the letter, which is not so different from mine,  makes a lot of sense. And this suggests, and confirms Julian Mann’s suspicion, that if there really are divisions in Reform over this matter they are over tactics rather than over the principle of women bishops.

The Reform letter on women bishops: a threat of schism?

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John Richardson and Dave Walker both post the full text of a letter from Reform, a conservative evangelical pressure group in the Church of England, to the General Synod of that Church which is meeting this week. The letter is signed by “50 incumbents of Church of England churches”, two of whom I know personally. I suspect John is not a signatory only because he is not technically an incumbent.

The letter is a contribution to the ongoing debate over women bishops in the Church of England. As the Bishop of Manchester reported to the General Synod yesterday (his draft text here, see also this report), the committee discussions have proved more complex and time-consuming than expected, and so the final decision has been delayed. But the outline now seems clear of the way ahead which will be put to a vote at the next meeting of the Synod, in July. As reported in The Times today,

any women consecrated bishops will be asked to “delegate” authority to another bishop, such as a suffragan, to carry out confirmations and other episcopal duties in parishes that refuse to accept her ministry. …

even where opponents opt for the ministry of the bishop delegated to look after them, there will be no alternative hierarchical structure of oversight that could make it appear as though the mother church of the Anglican Communion was being half-hearted about women bishops, or in any way doubting the integrity of their orders.

This is good news for the supporters of women bishops, who have seen rejected by the committee various proposals for more formal alternative episcopal oversight.

But it is this situation which prompted a strong response in the letter from Reform. The letter starts with a defence of Reform’s unreformed position on women in leadership, with appeals to Scripture interpreted in a particular way – a way which, as regular readers here will know, I have good arguments for rejecting. The authors make one interesting point here:

we emphasise again that we are NOT for a moment saying women are less valuable than men, and nor does the Scripture. … For the Bible separates roles and worth: our Lord Jesus himself submitted to the Father, but is, of course, no less God than he is.

Well, yes, but Jesus submitted himself voluntarily and temporarily, and so this cannot be used as an argument to force women to accept only submissive roles against their will and permanently.

The Reform letter writers then go on to explain how they might respond if the Church of England introduces women bishops without the kinds of safeguards they are demanding:

At the moment we are encouraging young men into the ordained ministry … However, we will be unable to do this if inadequately protective legislation is passed. The issue that will then arise is how to encourage these men to develop their ministries if they cannot do so within the formal structures of the Church of England. The answer must be to encourage them to undertake training for ministries outside those formal structures, although hopefully still within an Anglican tradition. We will, of course, have to help them with the financing of their training. …

Since we cannot take an oath of canonical obedience to a female bishop, we are unlikely to be appointed to future incumbencies. We see nothing but difficulty facing us. In these circumstances we will have to discuss with our congregations how to foster and protect the ministry they wish to receive. This is likely to generate a need for the creation of new independent charitable trusts whose purpose will be to finance our future ministries, when the need arises.

In other words, if they don’t get their own way, that is, if the democratically elected Synod rejects their position with a two-thirds majority, they will set up their own parallel ministry “within an Anglican tradition” but outside the Church of England system. They continue:

These twin developments will need to be financed from current congregational giving. This will inevitably put a severe strain on our ability to continue to contribute financially to Diocesan funds. Where we are unable to contribute as before …

In other words, they will fund their new parallel ministry by not paying what they are expected to pay to their dioceses. Potentially they could withhold the £22 million they have contributed between them over the last ten years.

So this letter can easily be perceived as an attempt to pervert the democratic processes of the Church of England by making financial threats.

But how real would these threats be? The potential loss to the dioceses averages out at £44,000 per parish per year. But much of that loss could be offset by the diocese by not replacing or making redundant the incumbent and any assistants they (well, in this case “he”) might have, thereby saving their stipends; by selling or letting the clergy houses; and by cutting off any grants those parishes might benefit from. And the percentage of the total diocesan budget under threat is probably quite small – after all, those signing the letter are only 50 clergy out of 12,000.

The greater threat to the Church of England is probably from the new structures, training institutions and “independent charitable trusts”, which Reform proposes setting up. While parish infrastructure is not mentioned, in practice the Church of England can never allow an independently trained and financed group of ministers to lead congregations within its buildings. So the route which Reform is starting on can only lead to a new group of local churches, in other words, to schism. Recent developments in the USA and in Canada have shown a way in which this schism might develop.

