Category Archives: Anglican Bishops

Is Rowan fiddling while Canterbury burns?

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The story tells us that the Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. This is probably only a rumour, but (according to Wikipedia) it is an ancient one (originally with a lyre rather than a violin), recorded as a rumour by Tacitus who as a child was an eyewitness of the great fire of the year 64. What Tacitus records as fact is that the public blamed Nero for the fire, and

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)

Now it looks as if history may be repeating itself to some extent, with Archbishop Rowan Williams playing the role of Nero and Canterbury replacing Rome. So, is Rowan fiddling while Canterbury burns? Continue reading →

Archbishop doesn't like the political bits

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Ruth Gledhill has a short post whose significance is in its title rather than its content: Rowan: ‘I like my job – except the political bits.’ For the evidence for this title she links to her article today in The Times, about how the Archbishop of Canterbury was interviewed by three teenagers for a youth magazine. She reports that

he enjoys his job – “at least the non-political side of things.” This is because he is passionate about the environment and likes meeting people.

But I was encouraged by these words of Archbishop Williams, in the same interview:

I have no problem with gay clergy who aren’t in relationships, although there are savage arguments about the issue you might have heard about. Our jobs mean we have to adhere to the Bible, gay clergy who don’t act upon their sexual preferences do, clergy in practicing [sic, even in The Times] homosexual relationships don’t. This major question doesn’t have a quick fix solution and I imagine will be debated for many years to come.

Well said, Your Grace. But if that is really what you believe, Continue reading →

Piper has answered Adrian's question: Wright is not preaching another gospel

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A few weeks ago I wrote about what is wrong with John Piper’s theology. But in fact it turns out that in at least one respect his beliefs have been misinterpreted by Adrian Warnock.

I mentioned in my post a post of Adrian’s entitled John Piper: Is N. T. Wright Preaching Another Gospel? (See also the 31 comments on this post, now deleted from Adrian’s blog but saved here.) This was part of Adrian’s series on Piper’s book The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, available online free of charge (PDF format).

Adrian’s title suggests that Piper is claiming that Wright is “preaching another gospel”, and the content of the post seems to confirm this suggestion. But in fact, as I will show here, this suggestion is incorrect: Piper does not consider Wright’s teaching to be “another gospel”.

Continue reading →

Gene Robinson to be a "June bride"

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Bishop Gene Robinson, the infamous gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, is reported as saying:

I always wanted to be a June bride.

And so he is planning to “march down the aisle” with his partner Mark, in a same sex legal union, in June 2008 (not July 4th as reported by Ruth Gledhill). Well, as I wrote in comments here and here, and see also this post, I consider this to be a small step in the right direction: if he will not give up his gay union, it is best that he formally acknowledges it and pledges himself to being faithful to his partner.

But hold on, isn’t there something wrong here? A man who has always wanted to a bride? Continue reading →

Archbishop Rowan should stay away from Lambeth, and resign

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Only just over a week ago I reported here on a possible ray of hope for the Anglican Communion, that

The Archbishop of Canterbury is preparing to target individual bishops whose pro-gay policies threaten to derail his efforts to avert schism … by withdrawing their invitations to next year’s Lambeth Conference.

I didn’t hold out much chance for this initiative. But according to the latest news Archbishop Rowan has already closed it off. For he has put himself among the “bishops whose pro-gay policies threaten to derail his efforts to avert schism” by presiding at a ‘secret’ eucharist for the Clergy Consultation, a group of lesbian and gay clergy and their partners. It had been suggested that this service had been cancelled, but in fact it went ahead at a different venue.

If Archbishop Rowan is to be consistent with his own reported position, he should withdraw his own invitation to the Lambeth Conference, or announce that he will voluntarily stay away.

Continue reading →

Bishops without borders, including women

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Anglican Mainstream reports these words of Bishop Don Harvey, leader of the Anglican Network in Canada which is breaking away from the official Anglican Church of Canada:

There is no reference in the Bible to a diocese, border, or boundary.  I have heard ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel’. We have lawyers and doctors and engineers without borders. We are launching bishops without borders.

But it is not just in Canada that bishops are soon going to be operating without borders. Last night I attended an open meeting the synod of my deanery (local group of Anglican churches) to discuss the issue of women bishops. Continue reading →

A ray of hope for the Anglican Communion?

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For the first time for a long time I have seen some news offering a ray of hope for the Anglican Communion and the Church of England. According to the Daily Telegraph as reported by Anglican Mainstream,

The Archbishop of Canterbury is preparing to target individual bishops whose pro-gay policies threaten to derail his efforts to avert schism … by withdrawing their invitations to next year’s Lambeth Conference.

It seems to me that this is almost the only path which Archbishop Rowan Williams can take which has any real chance of holding the Anglican Communion together. Postponing the Lambeth Conference would help, but only by postponing the inevitable unless combined with some other strong action. But by excluding from the Conference bishops who deliberately flout the church’s agreed policies on homosexuality, he just may be able to avoid the threatened mass boycott by more conservative bishops, which would imply a schism right through the heart of Anglicanism.

The problem now for Dr Williams is exactly who to take off the Lambeth invitation list. Continue reading →

The root of John Piper's wrong theology

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I may have got myself into trouble with some comments I made on Adrian Warnock’s blog, on his post 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 5 – Two Critical Passages on Justification. This post is part of Adrian’s series on John Piper’s new book The Future of Justification. I was commenting mainly on these words which Adrian quoted from Piper:

Justification . . . happens to all who are connected to Christ the same way condemnation happened to those who were connected to Adam. How is that? Adam acted sinfully, and because we were connected to him, we were condemned in him. Christ acted righteously, and because we are connected to Christ we are justified in Christ. Adam’s sin is counted as ours. Christ’s “act of righteousness” is counted as ours.

In my first comment I argued that Piper is here basing his theology of justification on an analogy with Augustine’s understanding of original sin, an understanding which is faulty because, as widely recognised and as I explained in a previous post here, Augustine misunderstood Paul’s meaning in Romans 5:12 based on a poor Latin translation.

I went on to begin to sketch out some alternative views of my own. Continue reading →

Reflecting Culture, not Changing Attitude

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Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream quotes from an interesting press release from Changing Attitude, a pressure group which is “working for gay and lesbian affirmation within the Anglican Communion”, and of which the Bishop of Chelmsford is a patron. The press release, written by Davis Mac-Iyalla, director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, is interesting for its argument that full acceptance of homosexuality in the life of the church is analogous to the abolition of slavery.

Now in my post yesterday A further implication of Christianity being cross-cultural I noted (quoting an older post) that

slavery is accepted in the Bible because it was accepted by all in the cultural context, but this does not imply that it is normative for Christians.

In other words, it is right for Christians to support the abolition of slavery because the acceptance of slavery in the Bible was a culturally relative matter. This argument is in practice accepted by almost all Christians today, although it was highly controversial in the 19th century. Many evangelicals, including myself, apply the same argument to biblical passages which appear to teach that church leaders must be male, but this remains a controversial issue.

But does the same argument apply to homosexuality, as Mac-Iyalla seems to claim? Where should the line be drawn between what is culturally relative and what are the fundamental and unchangeable principles of the Christian faith?

Continue reading →

"What is at stake is the very nature of Anglicanism"

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I don’t often write here about the situation in the Anglican Communion, of which the Church of England to which I belong is a part. But the long and sorry saga of the last few years seems to be building up to a climax which can only be a split, at least in all but name. Here I give a rather simplified summary of the situation and my own reflections on it.

Continue reading →