Updated Monday and Wednesday
A letter from Archbishop Bernard Malango to his provincial bishops about the election of Nicholas Henderson has been published. A copy is below the fold. (The confusing second headline was in the copy as received.)
Updated again The Living Church has published a report on this, Archbishop Malango Postpones Consecration of English Bishop-Elect which contains details of other correspondence between the archbishop and the bishop-elect. This other letter includes the following passage:
The documents such as the Nicene Creed and the Thirty-Nine Articles are not simply theological photographs snapped at a moment in history; they are foundation stones which must be affirmed. Are you willing to state clearly and without equivocation that you fully accept, believe and practice the faith described in the classic Anglican formularies including the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Creeds, and the Ordinal? To be clear, I am not asking if you affirm that they are part of our history. You should know that they represent a standard of ministry and theology which is the practice and the norm of this province. If you were to come here with a different faith, it would be not only difficult; it would be the cause of disastrous conflict in the diocese and the Province. Are you able to affirm and commit to the faith as described in them without exception?
Interestingly, although this other letter also contains detailed questions relating to human sexuality, it does not even mention Lambeth I.10 despite the reference to it in the text below.
Further update In addition to the earlier news reports of this matter I can now link to last week’s Church Times report by Pat Ashworth Malawi’s ‘modern churchman’ bishop. (This week’s Church Times report is available only to subscribers.)
Updated Monday
Ruth Gledhill in The Times had Questions about lodger confront a new bishop. In this, Bishop Pete Broadbent says:
“There is no witch to be hunted here. It is unfair for someone to be vilified in this way. As Nicholas’s bishop I understand he has given assurances on all the issues raised by Archbishop Malango. He has given assurances on the primary authority of Scripture, the Creeds and on the matter of his own life being consonant with the Gospel. It is a matter for Dr Malango as the consecrating Archbishop what he does about that.”
Updated Wednesday
Reuters has a report from Blantyre Malawians oppose bishop in Anglican gay split.
The references here to “Presbyterian” suggest the writer is not quite on top of his subject.
Update
The Living Church has published this news report: Formal Charges Lodged Against Connecticut Bishop which explains more about the process.
The Connecticut Six have now taken formal action under Episcopal canon law against their diocesan bishop, Andrew Smith, by filing charges against him in accordance with TITLE IV, CANON 3 (PDF file) of the Episcopal Church.
The full text of these charges can be found in a 1.2 Mb 22-page PDF file, available here.
A press release from the American Anglican Council is here.
The charges have been filed by a total of 19 persons, all of whom are it seems either clergy at, or communicants at, the six parishes who are already in dispute. Some of the names are hard to read from the PDF, but I expect a list will be published somewhere shortly.
The charges accuse the bishop of “undermining the structure of the Episcopal Church and denying canonical due process for the so-called ‘Connecticut Six’ clergy” and include “violating the Episcopal Church’s Constitution, national canons, diocesan canons, and the laws of the state of Connecticut”.
I will add further links here as other reports are published. But what happens next, it appears, is this:
Sec. 26. Any Charge against a Bishop shall be filed with the Presiding Bishop who shall promptly communicate the same to the Respondent. The Presiding Bishop shall forward the Charge to the Review Committee at such time as the Presiding Bishop shall determine or when requested in writing by the Complainant or Respondent after 90 days of receipt of the charge by the Presiding Bishop…
…Sec. 40. Within sixty days after receiving a Charge, the Review Committee shall convene to consider the Charge. If after such consideration the Review Committee determines that an Offense may have occurred if the facts alleged be true, the Review Committee shall prepare a written general statement of the Charge and the facts alleged to support the Charge and transmit the same to the Church Attorney.
The ECUSA website shows the Title IV Review Committee mandate and its current membership.
What is not at all clear is how this action will affect the earlier appeal made to the international Anglican Panel of Reference.
32 CommentsTim Jones, who is English although working in the USA, has written this comment about the bishops’ statement, Strangers in a Strange Land:
…To many outside the UK it seems bizarre that Christian bishops could vote for something that seems to them so, well, un-Christian. The powerful Anglican archbishop of Nigeria is furious, and reports are circulating that he is contemplating proposals for the Anglican Communion to discipline the Church of England, its historical ‘mother-church’. It is part of a wider debate about sexuality and church order that the Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest Christian denomination, may not survive intact…
And Pete Broadbent who is an English suffragan bishop, wrote about the statement in the Usenet newsgroup uk.religion.christian. His remarks are copied in full below the fold.
