“We have told them that failure to invite any of our bishops is failure to invite all of us because that one bishop did not make himself a bishop,”

Right back at ya, there, Pete, old man!

"secondary schools and 21 primary schools built by the diocese insisted every child buy a catechism, a Bible and a hymnbook - "I don't care what Western people say about that!" "

Well, what does this group of Westerners say about that? Who is this defiant tone directed against?

"Islam was gaining ground because it "enforced order and put things right." "

A la NP, it would seem. It's about social control, which is, of course, one of the biggest reasons why most of the people I know hate the Church. She never was meant to be the enforcer of the Imperial moral code, She held that position far too long, and there are still elements in Her who can't accept She has lost that position. Too bad! The quicker we het rid of the trappings of our imperial past, the better.

"It's by our lives that Muslims will judge us."

I would think it is the judgement of God, not the judgement of Muslims he should be worrying about.

Seriously, though, these, to me, show a massive cultural difference, a different understanding of societal order, how that order comes about, and the Church's role in that process. It also reveals that, for all their accusations that Westerners are following societal trends, by allowing Muslims, which the last seems to indicate, to be the judges of the rightness of Christian behaviour, the Nigerians seem to be the ones being influenced by the mores of the society around them.

Although this is from the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion the article is from http://www.anglican-mainstream.net. They wouldn't be hand in glove would they? And although it says We Must Forget About Britain it also says "they have turned the gospel upside down and that it is Britain that needs our help".

Can we stick to the intention of the headline?

I predict the ABC will invite +Minns and all the GS will turn up to Lambeth to vote for a Covenant which represents what most of us in the AC believe (i.e. not necessarily what 0.29% of Americans think)

“Even then, that such a gay priest could indeed become a Bishop, a spiritual head of the church is revolting....”

“...Neither the ordination of gay priests nor the promotion of same-sex marriage will ensure the continuation of the human race. If the gay culture, for instance, were to become a global order, what will become of procreation factor in the replenishment of human race. How will humanity renew itself with such anti-procreation stance?...”

At least they admit they haven’t participated in the listening process! But why should anyone else take theology based on such obvious lack of knowledge and gut reactions seriously?

"But why should anyone else take theology based on such obvious lack of knowledge and gut reactions seriously?"

I think because the theology is being useed to back up something that already exists: the idea that gay people are sick subhumans who prey on children and corrupt everything with their presence. As you say, he proves he has not listened. He is totally unaware how this makes him look, perhaps because his culture does not look on power with the jaundiced eye that we do. We accept without even thinking about it that we must consider the statements of an authority figure, at least one on the "other side" as suspicious and see very clearly the ways in which a leader's hypocrisy can be shown. I believe in Nigeria, far from being laudable, such an attitude would be seen as extremely disrespectful. So, the fact that this clearly shows to us his non-compliance with the listening process and thus his hypocrisy in demanding such compliance from others, it would be seen as a very bad thing in Nigeria for people to think this way. I don't think either way is better, is blind trust any better or worse than blind mistrust?

Ford says "Seriously, though, these, to me, show a massive cultural difference, a different understanding of societal order, how that order comes about, and the Church's role in that process."

Ford, you see cultural differences but the question is who is out of step with the Anglican Communion's interpretation of scripture - ++Akinola or TEC HOB?

We will soon have responses from ALL the Primates and Provinces of the AC and you may find that most cannot back the unilateral acts of TECUSA in condoning what the AC bishops have consistently agreed is "incompatible with scripture"

"what will become of procreation factor in the replenishment of human race"

Yes, I'm really worried that there aren't enough people on the planet and that adequate repopulation is a huge unaddressed problem.

Oh, especially in Africa.

(do I really need a sarcasm tag here?)

And, of course, the issue about the non-invitation of Bishop Minns will only be amplified by further upcoming ordinations in the United States for CANA. One can only expect they they will not be invited to Lambeth. AMiA bishops of Rwanda have not been invited to Lambeth. The new bishops for Ugandan and Kenyan congregations in North America haven't been invited. If that's the issue, how can any of them come?

I'm actually surprised that Nigeria still waffles around the "issue" of the CANA Bishop(s). Uganda has shown more clarity and more resolve when saying that, following the CAPA document "The Road to Lambeth," they see no point in attending Lambeth if either the Americans are invited or the sessions will not make pronouncements on issues, and especially on homosexuality in the Church. Since the opposite in each concern is the current plan, and there seems no intent to change that, Uganda has said it cannot come. So, one wonders why Nigeria remains "undecided."

Just as Richard Dawkins can be accused of arguing against a a closed-minded, backward-looking faith in Jesus that believers do not necessarily pledge or follow any more - if any believer ever pledged some of the things Dawkins includes in his summaries of the religion he criticizes; ....

