Category Archives: Anglican Churches

Possibly another hopeful moment in the Church of England, and the Anglican Communion

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Not long ago I wrote about A hopeful moment in the Church of England, hopeful because

the church is beginning to realise part of what I wrote last December, that the parish system is a historical relic which is not helpful in the 21st century and needs to be abolished, or at least radically modified.

Today may be another hopeful moment because of the publication of the Manchester report into women bishops in the Church of England, reported by Ruth Gledhill in The Times. It seems hopeful to me not because it is a step towards the acceptance of women bishops in the church. My welcome for this step is somewhat muted because the path on which the step is being taken is so long and convoluted. But today is hopeful for me because the report fundamentally undermines the principle of geographical dioceses, the other anachronism which I wrote about last December.

Of course this principle has already been seriously, but unofficially, undermined in North America, first in the United States, and more recently in Canada with the defection of several Anglican Church of Canada congregations, and clergy, to the Province of the Southern Cone. But today for the first time there has been acceptance in an official report of the Church of England of the principle that, in effect, a congregation or parish may choose to separate from the diocese in which it is geographically located and join one of, in Ruth Gledhill’s words,

A series of new dioceses that would transcend geographical boundaries.

As Ruth continues, adoption of these proposals

would also set a new precedent in altering for the first time the centuries old principal of dioceses being determined by geographical boundaries. As a precedent adopted by the Church of England, the mother church of the entire Anglican Communion, it could even offer a way forward to a body in the throes of schism over how to accommodate those in favour and against gay ordination.

Indeed. In fact the mixed messages coming from those close to Archbishop Rowan Williams on the situation in North America, as well as the publication of the Manchester report, suggest that at least serious thought is being given to officially accepting this kind of breakup of the diocese and province system internationally. The reason why this idea is perhaps being taken seriously is because, at least as I see things, it is the only way to preserve some semblance of a united Anglican Communion.

But of course this could be seen as the start of a slippery slope towards a situation in which each congregation chooses for itself which bishop to put itself under. That prospect may be seen as too radical and divisive for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

Packer leaves the Anglican Church of Canada

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It was perhaps inevitable considering the action being taken against him, and indeed many may have thought it had happened months ago. But, according to a report from today’s Vancouver Sun posted by Suzanne, it is only this week that J.I. Packer has officially announced that he is leaving the Anglican Church of Canada and joining the Province of the Southern Cone, under Bishop Gregory Venables. Packer’s church, St John’s Shaughnessy, voted in February to affiliate to the Southern Cone. Now Packer is personally making the same move.

Michael Daley’s Lambeth Conference Canada blog has more background on this story. The announcement seems to have been first made on Monday in a press release which Daley apparently posts in full. The press release quotes from a response by Packer and ten other priests and deacons to their former bishop Michael Ingham, in which they deny the charges made against them, and write:

We have… determined that in order to uphold our ordination vows, we must leave your jurisdiction, and by this letter, we hereby relinquish the licences we hold from the Bishop of New Westminster. Each of us will receive a licence to continue our present parish ministries from Bishop Donald Harvey, who, as you know, is under the jurisdiction of the Primate of the Southern Cone. In this way, we will be able to continue our Anglican ministry within the Anglican Church, under the jurisdiction of and in communion with those who remain faithful to historic, orthodox Anglicanism and as part of the Anglican Communion worldwide.

Oddly, Daley mentioned neither Packer nor leaving the Anglican Church of Canada in his post title, and did not post this on his main Lambeth Conference blog. Anglican Mainstream reports the same story with more detail, noting that David Short is also among the clergy who resigned, but again without naming Packer or referring to resignations in a post title; in another post reporting the resignation of the eleven clergy, Packer is not named at all.

So, bizarrely, it seems to have taken Suzanne and a secular newspaper to make this internationally important news break outside Canada. Well, Hugh Bourne here in England did pick up the story on Wednesday, but has received (or allowed) no comments or pingbacks on it. And already on Tuesday Babyblue in Washington D.C. had clearly reported the story. But strangely it didn’t get into the corner of the blogosphere which I inhabit.

The Archbishop, the Pope, and the Holy Grail

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From the latest edition of Clare News, the magazine for alumni of my Cambridge college:

When the Archbishop of York met Pope Benedict XVI in Rome recently, he gave him an unusual gift …: a special, one-off beer called ‘Holy Grail’ …

Holy Grail beer bottle

For a fuller version of this story see this page on the brewery’s website, which also has a picture of the beer bottle, and its full name:

MONTY PYTHON’S HOLY GRAIL Tempered with burning witches

– with the “GR” crossed out.

