Good...... faithful archbishops are responding to requests from TECUSA clergy given the lack of adequate response from TECUSA and the ABC.

Many people (on both sides of the debate) are getting tired of the ABC's inability to lead and make decisions......we have had 4 years of communiqués and responses and nothing much ever being done........ the ABC is a brilliant man but he is making the problem harder than it really is because he wants to avoid the obvious conclusions.

-Most of the AC stand by Lambeth 1.10;
-Some clergy in the AC condone behaviour which most of the AC believes is "incompatible with scripture";
-The two will never agree.....forcing them to stay together means we just have endless disagreements (even Hegel may agree at this point!)

Why on earth is there a Province of the Southern Cone? I don't think it covers former British territory, does it? Why do we need an Archbishop Venables at all? On TV, he always looks the most gloomy and uninspiring person one could imagine to lead anything.

Mark - great argument...disagree with the guy so question why we have a province in the Southern Cone......I am sure ++Venables will read your comment, a little light bulb will appear over his head and he will fold his province into the mighty TECUSA and accept all its innovations regardless of what scripture says......or maybe not.

So Archbishop Venables has decided to sink the proposed Anglican covenant and escalate the schism to another level by "welcoming" dioceses and their bishops who are unwilling to suffer the outrages of a female Presiding Bishop and a gay bishop with a partner. So be it. TEC has all the necessary constitutional and canonical authority to defend its integrity as a Church and the support of the majority of its bishops, clergy and laity to deal with this tragedy. We will recover our churches and our endowments and we will heal and move on. As people trying to act like Christians, we will leave the porch light on for those who may decide to return some day, as the Confederate States bishops did, once they decided that slavery was really not biblical after all. We will recover our witness as a Church that stands with Jesus in welcoming all God's people to the full sacramental life of the Church and that works to bring the love of God to a world hungry for something better than the hypocrisy of conventional Christianity. That is, if there is still time. For once in Christian history, we may choose to refrain from dragging Jesus' name in the mud of our mutual hatreds and violence and need to separate from the alleged impure among us. What will happen to the Anglican Communion? The Lambeth Conference? I can't venture a guess, though if I were an American bishop I would not book my ticket just yet. TEC was rejected by the C of E at its formation. We have spent most of our existence without the Anglican Communion. That won't make this less of a tragedy. Perhaps, in God's good time, something good can be salvaged from the wreckage that the conservatives are creating. But, for now, I cannot imagine a faithful American diocese that would be even slightly interested in another threatening primates' meeting or a rammed through, exclusionary covenant. For the sake of unity, we have held our peace and made very significant compromises in restraining the forward movement of our Church. It seems there will be little need for that now.

I beginning to wonder why the h*ll TEC should WANT to stay in the AC and put up with all this, and so I have a proposal, which those with the ear of TEC can feel free to pass on:

TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrecht!

The Polish National Catholic Church (which was the US presence of the Old Catholics) has left the Union over the ordination of women. The way is therefore clear for TEC to become the new US presence.

The Old Catholic Churches of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands do (I believe) permit homosexual clergy and bless SSUs.

The Old Catholic Churches are in full communion with the AC through the Bonn Agreement (1931), and take part in joint commissions, such as the Anglican/Old Catholic International Co-ordinating Council and the International Bishops' Conference. Old Catholic bishops are often present as guests at the Lambeth Conference and are present at many Anglican ordinations. I have not heard of any Anglican Province breaking that communion over the OC stance on homosexuality.

The Bonn Agreement states:
1. Each Communion recognizes the catholicity and independence of the other and maintains its own.
2. Each Communion agrees to admit members of the other Communion to participate in the Sacraments.
3. Full Communion does not require from either Communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold all the essentials of the Christian faith.

TEC should shake the dust from their feet, join the Union of Utrecht.

In fact, maybe more of us should!!!

Great idea MJ

And more honest than staying in the AC and ripping it apart, telling half-truths to try and placate foreign bishops etc etc

"Many people (on both sides of the debate) are getting tired of the ABC's inability to lead and make decisions...."

Maybe this is because the ABC isn't supposed to be a leader in that sense. No matter what you may prefer, NP, he's not the Pope. He's first among equals, a position from which he can advise, cajole, maybe even push, but cannot command or order.