So Akinola can be accused of setting up all the old stereotypes about queer folks.

Akinola seems to presume, like some campus police did in the 1970's when we did a workshop for them out of the gay students group, that if we let anybody be openly gay, everybody suddenly will be openly gay. Odd idea, no? It seems to overstate the allure of homosexuality by more than a few miles. It seems to hint that traditionalistic straight folks like Akinola are unhappy with their traditional straight and/or married or celibate lives, except that they still talk up their unhappiness as ethically and religiously superior to everybody else at every public opportunity.

Not very rational, then. Replete with false, negative stereotypes and traditional prejudices, which in fact tangle his gospel in as much cultural worship of fake idols as bowing down to oil money ever could.

Why do so many Anglican believers seem so afraid to catch queer cooties? - which in this case might mean getting a smigden of fairness in his treatment of Nigerian queer neighbors like MacIyalla or others whom he helps drive into hiding as citizens?

The passing reference to conservative authoritarian Muslim norms in sexuality is even stranger, even more curious - as if we should let the systematic violence of others make us be violent ourselves. I still think the good news is that Jesus breaks our chains. We no more have to swallow these camels whole and nothing but, any more than we have to waste interminable hours and days and weeks and years, debating the doctrinal gnats of whether or not somebody's orgasm is bona fide or not, per traditionalistic legalisms.

Is this the true, compleat gospel? I'll follow Jesus of Nazareth as Risen Lord any day, over Akinola on these hot button dissents.

"But why should anyone else take theology based on such obvious lack of knowledge and gut reactions seriously?"

Why should anyone take seriously "theology" which talks a lot about rights but has convinced so few in the AC that what Lambeth 1.10 says is "incompatible with scripture" is actually compatible with scripture, holy, acceptable to God?

NP,
We know, as far as you are concerned, might makes right. It doesn't matter to you that someone doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to gay people, it doesn't even really matter whether or not he can mine the Bible for a few verses that seem to prove his point, it's really about everybody falling obediently into line. Most conservatives believe we make up 2-3% of the population. Even if they believed we make up 10% of the population, don't you think it reveals an incredible ignorance, expressed pridefully, I might add, to assert that if that number of people were actually allowed to live free, unmolested lives, the human race would be unable to repopulate itself? Doesn't it embarrass you that someone whose teachings you think are so holy would be not only willing to appear so ignorant, but is proud of it? Is the rest of the population so put off by us they will cease to feel sexual desire? The idiocy of that statement, the fact that it is just meant to push us further into the camp of the not truly human, that doesn't bother you, does it? As long as you can force your will on everybody else while falsely accusing the other side of doing that to you, you're happy.

"If the gay culture, for instance, were to become a global order, what will become of procreation factor in the replenishment of human race. How will humanity renew itself with such anti-procreation stance?"

Yes, Erika, it reflects an obvious lack of knowledge. It presumes that we who are gay would like to become the majority culture, which is not even possible. And it presumes that to be gay is to be anti-procreation."

In fact, even if we were as selfish as some folk believe we are, we would still want to offer the heterosexual world all the support we can give it. After all, heterosexual families are vastly more successful at producing gay children than we could ever hope to be!

Seriously, heterosexuality is a wonderful thing. I would never want to compete with it. Part of what we offer the Church and the world as gay folk is near-guarantee that we will never be "the norm." Instead we reflect the eccentricity of creation itself, and the eccentricity of a God who in Christ seems repeatedly centered on those who are away from the center. Heterosexuals can't help being the majority, and that's a heavy burden to bear. But we can make their burden a little lighter when we can welcome each other as different ways of reflecting the life of God.

"Even basic courtesies are lacking among the bishops."

Beam & mote time yet again - talk about blinding hypocrisy!

Not to invite one of our Bishops is not too invite all of us...

surely Archbishop Akinola'a argument must be good for the Episcopal Church and +Gene Robinson must be invited too?

Wait! Let us try to have a longer memory. Akinola has drawn this line in the sand before.

He has already declared, and declared repeatedly, that he will not attend Lambeth 2008 if the EC bishops are invited, as they already have been. Now he is backing down, qualifying, temporizing, wringing his hands.

And I thought that Akinola was the rock, the gold standard of consistency, of faithfulness to his reading of the Gospel.

His house (of cards) is clearly built on shifting sands, on disappearing deadlines, of bluster and false bravado.

Good that now we are getting a clear image of the man.

"I don't think either way is better, is blind trust any better or worse than blind mistrust?"

That would rather depend on the consequences of the two. Ask Davis?

Thus saith Peter Jasper Akinola, Lord Bishop, Primate and Metropolitan of Nigeria:

"Even basic courtesies are lacking among the bishops.