While the Church of England could survive the loss of 50 parishes, the danger is that many more, perhaps the majority of its evangelicals, might decide that the new structures are more supportive of them than the old ones are. At a time when many Anglo-Catholics are departing, the C of E could hardly survive the loss of its entire evangelical wing.

So what is to be done? The Church could submit to these threats from Reform and turn back from allowing women bishops at all. In fact it only needs just over one third of General Synod to see that as the best course for any proposals to be defeated in July. This now seems more likely than that Synod will choose to allow women bishops with the kinds of safeguards which Reform might accept.

But a better response is no response at all. The General Synod should simply ignore these veiled threats from Reform and treat them as what they are, a rather small pressure group. And if some of them do leave, the church authorities should be very careful not to do anything which might alienate that great majority of evangelical Anglicans who, even if they are uncomfortable in various ways, don’t see women bishops as a compelling reason to leave the Church of England. In this way there is a future ahead for the Church of England in which, in retrospect, it has lost a few troublesome extremists and gained new strength and unity as well as the benefits of women as well as men in its top leadership.

You Cannot Pastor for God and Mammon

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Essex vicars Sam Norton and Tim Goodbody have both posted about the difficulties of their tasks as Church of England incumbents. Sam memorably compares his job with piloting a plane and trying, not always successfully, to avoid crashing it. Tim, apparently facing similar issues, writes of the stresses of balancing “great new ideas” for the work of a parish with the preferences of “the elements of the congregation who make it their business to keep the church the same as it has always been.”

Tim also speaks of this as “the paradox of collaborative ministry”. But I disagree. I tried to disagree with a comment on his post, but Tim quite reasonably responded

Sorry mate, I reserve the right to be the only one who rants here; if you want to rant feel free to do so at GW

I wonder, would he have allowed Jesus to comment on his blog? Certainly not along the lines of Matthew 23! But I am taking his advice and responding here at Gentle Wisdom, and in more depth than in my rejected comment. Judge for yourselves whether this is balanced or a “rant”.

This is how it seems to me, from the limited details which they give and from my own experience of life in various Anglican churches: the problem which Sam and Tim have, and which probably nearly every Church of England incumbent (i.e. pastor in charge of a church) has, is that they are trying to reconcile the wishes of those who genuinely want to serve God with the wishes of people who do not. The latter are people who, while claiming to serve the true God, are in fact serving other gods like mammon (materialism), their families, their culture and traditions, or their personal comfort. For example, it is clear that Tim’s “elements of the congregation who make it their business to keep the church the same as it has always been” are not serving the God who makes it his business to make all things new.

Now this is not a peculiarly Anglican problem. Many other church congregations are mixed multitudes of the same kind. But it is perhaps especially serious in the established Church of England because of its parish system and its claim to represent in some way all the people of England. These make it all the harder for a vicar to suggest that a difficult congregation member find a different church where they might be more at home.

Of course I realise that it is not possible to divide congregations neatly into those who serve God and those who put other gods first. Any attempt to do this is bound to fail, not least because many people are genuinely torn between two different allegiances. Indeed we all need to examine ourselves to check that we are not slipping in this way.

Nevertheless there must be something wrong when an incumbent gets to the position that Tim is in, in which he has to reject “great new ideas” “because he knew he would get it in the neck from the elements of the congregation who make it their business to keep the church the same as it has always been.” Of course not every great new idea is from God. But if Tim is finding himself rejecting ideas which are from God to avoid criticism from people who quite clearly do not have in mind the things of God, then I would want to suggest that he has abandoned serving God for serving the gods of his congregation members. This is not at all to single Tim out, for his point is that this is what the Church of England system more or less forces incumbents like himself to do.

To put it bluntly, what is happening here is that the servants of mammon and of other idols are being given a veto over the work of God in his church. This cannot be! As Jesus said, it is impossible to serve both God and mammon, and that applies also when that service is directed through their worshippers. So every pastor, in the Church of England and elsewhere, needs to decide which they will serve, the true God or the idols of their congregation members. If they try to serve both, not only will God’s work be thwarted, but also a plane crash is inevitable.

Yes, of course a pastor needs to show love and be pastorally sensitive towards those difficult or unbelieving congregation members. But that is quite a different matter from allowing them to control the church. Jesus was pastorally sensitive to individual Pharisees like Nicodemus and Simon, but he didn’t bend an inch to their model of religious practice.