And can the liberal catholics within the CofE join them!

being serious, there is going to be a split eventually, and it clearly isn't just about TEC but about theological differences across the communion - which really needs to be put to sleep ,painlessly if at all possible.

revkarenm writes "TEC was rejected by the C of E at its formation."

That isn't strictly true, since the CofE had no independent means of doing that. Convocations were a dead letter, and effectively the church was subject to the Crown-in-Parliament in all things. Archbishop Moore worked very hard to get Parliament to permit the consecration of bishops without their swearing allegiance to the King so that provision for the former colonies could be made, taking them out of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. In the event, the tiny Episcopal Church in Scotland, decimated and persecuted following the failure of the Jacobite rebellion a generation earlier, and not subject to the Crown as the English church was, stepped in and consecrated Seabury. Moore was not far behind with White and Provoost.

The conduct of the Southern Cone in all this is almost beyond parody.

This is a province which covers the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. But it only has 27,000 members - not much to show for six nations. 27,000 would be a poor turnout at a single Premiership football match in London.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh alone, which it proposes to "adopt", has over 20,000 members. Assuming it takes in other US dioceses as well, Southern Cone is going to become more of a US church than a South American one. It will be a sort of reverse takeover.

In its official response to the "listening process", Southern Cone made it clear that it couldn't be bothered with a listening process - because

"The Province is small with few resources and does not have the time to do all things and has needed to set its own priorities and agendas rather than ones that seem to have been manufactured for them."

It is quite wonderful, then, that Southern Cone is prepared to lavish so much of its time and attention on people who have nothing to do with its geographical remit at all - rich, American conservatives.

To cap it all, the so-called Archbishop Venables is not an Archbishop at all. He is just a bishop, albeit the presiding bishop. Also, like Martyn Minns, he is British born and speaks with the English accent of the country he lived in until adulthood. Not very South American at all - any more than Martyn Minns is very African.

Oh well, vanitas vanitatum. In Thackeray's words, "Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is [almost] played out..."

Three things here:

1. As +Pittsburgh, +Ft. Worth, +SanJoaquin, +Quincy, +Sprinfield and +Dallas reflect on this, they should consider the status of Recife Brazil and its relationship to Southern Cone and Canterbury. Cavalcante already made this move to So. Cone and was not invited to Lambeth.

2. This is presented as news but it has been expected for sometime. +Venables was the principle speaker at the August Common Cause Partnership meeting. He conducted a "bible study" that was little else than an incitement to those present in TEC to abandon it. +Duncan chose Venables for this keynote position for a reason.

3. The Telegraph is in error. No threat of litigation of any kind was made by +Katherine Jefferts Schori in her letter to +Duncan. That allegation was made in +Akinola's letter. +Akinola may have included this errant statement in an effort to raise ire among the primates that their request in their Tanzania Communique for legal action to stop was being ignored. If +KJS's letter contained a threat, and I would suggest that it could be well-argued that it did, it was one of church discipline.

The conservative congregations will find safe haven for their prejudicial beliefs. Those who have faith in the Spirit moving in the world will be rid of their hatred. The bumper-sticker Christians will not have to peel off their "God Hates Fags" notices, and the progressivists will be able to praise God for the gift of humility and love. The schismatics will form their own Pauline faith, and the remnant will remain true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, loving God and loving their neighbors (meaning all neighbors and with true charity) as they would like to be loved themselves. The bushes are being pruned (or pruning themselves), and winter is on the wind. Come spring, there'll be new growth in many places.

"faithful archbishops"

As opposed to whom?

And, Pat, I find it very interesting that those among us who most closely adhere to the folklore of the Reformation as "great day for freedom from foreign domination" are so avid in their desire to have central authority in the Anglican Church! I'm not being all that snide here, it just seems that we have groups with two different needs. One is very suspicious of central authority, indeed of authority in general, perhaps even to the point of mistrusting the authority of God. That's essentially what Evangelicals seem to be saying about TEC's attitudes about Biblical authority. Their side, on the other hand, needs to see an effective centralized authority that will dictate what's what and ensure compliance. That is pretty much what NP is arguing for. He is appalled at the idea that there is no-one to bring TEC to heel, and is eagerly anticipating a "Covenant" that for others is anathema. Indeed, his mocking of "liberal" opposition to a covenant shows that attitude pretty well. It's not so much about the issue, though he does believe he's right, but if you'll notice, his arguments are never about theology, but obedience. "We have an 'agreed position', now stick to it!" Even when he quotes Scripture it's to reinforce a call to obedience. Sorrry, NP, that just turned you into a case study. I might get ever so frustrated and unChristian with you on times, but somehow it feels worse to make you into an object of study than to make snide remarks and gibes at you. Go figure! This need in conservatives is so great, I think, that it blinds them completely to the fact that opposition to centralized authority was one of the key points of the Reformation they pretend to respect.

