Several this weekend are about the 400th anniversary of the gunpowder plot. In the Guardian Catherine Pepinster (who is editor of The Tablet) wrote about this and in The Times Geoffrey Rowell wrote Remember, remember the legacy of suspicion, intolerance and hostility.
Christopher Howse however, wrote about The vision of Magnus Martyr.
In The Tablet *Michael Barnes continues the gunpowder theme with Terror, treason and plot and there are also book reviews. related to this.
Giles Fraser in the Church Times asks Is Sandy Millar a Trojan horse?
The gunpowder theme even extends to Peter Steinfels in the New York Times with A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism. (hat tip KH)
Kudos to Giles Fraser for smelling something amiss w/ this “Sandy Millar: Bishop of London, Uganda” (?) affair. If agreeing to this scheme was supposed to hold off “episcopal interventions”, didn’t the irregular ordinations of a few days ago give lie to this anyway? But even before that, is the CofE *not supposed to notice* that Millar would be consecrated by the *same* +Henry Orombi mucking around, *most irregularly, most unilaterally*, in the Diocese of Los Angeles? If +Orombi doesn’t recognize decency and good order on *our* side of the pond, why would he on yours? Fraser says it all:… Read more »
Really, really not JCF. Note that this has come at the instigation and wish of the Bp of London and with the full backing of ++RW simply because it is not possible to consecrate honorary bishops in the CofE. There was apparently talk of making him the Bp of Islington (an old and disused bishopric I am told) but this was allegedly shot down by the HoB since he would not have actually been looking after a specific area. Personally I don’t think it’s a brilliant idea simply because it will annoy quite a few people and confuse a lot… Read more »
Dear JCF You have been somewhat misinformed. Before railing against Uganda and joining with Giles Fraser in insulting Sandy Millar, you should know that it was ++Canterbury and +London who asked Sandy to accept this role!!
Maybe Rev Fraser would like to explain why he omitted this rather key fact from his critique… is he suffering from excessive liberal panic?!
Why not a Peerage, then?
Goran maybe you can resubmit that idea when the CofE has the power to dish out peerages.
You mean Sandy Millar wouldn’t qualify?
Meaning that the CofE *can’t* just make retired clergy peers any more than it can make them non-territorial bishops!
And just as a matter of interest here is the LGCM Press Release prepared for Sandy Millar’s happy event when it was first “announced” last year! An official announcement is expected later this week confirming Prebendary John Alexander Kirkpatrick (Sandy) Millar, Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in the diocese of London (UK) is to be made a bishop in the Anglican Church of Uganda. Prebendary Millar who is 65 this year, has recently announced his retirement as Vicar of Holy Trinity where he is to be succeeded by his curate Nicky Gumbel the co-founder of the Alpha Course. While… Read more »
The more you tell me about this, the less I understand.
Revd Richard Kirker, general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement had this to say when he heard the news of Sandy Millar’s forthcoming consecration: “There is no doubt that Sandy Millar and the work of HTB has brought a living faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ to many who would otherwise have remained untouched by the Church.” It’s great that LGCM folk have felt blessed through Alpha (modified version).. I’ve also seen it used in many Catholic churches in France and Belgium.. and protestant ones all over. Sandy’s project has had VERY broad appeal even across the lib/con… Read more »
These arguments make it clear that Millar is *worthy of honor*.
What they do *not* make clear is
1) Why *consecration to the episcopate* is the appropriate honor, or if it is
2) Why the Church in Uganda (and particularly +Orombi) is the means by which to bestow it.
“It is obvious that those in England planning to acknowledge Sandy Millar had no knowledge of this impending complication.”
But it *did* complicate it—fatally, IMO. In the year following, there’s been plenty of time to re-think this.
It’s a pity that this re-thinking apparently has not happened. :-/
Would explain some of the things they say on their site, though…
Dear Göran, Maybe you need to learn to “think outside the box”? For instance there is nothing fundamental about Bishop’s having a geographical territory (it’s neither first order theology or morality). I think that it arose out of convenience (transport being slow) and was consolidated by the Roman Church to fit with the way civilised society worked.
Both communications and the way society works have changed rapidly in the last 100 years, so why shouldn’t the definition of a Bishop’s “diocese” change too ? Or are you saying that morals and beliefs are flexible, but power structures are sacred ?
Dear Dave,
I don’t follow. In the Church of Sweden Bishops are God’s good order, not fundamental, but neither can they (or their Dioceses) be discarded. Only denominations do that.
How you want Dioceses to change because of railroads I don’t know… Where’s the connection? Clapham?
Dear Dave, thank you for being spot on in your criticism of the “liberal panic” expressed by Giles Fraser and our Nordic revisionist Goran. As long as it suits them the power structures are sacred and everything else is flexible. If they had been members of the Roman Church the structures would hardly be this attractive to uphold. This tells us all about what kind of “catholics” they are!
Dear Göran, to explain: Until recent centuries nearly everyone used to live in small local communities, most rarely left the locality where they were born, and all their friends and family were within a few kilometers of them. Nowadays people move around a lot for work, leisure etc, communities are spread much further apart and are mixed together, and overlap geographically. This has been happening for a few generations in the UK. Now we also have much better communications, so that we can travel faster, further – to keep in contact with a distributed community, and we also have telephone… Read more »
Oh! Couldn’t have guessed.
But this seems stark innovation to me ;=)
Dear Göran, Echt stark! :=)
Dear Reader, Stark means “strong” in German and “Echt Stark” would mean “really cool idea” or something similar..