So I call on Tim, Sam and all others in similar positions to take a stand for the “great new ideas” which they really believe are from God, and ignore the protestations of the “keep the church the same as it has always been” brigade. Or if they are unable to do so because those people have a majority in the PCC or whatever, or because those in higher authority, bishops etc, intervene, then they should accept that their position is untenable and resign. Perhaps they will be forced to conclude that the Church of England is not the place for them if they are not to compromise their position.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
17 Therefore,
“Come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
18 And,
“I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
7:1 Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 (TNIV)

P.S. In case any of you wonder why despite this I remain an Anglican, I will point you to this post. I wrote it nearly two years ago, but I stand by most of it now. The main change since then is that there is now a greater chance of me moving on from my current congregation in the rather near future.

The Name High Over All

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You my readers, and especially those of you who live within easy reach of my home town of Chelmsford, are invited to the meeting I am advertising here. This is taking place in the building of my home church, which is just across the road from my home. The meeting is intended mainly for Anglican evangelicals in the Chelmsford diocese, but all are welcome. This will also be a chance for you all to meet me, as I will be in charge of the refreshments.

The Name High Over All

Who is Catholic, but not Roman?

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I was a little surprised when Bill, in a comment here at Gentle Wisdom, seemed unsure of what I meant by “Catholic”, as a description of Doug Chaplin. Here is my response:

Bill, Doug is Catholic, i.e. a member of the catholic = universal church, but not Roman Catholic. Of course on that definition you and I are also Catholic. But within Anglican circles at least “Catholic” is used of Christians who put a high value on moving towards unity with Rome, and with the Eastern Orthodox. At least that is my perception – Doug may well want to clarify.

I was aware that this use of word “Catholic” is peculiarly Anglican. Now Bill, if I remember correctly, is a former Episcopalian. Is this terminology not used in The Episcopal Church? If so, it must be in even narrower use than I thought.

Probably all of us good Anglicans (at least the English speaking ones) recite regularly these lines from the creeds: from the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in … the holy catholic Church;

from the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Quite often these lines cause comment from newcomers to my church, and my vicar has to explain that we are not Roman Catholics, that “catholic” in this context means “universal”. And this is indeed one of the dictionary definitions of the word. Indeed even in the context of the church, the following definitions are given of the word with a capital “C”:

  1. Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.
  2. Of or relating to the universal Christian church.
  3. Of or relating to the ancient undivided Christian church.
  4. Of or relating to those churches that have claimed to be representatives of the ancient undivided church.

But who uses this definition d? The “holy catholic Church” which Roman Catholics believe in is only their own church, and all other Christian groups are mere “ecclesial communities”. Similarly the Eastern Orthodox believe that only their own churches are the true Church. It is as far as I know mainly we Anglicans who believe that our own church is just a part of “the holy catholic Church” along with the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox  – although there are other small groups such as the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church which appear to have similar beliefs.

We Anglicans might differ over whether we consider other Protestant denominations and independent congregations to be part of the Catholic Church. Some of us, especially those who would self-identify as Catholics, deny them this status because they don’t have the apostolic succession and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons. Ironically this is the same argument which the Roman Catholics use to put Anglicans outside the Catholic Church.

But there is still something strange about the description I have used of Doug Chaplin as Catholic, or I might call him Anglo-Catholic. If he is a Catholic in the sense of “A member of a Catholic church”, then for him I as a fellow Anglican am also a Catholic.  But I would call myself not a Catholic, as I am not on that wing of the Church of England, but an evangelical.

So, if Doug is described as a Catholic and I am not, is this based on a definition of “Catholic” which needs to be added to the dictionary? Or does this indicate a basic split in Anglicanism between those who identify themselves with a visible “holy catholic Church” and those who, like me, believe that this is a spiritual entity not identical to any earthly group or set of groups?

Swine flu panic over – will anyone tell the bishops?

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The latest news on swine flu confirms what I have always thought: the “pandemic” is little more than a pandemic of panic, plus a few people getting a nasty headache for a couple of days. Here is the latest news from the BBC:

Big drop in new swine flu cases

The number of new cases of H1N1 swine flu in England and Scotland has fallen significantly, latest figures show.

England recorded an estimated 30,000 cases last week, compared with 110,000 the week before. In Scotland estimated numbers fell from 1,500 to 1,050.