Let's "keep a calm sough" as they say in my part of the world. This is a time for steady nerves, and the very last thing we need is the American Episcopal Church also stomping off in a hissy fit. Thus far, the American College of Bishops has conducted itself with wholly admirable gravitas in responding to gratuitous nastiness; they should be an example to all of us.

I think we really are at the tipping-point. The fundigelicals are now doing what they've been threatening to do at least since I was at university - and that was shortly after the Reformation! Having failed to "purify" the Church, they are about to walk out, and we must be prepared to let them. There must be no further concessions to their posturings and vapourings, although I suspect they've wound themselves up to a point where they simply can't be mollified. Those who cannot be reconciled to Anglicanism's intrinsic broad inclusivity (and I have prayed for years that they might be) have no choice but to try to find some other way of living out their faith - and should be encouraged to do so.

It will be horrible for a while (especially in Provinces where legal action will be required to protect assets) and will diminish all of us, but better that than that we be entirely consumed by this unending bickering.

“I beginning to wonder why the h*ll TEC should WANT to stay in the AC and put up with all this, and so I have a proposal, which those with the ear of TEC can feel free to pass on:

“TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrecht!

“The Polish National Catholic Church (which was the US presence of the Old Catholics) has left the Union over the ordination of women. The way is therefore clear for TEC to become the new US presence.”—MJ

I raised this as a possibility last year, and if in the (unlikely) event that TEC is “expelled” from the Anglican Communion, I would still support it. It has a number of positive sides to it (not the least of which is that there are no right-wing, Calvinist Evos among the Old Catholics!).

What happens to clergy (or parishes) of Pittsburgh who want to remain Episcopalians? (OK, Duncan says they have to leave the diocese, but TEC says the diocese is part of TEC no matter what the bishop or diocesan convention says, but my question is what they need to do in practical terms)

Re: the Union of Utrecht -- so far the UU already (still?) is in full communion with the C of E (as is the Mar thomas Church of India) & the Archbishop of Utrecht actually presided at a Convention Eucharist in Columbus (one of those services the Bishop of Rochester refused to attend) -- but it is quite small -- if TEC were to leave the WWAC & become part of the UU, the Old Catholics would be swamped. (Of course TEC is just as closely affiliated with the UU as it is with any province of the WWAC, except for the ACC -- IIRC, UU bishops are usually invited to Lambeth as non-voting guests, so if there is no voting ...).

So that's it with the Covenant then, given Venables' role of looking both ways. It's probably it for any sense of the Anglican Communion too - but this Archbishop of Canterbury should continue with his plans and let those who do not want to turn up form their own Communion. They can then organise whatever continuing Anglicanism they want wherever they want.

Of course it may well be that in these periodic realignments that Communions that made agreements then find they can come together more fully, as barriers of incompatibility elsewhere are removed by those who lead a schism away.

Presiding Bishop Venables is a weak leader and has little following in his own Province (I live at the Global "Latin American" Center)...his main "opportunity" appears to be his interest in offering a "selective Biblical solution" to hate-fear mongerers abroad (the same solutions that won't sell at his home Province of part of South America) to build his "numbers"...on the positive side, any Diocese who wishes to affiliate with +Venables won't have to worry about having a really "authoritive" figure to order them around...everyone can continue to "do as they like" while excluding, discriminating against and persecuting fellow Christians/Anglicans and others...+Venables won't mind.

Venables of the Southern Cone is another pirate among the primatial circus of the now defunct Anglican Communion. +John-David San Joaquin and +Jack Sp-Iker-land may soon aligned themselves with him if the Southern Cone Province will vow never to ordain menstruants to the priesthood and the episcopate and keep all gay clergy permenantly in the closet of denial of their sexuality

Am still puzzled by the reason - old man's vanity is perhaps the most likely? - that Presiding Bishop Venables, his proper title, does not correct the broad misconception that he is an archbishop. Have yet to see a single TEC "reappraiser" upgrade the Church's presiding bishop to "Archbishop Jefferts Schori".