70 CommentsACNS reports:
The Revd Nicholas Henderson, currently Vicar of two west London parishes, All Saints, Ealing & St Martin’s West Acton, has been elected as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Lake Malawi.
Newspaper reports have been rather more forthcoming:
The Nation (Malawi) Anglicans reject bishop-elect by Bright Sonani
Church of England Newspaper Cleric’s bishop post riles African critics by George Conger and Jonathan Wynne-Jones
The Times Malawi in uproar over promotion of pro-gay churchman by Ruth Gledhill and Jonathan Wynne-Jones
6 CommentsIn his recent New Directions article Michael Scott-Joynt referred to the previous articles of Nicholas Turner in that magazine. Here are the links to those articles which have reported on the progress of this legislation. It is clear that Mr Turner doesn’t like it:
June 2004 An Unholy Alliance
July 2004 Strange bedfellows
September2004 The confusion deepens
December 2004 Marital discord
February 2005 Deliberate confusion?
And yet, the official Forward in Faith response to the Bishops’ Pastoral Statement was less critical than most.
10 CommentsThe Tablet has an appreciation of Brother Roger by Alain Woodrow A man of peace cut down.
In the Telegraph Charles Moore thinks that Westminster Abbey was right to reject Hollywood’s 30 pieces of silver, while Christopher Howse discusses government attitudes to religion in A game that the Romans played, and a leader column discusses The Pope’s duty.
Dwight Longenecker writes in The Times about Roman Catholics in the USA: Roman road leads South to a brighter future.
More interesting than today’s godslot on Bible translation was the Guardian’s report yesterday Call to end state’s link with church. More about this is at the Fabian Society’s website, and the full article is Religion and the British state: a new settlement. Earlier in the week, Giles Fraser had written The idolatry of holy books which explores the parallels between Islam and the Christian reformers. He concludes:
For there can be few more chilling examples of theocratic fascism than Calvin’s Geneva. In toppling the authority of the clergy, he made it the responsibility of the civil magistrates to enforce the word of God. Spon, in his History of Geneva, writes: “In the year 1560, a citizen [of Geneva], having been condemned to the lash by the small council, for the crime of adultery, appealed from its sentence to the Two Hundred. His case was reconsidered, and the council, knowing that he had before committed the offence, and been against caught therein, condemned him to death, to the great astonishment of the criminal.” Elsewhere, Picot observes, “There were children publicly scourged, and hung, for having called their mother she-devil and thief. When the child had not attained the age of reason, they hung him by the armpits, to manifest that he deserved death.” Quite clearly, the fear that western liberals have of sharia law can hardly be appeased with reference to a reformed polity.
Rushdie’s suggestion that a reformed Islam might find a way beyond the besetting sins of anti-semitism, sexism and homophobia is also, alas, unlikely. Luther himself was famously and virulently anti-semitic. The Reformation did little for women, and the place to find the most neanderthal religious homophobia in Britain today is in an organisation called Reform. Until the Reformation finishes its work and trains its powerful commitment to iconoclasm on the sources of its own prejudice it will hardly be a model to hold up for other religious traditions to follow.
One of the most interesting articles this week is in the Church of England Newspaper: The hidden Bible – Mark Ireland asks why evangelists are neglecting the Bible. This reveals that:
One of the strange rules of thumb I’ve discovered, visiting many churches in my role as a diocesan missioner, is that the more evangelical the church is, the fewer verses of the Bible you are likely to hear read in worship. When I go to a church in the central or liberal tradition, I will always encounter two Bible readings. When I go to one of the catholic parishes in the diocese, I will usually hear four pieces of Scripture read – Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Gospel – with the words printed out on the service sheet for the people to follow. However, when I visit an evangelical parish, I will usually hear only one passage of the Bible.
And finally, the Financial Times reports on what happened when Jonathan Miller visited St Mary’s Primrose Hill: True disbeliever.
