Updated Wednesday noon
George Pitcher at the Telegraph has written Anti-gay Anglicans take Queen’s name in vain.
…“Sources close to the Palace”, as they say, have coughed lightly and raised an eyebrow to one another. That’s a courtier’s equivalent of being incandescent with rage.
Because Her Majesty said no such thing. A secretary wrote in reply to representations that Her Majesty (as Supreme Governor of the Church of England) “understands the commitment to the Anglican Church that prompted you and your brethren to write as you did”. And that was a year ago, in reply to a letter to her from what was then called Gafcon, when the traditionalists met in Jerusalem. She then sent her “good wishes to all concerned” last week in response to a separate approach from Foca. Even Foca’s trumpet-bearers at the Anglican Mainstream website carry these passages…
BBC Radio 4 tonight: The Moral Maze:
…While Conservative and Labour politicians are trading insults with each other in a bid to win over the ‘gay vote’, the Bishop of Rochester has taken a different tack. With the rainbow bunting from London’s Pride festival hardly yet packed away, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said homosexuals should change and repent their sin.
The Church of England has been embroiled in a doctrinal battle over sexuality since the ordination of the first openly homosexual bishop in 2003. The Bishop of Rochester was speaking just before the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, a conservative group in the Church of England. ‘We want to hold on to the traditional teachings of the Church. We don’t want to be rolled over by culture and trends in the Church.’ Well, despite Michael Nazir-Ali’s attempts to clarify his position, saying that we all need to repent for straying from God’s purpose for us, it hasn’t stopped the accusations of homophobia…
Dave Walker at the Church Times blog has a selection of blog posts titled Anglo Catholics unimpressed by the FCA launch meeting.
Update
Dave has now added a comprehensive roundup of links to bloggers who have commented on the FCA meeting. See Bloggers on the FCA launch.
It saddens me to read of the disillusionment of the Catholics. But it is clear that it was always an unholy, tactical alliance; and not based on the religious impulse or desire for personal warmth and fellowship.
Also perceived ‘liberals’ of any stripe are spoken of with disrespect, which makes me very sad. So there is a lot of splitting and projection. Unity and good feeling based on excluding others who are seen , not just as holding different views, but as culpable.
A tragedy for the religious spirit and impulse. Must it be like this ?
All this has me reaching for my Krishnamurti again, and wondering just how much space there is for my humanity on such a confined and stylized stage as (established) Christianity. The rigidly pro- and anti- rhetoric in this and in many other cases is often expressed out there in the blogosphere, at the till, in the pub and on street corners in such an ignorant and puerile way that just to enter the fray is to tempt irrationality to usurp the throne of human endeavour. As Krishnamurti might have pointed out, both Dawkins and Nazir-Ali, for example, despite one being… Read more »
“We are looking to going home to the Universal Church, in Communion with the Holy Father and half Christendom.” Not this Anglocatholic! I happen to think that the Bishop of Rome, while the senior Western prelate and deserving of a primacy of honour as a result, though I am a bit cynical of the fact that that is solely as a result of his being bishop of the capital of a long defunct Empire, hath no authority outside his own diocese, like any other bishop. Our breach with Rome, like our breach with other Christians, is a sin, but that’s… Read more »
Well If Nazir-Ali wants a level playing field for sin and repentance, so be it. I will repent of being gay or having gay family or friends; or whatever else NA thinks is flat earth wrong about all that stuff; when he repents of being straight.
Deal?
“We are looking to going home to the Universal Church, in Communion with the Holy Father and half Christendom.”
I am afriad I do not understand what is keeping you. Why tarriest thou ?
But if you did ‘go home’ it might be as problematic as many a home; and no the dream come true you surmise. But perhaps that intuition is what keeps you here ?
“I am afriad I do not understand what is keeping you.” Nor do I. I am an Anglocatholic and am quite clear on why I have not, and would not, swim the Tiber. I’d cross the Bosporus far more quickly, but ony when pushed. The reason is simple, I find more to disagree with in Rome than I do in Anglicansim, and about equal amounts in both Anglicanism and Eastern Christianity. But, if I honestly believed he was “Benedict, our Pope”, if I honestly felt that union with Rome was some sort of ideal, I’d go unite myself with Rome.… Read more »