RESPONSE TO FR. MARK'S COMMENTS:

COMMENT: Why on earth is there a Province of the Southern Cone? I don't think it covers former British territory, does it? Why do we need an Archbishop Venables at all? On TV, he always looks the most gloomy and uninspiring person one could imagine to lead anything.

Posted by: Fr Mark on Thursday, 8 November 2007 at 9:32am GMT

RESPONSE: Regarding your first point, I would rhetorically ask why the Episcopal Church has dioceses in Mexico and Central America (both of which are predominately Roman Catholic).

As to your ad hominem attack on ++Gregory, I need not dignify it with a response, only to say that I would savor the opportunity to observe your manner and deportment from your humble parish pulpit.

So the bishop of Buenos Aires, one of the most pro-gay cities on the continent with civil partnerships since 2003, decides to provide a safe haven for conservative dioceses in the USA, where even secular law in many states is not as progressive as in Argentina!

Shows how out of touch and eccentric Anglicanism can be!

Douglas Wilkie: I don't think you would find me gloomy, and I hope not uninspiring either! Bp Venables is a great one for making ad hominem attacks on others on such irrelevant grounds as their sexuality, I seem to recall: he had a lot to say about Jeffrey John on that basis.

As I've observed elsewhere, Duncan, Iker, Schofield and their friends will eat Venables for breakfast (which is perhaps why they want to ally with him). He really is out of his depth.

I don’t think there is any need or reason to attack bishop Venables.

It is clear that several American bishops are determined to break with TEC and will be deposed in the near future, there will be some clergy and lay people wishing to stay loyal to these bishops. Presiding bishop Venables has a proven track record of offering hospitality to these entities once separated from their National Church.

Robinson Cavalcanti an erstwhile bishop and his supporters in the Brazilian diocese of Recife continue to function “under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Gregory J Venables” read about Chris Sugden’s visit there http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/05/23/diocese-of-recife-ordains-new-ministers/

It seems that bishop Venables is performing a valuable service to the Church at large by offering his protection to those at the margins, as the arguments and legal actions get even bitterer – these people will need his ministry.

The new bishops of Pittsburgh etc and their surviving family of priest and laypeople will also need our love and support.

All this talk of various other provinces who need to offer spiritual care for the put-upon TEC conservatives cleverly reframes and sidesteps the main point of our shared modern empirical and ethical discernment dilemma:

Are the traditional negative condemnations true in a real world common sensical meaning of the words, about the condemned queer folks those narratives target as categorically and/or innately immoral?

And, if this curious conservative categorical sense of immorality talks itself so finely and so often - into having to condemn people who are loving enough to make lifelong commitments to same sex beloveds, what in the world could this continuing orthodoxist sense which sniffily keeps calling them immoral, really mean?

Camp out in such traditional condemnations at your own spiritual risk, then. Loud Realigned Anglican Policing of other peoples' orgasms is a spiritual dead end, for any number of apparent ethical and factual reasons.

Alas. Lord have mercy. TEC is leaving the porch lights on for anybody who eventually - even a long while from now - might want to visit or maybe consider returning. No grudges. No brag about orthodox this and that. Just keeping on keeping on.

Jesus of Nazareth as Risen Lord is just that good, and all sorts of folks are going to hear the music being played at the kingdom feast, no matter what fears about sex cooties Venebles tangles in sanctimonious garlands and vestments about his hands and feet and head and heart.

"It seems that bishop Venables is performing a valuable service to the Church at large by offering his protection to those at the margins, as the arguments and legal actions get even bitterer – these people will need his ministry."

OK, who are you, and what have you done w/ Martin Reynolds?

"protection to those at the margins": protected from whom? At the margins of what? (What are they in danger of---having their pseudo-Biblical hive-mind challenged?)

How is it a "valuable service to the Church", to keep the HATEFUL within the AC---where they will continue sniping at us LGBTs *invariably* BOTH in the Church, and in civil society?

I honestly don't understand where you're coming from, "Martin Reynolds". :-/

re the suggestion that the TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrech

I think you would find under the rule of law, that TEC could not do this AND retain all the property and endowment funds that have been accrued while it is Episcopal. That is also why they find the idea of being tossed out of the Anglican communion so frightening.

