press release – 12th March 2007
Archbishop of Mexico becomes Patron of InclusiveChurch
InclusiveChurch is pleased to announce that the Archbishop of Mexico, the Most Revd. Carlos Touche-Porter, has agreed to be Patron of InclusiveChurch.
The Archbishop said “As an Anglican committed to promote inclusiveness and diversity in our Church, I rejoice, celebrate and support the ministry of Inclusive Church. May the Anglican Communion continue to be a house of prayer for all people, where everyone is welcome, valued and respected”. He is Presiding Bishop of La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico and a Primate of the Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Carlos preached at a service hosted by Affirming Catholicism in Westminster Abbey on Monday 26th February. His sermon can be found here.
The Revd. Dr Giles Fraser said “Archbishop Carlos represents traditional Anglicanism of a sort that is familiar to ordinary members of the Church of England. His approach stands in marked contrast to the dangerous distortion that is occurring in other parts of our communion. We are delighted to have him as our Patron.”
A seminar on “Anglican Inclusion – A Global Tradition” is being organised by IC to take place in the summer. Further details will follow.
Congrats IC – never heard of the chap but congrats anyway
(might he be one of those who has presided over years of inclusive decline in Mexico?)
Politicians try to claim the middle /’mainstream’ ground. Giles Fraser knows that what he says is not true. For 5 reasons: (1) Modern views on homosexuality are a departure – more or less a 180 degree departure – from traditional Anglicanism; (2) That said, it is irrelevant whether something is a departure from anglicanism (as opposed to world Christianity as a whole) in the first place. Why view anglicanism as some independent body that has no essential relationship to the rest of Christianity? It is self-contradictory to prize the title anglican above the title Christian – yet that is what… Read more »
Please sir! Can I be the first to point out that the Mexican Anglican Church is a tiny one, and that therefore it cannot possibly represent truth or divine grace at work? The Macho Majority Mexican culture must be the one which speaks with the real Christian voice, must it not?
There has been some fantastic things done by Christians in Mexico and Latin America in the last few decades. This is a pleasant, if not completely unexpected surprise. I hope God keeps affirming and encouraging the wonderful work that is being done there.
Christopher S wrote: “Modern views on homosexuality are a departure – more or less a 180 degree departure – from traditional Anglicanism”. Actually, I agree with him. Anglicanism, which has only been around for a few hundred years started on a terrible footing as for as homosexuality went. Anglicanism was also originated during the schizoid period in history where Jesus had somehow replaced the God of the Old Testament and that the precepts of the Old Testament no longer counted because they had been usurped by Jesus and the new holy order. The methods of how to deal with the… Read more »
What a glorious name…a modern day apostle with a worthy name to follow in the tradition of the apostle to the apostles who elicited from Jesus the words ‘Noli me tangere’…Carlos ‘Ne Touche pas Porter’!
If Mexico is so very macho, then why is it that a major TV heartthrob in that country (Christian Chavez) recently came out of the closet, and still has a flourishing career?
As for modern views of gay-lesbianism being a departure from tradition, I don’t care. Copernicus was a departure from tradition (the long sanctified cosmology of Ptolemy that could guide a ship, and support a literal reading of Scripture), and he proved to be right; and so did Galileo, despite the verdict of the enforcers of orthodoxy.
Sounds like the mention of the tag word inclusion has echoed gastronomically, rather like a diver dropping chum into the shark waters on the opposite sides of the platform from whence he might lower his safety observation cage. But if you wish to see, well hear anyway, feeding frenzy in all its glories, a visit to Stand Firm In Faith will do us even better. Pretty amazing isn’t it, to remember that we belong to a body of believers that vary all the way from the Church of Sweden, to Canada, to TEC, to ACMex, to Brazil, to South Africa,… Read more »
Viva MEXICO!
With leadership like this Bishop it becomes understandable why Mexico remains 93% Catholic — and the number of Episcopalians is so small it doesn’t even figure in the statistics.
Muy excellente! 😀
[re Latinos and Anglicanism—specifically TEC—I like to tell this story: in 1994, the year I left New York City, my parish there had two English Sunday liturgies, and one Spanish one. When I went back to visit in 2004, it had two Spanish liturgies, and one English one! ;-)]
drdanfee – in your circles, you will find less enthusiasm for realignment because it sounds like you are are part of the small revisionist minority in the AC that has never had the courage to go it alone – but I guess it has made sense to be paid and housed by stupid orthodox people while subverting the church
(remember the vast majority of TEC’s money was given over the decades by people who never imagined the agenda of the current leadership)
Actually, I’m rather pleased that my little spoof on Mexico and Mexican Anglicanism seems to have stopped the usual suspects from bashing on about why this significant and welcome development should be ignored.
