Religious Intelligence carries this report dated Thursday, 2nd August 2007. 3:50pm
England to get ‘flying bishop’?
By: Ed Beavan.NIGERIA is on the verge of appointing its own ‘flying bishop’ in England to represent disillusioned Anglicans, The Church of England Newspaper has learnt.
A new bishop to be appointed by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola could be consecrated before next year’s Lambeth Conference if plans succeed. A source describing himself as a ‘worker in the Nigerian diocese’ said he was aware of such plans and that such a person would be employed as a ‘mission co-ordinator’.
Rumours regarding the possibility of such a role have been circulating over the last few months but this is the first time it has been confirmed by a clergy member from Nigeria.
Speaking to the CEN he said: “It is possible that Archbishop Peter Akinola will have somebody appointed by the next Lambeth Conference in July 2008.” To read the whole of this story see this week’s Church of England Newspaper or go to www.churchnewspaper.com
Update
The text of the full article is to be found here.
Update Saturday morning
Ekklesia has also reported on this, Nigerian Primate may ordain breakaway Church of England bishop.
Update Saturday evening
Fr Jake has reminded us that this started back in September 2005, with Nigerian archbishop warns of break with mother church in the Mail & Guardian Online. TA carried it within this article.
Nigeria’s Anglican archbishop said on Thursday that Nigerian churches might cut ties with the Church of England if it did not revise its stance on homosexuality, which accepts gay priests in same-sex partnerships.
“As of now, we have not yet reached the point of schism, but there’s a broken relationship,” Archbishop Peter Akinola told reporters in the capital, Abuja.
Akinola had already spoken out against a July 25 announcement from England’s bishops that said gay priests who register same-sex partnerships under a new civil law will remain in good standing so long as they promise to remain celibate.
Akinola said on Thursday that there was still hope to recover church unity if churches that have adopted liberal lines on homosexuality showed “repentance”.
Update Sunday morning revised Tuesday evening
The BBC Sunday programme also reported on this story:
101 CommentsThe Anglican Church’s travails over homosexuality have taken another twist: the Church of England newspaper is reporting that Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria – who takes a famously hard line on the matter – is to appoint a ‘flying bishop’ to England to minister to disenchanted Anglicans here. Archbishop Akinola has already sent a bishop to the United States with a similar mission. Stephen Bates of The Guardian has written a book about the divisions in the church and joined Sunday.
Listen (4m 12s)
Updated Monday
My Church Times articles published in last week’s paper edition are now available on the web:
Priddis loses, but sticks to his guns
Quotes from the bishop:
Talking to the Church Times last week, the Bishop said that he had consulted the diocesan registrar on four separate occasions during the course of the recruitment, and believed he had followed the advice given. He was therefore surprised at the tribunal’s judgment, which, he said, was puzzling and in some ways inconsistent. A particular concern to him was that it felt able to override his own pastoral judgement, based on 35 years’ experience.
He awaited further advice from the lawyers on whether to appeal, but he also needed them to advise on changes to diocesan procedures to avoid future problems. “I am disappointed that the judgment spends so much time focusing on the 1991 House of Bishops teaching document Issues in Human Sexuality, and so little on the more important decision of General Synod in 1987.”
The Bishop insisted that in rejecting Mr Reaney he was upholding the 1987 teaching of the General Synod that “holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders,” which was not limited to the clergy.
Why this constitutes illegal discrimination
My concluding paragraphs:
The tribunal found the facts of this case so compelling that it found in Mr Reaney’s favour without needing to rely on the discriminatory nature of the underlying Church of England policy of “marriage or abstinence”. The marker laid down here, however, and the inherent difficulty of proving justification, suggests that any future case might well succeed in a claim of indirect discrimination.
On the other hand, the ease with which this tribunal accepted that this officer-level post fell within the ambit of the religious exemption will be of concern to those who had imagined that only top-level lay employees in dioceses and at the National Church Institutions were affected.
Last Tuesday’s edition of The Times carried a profile of the barrister who represented John Reaney. Sandhya Drew said this about the case:
What were the main challenges in this case and the implications of the decision?