You see if they lose the property and endowment funds, they have nothing to live on because whatever else is true about the numbers, the number of people who willingly pay to follow the "new revelation" is small and shrinking.

So if the bishops (or presiding bishops) want to rule over something they have to steal it from those people who can't fight back ie all the dead Anglicans who have given in the past, who would never have given it if they had known what their church was going to become.

If the Anglican Primates are forced to choose between TEC and fundamentalists, of course they will have to choose TEC and other such liberal churches. Why? Simply because all the signs are that the zealotry of Akinola, Duncan, Minns etc. is a losing cause, and that TEC more or less represents where Anglicanism, Christianity and the civilized world are going. Yes, the greatest pastoral patience and respect must be extended by those bruised by the lurch into modernity. But their calls for excommunication of the liberals must not be countenanced.

Martin: the only problem with your very charitable interpretation of Bp Venables' actions as "performing a valuable service.. by offering protection to those at the margins" is that no-one is offering valuable protection to those at the opposite margins in places like England, where not a single bishop provides full public support for partnered gay people in the Church.

For all the anger above, what is missed is that ++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC.....nobody has had to call Primates' Meetings to call on them not to tear the fabric of the Communion.

Now, above, some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who have not deviated from the bible and agreed AC positions in favour of a small group which has condoned behaviour "incompatible with scripture" and has acted deliberately, against the calls of ALL the Primates of the AC to follow its own will and has torn the fabric of the Communion for over 4 years now......not likely, I think, especially as the AC will dwindle to less than a quarter of its current size if the ABC pushes the GS too far

NP: that's fine by me. I'll follow those who accept all God's lovely creatures as they are, so that I can minister to them fully and effectively. I'm quite happy to leave you in your Holy Trinity Brompton bubble ministering exclusively to old-fashioned ex-public schoolboys and looking down on everyone else.

But the AofC is not going to throw out a load of CofE members which would be the GS demand - the CofE must come first, not the communion, which is largely redundant in any case. It would certainly be better without the premoderns of Uganda and Nigeria. Their demands are not feasible for the West. Let them go and form their own fundamentalist church if they wish, but they cannot dragoon us into their level of 'thinking' . We have, thankfully, moved on.

"For all the anger above, what is missed is that ++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC.....nobody has had to call Primates' Meetings to call on them not to tear the fabric of the Communion."

Because those of us who think that gays are perfectly acceptable in all ways for all roles in the church weren't interested in throwing those who disagreed with us out of the Communion. That's what "tolerant" and "inclusive" means, NP--not just that we're accepting from the left, but from the right, as well.

This is what we keep telling you (in both the general and specific sense): Nobody's forcing you, or Akinola, or Duncan or Venables, or anybody else to ordain gays, consecrate them as bishops, or bless their unions. We're just saying let those of us who believe these actions are in keeping with Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves do so.

"++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC"

You know, NP, I've been wondering for a while now, what is your job? Pollster? I don't undersdtand how you are able to speak for the entire Anglican communion otherwise.

"some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who have not deviated from the bible"

That ought to read:

"some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who will not piously pretend they have not deviated from the bible while the entire world knows the truth and laughs them to scorn for the hypocrites they are."

You do realize how silly it is for someone to claim to be all pious and righteous when anyone with one eye half open can see the truth, right?

“I think you would find under the rule of law, that TEC could not do this AND retain all the property and endowment funds that have been accrued while it is Episcopal. That is also why they find the idea of being tossed out of the Anglican communion so frightening.”—Margaret

Rubbish! The property belongs to the American Episcopal Church, not to the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church may or may not belong to any number of international bodies, but that is legally irrelevant to the property ownership question.

There is no "agreed position" NP, only (several)dis-agreed.

(and I dis-agree with some of them too)

Positively Orwellian, Margaret.

But I think you will find that few is any of the endowments in question refer to the Anglican Communion at all, but rather to the Episcopal Church.

Conservative doublespeak won't win you much at the end of the day.

NP - "as the AC will dwindle to less than a quarter of its current size if the ABC pushes the GS too far"

What are you smoking (and inhaling), NP?

This isn't about numbers, and it isn't about wealth either.