Clare College has a strong theological tradition, numbering among its past members Prof Charlie Moule and Archbishop Rowan Williams. But in this case the link with the college is not the Archbishop, nor the Pope, but the head brewer.

Not the Wright letter

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This is not really anything to do with my last post …

Ruth Gledhill and John Richardson report on a video message which Archbishop Rowan Williams has sent out to the bishops of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion Office has not only published the transcript but also put the video on YouTube!

Ruth suggests that this is

that ‘Lambeth letter’ that Bishop Wright talked about.

But if this is the same letter that Bishop Tom spoke about, he was badly misinformed about its contents. In Wright’s speech to Fulcrum he claimed that Archbishop Rowan was

writing to those bishops who might be thought particularly unsympathetic to Windsor and the Covenant to ask them whether they were really prepared to build on this dual foundation … having already not invited Gene Robinson to Lambeth, … suggesting that some others might absent themselves as well. But this is what he promised he would do, and he is doing it.

But there is nothing in the Archbishop’s video message to suggest that any bishops should absent themselves from the Lambeth Conference. Although there is some mention of discussions of the Anglican Covenant, there is no hint that agreeing to discuss this is in any sense a condition of attendance.

I wrote before that

Williams’ letter is far too little, far too late.

And that was on the understanding that the letter was going out more or less as described by Wright. Well, perhaps Williams has realised that sending out a letter of the kind described by Wright at this stage would be pointless. Or perhaps he actually has sent out this kind of letter to accompany the video message. If so, no doubt at least one of the 800 or so recipients will be sufficiently upset by it to publish it. So we will soon find out.

But my challenge to the real Bishop of Durham, if he doesn’t want to be confused with any American “Free Universalist Interfaith Bishop”, is to let us know exactly what is in the package which he and his fellow bishops receive from Archbishop Rowan, and whether it includes a letter anything like the one he described to Fulcrum. If not, he should correct his claim that there is

No skullduggery involved either at Lambeth or with me.

A hopeful moment in the Church of England

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It took the Methodist Dave Warnock to bring to my attention Jonny Baker’s post a hopeful moment in the church of england. Despite its 1st April publication date and its complete lack of capital letters, this does seem to be a serious report of what is for once good news for the C of E.

It is good news because it shows that the church is beginning to realise part of what I wrote last December, that the parish system is a historical relic which is not helpful in the 21st century and needs to be abolished, or at least radically modified. Basically, as described here, what has happened is that a new “pastoral measure” has been brought into force introducing “Bishops’ Mission Orders”, which permit church planting initiatives which cross parish boundaries or involve collaboration between parishes.

It will be interesting to see how widespread such orders will be and how successful will be the resulting church planting. But the main implication of this “pastoral measure” seems to be that parish boundaries are no longer inviolable, and therefore that incumbent (senior pastors) cannot claim a monopoly for their own particular style of Christianity within particular geographical areas.

Wright and right on shifting the balance of power in the Anglican Communion

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John Richardson quotes Bishop NT Wright criticising those who are calling for a boycott of the Lambeth Conference. Wright sympathises with the plight of orthodox Anglicans in North America who are

vilified, attacked and undermined by ecclesiastical authority figures who seem to have lost all grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be eager only for lawsuits and property squabbles.

But he goes on to say that

these situations have been exploited by those who have long wanted to shift the balance of power in the Anglican Communion and who have used this awful situation as an opportunity to do so.

I have great respect for Wright as a theologian. But, as I pointed out in a previous post, he is a man of his time and background who seems to have a blind spot, along with many of his fellows in high positions in the Anglican Communion, about recognising that African and Asian bishops have an equal right with British and North American bishops to a share in authority within the Communion. Perhaps they have even more right, in fact, as on average they each represent a larger number of committed Anglicans. Yes, they want to shift the balance of power, but in a completely right way, away from those who are illegitimately hanging on to it as a relic of colonialism and racism towards being more representative of the Anglican churches as a whole.

I read on a blog somewhere recently (and not just at Doug’s April Fool – don’t take my comment there seriously) that Rowan Williams should be replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury by Wright, because he would be best placed to hold the Anglican Communion together. Sadly he would not be, because if he tries to lead it with this attitude he will never be able to reconcile the Africans and Asians with the North Americans.