The challenges were having to deal with the culture of fear and concealment surrounding sexual orientation in the Church of England. What was very striking, however, was the amount of support for John Reaney from Christians of all sexual orientations, not only within the Church of England but within the Diocese of Hereford itself. The main implication of the decision is that organised religions should not assume that they can rely on an exemption from the law against discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation. Lesbian and gay people of faith make a significant contribution to all the leading world religions and the law will protect them where necessary.
Update Monday
The case is cited in an article in Personnel Today Weekly dilemma: Job interviews.
Updated again Saturday
The Bishop of Virginia has removed 21 priests from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church.
See the full details here: Inhibited Clergy Released from Obligations of Priesthood:
Yesterday, in an official act observed by two presbyters of The Diocese of Virginia and with the advice and consent of the diocesan Standing Committee, the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee took the required canonical action to remove from the priesthood clergy inhibited by him on January 22, 2007. Those clergy were inhibited following a determination by the diocesan Standing Committee January 18 that they had abandoned the Communion of The Episcopal Church. The possibility of such a determination was explained by the Bishop in a December 1, 2006 letter to the clergy and leadership of the now-former Episcopal congregations. By this action, the former Episcopal clergy are “released from the obligations of Priest or Deacon and … deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority conferred in Ordination.”
In addition to losing their capacity to officiate in Episcopal churches or in any manner as Episcopal priests, the former Episcopal clergy lose their capacity to contribute to pension plans begun during their time as Episcopal priests and any other benefits of service as Episcopal priests or employees of Episcopal churches or institutions. Pension benefits accrued to this point will remain payable…
The names listed do not include Martyn Minns who was earlier consecrated a bishop in the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). In a letter dated October 2, Bishop Lee wrote:
…On August 20, 2006, the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns was consecrated a bishop in the Church of Nigeria. That act established his canonical residence in Nigeria and ended his canonical residence in the Diocese of Virginia. Consequently, as a Bishop from another province of the Anglican Communion, Martyn’s ability to function in any jurisdiction other than Nigeria, where he is canonically resident, requires that he be licensed by the Bishop with oversight.
…I have licensed Martyn to serve as priest-in-charge of Truro church through January 1, 2007. The details of the license also establish that Martyn will perform no episcopal acts in the Diocese of Virginia through January 1, 2007 and that Martyn will exercise his ministry in compliance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church and The Diocese of Virginia.
The Anglican District of Virginia, an “association of Anglican congregations in Virginia”, has responded. See ADV Responds to the Bishop of Virginia’s Announcement to Depose Former Clergy.
ADV describes itself thus:
ADV is currently comprised of 19 member congregations, 15 of which are under the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop of CANA, The Right Reverend Martyn Minns, and four of which are ecclesiastical members under direct authority of other Anglican Archbishops, strongly supported by ADV members.
The Anglican Communion Network has responded. See Bishops will continue in ministry with Virginia priests:
…The Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy, the Rt. Rev. Peter Beckwith of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, the. Rt. Rev. Jack Iker of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Rt. Rev. John David Schofield of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin have issued the following statement:
“In conscience we must remain in relationship and ministry with these priests, and the many others who have had this canon used against them because of their determination to stand with mainstream Anglicanism. As bishops, we ordain priests for the whole church. Surely we overstep our bounds when we attempt to decide for the whole church that a priest’s ministry is ended because he is no longer under our authority.
“Because these Virginia priests are priests in good standing in the Provinces of Uganda and Nigeria, respectively, the deposition is, in fact, of no effect. Each is recognized as a priest in good standing of the Anglican Communion. Therefore we welcome them to exercise their sacerdotal ministries in our Dioceses. Though we continue to work and pray for a charitable disengagement, actions such as this only make our relationships with each other more difficult and divided.”
Julia Duin has this report in the Washington Times Episcopal bishop ejects clergy.
Updated Saturday morning
Associated Press Priests reject Virginia Episcopal bishop’s sanctions
Living Church Network Bishops Pledge Solidarity With Virginia Clergy
The Living Church has Brief Testimony in Presentment Trial of Colorado Priest.
Episcopal News Service has COLORADO: Evidence presented against former Colorado Springs rector.
Update Thursday afternoon
Colorado Springs Independent Armstrong a no-show at his own church trial.