The Health Protection Agency said there was no sign that the virus was mutating into a more lethal form, or developing resistance to drugs.

I don’t like to say “I told you so”. But I did, at least in a comment on Paul Trathen’s blog. Paul showed that he was not much of a prophet when he wrote, on 24th July:

It is a matter of fairly inevitable exponential arithmetic that numbers of those contracting this illness will escalate very sharply indeed over the coming weeks …

I replied on the same day:

Continued exponential growth of swine flu is not inevitable. I understand that in some countries including Scotland its spread is slowing down.

We can only guess why this illness is no longer spreading. It could be the warm weather – but probably not as until today it has been quite cool here. It could be the school holidays. It could be people taking more care not to touch and breathe on one another. I doubt if it has much to do with the Communion cup no longer being offered in many churches.

To be fair, I can’t claim to be a prophet either, for the BBC is also reporting:

Officials have always predicted rates of infection would fall away in the summer before a large surge in the autumn to coincide with the normal flu season.

Well, we may see a surge, but also the main danger from swine flu will have passed, for

the first swine flu vaccines are likely to be licensed for use in the general population in September

– just in time to protect those who are vulnerable to anything more than a headache.

But when will the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England admit that they have overreacted and withdraw their theologically as well as medically flawed advice to clergy to withhold the Communion cup from their congregations?

The Church Times writes sense about Communion

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I have just seen the leader in the Church Times for 31st July (thanks to Dave Walker’s Church Times blog for the link). And I was interested to see that this significant newspaper more or less agrees with the position I have taken about Communion being offered in both kinds, although from a more pragmatic perspective. After a summary of negative reactions received (including those in letters to the editor, which I am not able to read as I am not a subscriber), the leader writer continues:

Confusion and distress about the method of administration is not good for the Church, and, at the very least, is yet another distraction from the purpose of the eucharist itself … In this situation, the clergy need to offer the laity as much choice as possible, in order to remove any feeling of coercion … Any permanent change in the practice of the Church of England should not, however, be allowed to come about simply on the basis of a crisis mentality and the publication of press releases — even archiepiscopal ones.

Indeed. My only real objection is to the leader writer’s appeal to “the doctrine of concomitance”, defined by Webster’s as:

(R.C.Ch.) The doctrine of the existence of the entire body of Christ in the eucharist, under each element, so that the body and blood are both received by communicating in one kind only.

In other words, this appears to be a specifically Roman Catholic teaching, presumably to justify the mediaeval withdrawal of the Communion cup from the laity which was quite specifically and deliberately repudiated by the founders of the independent Church of England. If this is the doctrine that the archbishops and bishops are tacitly appealing to, that is, if they present Roman Catholic doctrine as the standard for the Church of England, then why haven’t they already submitted to the Pope? I don’t mean to sound anti-Catholic, but I do have strong objections to this kind of attempt to be more Catholic even than His Holiness.

Anyway, three cheers to the Church Times for standing up to the archbishops in such a high profile way, one which they will not be able to ignore.

Episcopalian lemmings ask to be thrown into the sea

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The leaders of The Episcopal Church (TEC – the historic Anglican church in the USA) may seem to be rushing headlong, like the proverbial lemmings, into self-destruction, as a church and as a part of the Anglican Communion. See what I wrote about them in my posts The end of the Anglican Communion as we know it? and Anglicans and Anglican’ts. But now, it seems, not content with this, they are asking to be thrown quite literally into the sea – at least, to be expelled from North America as stateless refugees.

How so? George Conger (as linked to by Ruth Gledhill) reports:

The Queen must apologize for the wrongs committed by Henry VII and repudiate the “Christian Doctrine of Discovery,” the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church has declared.

What this means is that our monarch is supposed to repudiate the claims made by her ancestors to dominion and title over much of North America, and recognise instead that these lands remain the possession of the native Americans from whom they were grabbed.

But did the bishops and delegates who adopted this resolution understand its further implications? If, as they seem to demand, the whole of North America is returned to its rightful owners, the native Americans, what place is there for that huge majority of modern North Americans who have European, African or Asian ancestry? What would their new native American rulers want to do with these invaders who illegally dominated their lands for nearly four centuries? While they might allow to stay those who could prove some native American ancestry, they might very reasonably require the others to leave and return to their countries of origin.