12 CommentsUPDATE The article is available on the Diocese of Worcester’s website.
The Church Times today carries an article by Peter Selby Bishop of Worcester. There is a report in the paper about the article by Rachel Boulding headlined Selby breaks bishops’ ranks which summarises the article well.
Sadly, the article itself is at present available only to paid subscribers. Update now available and linked. Meanwhile it has been quoted in part on titusonenine. That does not include the following excerpt:
30 CommentsIt should be a source not of fear, but of delight, that many who do not aspire to matrimony, or to whose circumstances it is inappropriate, wish none the less to order their lives by means of as many of the aspects of the married state as are made available to them.
Is it not a vindication of all that has been revealed to us about the contribution of marriage to human flourishing that, often in the face of sustained public and ecclesiastical disapproval, and the presence of some very destructive lifestyles within the “gay scene”, many gay and lesbian people have aspired to order their lives in the kind of faithfulness and responsibility that civil partnerships involve.
Here are two additional documents:
First, the statement issued by the Diocese in Europe, and then – below the fold – the document from Latvia to which, it appears, Bishop Geoffrey Rowell was responding.
STATEMENT FROM THE DIOCESE IN EUROPE RE. GAY PRIDE MARCH AND SERVICE IN RIGA
The Bishop in Europe returned from a visit to the United States to find the Latvian Church leaders’ Common Statement relating to the gay, lesbian and bisexual parade ‘Riga Pride 2005’, but because of his absence abroad that statement did not reach him until after the parade and the service had taken place.
St Saviour’s Riga had not requested any permission for such a service to take place and the bishop was concerned at reports of such a service occurring. He confirms that the Common Statement states the official position of the Anglican Church, which does not recommend the blessing and legitimising of same sex unions and teaches clearly that the proper context of sexual intercourse is within marriage as a lifelong commitment of a man and a woman. The Church of England honours close and celibate same sex friendships and has also committed itself of listening to the experience of gay and lesbian people.
Bishop Geoffrey believes it is inappropriate that, as churches wrestle with the proper pastoral care for those of homosexual orientation, a church service to be used in what would seem to be a lobbying and confrontational way and has made this clear to the Chaplain and Church Council. He will discuss the events with the Chaplain of St Saviour’s and the Church Council in due course.
12 CommentsLast week the Church of England Newspaper reported on an event that happened in Latvia, at the Anglican Chaplaincy of St Saviour’s Riga where the Chaplain is The Reverend Dr. Juris Cālītis who also is Dean of Theology at the University of Latvia.
The article as originally written appears below. (The version published by CEN was slightly shorter.) The author George Conger writes:
This isn’t a story about the issues that divide: blessings or ordinations, but about simple human decency on the part of a small Church of England parish in Riga, Latvia.
The Bishop in Europe, the Rt. Rev. Geoffrey Rowell, has rebuked the chaplain and parish council of the Church of England parish in Riga for hosting a gay pride service following a violent street march through the old city of the Latvian capital.
Approximately 100 marchers celebrating “Riga Pride 2005” on July 23 were pelted with eggs and tomatoes and threatened with violence during the country’s first ‘gay pride’ march by several thousand onlookers. While neo-Nazi skinheads and Russian nationalists played a prominent role in peppering the marchers with abuse, the majority of the mob were Christians from Latvia’s mainline churches: Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Orthodox the Rev. Juris Calitas, Riga’s Anglican chaplain stated.
Controversy over the march began shortly after Riga’s city council granted permission for the march on July 8. MP’s from the Green and conservative parties as well as the heads of Latvia’s Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Orthodox Churches protested. Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis stated on July 20 a gay pride parade was “not acceptable” as “Latvia is a state based on Christian values”, prompting Riga’s mayor to cancel the parade.
An emergency appeal to an administrative court restored the permit and the parade took place under the protective police shield. The hour-long paradebegan and ended at St. Savior’s [Church of England] and was followed by an ecumenical Anglican-Lutheran worship service.
Parade participant, Maris Sants reports that to enter St Savior’s the marchers had to pass through a hostile jeering crowd, including one woman standing at the Church door holding an icon and crucifix. “While trying topress people to kiss” the relics, Mr. Sants stated, she “eventually gave slaps to some participants”.