Here are links to the General Synod detailed reports published in the Church Times on 13 July.
Crown appointments: Synod seeks to extend reform to deans and canons
Marriage: Wedding couples’ ‘qualifying connections’ agreed
Appointments
Worship training: Move for ‘better’ liturgy welcomed
Childhood
Anglican Covenant: C of E is to ‘engage positively’ with the global Primates
Presidential address
Commissioners: Southwark diocese fails to win review of accountability
Ethical investments: Investors’ blacklist to stay confidential
Disability: See what we do, Synod told
2008 budget: Ordinands squeezed as numbers surge
Iran
Church Army
Farewells
Parochial fees Big rise in fee to bury ashes
Methodists: Lay presidency and bishops at issue
Clergy pensions: Defined-benefits rescue plan approved
Minorities: Hospitality is ‘still lacking’
Apologies for the delay in posting this set of links.
0 CommentsAuburn Faber Traycik of the Christian Challenge has published Conservative Leaders Will Ensure Communion’s Orthodox Stand In Gay Dispute. This is a report of what Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies said to a day-long Festival of Faith at St. Luke’s Church, Bladensburg, Maryland. Here is the first part of it:
19 Comments“This is a fight we are engaged in and we will see it through to the end. We are determined to see that the Anglican Communion ends up on the right side of the debate” over homosexual practice.
So West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez declared outside Washington, D.C. Saturday, drawing a standing ovation from a sizeable gathering of orthodox believers during a day-long Festival of Faith at St. Luke’s Church, Bladensburg, Maryland. The event also featured retired Quincy (IL) Episcopal Bishop Donald Parsons.
Gomez assailed opponents for characterizing fidelity to the consistent witness of scripture on homosexual practice as homophobia, bigotry, and fundamentalism. He said that he and co-religionist Anglican leaders would keep the Communion in line with the 2,000-year consensus of Christianity on same-sex relations, holding that the issue relates to “God’s ordering of life.” It is therefore – contrary the recent declaration by the Anglican Church of Canada – a matter of “core doctrine.”
But the leading conservative primate (provincial leader) also warned of a liberal recasting of official Anglicanism if some conservative provinces boycott the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. A few provinces have already determined to skip the meeting over the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to include therein all Episcopal prelates who have violated the Lambeth ‘98 sexuality resolution except actively gay prelate Gene Robinson, and to exclude U.S. missionary bishops backed by African provinces.
Gomez also sees obstacles to fulfilling the hopes of embattled American conservatives that The Episcopal Church (TEC) would be deemed by primates this fall to have left the Communion, a move they thought could help usher in a new jurisdiction for faithful U.S. Anglicans.
Such Communion housecleaning is still hampered by a weak top-level Communion structure that is already undergoing de facto change, but which awaits formal strengthening via the prospective Anglican covenant, which would be binding among provinces that adopt it. That is something Gomez knows a lot about, and talked a lot about in Bladensburg, as he not only helped produce the 2004 Windsor Report which (inter alia) recommended a covenant to help alleviate Anglican structural problems, he heads the panel that is designing the pact. Backed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his fellow primates, the covenant is a key agenda item for Lambeth ‘08, which, however, already appears to be in trouble due to Dr. Williams’ controversial handling of invitations to the once-a-decade meeting.
GOMEZ TOLD his Washington-area audience, which numbered over 200 at its peak, that he sees little prospect that all 38 Anglican primates will meet later this year to determine the Communion status of TEC, whose bishops and Executive Council have rebuffed the primates’ last-ditch pleas to forswear further same-sex blessings and actively gay bishops, and to cooperate in the primates’ plan to provide an alternative leadership for disaffected Episcopal dioceses and parishes. Episcopal bishops have until September 30 to give a final answer to the primates’ appeals, before which time Archbishop Williams is due to meet with the prelates. Gomez and others still hope TEC will have a change of heart, but no one is predicting one.
The Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Reverend Alan Harper, preached this sermon at Clonmacnoise on the Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene. Read it all, but here’s the concluding part:
37 CommentsArchbishop Drexel Gomez, addressing the General Synod of the Church of England on the issue of an Anglican Covenant, said recently:
Anglican leaders are seriously wondering whether they can recognize in each other the faithfulness to Christ that is the cornerstone of our common life and cooperation. While some feel there will be inevitable separation, others are trying to deny that there is a crisis at all. That is hardly a meeting of minds. Unless we can make a fresh statement clearly and basically of what holds us together we are destined to grow apart.
I doubt if anyone believes that there is no crisis. Rather, in the context of Archbishop Drexel’s key test, that is, recognizing in each other the faithfulness to Christ that is the cornerstone of our common life and cooperation, a spirit of arrogance on both sides is causing people of genuine faith and undoubted love for the Lord Jesus to bypass the requirement for patience and for making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
I have yet to meet any “leader” who does not treat with the utmost respect and indeed reverence the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. I have heard no one in this crisis deny the fundamental tenets of the faith as Anglicans have received them. Yet I have heard believing Christians attack other Christians for not believing precisely as they themselves believe. Equally, I have heard believing Christians attack other Christians for not attaching the weight they themselves attach to this biblical text compared with that.
This is not the way of Christ; it is the way of fallen humanity. It is a boulder of our own creation and I do not know who will help us to roll it away.
Some fear, and I am among them, that an Anglican Covenant, unless it is open and generous and broad, may simply become a further means of obstruction: a boulder, rather than a lever to remove what obscures and impedes our access to the truth that sets us free.
The truth is that the tomb is empty and we are called to live a new life in which resurrection and not death is the new reality; a life freed from the narrow constraints of human expectation, predictability and conformity; a life that confidently expects the disclosure of new vistas offered by the God whose very nature and purpose is to make all things new and make us part of His new creation.
Throughout history the way of the Church has been strewn with boulders of her own making. Those boulders conceal from us what God has already done and is continuing to do. They are boulders compounded of pride, hypocrisy and conceit, envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness.
From such things, good Lord, deliver us! And deliver especially this tortured Anglican Communion of Churches.
Updated Wednesday evening
The Diocese of Colorado has been holding an ecclesiastical court hearing to consider what action should be taken in the case of The Revd Donald Armstrong.
Jean Torkelson in the Rocky Mountain News has Episcopal priest’s case goes to church court and Episcopal lawyer slams Armstrong at hearing.
Colleen Slevin of Associated Press has Panel To Decide Case Against Armstrong.
Ed Sealover in the Colorado Springs Gazette has Episcopals may revoke Armstrong’s ordination.
All this is separate from the property dispute which is what the Denver Post is focused on in Theology battle rocks Springs church, world by Electa Draper.
The two congregations involved have websites:
The Episcopal Church congregation is here.
The CANA congregation is here.
Update
Another two reports:
Jean Torkelson Rocky Mountain News Spotlight hotter for ex-rector:
…The whistle-blower who entangled the Rev. Don Armstrong in allegations of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in church money was the parish bookkeeper, an attorney said Tuesday…
Electa Draper Denver Post Rebel priest spurns hearing
20 CommentsUpdated Wednesday afternoon
Doug LeBlanc reports further in the Living Church :Revised Network Charter Retains Clause Acceding to TEC Constitution.
Delegates to the annual council meeting of the Anglican Communion Network declined removing the organization from under the authority of the constitution of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church during a plenary session July 31.
The proposal would have deleted language from the group’s organizational charter that the Network “shall operate in good faith within the Constitution of the Episcopal Church.”
Instead, the council adopted a bylaws resolution that says Network affiliates outside The Episcopal Church are not required to submit to the constitution of The Episcopal Church.
The decision followed a plea by the Rt. Rev. James Stanton, Bishop of Dallas, that the council not act prematurely. Bishop Stanton pointed out that the General Conventions of 1964 and 1967 defined The Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion.
Press releases issued include:
Network States Willingness to “Engage in Mediation” with National Church
Bishop Duncan Re-elected Network Moderator
Council Ratifies Common Cause Structural Document
Network Approves Common Cause Theological Statement
One reaction to all this can be found in Ephraim Radner: A Brief Statement of Resignation from the Anglican Communion Network.
George Conger has a picture of all the bishops.
