Updated Tuesday morning
Riazat Butt reported in the Guardian on the conservative opposition in Southwark, see Gay bishop for Southwark ‘will split Church of England’. Dr Jeffrey John nominated for Anglican diocese but parishes could seek leadership abroad, conservative clerics warn.
Andrew Brown has written at Cif belief Sex and the archbishop. Installing the openly gay Jeffrey John as bishop would be a decisive victory for Rowan Williams. But if he’s beaten, he’s finished.
Tuesday’s Guardian Diary column has this:
The issue of gay bishops has them marching as to war within the church and no mistake. How can we have Jeffrey John, an openly gay man, as bishop of Southwark, thundered traditionalist canon Chris Sugden on the Today programme yesterday? Yes, it’s muskets at dawn, and when the hostilities begin, look out for the Rev Paul Perkin, a member of the Church of England General Synod and vicar of the deeply evangelical St Mark’s in Battersea, part of the Southwark diocese in south London. He strongly opposes the proposed candidature of John, and the cut of his jib is such that his parish website programme page is decorated with cartoon graphics of military tanks. “Faith Under Fire,” reads the caption. Those who feel threatened will inevitably fire back.
Martin Beckford at the Telegraph has Traditionalist Church of England groups warn of defections if gay bishop is ordained
Ah yes, Border-crossing…
I was somewhat surprised to discover in a recent article in Economist that: http://www.economist.com/node/16488830?story_id=16488830&fsrc=rss ‘Support for the anti-homosexuality bill in the Ugandan parliament has fallen away after Mr Ssempa and other preachers accused a rival Pentecostal, Robert Kayanja, of sodomy. Mr Kayanja, coincidentally a half-brother of the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has himself been criticised in Uganda for milking the poor to live a luxury life’ Perhaps the realisation that the Archbishop’s half-brother might be due for a long prison term, of the sort so often applauded by some factions in the Church, might have finally persuaded Rowan Williams… Read more »
“A Reform spokesman said: “Dr John’s teaching regarding homosexual practice is contrary to both the Bible and to the current doctrine of the Church of England.”
Come now, it’s not John’s “teaching” that has them up in arms!
The premise of Andrew Brown’s column — that the appointment of Dr John, on current doctrinal terms, would leave the Church of England in a coherent place — is laughable. From the right, the distinction between non-celibate and open but celibate is no distinction at all. Does anyone think that this distinction will matter one whit to the Global South? It’s reminiscent of Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale.” From the right, it’s too clever by half. From the left, the distinction between celibate and non-celibate is so consequential — so dehumanizing, so discriminatory — as to be tragic. Why Andrew Brown… Read more »
“As in North America, with its shrinking liberal Episcopal Church, and growing orthodox Anglican Church, there will be a formal divide. Maybe not immediately, we tend not to rush things. There are two new groups already within the Church of England, one called Inclusive Church, the other the fellowship of Confessing Anglicans linking with other Anglican Provinces” – Revd. Ray Skinner, in the C. of E. Newspaper – This article, by a desperate evangelical anti-gay English cleric, is here comparing chalk and cheese: FOCA and ACNA. Of the two sodalities, only FOCA is still within the parent Church (C.of E.)… Read more »
Jeremy – Canterbury’s answer will of course be that what goes on in a committee stays there.
Rev. Skinner’s comments on a shrinking liberal TEC and growing “orthodox” church really should be taken with an entire box full of salt. When you start with zero, the only way to go is up.
The usual jeer that liberal churches “shrink” while conservative churches “grow” also shouldn’t pass.
The Southwark Diocesan Statement of Needs notes that “The Cathedral congregation has trebled in the past dozen years; attendance, notably at Christmas and Easter, has quadrupled.”
Why do the media pay such court to Sugden ? Why does he need his own Court around him ?
Do they imagine his opinions repeated ad nauseam over the years carry particular weight ?
I expect that, should he live long enough, he may like Rev Ian Paisley, come round and embrace the other, maybe as jovially !
Time to try out the latest version of “my theory which is mine” on the assembled worthies. My reconstruction of the sequence of events may be entirely incorrect, but this is the way the failed novelist who lives inside me thinks it must have happened. Southwark indicates they’d like Dr. John for bishop. Oh noase! Impossible! A bit of a scramble ensues while another candidate is located. Problem: the only other acceptable (=heterosexual) candidate turns out to be divorced and remarried. ++Rowan changes the rules to enable his candidacy. At this point, having got wind of things, the new Prime… Read more »
Charlotte: no. I don’t think Nick Holtam is divorced and remarried, merely that his wife is, which was sufficient, in the weird parallel moral universe that is the contemporary C of E, to disqualify him
Fr. Mark, you’re right about Nick Holtam. Thanks for the emendation.
But — does anyone beside me see the hand of the Prime Minister in this?
Charlotte — Very much so. But I rather doubt that David Cameron particularly wanted to take the Archbishop of Canterbury off the hook. Rather, the PM has asked for two names so that he can make a political and policy point by approving that of Dr John. It is hard to imagine a more abrupt, stinging, and necessary message from the World to the Church. Andrew Brown — This particular Crown Nominations Commission leaks like a sieve. The world will find out eventually what Canterbury did (or didn’t do). Then he will be asked about it. If he wants to… Read more »
Result already reported. That was fast.
Colin Coward reports a “unilateral veto” by the Archbishop of Canterbury. True? If yes, how?