A spokesman for the Bishop in Europe told The Church of England Newspaper, “St Saviour’s Riga had not requested any permission for such a service to take place and the bishop was concerned at reports of such a service occurring”.
“Bishop Geoffrey believes it is inappropriate that, as churches wrestle with the proper pastoral care for those of homosexual orientation, a church service to be used in what would seem to be a lobbying and confrontational way and has made this clear to the Chaplain and Church Council.”
Martin Reynolds of the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement stated he was “amazed” at these remarks, writing to Bishop Rowell on Aug 8 “Your chaplain and congregation exhibited bravery and compassion”.
Dean of Theology at the University of Latvia, Dr. Calitis—-a priest of the Church of England and pastor of the Latvian Lutheran Church—-noted the mobs reminded him of the anti-Jewish pogroms of the war years. “It was scapegoating,” he stated. “It’s hard to understand how Christian people with the least understanding of their mandate can be involved in mobs like this.”
39 CommentsChristopher Howse writes in the Telegraph on the Foundations of fundamentalism
… ‘Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.” Such a judgment would be unremarkable in the letters page of the Independent, perhaps. It is more surprising in a document for which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was responsible before he was elected as Pope Benedict XVI…
In The Times Roderick Strange writes that Our understanding of Mary no longer need divide the Christian creeds
Ian Bradley writes in the Guardian about the British TV programme Songs of Praise, Praise, my soul, the king of heaven
The Independent may no longer have a godslot, but Andrew Buncombe reports on a visit to Lakewood Church in Houston: Jesus Inc. Welcome to the world’s biggest church
Philip Crispin writes in the Tablet about Faith’s French revolution which will sound rather familiar to English Anglicans
With the number of priests in steep decline, the laity is keeping the Catholic church alive in rural France. It’s a dramatic transformation borne of necessity…
A week ago, the Church Times carried this article by Kenneth Leech, Beware the bureaucrats. Here’s how it starts:
NEARLY ten years ago, an article by the then Bishop of Chichester, Dr Eric Kemp, “Following the example of Mammon”, appeared in the Church Times (17 November 1995). It warned about the centralisation of power in the Church of England, and the danger that archbishops would come to be seen as managing directors.
The following day, Professor Richard Roberts, writing in The Independent, described Archbishop Carey as “the John Birt of the Church of England”, and the Church as a managed, product-driven organisation.
These words still haunt me. They seem to confirm my worst fears about the Church. I am not attacking central institutions, or even bureaucrats as such, but questioning where our priorities should lie.
And an earlier article in Christianity Today by Doug LeBlanc about Peter Akinola, entitled Out of Africa
0 CommentsPat Ashworth in the Church Times reports No Church can ignore the Bible – Akinola and his statement is reprinted in full.
The Church of England Newspaper has New Act will establish gay marriage critics warn (in the newspaper “marriage” is in quotes) which reports on what the Bishop of Winchester and Anglican Mainstream have said, while also clarifying the effect of some of the legal changes being made.
Earlier, I quoted a fragment from the Church Times press column, about the spiked Sunday Times report on Akinola. You can now read the whole of last week’s column.
0 CommentsWe apologise to our users, and particularly those who comment, for the recent service disruption here. The articles posted since last Saturday have had to be restored manually. We regret however that it will not be possible to restore the comments made from last Saturday until this morning, including any made during that period to older articles.
4 CommentsMichael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, has written this article about the Civil Partnership Act in the August issue of New Directions.
He refers to the Pastoral Statement, of which he is a signatory, thus:
The House of Bishops is on the point of publishing (I write in mid-July) a carefully considered, orthodox Pastoral Statement on Civil Partnerships; but on 29 May a substantially inaccurate preview of a draft of this Statement appeared in the Sunday Times – and caused consternation as it was circulated around the Anglican Communion among people many of whom can have no understanding of the cultural and legislative world through which we in the UK are now living. (But many of our own people have not woken up to its character either!)
In fact, the article covers several other pieces of legislation, and says only the following about the CPA:
34 CommentsThe Civil Partnerships [sic] Act 2004 was designed to meet the needs of ‘same-sex couples in supportive relationships (who) cannot marry but deserve the opportunity of legal recognition.’ It provides for such couples who are not within the ‘prohibited degrees of relationship’ to register their relationship in a Register Office as a Civil Partnership (CP). The Act closely and exhaustively replicates for CPs virtually every provision in law that relates to marriage.