You are arguing for a division of the Anglican Communion (well, you're really arguing for a Calvinist single Anglican Communion, but that's not going to happen) along the lines of:

(A) the traditional and historical Anglican Communion, which would probably consist of most of Australia, Brazil, Canada, most of England, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, United States, and Wales (plus some others such as Central America, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and part of Southern Cone, and part of West Indies, who will make their choice when it all "hits the fan")

versus

(B) the Calvinists split from the traditional Anglican Communion, which would probably consist of part of Australia, Central Africa, Congo, part of England, Indian Ocean, Jerusalem/Middle East, Nigeria, Rwanda, South East Asia, most of Southern Cone, Uganda, part of United States, and West Africa (plus some others such as Sudan, Tanzania, and part of West Indies, who will realign with their "Global South" leaders in a new organization focused upon the ultraconservatives from England and the United States, plus the Central African-focused new alignment).

Doing what is right (and I don't mean parroting some element or two from Scripture, while ignoring the totality of Scripture), is what will matter whatever the final numbers may be, of the traditional and historical Anglican Communion.

The bullies of the Global South are going to have to get a new game plan, NP.

Anybody else around these parts tired of the constant presuppositionalist weaponizing of scripture that simply typifies the conservative realignment campaign? Tired of this blindly self-righteous reading of scripture usurping the worship and discipleship that belongs, only, to Jesus of Nazareth as Risen Lord? Tired of these odd, distorted claims that only realignment believers are the purest of Anglicans?

Me, me, me, me ... pick me. Whoooo.

Jerry, Ford et al..... sorry, you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10 does not represent "the mind of the Communion" but

- the liberal ABC has said so himself,

-his Lam Pal bureaucrats know they would lose so they are not trying to have it overturned'

- TWR reinforced the position of Lambeth 1.10,

-it is crytal clear that many non conservatives eg Fulcrum and +Durham are not doing to compromise and have condoned in the AC behaviour which is "incompatible with scripture",

- Rowan Williams has shown (eg J John, Tanzania) that when he is faced with losing the mainstream of Anglicanism in England and around the world, he does not let the militant agenda of a minority rip the AC apart.....he has done his best, delaying for 4+ years to try and get some fudge...but, thank God, there are lots of people in the AC who take scripture too seriously to allow the AC to condone behaviour consistently condemned by scripture.

NP: will you please stop, once and for, all this militant majoritarian language? You obviously cannot hear how bullying it sounds, and it is fatuous.
Your own church of HTB, which you vaunt ceaselessly here, lies bang next door to a much larger and more successful church, numbers-wise, Brompton Oratory. On your argument, you should be going there of a Sunday morning. Except, of course, it is Roman Catholic...

And anyway, NP, what's this about the "mainstream" in England being conservative on the gay issue? What planet are you on? Planet HTB, I suppose. You certainly don't have much of a grasp on grass-roots Anglicanism in England. Do you really think that all those "broad" village churches; city-centre-committed-to-diversity-churches; high church never-had-a-straight-vicar churches; moderate evangelical churches which care about equality and justice issues - which altogether make up the vast majority of C of E churches - do you really think they share your extremist anti-gay views? Dream on, but please do it quietly elsewhere.

"Ford et al..... sorry, you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10 does not represent "the mind of the Communion" "

When have I ever said that? I'm just amused at the way you think that one part of a much larger document is the only part of it that has the force of law. I am also curious as to how you got the job of speaker for the Communion, as I should like to apply for it once the responsibilities of both that job and Judgement Seat Warmer get too much for you.

Mark - if you were right, Jeffrey John would be bishop of St Albans....

Reality check: even the liberal ABC has held the line on Lambeth 1.10 being the mind of the Communion and has not attempted to challenge or change it.

NP
Do try to keep up. The bishopric of St Albans was not the vacancy in question in 2003...

- he is Dean of St A's (hence the mistake)
and not Bishop of Reading given there clearly was not enough support in the CofE for Harries and Williams to push that one through.

No NP: he wasn't made bishop because he was treated shamefully (any other employer would be forbidden by law from discriminating against him on the basis of his sexual orientation, and it is scandalous that the Church is allowed to get away with such low ethical standards). He was treated shamefully because the ConEvos started screaming like kids throwing a tantrum - really, it is time they just grew up and dealt with real people as they are made by God.