Update
Doug LeBlanc has a further Living Church report, Archbishop Venables Challenges ‘Curia’ Characterization:
28 CommentsDuring a press conference after the Anglican Communion Network’s two-day council meeting, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone challenged the notion among some Episcopalians that the primates are claiming curial powers for themselves.
Because Anglicans worldwide are led by locally elected bishops, he said, “Common sense and biblical concepts would say that the primates are at that highest level of authority, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
The Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, said the primates’ increased authority is in direct response to Resolution III.6 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. That resolution said, in part, that the primates’ meeting should “include among its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies.”
“The progressives dismiss everything that Lambeth says,” the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, said…
As Steve Levin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports today, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has launched a Web site to provide resources for parishes and individuals “in deciding how to go forward.”
Read the newspaper report here: Episcopal diocese launches Web site to chart options.
The new website is Parish Toolbox and here is the press release about it on the official diocesan website.
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Pittsburgh’s speech at the Anglican Communion Network annual council meeting in Ft Worth, Texas is reported by Doug LeBlanc writing in the Living Church this way:
“The American province is lost and something will have to replace it,” said Bishop Duncan, who has served as the Network’s elected moderator for three and a half years…
Bishop Duncan expressed his disappointment that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not supported Network members in ways that he and other Network leaders had hoped.
“Never, ever has he spoken publicly in defense of the orthodox in the United States,” Bishop Duncan said of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, adding that “the cost is his office.
“To lose that historic office is a cost of such magnitude that God must be doing a new thing,” he said.
A reporter for The Living Church asked Bishop Duncan to expand on his remarks about the cost of the archbishop’s office. “I was actually expanding on a remark that the Archbishop of Sydney made during a breakfast I had with him two weeks ago,” Bishop Duncan said, explaining that both the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference have been lost as instruments of communion.
“The fact is that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not led in a way that might have saved his office and might have saved Lambeth,” Bishop Duncan said.
He cited the willingness of presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt to go further than the law allowed during times of national crisis.
“In this crisis, we’ve had no leader to lead,” he said. Asked if he thought that being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury was essential to being Anglican, Bishop Duncan said that being obedient to scripture is of greater importance than being recognized by Canterbury.
For the full text of what Bishop Duncan said, see here.
See also an earlier Living Church report by Steve Waring: Bishop Duncan: Fall HOB Meeting is Windsor Bishops’ ‘Last Stand’
And also, see an earlier report, with a lot more background information, by Fr Jake Pittsburgh Continues Plans to Split.
31 CommentsThe Guardian newspaper in Lagos, Nigeria has published this interview with Archbishop Peter Akinola: Homosexual Priests: Nigerian Anglicans Will Not Succumb To Pressure From The West, Says Akinola .
82 CommentsAndrew Collier has interviewed the Bishop of New Hampshire for the Scotsman. Read Millions believe this man is the Antichrist.
This is also reported in The Times by Ruth Gledhill as Without gay priests Church would be lost claims Bishop Gene and she includes the full interview transcript on her blog as CofE ‘would shut down’ without its gay clergy, says +Gene.
88 CommentsToby Green writes about the Inquisition in Face to Faith in the Guardian.
Roderick Strange writes in The Times that True prayer begins when we find the kingdom within.
Christopher Howse in his regular Daily Telegraph column writes about A meeting with three unknown persons.
In the Tablet Alain Woodrow writes about the Church in France in No sign of a rapprochement.
The Church Times had a second leader, noting the Church of England connection of John Wolfenden, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 (scroll down to 1967 and all that).
9 CommentsThe Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship has published its opinions on the tribunal judgment.
Although it is not yet visible on the LCF website, or even on the Christian Concern for our Nation website, it can be found at Anglican Mainstream.
Further Analysis of the Bishop of Hereford case (scroll down to get to the start of the full text of the document).
7 CommentsThis week’s Church Times has three items about the Hereford tribunal case.
Two of them are subscriber only until next week, but for the benefit of subscribers here are the links:
Priddis loses, but sticks to his guns (this is a revision of my earlier article with new quotes from the bishop after I interviewed him last week).
Why this constitutes illegal discrimination in which I set out how the employment tribunal found against the Bishop of Hereford.