“What kind of communion do you have when you have bishops from all over the world coming together and you cannot even have fellowship or share the Lord's Supper?”

Who has been so discourteous as to invade the jurisdictions of U.S. bishops against the stated policy of The Windsor Report and against the advice of His Holiness, ++Rowan Cantuar?

Peter Jasper Akinola.

Who has led the Donatist bishops' group to refuse to receive Holy Communion from the Instrument of Unity par excellence, the Archbishop of Canterbury, because one or two sinful primates were kneeling at the same altar rail?

Peter Jasper Akinola.

Doesn't Peter Jasper Akinola know the teaching of the great Caroline Divine, John Donne (poem, Love Bid Me Welcome), that the Host of every Eucharist is Christ?

Therefore, Peter Jasper, will you repent of spurning your Host, the Risen Christ, by refusing to share the Lord's Supper with your fellow-Primates? Will you amend your Donatist ways?

We are all praying that you will.

The article from The Day endorsing the Akinolist coup surprises me, not for its content, but for the poor quality of the writing. I haven't read such illiterate tripe since the death of Enver Hoxsha, the late Albanian dictator.

There you go again, Ford....personalising it so you can criticise Akinola or "the right" or whoever - it really does not matter as long as you do not have to talk about your "clobber verses"

I have never said I think ++Akinolais "holy"....but I do think scripture is holy and from God so I will never accept people promoting as holy actions which the Anglican church (in common with most churches and consistent with 2000 years of tradtion) says are "incompatible with scripture".

You can criticise whoever you like, Ford.....but the only TECUSA gets VGR accepted in the AC is to prove that his appointmnt is not condoning something which is incompatible with scripture.

You can get away with illiterate tripe when you work to make sure your masses are illiterate.

After all, we all know nations that think it is appropriate to devote up to half their budgets on the machines of war and intimidation; even if that means ceasing funding health, education or infrastructure for their own citizens.

Such souls just love tyranny because they can pretend they are doing this in God's name and that all repression and vilification is therefore "justified".

In long term tribal or village tensions, there sometimes needs to come a recognition that their are camps of thugs in each group who love violence, who sneak about behind closed doors and under the cover of darkness to attack and violate their "enemies" so that the passions of anger and vengeance remain inflamed.

The elders call for peace and they are off throwing rocks and taunts to provoke fights. They are the antithesis of the gentleness promised by Jesus, their fruits are rotten with violence and corruption, they have no awareness of or capacity to honor the everlasting covenants of peace - promised to both Jews and Gentiles, pure and eunuch, alien and foreigner.

The abstract God of the Trinity has no choice to be strip away the veils so all can see their inner contempt for peace and their obliviousness to abstract consciousnesses. No wonder they can't grasp the Trinity, they can't even grasp the concept of a National Episcopal Church.

Their blindness and lack of humility mean that they are unaware how guilty they are of the very things they accuse against others.

The article from Laos, Nigeria, supposedly quoting Peter Jasper Akinola, actually ups the ante. Supposedly, Peter Jasper Akinola aspires to a gay-free Christian Church world-wide. To quote the paper:

"Thanks to Akinola's spirited opposition, the American Church authorities in the Anglican Communion have recently realised the import of this practice such that they have re-modified their position. The Episcopal Church now says it will no longer admit gay-men/women into the priesthood order. That means that the Episcopal authorities are less bothered if members of the laity are gay men or women. In other words, being gay is good enough for the laity but not the clergy. Pray, does God have different measures for evaluating the faithfulness or holiness of clergymen and another for the laity? Put differently, if gayness is not edifying among the priests, why is it is permissive among the laity?"

TEC never said that it would cease and desist from ordaining gay priests and deacons. The issue wasn't even on the agenda at the post-GC2003 Primates' meetings."

Years ago, in the early 1960s, an honest and straightforward RC archbishop and cardinal told me that there hasn't been a RC bishop who can truthfully say that he has never knowingly ordained a gay priest. Of course, gay priests (and I would add bishops and cardinals) are held to the same standard as heterosexual clerics--celibacy. Yet, since clergy, too, are sinful human beings and subject to temptation, some do not always abide by that standard. That is why the RC Church has always tried to deal pastorally with such failings; after all, Christ came to save sinners. Since the sexual abuse cases have surfaced, with exponential financial settlements, the emphasis has shifted (thankfully, in many respects!) from dealing pastorally with sinful clergy to victims' rights and the permanent damage done to them by clerical misconduct and the Church leadership being more concerned about the sins of their own offenders than the suffering of innocent victims, especially children.