In June 2004, members of the House of Lords, myself among them, sought by amendment to extend the provisions of the (then) Bill to couples (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who are within the ‘prohibited degrees’ (e.g. two sisters, or a father and daughter) and who have lived under the same roof for twelve years. The amendment was carried in the face of government and Liberal Democrat opposition; but the government announced the same day that the amendment so radically altered the Bill’s concept of a CP that it could not proceed with the Bill while the amendment stood part of it – effectively admitting that after all the Bill was drawn up only in the interest of those in same-sex, and sexual, relationships. In due course the Commons removed our amendment and the Lords refused to allow its return.
I recognize that people in same-sex relationships can face some significant disadvantages and injustices which it is right that the government should seek to legislate to rectify – but not by replicating virtually every provision that relates to marriage. To me the CP Act undermines the distinctiveness and fundamental importance to society of marriage by effectively equating same-sex relationships with it, notwithstanding the government’s repeated assertions that this was not its intention.
It is, I judge, this dishonesty at the heart of the CP Act 2004 which will render the Church of England so wide open to mischievous misrepresentation when the Act comes into force in December.
The Church of England Evangelical Council has issued a statement. It is not yet on the CEEC website but can be found at Anglican Mainstream: Civil Partnerships – CEEC Response to Bishops and also on titusonenine.
Update, it is now on the CEEC website as an RTF file, here.
4 CommentsAnglican Mainstream has a note about the changes to ecclesiastical law that are being made by the government in connection with the Civil Partnership Act. The item can be read in full here. The hyperlinks in the following extract may prove useful.
This is because the Civil Partnership Act 2004 contains provisions (sections 255 and 259) enabling the Government to amend and even repeal other legislation in order to give full effect to the purposes of the Act. This includes even amending and repealing church law. The power in relation to church law is exercised by statutory instrument approved by both Houses of Parliament.
At the time of writing there is one draft statutory instrument which deals with church law awaiting such approval, and one statutory instrument still being drafted by parliamentary draftsmen. The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Overseas Relationships and Consequential, etc. Amendments) Order 2005 proposes to amend four pieces of church legislation: the Pluralities Act 1838, the Parsonages Measure 1938, the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986, and the Church of England (Legal Aid) Measure 1994. The Civil Partnership Act (Judicial Pensions and Church Pensions, etc.) Order 2005 will, as its name suggests, amend the church’s pensions legislation to give protection to civil partners. It is intended that both these provisions will come into force on the same day as the Act itself, namely 5 December 2005.
The relevant portion of The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Overseas Relationships and Consequential, etc. Amendments) Order 2005 is reproduced below the fold.
The following Hansard extract shows what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville) said in the House of Lords about this, on 19 July:
4 CommentsSchedule 3 to the order amends Church legislation to insert references to “civil partner” and “surviving civil partner” where there are existing references to “spouse” and “widow or widower”. Section 259 enables a Minister of the Crown to make amendments to Church legislation although, as the Committee will be aware, by convention the government do not legislate for the Church of England without its consent. I stress that the provisions in the order amending Church legislation have been drafted by Church lawyers, consulted on internally within the Church, and finally have been approved by the Archbishops’ Council and the House of Bishops. The Church has asked that we include the amendments in the order, which we are content to do. The amendments in Schedule 3 do not cover Church pensions, as those will be dealt with in a separate instrument to be made under Section 255 of the Act.
Paul Perkin who is Vicar of St.Mark’s, St.Peter’s & St.Paul’s Battersea in the Diocese of Southwark, has written An Open Letter to English Bishops. Mr Perkin is on the council of Reform.
He raises two issues, one about blessings of such partnerships and one about baptism of children. The key questions:
Blessings
The bishops said:
18. It will be important, however, to bear in mind that registered partnerships do allow for a range of different situations- including those where the relationship is simply one of friendship. Hence, clergy need to have regard to the teaching of the church on sexual morality, celibacy, and the positive value of committed friendships in the Christian tradition. Where clergy are approached by people asking for prayer in relation to entering into a civil partnership they should respond pastorally and sensitively in the light of the circumstances of each case.