Some of the countries of origin of today’s US and Canadian citizens might be happy to have them back, at least if they were able to bring their wealth with them. But I suspect that the majority of Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans would trace much of their ancestry back here to the UK. After all, why else would they be Anglicans? The Canadians might be welcome here. But would we welcome back to these shores tens of millions of the descendants of those who rebelled against our Crown in 1776? I suspect not.

At the very least our Queen would be entitled to demand an apology from these people in return for the one they demanded from her – an apology for their unilateral and illegal assertion of dominion and title over lands claimed by her ancestor George III. These lands might have rightfully belonged to the native Americans, but they never legally belonged to the rebellious immigrants who set up their own laws to further dispossess the rightful owners.

So, if the apology demanded from the Queen is actually put into practice, the majority of TEC members might find themselves literally afloat in mid-Atlantic, turned back from any ports their ships try to dock at. Is that what they really want? With TEC, who knows!

Nazir-Ali out of line on the Communion cup

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Not many people have read my blog series What Anglicans have not always held about Communion. I can’t say I blame the rest of you – it is heavy going. But if anyone wants to get the general idea I recommend reading just part 5: summary and conclusions.

Anyway, what this means is that not many people have noticed what I discovered and reported in part 4 of the series: that Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, together with his suffragan the Bishop of Tonbridge, have stepped out of line with the Archbishops of the Church of England. Not for the first time, of course, for Nazir-Ali, but this time it is nothing directly to do with GAFCON or the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

With one exception, all of the dioceses and bishops whose recent swine flu advice I have seen have closely followed the line recommended by the Archbishops:

In the light of this advice, we recommend those presiding at Holy Communion suspend the administration of the chalice during this wave of pandemic flu.   For those who still wish to offer in both kinds, we recommend the practice whereby the presiding minister … personally intincts all wafers before placing them in the hands of communicants.

Not all of the dioceses and bishops have suggested the intinction alternative, but all that I have seen, with the one exception, have recommended withholding the Communion cup from the lay people, in contravention of the Thirty-Nine Articles.

This doesn’t imply that all bishops agree with the advice. The blogging Bishop Alan Wilson (not a diocesan bishop) has in fact indicated some severe misgivings, in this comment and this one on this very blog. But they are surely under strong pressure to defer to the Archbishops and to government health advice – even though that health advice is seriously flawed, as is the church’s reaction to other parts of the same advice. I note by the way that in its latest advice on swine flu (which they insist on calling “Influenza ‘A’ (H1N1)”), the Diocese of Oxford, in which Alan Wilson is a bishop, avoids issuing its own advice to “suspend the chalice” but simply reports the Archbishops’ recommendation.

But, as far as I have seen, it is only the Diocese of Rochester which has officially, if subtly, stepped out of line on this matter. The advice which it has issued to all its clergy, in the name of Bishops Nazir-Ali of Rochester and Castle of Tonbridge, closely follows the wording of the Archbishops’ recommendation, but adds to it in a way which gives clear priority to the Archbishops’ alternative of intinction, with communion in one kind downgraded from the main recommendation to “possible” (points of difference from the Archbishops’ advice in italics):

Accordingly we recommend that those presiding at Holy Communion suspend the usual administration of the chalice to others during this wave of pandemic flu. The consequence of this is that it will be possible for communicants to receive in one kind. However, St. Paul reminds us of the importance of the common cup (I Cor.10.16) and so for those who […] wish to offer in both kinds, we recommend the practice whereby the President … personally intincts (dips into the wine) all wafers before placing them in the hands of communicants.

The appeal to the Bible added in Rochester is followed up by an added appeal to the Thirty-Nine Articles:

the Anglican tradition places high spiritual and theological value on sharing in the common cup and, therefore, in Communion in both kinds (Article 30).

The clear implication is that the Rochester bishops, like Bishop Alan Wilson and myself, have strong theological reservations about withdrawing the common cup, based on the Bible and the Thirty-Nine Articles. These two bishops have taken there reservations seriously enough to dissent from passing on the Archbishops’ advice to suspend the Communion cup.

Well done, Bishops Nazir-Ali and Castle! I wish that more bishops and archbishops would have the courage to question the flawed advice from the government, and from their own advisers, to recognise the theological importance of the common cup (which I explained in my series), to stop panicking, and to recommend that (here quoting the Oxford Diocese advice) “As in any crisis, the Church should remain open for business as usual” including in the way that it offers the Communion.

http://www.qaya.org/blog/?p=1211