One cannot accurately weigh - as NP so often would have us do, in quite a wild rush - the data and the reasons that have been leading so many believers to change their minds about queer folks - from nothing but inside the received negative ethical and theological frameworks for (mis)-understanding queer folks.

One considers the disconfirming data, firstly, by being open-minded enough to step into all the hypothesis tested data which have been published outside the traditional revelation frames. Then one answers the call to account for why scripture tells us the sexual orientation topography of human nature is flat, when all the data suggest the topography is not flat.

All around us are the witting and unwitting indicators that our knowledge in these matters has changed, and is still changing. Even the believers who deny and neglect to intentionally read the research end up beholden to it, in negative but mirror-imaged intellectual models.

You cannot get to the discernment we seek, from conservatively reading scripture alone, any more than you can get to weighing whether or not believers should support space exploration and moon landings and jupiter fly-bys with advanced telemetry sending data back to earth labs.

The rest of us continue to dissent from the majority understanding, so cleverly published yet again in Lambeth 1998 1.10 - because the resolution is so clearly and demonstrably disconfirmed by our best available facts.

Our whole traditional superstructure which the church had so painstakingly elaborated on top of human sexuality and human embodiment has gotten surprisingly shaky and unreliable - since above all, human sexuality is so much more than a legal matter of particular behaviors, sorted and categorized according to some pat closed (and often tribalized?) system of good and bad.

Much traditional belief in sexuality and human embodiment is threatened with change, just as our former certainties that oral sex caused hurricanes faded away, into the intellectual night of failed empirical causation theories. And the clever manner in which that Lambeth 1998 1.10 resolution was written - incompatibility with scripture, indeed - unwittingly serves to acknowledge that we are now in the utter real midst of these changes in our understandings.

Loud reassertions that queer folks, being honest and caring and ethically committed, spell inevitable doom - well these are absurd – and one must wonder why they are still preached as if they were fine certainties.

George Herbert, actually, John Henry. But the point is well made.

Erika,
I've had time to do the thinking I should have done before my last post! I was trying to say that Africans, I suspect, have a much different relationship to authority than we do, and seem to have more respect for the authority of traditional authority figures simply BECAUSE they are in a position of authority. Our society has developed in exactly the opposite way over the last 50 or so years, and we are more likely to MISTRUST someone simply because he is an authority figure. I don't think one attitude produces any more overall good than the other. We can debate this, but it doesn't change the fact that we are not at all speaking the same language or coming at the problem from the same cultural framewprk. An example is of aborigines in Australia. In some cultures, it was considered an act of great respect to ask someone to give you something, you were willing to make yourself beholden to that person. To Europeans, this came across as collossal rudeness. Zulus saw it as a great honour to disembowel a dead enemy. This was seen as setting that person's soul free, and was felt to be paying respect to a worthy enemy. Europeans saw it as deeply offensive and barbaric. These seemingly unrelated examples illustrate, I think, the problem in assuming that other cultures see things, even right and wrong, the way we do, and of reacting to things that may have very different meaning for the "others" than they do for us. If we do not appreciate the ways other cultures differ in their attitudes towards such things, putting aside our conviction of the "betterness" of our own attitudes, we will simply talk past each other. If there is greater respect for +Akinola simply because he is a bishop, then other things become more comprehensible as well.

NP,

You may not have noticed but even the Nigerian Anglicans are only a small, small fraction of the world's Christians. So if the number of people who believe a theological position is so key to its veracity, then I suggest you do what the so many conservative Anglicans have done in the past and seek a place in the enormous communion of the Roman Catholic Church.

jnwall --
I think of it more as ++Peter Akinola erasing the line in the sand.

Re: population -- FWIW, Jared Diamond says that the current population of the planet is three times what is sustainable at a decent standard of living (&, BTW, the average woman in Nigeria & Uganda has seven children).

Re: +Gene Robinson attending -- my understanding is that he provided the ABC with a loophole some time back by offering to attend in a diminished capacity if that was for the good of the WWAC & ++Rowan took him up on it (& left the door open) -- & Ford -- before Simon insisted that comments had to be about Canada, I wanted to clarify that it was at the time of Convention that I thought Gene's election would not cause schism -- after that, as ++Frank Griswold tried to explain, there was nothing that he could do to stop it because it is General Convention, not the Presiding Bishop, who exercises primatial power in TEC.

" ...predict the ABC will invite +Minns and all the GS will turn up to Lambeth to vote for a Covenant which represents what most of us in the AC believe (i.e. not necessarily what 0.29% of Americans think"

I'm sure he meant "29%". If not, I fear I shall have to take all the figures NP likes to cite with a grain of salt.

I wish they would forget about Britain and let us get on with doing things properly in our progressive and civilised country. If they wish to provide as premodern alternative to Islamic fundamentalism, they are welcome - its not as if you can tell the difference.