As Tom Lehrer used to say “how I long to get back/to the land of the wetback/and forget the Alamo, in Old Méjico. Olé!’
Margaret – I am not sure that the numbers of Anglicans in Mexico has to do with its leadership. In non Anglophone countries (not part of the old Empire and zone of influence) I think you’d expect the Catholic church to predominate. Can you give statistics for Anglicans in Italy, Spain, or Poland for example? I think in Mexico, as in Brazil and Argentina the churches are not large, but immensely respected for what they achieve for God in and for the community – and they use the local lingo. A language too of inclusion (in Brazil and Mexico), and… Read more »
I can’t get babelfish to translate Neil’s quotes. Can Neil or anyone translate please? I want to know.
On your logic, then, Margaret, the conservatives’ friend, Archbishop Venables of the Southern Cone, must be a pretty terrible leader, despite offering “oversight” to US congregations who are too pure to share a church with people who disagree with them.
The number of Episcopalians in his province is so tiny that he has to spread it over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru – and even then it can only muster 27,000 members.
No, that argument won’t do.
Margaret
The Latin American Christians have done so much more with liberation theology and its derivatives, especially the Catholic nuns and priests.
I still remember the four nuns being skinned alive in El Salvador.
It’s good to see the Episcoplians on the band wagon too.
A lovely breath of fresh air.
There we go again, back on the numbers seesaw. If *might is right* then Jesus was a damn fool and God should know better than to be bigger than our imaginations. And he should have told his disciples that anal sex, whoever does it, is a Big Moral no-no. No questions. No changes. You don’t have to be big to have principles that are essentially right. Majority views are notoriously conservative – take the abolition of slavery, for example. Perhaps a better analogy is between public opinion on the Iraq war and the increasingly ambivalent attitude of the Bush Administration… Read more »
Absolutely, Margaret, we can’t have a bishop telling the world that anyone is entitled to deep love in their lives. Jesus would be scandalised – it’s well known that he never mentioned love after all!
NP, I think you’re still missing the point of the AC. It is a broad community of churches who don’t all share the same beliefs and have a variety of theologies. No-one needs to have the courage to leave it and no-one needs to allow themselves to be pushed out by people who suddenly want to elevate sexuality to the only moral criterion that decides who is an acceptable Christian and who isn’t. You may not share our views and find them as morally repugnant as we find yours – but we’re here to stay and you will just has… Read more »
Matthew,
Noli me tangere means “don’t touch me”. If you search for the term in inverted commas “Noli me tangere” Wikipedia, for example, brings up: Noli me tangere is the Latin version of the words spoken, according to the Gospel of John, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene, meaning “touch me not” (the quotation appears in John 20:17).
The other phrase is a play on words. The Archbishop is called Carlos Touche Porter. Touche being like the French for touch, ne touche pas is don’t touch.
Hi Cheryl- Differences between eunuchs and homosexuals enumerated: (1) Eunuchs generally speaking suffer a medical operation to beome eunuchs. Of course, ‘Some are also born eunuchs’ (ie are impotent by nature); (2) To be a eunuch is (by and large, according to standard terminology) a profession; to be a homosexual is not. It reminds me of the story of the bishop who got in the train carriage in mufti. A fellow-traveller asked him what job he did. He showed his ring: ‘Does this give you a clue?’ ‘Oh, you must be something to do with the gays.’ was the response.… Read more »
NP – drdanfee is not part of a small revisionist minority in The Episcopal Church, his views are those of the clear majority of The Episcopal Church. It is your allies who cannot bear to be a minority and are scuttling off into splinter groups. I am interested in your knowledge of the churchmanship of those who have given to The Episcopal Church over the years – although you are not American. I would be very surprised if they thought that divergent views on the rightness or otherwise of other people’s sexual practices should be an article of faith –… Read more »
Hi Kieran-
You are so right. As I never tire of saying, the majority is not always right; might is rarely right.
The majority view on any topic is highly culturally dependent. It depends on who is shouting loudest, and who has a voice, in a culture at a given time. Hardly the way to truth.
All I was doing was correcting someone who had misidentified which party was the majority party. This is not a moral point but a factual point of information.