Meanwhile, as John Richardson and Babyblue report, Bishop Wright in the same talk mentioned some letters which Archbishop Williams has sent to certain bishops. Apparently Williams is trying to persuade bishops who don’t support the Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant, that is, the least conservative bishops, not to attend the Lambeth Conference. Wright said about this

I am well aware that many will say this is far too little, far too late.

Well, on this point he is a prophet: I for one do indeed say that Williams’ letter is far too little, far too late. The only way of sorting out this mess now is for Williams to go, and to be replaced not by Wright but by someone like Archbishop Sentamu of York who has a chance of gaining the respect of the African and Asian majority in the Anglican Communion.

Jesus to boycott the Lambeth Conference?

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No, that is not what Walter means by Lambeth 2008 is Starting Without Jesus. What he means is that there is no mention of Our Lord in Archbishop Rowan’s opening remarks. Indeed none of the words “Jesus”, “Christ” or “Lord” appear on the page, and “God” is mentioned only in Jane Williams’ words. I wonder if any mention of Jesus is considered too potentially divisive for some of those invited to the conference. After all, it wouldn’t be the Anglican way, somehow, to insist that this is a conference of Christian bishops.

But would Jesus be welcome if he did turn up? 1 Peter 2:25 KJV confirms that he is a Bishop and so should qualify for an invitation. But would he behave himself as a bishop is supposed to? Or would he start overturning the booksellers’ tables in the Marketplace and denouncing any hypocrites he might find? And if he should happen to bump into Gene Robinson and his new “bridegroom” outside the venue, what would he have to say to them? Perhaps “Go, and sin no more”? But for saying that he would probably be asked to leave.

Somehow I think Jesus would be more at home at Gafcon in his home country.

Not blessing the "marriage", just blessing the gay couple

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LambethConference.net/Canada reports on a ceremony in Montreal Cathedral in which its director of music’s civil union with another man was “acknowledged”. The bishop had refused to permit his priests to bless same-sex “marriages”, in line with the policies of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Communion. But in a service in the cathedral the couple

went to the front of the church for blessings by Dean Michael Pitts and Rev. Canon Joyce Sanchez, associate priest.

So was this a blessing of the “marriage”? Apparently not:

“They blessed us,” the music director said in a later interview. “They did not bless our marriage.”

Hold on! The couple went to front of the church together, and two priests blessed them. What is the difference between that and blessing their “marriage”?

So here we apparently have two priests in senior positions, a cathedral dean and a canon, defying the authority of their bishop and of the national and international church, and apparently trying to justify it with semantic trickery. Will they get away with it, I wonder?

Why am I still an Anglican?

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In a comment on a post at his Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream blog, in which John Richardson quotes an article from Mark Thompson in Australia, I asked:

why do [Thompson and those who think like him] remain in the Anglican Communion? Why do you, John? Why do I?

In an apparent response John did not give a straight answer, for Thompson or for himself, but he did quote from an article by Andrew Goddard implying that when an institutional church starts to bless homosexual unions a line has been crossed such that those who remain faithful to biblical Christianity are right to leave that church. That is a clear position which I would not dispute, except to say (as I do in more detail below) that personally I would consider denial of core doctrines such as the Resurrection to be a better marker of that boundary line than anything to do with homosexuality.

But I posed the question about myself as well. And of course I am the only one who can answer this. Before I do so, I need to give some background about myself.

Continue reading →

What will Gene Robinson do in Canterbury?

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Michael Daley reports that gay Bishop Gene Robinson will not be invited to this summer’s Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, has declined an invitation to be present in the conference’s “Marketplace” exhibit section, but nevertheless plans to be in Canterbury. I submitted the following comment, but it is still “awaiting moderation” after several days.

What will he do in Canterbury for two weeks? If he is there “not as an official conference participant or observer” he can hardly expect to be let into any of the conference venues. So I suppose it will be a kind of honeymoon for him and Mark after their June “wedding”. Well, Canterbury, where I was at school, is an interesting place, but there is not really enough for a fortnight’s sightseeing. If they are lucky with the weather they might enjoy the beach, and they are within easy reach of London, and of the channel ports and tunnel for day trips to France and Belgium. They could even visit EuroDisney, but Gene should take his robes off for that trip in case people mistake him for one of the cartoon characters.

I could have added that he will disappointed if he plans to stock up his theological library at the former SPCK bookshop in the city.

Of course there is another possibility, that Gene will spend his time talking to the press, who will doubtless also be swarming around outside the official conference venues waiting for snippets from any bishop. But I doubt if their interest will last for more than a day or two.