Oh, but Malcolm - don't you realise how well educated the Nigerian premoderns are? They all went to British universities and never, but never have to get their puppet masters from Anglican Mainstream and Sydney to produce written work for them!

@ John Henry
Yes, I agree - but, as you should well know, the poem to which you refer is not by John Donne, but his contemporary George Herbert. Moreover, its correct title is "Love Bade Me Welcome," not "Love Bid Me Welcome" (which, so far as I can tell, is the title of a romantic novel by one Joanna Brandon). Grave moments of crisis in the life of the communion are no excuse for momentary lapses in referencing the metaphysical poets. I expect this kind of slackness on Titus 1:9, but not here!

Please bear in mind that I am not chastising nor condemning - just speaking the truth in love...

Sorry, MR. Thank you so much for pointing out my error. I stand corrected. As age creeps up on me, my memory is not as good as it used to be. Yes, "Love Bade Me Welcome" is a poem by George Herbert, an Anglican Priest/Caroline Divine.

I am not always in agreement with the Most Revd Dr Peter Akinola. But I do agree with him in arguing for the postponement or outright cancellation of the Lambeth conference.

Archbishop Akinola says that, "There is so much distrust and disrespect. Even basic courtesies are lacking among the bishops. What kind of communion do you have when you have bishops from all over the world coming together and you cannot even have fellowship or share the Lord's Supper?" Never mind, I suppose, that Akinola has been one of those most usually absent from Communion with his fellow bishops.

Commenting on the cost of Lambeth, Akinola said there was no need to go there for a "jamboree."

They could leave the spouses at home, I suppose.

Nevertheless I agree. Lambeth will achieve little except to divide us further. What's the point?

Akinola says "we want more time to reconcile our differences on the thorny issue of homosexuality." Here, he indulges in wishfull thinking. The "reconcilation" will take decades.

Meanwhile, what bishops and others must find are ways to be in fellowship regardless of views on homosexuality (and quite a number of other things, for that matter).

NP and all the other theological terrorists...

You all scream about Lambeth 1.10 being the gold standard of teaching in the Anglican Communion. I wonder, do you even KNOW what Lambeth 1.11 is? I'll give you a hint: It's infinitely more important to Christians and the world then Lambeth 1.10, and is about big things that go BOOM and kill a lot of people...

How silly this Rebellion is going to look in the long run. Where is the outrage about Iraq? Iran? Dufar? Do you honestly think God would bless this ridiculous effort to turn back time and persecute a group of people who happen to be gay while the church stands by and lets innocent women and children be killed in wars? Get a grip on yourselves, NP!

Brian..... TECUSA gets 0.9m people on a Sunday.
The US has a population of 301m

0.9/301m=0.29%

You can round it up to 0.3% of the US population go to TECUSA if it makes you feel TECUSA is more representative.

Quite tragic how TECUSA is said to have an attractive message for (post)modern Americans....but hardly anybody turns up??

John - Akinola represents a lot more than 0.299% of Nigerians....and on Lambeth 1.10 he is in agreement with he vast majority of Anglicans (pls see TWR, Dromantine etc etc)

"Meanwhile, what bishops and others must find are ways to be in fellowship regardless of views on homosexuality "

And at its best, Lambeth can be a perfect meeting place for this process to start.

Pete - your post is a bit hysterical but you might want to think on the possibility that people may not want to condone what Lambeth 1.10 says is "incompatible with scripture" and may also be against war and for helping the poor

Blimey NP, I thought your maths would be better than that.

Assuming (with increasing difficulty) that inside your postings is a genuine debate trying to get out of a carapace of ad hominem repetitions, I infer that the views you ascribe to 0.29% of Americans are liberal attitudes to homosexuality (although you don't say so - you only say that these views are held by 0.29% and that you don't agree with them).

The Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2007 found that, in the US, 49% thought that homosexuality should be accepted and 41% thought that it should be rejected. Other countries in which more respondents accept homosexuality than reject it are Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Sweden, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria and Japan. In Nigeria, on the other hand, 97% reject and only 2% accept, and other African countries surveyed are mostly similar.

It is plainly wrong to suggest that the liberal attitudes you cannot reconcile with Scripture (unlike so many others, including the Archbishop of Canterbury) are held only by 0.29% of Americans, or that these views are unheard of outside Europe and North America.