Hi Erika- Your argument (‘we’re here to stay and you will just have to live with us’) amounts to ‘possession is nine tenths of the law’. That is pretty amoral. Is this infinitely extensible. I believe in abortin every baby I conceive, but I’m not getting out of the church so you will have to learn to live with me. Repentance, schmepentance. I believe lying is no more wrong than truth-telling, but I’m not getting out, so learn to live with me. There is a pretty hideous fundamentalist song whose amoral and surely unchristian spirit you are echoing here: ‘I’m… Read more »
IIRC the eunuch was sometimes the equivalent of the infertile females with whom the princelings of some regimes were allowed to consort while the wars of the dynasty raged. The point under these circumstances (where the surgery was not total emasculation) was to ensure that any sexual congress which took place was not going to result in issue which might further complicate the succession. There is literary evidence to suggest that eunuchs were prized as sexual partners when their surgery left them in possession of the necessary bits for intercourse, since they could keep going for as long as the… Read more »
Thanks very much Erika,
Okay, but is that ‘don’t touch the bellboy’ or ‘don’t touch the icky brown beer’? Either way, WTF?
Christopher,
so if I don’t agree with your definition of sin and genuinely believe myself to be a part of the redeemed body of Christ, I will nevertheless have to leave because you are the more righteous sinner in your own eyes? Interesting theology!
“…am interested in your knowledge of the churchmanship of those who have given to The Episcopal Church over the years – although you are not American.” badman Fascinating thought. I believe my Great Grandparents would have shot “puritan extremists” in the butt (or elsewhere) when they tried to steal the Episcopal Church Property/Stained glass windows in their little church/town in the Wild Wild U.S. West (nobody would have challenged them either as they were the *law* and the notable citizens of their time). Odd, I’m directly descended from them which is part of the ongoing REALITY of LGBT and heterosexual… Read more »
Christopher Shell once again shows off his hilarious Gnosticisms as bad as his abysmal ignorance and disregard for God’s Creation (very good according to Scripture). Point by point: (1) Eunuchs come in many shapes. Some by surgery, partial (balls) or complete. These are the ones who “have been made so by humans”. Others are Eunuchs by birth, such as Hermaphrodites (2 sets of body parts), Pseudo Hermaphrodites (0 body parts), along with those who have partial or undeveloped body parts. Some Eunuchs are sterile, others are not. Impotence is an entirely different matter altogether. (2) In Antiquity up to the… Read more »
Christopher Shell–
Your understanding of eunuch is a fairly modern one. It is not the one, for instance, known in Roman law. It’s also probably not the one understood in India. Moreover, some of the Fathers don’t even read eunuch in your sense and refer to it as an aversion to women.
Hello badman
Glad at least you like having irritating NP around here.
Don’t think it is fair to say evos do not care on other issues – it is just that we do not disagree with liberals on issues of justice etc when consistent with the scriptures…..we only disagree when we are being asked to ditch scripture (and tradition AND reason i.e. “ignore those verses, we don’t like them but listen to the verses against injustice” – this is not consistent)
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon, in that the ‘Biblical’ anti-gay stance is often backed up by appeal to medico-epidemiological data.
This seems to me to be problematic.
Which is the primary authority? Would someone who would regard me as a ‘reappraiser’ care to comment?
Erika – obviously, because of TEC’s 2003/6 actions, the AC is changing from a loose affiliation of bodies into something more cohesive
– this is happening because the actions/ thinking of the leadership of TEC in the last few years is not acceptable to the vast majority of Anglicans in the world today……even the ABC is now giving TEC deadlines and asking for unequivocal responses
The AC has changed. TEC is causing a lot of sacrifice and will have to face sacrifices itself – I hope VGR is worth it.
Christopher – You’re a tad confused. (But Cheryl’s remarks were a little confusing too.) The Old Testament law for eunuchs was that they be excluded from participating in worship. I would hardly consider that admirable, or being “treated with respect”. The prophet Isaiah looked forward to a time when eunuchs would be included among the congregation, thus flatly contracting the Law of Moses. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus made a cryptic remark concerning those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom – one presumes he had Isaiah’s prophecy in mind, although this is usually (and I think incorrectly)… Read more »
(remember the vast majority of TEC’s money was given over the decades by people who never imagined the agenda of the current leadership) says NP In British law the principle was established that over 25 years in continuation a congregation may change its beliefs and still be entitled to historical moneys given to it. This came about after the Lady Hewley case in York where Presbyterian Puritan foundations funded Unitarian congregations. Parliament changed the law in 1845 and Unitarian chapels were protected. So even if a (British) TEC was innovating its views (and the US version is not innovating its… Read more »
“The AC has changed. TEC is causing a lot of sacrifice and will have to face sacrifices itself – I hope VGR is worth it.” The AC *hierarchy* has changed, NP: it has, Curia-style, aggrandized vast amounts of POWER-OVER that previous generations of Anglican bishops, at Lambeth, seem to have never intended (Speaking of intentions: *contra* your “remember the vast majority of TEC’s money was given over the decades by people who never imagined the agenda of the current leadership”. Really not impressed with your “I know the Mind of God and the Saints” schtick, NP!) Is +Gene Robinson “worth… Read more »
NP, I am proud to worship in a small village church where my evangelical “opponent” and I don’t agree on anything at all, but where we can kneel side by side at the altar, where we can share prayer meetings and sincerely share the Peace with each other, where we can speak out publicly against each other’s views while still acknowledging that we are all members of the same body of Christ. We both know that we are driven by a deep love of Christ and a genuine search for what it means to live as a Christian. We regret… Read more »
Goran and Caelius Thanks for those postings. We need souls who can remove the veil on how the word eunuch has been redefined over history to gloss over the breadth of what was originally included. That removes another of their debate points before the magistrate. Keep up the good work on that front too. The more fronts they can’t win on, the more points in the debate that they can not claim are “undisputed”, the less their credibility. Further if they try to play a debate point after it has been proven to be flawed, knowing that the flaw is… Read more »
Erika – “agreeing to disagree” or pretending there is unity is not a model we are given by the Lord.