Paul Perkin asks:
…I intend always pastorally and sensitively to decline politely any request for such a prayer affirming a same-sex union. Can you clarify for me ‘the light of the circumstances’ in which you would feel it necessary to discipline me for such a refusal, before I go any further? You might well receive complaints from my parishioners, and it is only fair that the House of Bishops spell out now on what grounds you would be sympathetic to such a complaint.
Baptism
The bishops said about baptism:
23. The House considers that lay people who have registered civil partnerships ought not to be asked to give assurances about the nature of their relationship before being admitted to baptism, confirmation and communion. Issues in Human Sexuality made it clear that, while the same standards apply to all, the Church did not want to exclude from its fellowship those lay people of gay or lesbian orientation who, in conscience, were unable to accept that a life of sexual abstinence was required of them and instead chose to enter into a faithful, committed relationship….
Paul Perkin asks:
1 Comment…It is our practice [at St Mark’s] to delay the baptism of heterosexual adults known to be cohabiting outside marriage, giving time for progress in discipleship. Is the House suggesting that this practice is wrong? If I intend pastorally and sensitively to decline politely any request for such a baptism, can you clarify for me the light of the circumstances in which you would feel it necessary to discipline me for such a refusal, before I go any further? Or is the House suggesting that clergy may enquire of heterosexual relationships outside marriage, but may not enquire of homosexual relationships? Or perhaps neither – is the House suggesting that relationships in general fall outside the scope of enquiry of candidates’ genuine repenting and turning to Christ? You might well receive complaints from my parishioners, and it is only fair that the House of Bishops spell out now on what grounds they would be sympathetic to such a complaint.
The other London newspaper correspondents are on holiday, but according to Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph
Gay clergy to defy bishops over no-sex ‘marriages’
and
‘I am not prepared to give assurances to anybody about my relationship’
This is the first UK newspaper report on the matter to name an overseas bishop, since the Sunday Times squib of 8 days ago.
The website for the petition mentioned in the article is here.
The Living Church has also reported this story:
Nigerian Primate Dismayed by British HOB Response to Civil Partnership Act.
For the weekend:
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about the CofE bishops and civil partnerships, Why you need love and more
Paul Oestreicher writes in the Guardian about The message of Hiroshima
George Coyne the Vatican’s chief astronomer writes in the Tablet about evolution in God’s chance creation
In The Times Jonathan Sacks has a column entitled ‘A clock seems to tick in the history of religions, sending crisis’
Damian Thompson writes in the Telegraph about Ancient fantasies that infect the internet and inspire suicide bombers and Christopher Howse has Christianity’s top 10 ideas
4 CommentsA statement by Archbishop Peter Akinola has been published here on THE CHURCH OF NIGERIA (Anglican Communion) website: A STATEMENT ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND’S RESPONSE TO CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS BY THE PRIMATE OF ALL NIGERIA
The first published copy appeared on titusonenine
A Statement on the Church of England response to Civil Partnerships by the Primate of All Nigeria
The email distribution came from Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream
Update The statement has now also been published by ACNS here
The text is reproduced below the fold. References in square brackets are to paragraphs of the pastoral statement.
50 CommentsPat Ashworth in the Church Times reports Akinola’s demand to ‘suspend’ C of E viewed with caution:
The Anglican Communion Office has tried without success to contact Archbishop Akinola, who is on holiday until 8 August. Its spokesman, James Rosenthal, said on Wednesday: “We are trying to verify the story from the Archbishop’s office in Nigeria, and have not been able to do that. We are concerned, because it is a very serious matter.” Lambeth Palace said that it could not comment until the story was verified.
Archbishop Akinola is believed to be planning to make a full statement.
Over in the Press Column, not yet on the web, Andrew Brown notes that:
The attribution of the quotes to serious church leaders rather than some random vituperating blowhard on the internet is something that might be missed by a non-specialist. You couldn’t discern it from the language used. They all talk the same way.
The idiots on the internet sound as if they could decide the fate of modern Christianity; the Primates’ opinions have the weightless freedom of email.
The column contains more on this subject…
2 Comments