Full results and methodology at http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/258.pdf

"TECUSA is said to have an attractive message for (post)modern Americans"

By whom? And NP, it's isn't whether or not +Akinola's holy. Here is a man who has shown himself profoundly ignorant about an entire group of people who he loudly condemns and wants to drive from the Church. Understanding us needn't change his mind about our sinfulness, but he doesn't bother to learn anything about us at all and just spouts propaganda and bigotry at every turn. He thinks he is doing God service by jailing us. He has been slandering the Americans for so long, toiling to make them appear like faithless traitors I think he actually believes it himself now. How can you trust that such a person, whose life shows clearly how little he respects the Gospel, can interpret the Scripture? Sure he's educated, sure he's a smart man, but there's lots of educated smart people who have no understanding of the Gospel NP, where's the evidence that +Akinola isn't one of those? That's not smearing nor attacking. I am simply saying that from where I sit, +Akinola's behaviour shows little knowledge of or respect for the Gospel. It is pretty clear to me, actually, and I can't understand how you are so easily able to ignore all that.

NP writes:

"0.9/301m=0.29%

You can round it up to 0.3% of the US population go to TECUSA if it makes you feel TECUSA is more representative."

You are no statistician, NP. Not all Americans are religiously affiliated, and of those who are, only about 76% are Christians. TEC should be figured as a percentage of religiously affiliated Christians. But -- who cares? American religion is a very big ocean in which we all swim. More interesting than your fetish for numbers, is the way in which our culture is so quickly coming to share the TEC's acceptance of gay and lesbian citizens as simply who they are and on their own terms. Look at attitudinal studies of the young, NP -- you've already lost. I think that is the real source of your anger. It is why you use numbers in your posts to wound, NP. Take a look again at the Sermon of the Mount and ask yourself it there might be something in Jesus' ethic of love that you might not have understood.

The 'by their billboards you shall know them' point is important, as I am sure that there is a large overlap between levels of nominalism and levels of secession to secularism. If Islam doesn't take Christianity seriously because of the kind of society it apparently produces, then nor should it, albeit the muslims in question may not have made the critical distinction between committed and nominalist Christianity, the former of which produces far better fruits. Central to all of this is the crucial distinction between varieties of Christianity which naturally have an expectation of personal transformation and those which don't.

badman, I think NP is saying that TEC only makes up)0.29% of the American population. I'm not sure why he takes that as some sort of decline or loss, as if TEC was once "by God and Law established" in America like it is in England and has therefore fallen from some great height when it was everybody's Church. The fact that so many went to American to get away from the idea of an established Church and to worship in their own way means that for Americans, this religious plurality is a good thing is lost on him. What percentage of the American population has ever been Anglican?

"If Islam doesn't take Christianity seriously because of the kind of society it apparently produces"

my ending to that sentence would be "...why should we care?" Islam sits in judgement on our society, finds it wanting, and blames Christianity for that. So? We all like to talk about being counter cultural. Well, traditional Muslim culture is also one to which we should be counter, no? Or are you saying that Islam actually gets to dictate to Christianity what the Gospel is? This is the second time in as many days that a conservative Evangelical has held up Islam as the arbiter of what is right and wrong for Christians. What is going on here? How did Islam get to be the judge of what's Christian? Is it just because Muslim society is as conservaitve as you are? Is it because they have the same attitudes towards sex and gay people as you do? Women? What is it?

Ford - the point of telling people that TECUSA represents only 0.29% of Americans is to try and help them to see that maybe it is not culture etc which makes ++Akionla et al object to what TECUSA does.

TECUSA represents hardly any Americans and a small percentage of US Christians (however Peter tries to cut the nos)....so, I do not want those in the AC opposing TECUSA's innovations to be written off as having cultural objections......the point is that TECUSA hardly represents American or American Christian culture.....it is not mainstream but has disproportionate representation for radical agendas in its Executive Councul and HOB.

The issue is the authority of scripture. Even in the US, most Christians do not agree with the innovations of TECUSA but do agree with most of the AC's bishops saying that certain acts are "incompatible with scripture". The issue is the authority of scripture......whether you are talking to an American, a Nigerian or a Chinese person.

Irritatingly for the "liberals", even in the US and England, it is the evangelical churches which are full of people of all ages and types and which are growing......but of course, we are not in tune with society but maybe God besses the faithful preaching of his word?

"TECUSA hardly represents American or American Christian culture"

They have never claimed to. In fact, they are quite clearly an alternative to America's "Christian culture". You are scoffing at their failure to achieve something they are not even trying to achieve! If anything, they are trying to be an alternative to the toxic, dangerous, warmongering, death obsessed, anti-intellectual, anti-science Christain mainstream in that country. I am quite proud, actually, that I belong to a Church, one of whose members places itself against the hatefilled rantings of Pat Robertson, John Haggee, and Jerry Falwell, to name but three. Do you really think that people aren't going to Episcopalian Churches because they are turned off by their attitude towards gay people? The vast majority of them have been raised in "Christian" traditions that teach that anyone who isn't a fundie is unsaved and going to Hell, that the Episcopal Church doesn't believe anything, and that most of what we do in church is idolatrous. In short they think like you do. "We don't associate with the unGodly" as one group said to us when we invited them to an ecumenical event. The only difference is that they didn't start thinking like that with Gene Robinson, they have always thought that. Your utter lack of knowledge about American society just makes you look even worse when make these kinds of claims, NP.

