Women and the Church Transparency or Opacity – declarations, websites and jargon
Jude Smith Christian Today Women priests 25 years on: How are we flourishing?
Miranda Threlfall-Holmes ‘Women’ priests?
Women and the Church 25th Jubilee!
Sarah Mullally Contemplation in the shadow of a carpark “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
Jeremy Pemberton Openly The Church of England must break its toxic colonial legacy
Right on, Jeremy! Excellent and thoughtful article.
Pemberton is right to carefully distinguish US and Scotland in his essay. Burundi, SE Asia, Korea, Egypt, Japan, Central Africa — parts of the Colonial British hegemony? The Communion is not ONLY due to British colonies. Some believe in a Communion precisely to the degree that the colonisation is thankfully over, and a catholic communion is preferable to it. Otherwise, the difficulty for the ABC/CofE to maintain a distinct role in respect of the provinces, given the CofE’s established national church identity–unique amongst provinces–is a point well taken. The CofE may need to free itself from its colonial past, joining… Read more »
Forgive my mis-typing Central Africa instead of Congo — “Province de l’Église anglicane du Congo.”
Congo was evangelised by Ugandan evangelists in the NE, notably the saintly Apolo Kivebulaya. The ancestry was pure evangelical protestantism of the CMS variety.
Leaving aside the sloppy portrayal of the AC as “This Anglican Communion only exists because of British colonialism,” Are we to believe that 19th century colonial British legal views on homosexuality — where in places of the present AC they were once relevant — were some kind of eccentric British imposition in the colonial period that would otherwise, absent them, have left these regions clear of now modern views on homosexuality? The idea is risible, especially in Muslim regions of the world. And re: the Cof E and the Communion. If the latter is residually Britishly colonial, if and where… Read more »
There can be little doubt that ‘Victorian Morality’ – as practised and taught by CMS missionaries on the African continent – is the source of continuing sexism and homophobia in those territories. South Africa, in stark contrast, missionised by more catholic Anglican missionaries; has been able to free itself from the over-strictness of conservative understandings of such matters – because of a more humane and justice-centred theological trajectory than has been possible for Con/Evo missionaries to introduce into the local culture. Where other countries of the world have been open up to new insights into the mysteries of gender and… Read more »
“The Church of England must break its toxic colonial legacy” — that is the “sustainable argument” and je suis d’accord.
(as for jumping off, I leave that to you with your ‘realignment’ hair-trigger).
Semantics. The weather up your way must be distracting.
It is an argument with a conclusion. Do you embrace it? Should the CofE focus and itself and “break its toxic legacy”?
Quit dissembling.
No one is speaking of realignment but of coming to terms with the reality Pemberton is underscoring.
I agree your views ought to be clear. They aren’t.
Makes you a bad candidate for clarifications…
Pemberton believes the CofE, ABC included, ought not have any role vis-a-vis provinces. It is a colonialism. Colonialism brought anti-homosexual legislation that otherwise would not have/did not exist.
This view represents a realignment, as against the status quo. You hold this view as well.
At last Christopher Seitz gets my point. The Communion ought not to have any role vis à vis provinces in an forensic or enforceable sense. This is not a realignment. It is a return to what the AC has always been. The attempt to beef up the Communion culminated in the Covenant, which was resoundingly rejected in England.
A federation of independent Provinces, /national churches who share a common history still has much to commend it. Seitz’s conception does not.
“A federation of independent Provinces, /national churches who share a common history still has much to commend it. Seitz’s conception does not.” Agreed.
I suspect in order to get to this, Pemberton’s point needs to be followed through to its conclusion.
“…the CofE, ABC included, ought not have any role vis-a-vis provinces.”
Then we will have a federation of independent provinces. In two of them, Canterbury and York, the Parliament plays a unique role. Pemberton would have it tell the ABC what to do.
And it is for this reason that he holds the view he does about the ABC in the Communion.
Do you share that view?
Christopher, your attempt to follow my point to its conclusion is, to my mind bizarre. The intricacies of English establishment are just that. The Church of England gets all kinds of privileges accorded it by virtue of its established status. Parliament therefore also has a proper role in the life of this established church. There is no American separation of government and religion. But Parliament’s role and say in the life of the C of E has been whittled down over time. However, the interconnection still exists, and is likely to remain if for no other reason than the fact… Read more »
Your language was “telling the ABC what to do” and if you want now to change it, that is important to note.
“There is no separation of government and religion” (religion, meaning the CofE, not all other Christian churches in the UK).
Correct, in the US, Canada and everywhere else throughout the global AC’s 38 provinces: they do not have the unusual arrangements the CofE has within the churches of the UK.
I believe you have a typo.
“the CofE, ABC included, ought not have any role vis-a-vis provinces” is your position.
Thank you for making it clear.
The idea that the Communion is the British Empire may be inaccurate, but one can set that to side. His larger point does not require it.
So you agree with Pemberton’s point that the CofE needs to pay attention to itself and quit with the “colonial” like concerns, and attention to, external provinces?
That’s a good article from Jude Smith. She says a lot in a few words.