JCF: what I see is in TEC is 2Tim4:3
NP, we all have to have the same views on the morals of everything? If I disagree with your view on the death penalty I have to set up a different church? If you don’t like me views on genetic engineering, money lending or divorce you have to cast me out because agreeing to disagree is not the model given by the Lord? You must be reading a different bible! Mine is all about God’s love, about loving your neighbour as yourself, about not looking for the spec of wood in the other’s eye and about Jesus remeeming us all.… Read more »
I meant spec of dust, of course! Oh the joys of English as a second language!
Hi Erika- It is true that agreeing to disagree is no good to anyone. It stifles discussion, and it means that people will hold tight to the so-called conclusions they want to come to without room for further enlightenment. That is probably the reason that people propose it. Surely all views held by honest people are provisional, and subject to further discussion and development? Your bible is about God’s love? Mine is about all sorts of different topics. God’s love very much included. God’s holiness very much included. There is no such bible as the one that is about only… Read more »
_Erika – “agreeing to disagree” or pretending there is unity is not a model we are given by the Lord._ NP
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this, or indeed the regulative importance of 2 Timothy 4:3, written after Paul’s death.
So, Pluralist – pls show where the Lord taught we should agree to disagree?
(He was pretty keen on the Truth – my bible tells me)
Erika – I am not reading my bible selectively – we cannot just ignore the bits we do not like in our culture
Well batted Brian. One of the other things to remember is the blatent censorship that has removed certain parts of the texts where eunuchs were acknowledged and treated with respect. My favourite evidence is 8:38, it’s one of those times where numbering those paragraphs leaves a hole in the texts. Having proof in every living bible then raises the question of what else has also been cut out of the texts. The comment “Your argument (‘we’re here to stay and you will just have to live with us’) amounts to ‘possession is nine tenths of the law’. That is pretty… Read more »
Cheryl wrote: “One of the other things to remember is the blatant censorship that has removed certain parts of the texts …. … 8:38, it’s one of those times where numbering those paragraphs leaves a hole in the texts. … raises the question of what else has also been cut out of the texts.” Early manuscripts contain rubrics. Sometimes these don’t correspond with the text as given, indicating simple scribal errors, such as when the Codex Vaticanus gives the rubrics for the last chapters of Hebrews, but omits the text. The Vaticanus in fact gives Alexandrian Heb as Pauline, because… Read more »
Continued: However, 20th century papyrus finds show that some “additions” are in fact older and generally more correct readings than the Alexandrian ones. The Byzantine redaction was not only a harmonization for the new Imperial Patriarchate of Constantinople but an exegetical and theological effort at re-establishing the General Text, as before the Alexandrian Sondertradition. While discarding the many hundreds of Sinaiticus additions to the text of the elder Vaticanus (particularly in the gospels), the Codex Sinaiticus Is Normative School of the late 19th and 20th centuries removed most of the Byzantine additions ;=) This is the explanation for the 20th… Read more »
NP, I’m sorry that once again you have not answered my question. Do we have to agree on all major moral issues before one of us has to leave the church, or is only sexuality of such key importance? I’m glad that we agree on not reading the bible selectively. But it’s not a case of “ingoring” the bits we find difficult but of trying to work out what they might mean. The overriding “rule” is that God Is Love. Everything has to make sense in that context. If it doesn’t, then it’s clear to me that my understanding must… Read more »
Erika – the later chapters of Romans say we do not have to agree on “disputable” matters….but we cannot agree to ignore certain bits of scripture just because we do not like them – they are there and there meaning has not been obscure for 2 millenia