NP: it is TEC's "disproportionate representation for radical agendas" that you object to, then? Doesn't that remind you at all of what Jesus was like, then? Was he a religious conservative intending to maintain the status quo?
I wish you would stop all this triumphalist smirking that English evangelicalism is carrying all before it: it is not. There are plenty of evangelical churches in England doing very badly, numbers wise. I am pleased not to be the vicar of one of them (though I know several who are), because smug numbers queens like you would certainly regard me as being a total failure and not sufficiently Christian. Conservative Evangelical churches only ever seem to flourish in prosperous suburbs in England, and even then, only in some places. In others, they just can't get a foothold, and they are floundering. They seem unable to make headway beyond a limited number of the middle class and those who would aspire to be so. If you care about church growth, you should be looking at how to reach out further: it just ain't going to happen while you preach homophobia. It may well still not happen once you stop doing so, for any number of reasons, but at least then you will resemble the inclusive loving community that Jesus wished for.

I didn't even have to look at the byline, to figure out who wrote this: "I predict the ABC will invite +Minns and all the GS will turn up to Lambeth to vote for a Covenant which represents what most of us in the AC believe (i.e. not necessarily what 0.29% of Americans think)"

Sorry, NP, but it isn't the US Anglicans versus the rest of Anglicanism, as you like to pretend.

It is, instead, most of Australia, Brazil, Canada, most of England, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, United States, Wales, plus undoubtedly others who will have to choose (to be on the side of (1) Nigeria and its Central African allies and the few Provinces outside Central Africa, and the few dioceses out of some Anglican Provinces on the other side, or else stand with (2) all those I have listed) who will stand in opposition to Akinola and his Anglican putsch minions.

But, keep trying to pretend, NP. Had you been there, I'm sure that Galileo would still be called a heretic.

Interestingly enough, the "Authority or Scripture" is not a Biblical concept, NP, but a Heathen one, peculiar to some branches of Indo-Greek Philosophy.

You'll find it in various Alexandrian Hellenisms, you'll find it in Hinduism, you'll find it in Egyptian Islam.

You don't find it in Christianity until 16th century Renaissance when it is found in certain secs not to be named (forming New Neo Platonist readings).

But of course, you'll find it in 20th century USA. Enough said.

NP's claim that they are "against war" should be absolutely grotesque to all with a modicum of reflection after 1 + 2 Bush administrations and and equal number of wars, mercenaries, illegal combatants ("contractors"), the resurgence of torture & c.

How come it isn't?

Mark says "NP: it is TEC's "disproportionate representation for radical agendas" that you object to, then? Doesn't that remind you at all of what Jesus was like, then?"

Not at all, Mark, because he never excused sin.... you know what he said on the law, sin and holiness, I am sure....he never once excused sin on the basis of grace or anything else....he died to forgive sin but says to sinners like us, "go and sin no more".

'This Day' is correct to highlight: (1) liberal America's lack of self-awareness and also international cultural awareness; her virtual solipsism; (2) the wrongness of having one standard for clergy and one for laity - as though 'clergy' and 'laity' were foundational Christian concepts in the first place. But they are also wrong to spell Bp Robinson's name 'Jean'. Isn't it enough that he is called Vicky? It is enough to drive someone to be gay.

Hi Ford-

My point was not specifically about Islam. If anyone, Islamic or otherwise, judges a society by its billboards, tv, magazines etc then they may not be far off the mark.

Where I do not agree with them is in the implication that all these are produced by Christians. On the contrary, Christians are among the least likely culprits: rather the secular humanists whom in some respects liberal Christians are blindly following are the culprits. I imagine that because to be Arabian is to be Islamic, and to be Hindu is to be Indian, some will assume that the same nationality-ideology association applies in England and America. It clearly doesn't.

Secular humanism also has its ethic against materialism, exploitation and the like. So signing up to secular humanism also does not imply anything goes. Signing up to liberal Christianity implies nothing of the sort either. What is involved is material interests, seduction, the psychology of the sell and the body. The rationality of secular humanism, religious humanism, liberal Christianity is critical of the seductive, the marketing and the bought and sold body.

"But they are also wrong to spell Bp Robinson's name 'Jean'. Isn't it enough that he is called Vicky? It is enough to drive someone to be gay." Christopher Shell.