The third item is by Giles Fraser: The split of orientation and practice helps none.
101 CommentsThe Church of Ireland Gazette carries a report of an interview with the Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt: English bishops could have to consider positions over Lambeth Conference – Bishop of Winchester:
Following the debate on the Anglican covenant process at the meeting of the Church of England General Synod earlier this month in York, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, told the Gazette that if the bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States do not meet the demands of the Dar es Salaam Primates’ Meeting required by next September’s deadline, and if the bishops of the Global South decline to attend next year’s Lambeth Conference, as many as six in ten Church of England bishops could be considering their own positions about attending the ten-yearly episcopal gathering.
However, Bishop Scott-Joynt added that such bishops would feel “constrained” by their loyalty to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who personally invites the bishops.
Bishop Scott-Joynt also said that if the US bishops were not attending and the Global South bishops were, his estimated four in ten minority among the English bishops would be facing similar considerations to those of the majority in the opposite situation.
This is also reported by Ruth Gledhill for Times Online in Bishops threaten to boycott Lambeth Conference, and on her blog in ‘Six of the best’ for Rowan.
118 CommentsSome time ago, we reported on the attack by Coherent and Cohesive Voice against the Sexual Orientation Regulations.
The Advertising Standards Authority finally published its adjudication of the 51 complaints that it had received about this. It upheld 3 of the 10 distinct issues raised by the complainants.
0 CommentsWe concluded that the ad exaggerated the effect of the proposed regulations and was likely to mislead readers of The Times. We considered that although a parliamentarian readership would be likely to be aware of the content of the proposed SORs, the claims exaggerated their effect. We concluded that the ad was likely to mislead readers.
On these points, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).
Ekklesia has published Re-writing History: the Episcopal Church struggle.
In the global intra-Anglican ‘wars’ about sexuality, biblical interpretation, authority and church polity, The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA has been singled out from other Anglican provinces and subjected to harsh criticism and threats of expulsion. Why is this? What are the underlying issues about the use of Scripture and other questions which explain why TEC is such a bone of contention? Can Christians learn to handle differences in more creative ways which honour the life-giving Gospel message they are supposed to exemplify?
To read this new report and analysis from Ekklesia associate Savitri Hensman in PDF format go here.
For a nine point summary of the report go here.
39 CommentsThe Guardian has published an apology to its readers, and has removed Jonathan Aitken’s original article This isn’t the Anglican split from the website.
In a Comment article, This isn’t the Anglican split, page 28, July 5, it was stated that Dr Elaine Storkey, in a meeting of staff and students, compared the principal of Wycliffe Hall, Dr Richard Turnbull, to “one of the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg”. This was incorrect. She did not compare Dr Turnbull to the Nazi defendants or use the words quoted. We apologise for this error.
For the curious, Google has a cached copy here.
That has now also gone. But you can still read the original article via this copy.
42 CommentsUpdated again Thursday evening
There is a further article Archbishop of York: Exclusive interview which contains more detail than the news report.
——-
The Daily Telegraph carries a report by Jonathan Petre headlined Archbishop warns Anglican conservatives.
The Archbishop of York has warned conservative Anglican leaders that they will effectively expel themselves from the worldwide Church if they boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dr John Sentamu pleaded with them to attend the conference despite their war with liberals over homosexuality.
But he told them that if they “voted with their feet” they risked severing their links with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with historic Anglicanism, a breach that could take centuries to heal.
“Anglicanism has its roots through Canterbury,” he said. “If you sever that link you are severing yourself from the Communion. There is no doubt about it…”
And this:
But he also warned the American bishops that Dr Williams reserved the right to withdraw their invitations if they were not prepared to engage in the decision-making processes of the Communion in the future.
Update
Church Society is particularly concerned by the statement that:
“Dr Sentamu, a close ally of Dr Williams, said that as long as Anglican bishops did not deny the basic Christian doctrines they should all be able to remain within the same Church.
While liberal north Americans disagreed with conservatives over sexual ethics, these were not core issues, he said.”
See Telegraph reports Sentamu saying sexual ethics are not core issues.
Thursday evening Church Society has more to say about it in Archbishop Sentamu on Unity.
61 Comments