Is this supposed to be some sort of a joke or just a display of prejudice/ personal attack?

Ha ha, Jean or Vicky. Whatever next? Mary?

"Conservative Evangelical churches only ever seem to flourish in prosperous suburbs in England"

Well, of course. If you can use what you believe to be the plainly spoken word of God to justify your own lifestyle and declare yourself morally superior to everyone else, wouldn't you want to conserve that?

And, Christopher, do you really think it is the "secualr humanists" who are guilty for America's decline? Bush does not have a prayer breakfast with secular humanists every week, after all. Millennialist Christianity actually has a great deal of weight in America's foreign policy WRT Israel. "Secualr humanists" do not support his anti-poor people policies that actually create the societal problems you deplore. Conservative fundamentalist "Christianity" supports war and the death penalty, thereby downgrading the value of human life in the American consciousness, the oppression of women and gays, the xenophobia of American immigration policy, and on and on. Just because they are conservative on sex doesn't make them a good moral influence on society. That alone causes at least as many problems, if not more, than it solves. In fact, I'd say they are pretty detrimental to American society overall. Interestingly, Islam would be far more approving of Western society, if we practiced the death penalty, kept women covered, hidden, and without rights, killed gay people, and kept sexual activity hidden, so we can give the outward appearance of all being virgins till marriage, like they do. The reality is quite different, of course.

NP: on Jesus and condemning sin, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican that we discussed last week is interesting here, isn't it, because in it the Publican's uncleanness is not actually condemned by Jesus, nor does he turn away from it. Presumably he is still collecting taxes for the Romans after the end of the story. But, he is humble before God, and that is sufficient for Jesus to say that he was justified. Couldn't there be an exact parallel with a gay person in the place of the Publican, and a Conservative Evangelical in the place of the Pharisee? If you think the comparison is inapposite, why would that be?
I think there are big unChristian aspects to contemporary Conservative Evangelicalism as it has displayed itself through its reactions to the gay issue. First, it encourages people to be highly judgmental (you would appear to be a case in point) of areas which are the most delicate and sacred in any person's life - their deepest personal relationships. It's a really disgusting thing to see Christians queueing up to slate other people's close loving bonds, I think, and shows that something has gone severely awry with how some Christians relate to the world around them. Their reaction tells us more about their social dislocation than their rectitude.
Secondly, the gay issue has exposed the fact that Evangelicals do in fact pick and choose which parts of Scripture they apply literalistically. They are inclined to be liberal when it comes to interpreting the harsher passages relating to women, and to divorce, which their grandparents would never have countenanced. Already, centuries ago, they had gone liberal on acceptance of usury and democracy. So, non-Evangelicals are entitled to ask, and the press is asking and ridiculing the C of E rightly for this, why on earth it is only gay people that excite this literalism. The Bishop of Winchester, and the former Abp of Canterbury, Geo Carey, for example, have both urged the C of E to become more liberal with regard to remarriage of divorcees in church and opening up to women priests. So, it looks very weird, not to say illogical, for such people then to take a hard line on the gay issue. Now, as is known, Carey has experience of divorce and remarriage in his close family. Perhaps he hasn't experienced a coming out in his family. It looks as if the basis for whether you are liberal or not in your interpretation of the Bible depends solely on whether your personal experience includes people whom you know to be decent, righteous and gay, or not. In other words, harsh doctrine appears to be made solely on the basis of prejudice.
Would you like to address these points, NP, rather than just tell me that because the Sun has 4 million readers it must always be right?

Mark - you do notice that the publican is repentant?

He ain't standing there justify certain sins.....you have raised a good point, Mark

NP: now address the other points in my post, please.

"Mark - you do notice that the publican is repentant?

He ain't standing there justify certain sins.....you have raised a good point, Mark"

This is truly rich, NP, made even richer by the fact that you simply don't see how exact a fit this is for you. LOL! Thanks for the laugh on a Friday.

Glad to amuse you Ford...but do not laugh at your "clobber verses"....they stand and many of us will never accept people being taught that God does not mind them being ignored.

Mark - I see you had not realised that repentance was so important in the story of the publican.....as it is from Genesis to Revelation. Romans 6:1 is just one passage which makes it very clear that we are saved by grace...but not to justify sin (even if we see sins in others)

1 John 1 5 v5 "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

NP: what about "Judge not..."? Jesus also talks about the speck in your brother's eye. The emphasis Jesus wants his disciples to have is pastoral non-judgmentalism. Indeed, non-judgmentalism is the best way to be pastorally effective with anyone, I would think. How does that fit your approach then? Do you get a kick out of pointing out how awful these other people are, or do you just take up the burden reluctantly and do it anyway?