Mark - the objection was his public (written) opposition to Lambeth 1.10 (the agreed position of the AC's bishops)

Hard for a bishop to be a unifying figure in the diocese and to discipline clergy when he rejects certain discipline in public?

Whatever you say, the ABC and Lord Harries did not push through their friend's appointment....because there was not sufficient support for doing so in the CofE.

Hi Fr Mark-

Yes, it is true that this is the way that we are made by God. For example, it is undeniable that one meets gay babies every week. They are born that way. It is equally undeniable that they encounter no influences from environment (as opposed to genetics) between the ages of 0 and (say) 13. And as for the idea that around 13 is (by coincidence) also the time when people often first experiment with, and get addicted to, all kinds of other unpleasant things as well, such as smoking, alcohol, drugs...things that they may end up actually hating but being in bondage to - that is irrelevant. As is the fact that what happens (often by chance) during these formative years tends to determine one's self-identity / image of who one is.

"get addicted to"

So being gay is an addiction? I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, Christopher, but I am losing my patience. You are looking more and more like what my partner refers to "A ^%$#%$# right wing bigot trying to make me look like a sick freak." Do you believe anything that a gay person tells you that DOESN'T fit in with your preconceived notions in some form or another? Citing Cameron as "evidence" of anything was bad enough, denying it was even worse, but this is getting a bit much. Being gay is what I am, Christopher, just like being straight is what you are. I didn't choose it, I am not "addicted" to it, and I am not an evil, sick, rebellious pervert! Why is it so difficult, well impossible, for you to accept that being gay is something were ARE? I tried, prayed, cried, cowered, did everything I could not to be gay. It was not something I chose, but something I was forced to accept after literally years of fighting aginst it. Any number of gay people will tell you the same thing, yet you refuse to listen. You ignore the real life experiences of real life gay people, instead spout the prejudices and propaganda of those who are as ignorant as yourself about homosexuality but share your preconceptions and need to "prove" them somehow. And you expect us to see you as someone who searches for truth and trusts the evidence? The only "evidence" you will trust when it comes to gay people, it seems, is any statement that confirms what you already believe. God knows you've ignored enough gay people here. Acknowledging what we are telling you is our life experience doesn't mean you have to change your belief that being gay is a sin, you know, though it does give you more difficult things to understand.

Christopher: I don't think that having a sex life is best compared with drug addicton. Aren't there more positive ways to view sex? As a rule, if you wouldn't be happy telling straight people their sexuality is a form of addiction, then you shouldn't say so to gay people either, I think: in both cases, God put them into those people.

Ford
"only "evidence" you will trust when it comes to gay people, it seems, is any statement that confirms what you already believe."

Try not to take this personal. Christopher has consistently refused to listen on any social issue he has a firm view. Not long ago he stated that if you wanted to know the true horror of divorce you would not talk to a divorcee, and in our recent debate on abortion he gave no indication at all that he had ever actually spoken to a woman who aborted.

You won't change him and it upsets me how much this rubbish is getting to you. Some people are just genuinely absolutely determined not to let reality get in the way of their prejudice.

There are some that unfortunately consider sex only to be necessary for procreation. That's not even "Victorian", it's Puritan. Does this come from Calvin or Rome?

The sad thing for the underclasses (at least in the U.S.) is that getting women pregnant is the only accepted norm in ghetto life. One could come to the conclusion that narrow "Christian" dogma on sex has encouraged this attitude to horrid outcomes.

So Christopher, you are willing to accede to the idea that gays are born (not terribly ingenuous, I see straight through your facetiousness) as they are, then why do you and NP fight so hard to keep our affections literally in the ghetto?

Do you seriously think that is what God wants?

Never spoken to a woman who has aborted? As one of the most active individuals in the whole country in the save-the-babies movement (which boasts at least 10 separate flourishing organisations) I must have spoken to loads.

I am amazed that you say I have 'views' on abortion and divorce. Haven't you noticed any similarity between my so-called 'views' and the Christian position?

Ford-
If I am a right-wing bigot, how come I have to date voted for all the main political parties apart from the Conservatives?

'Life experience' is a neutral criterion. Everyone has many life experiences. The question is: which of them are beneficial, and which harmful?

'Choirboy from hell'-
Well, I hope you are not going there. Are gays born or made? They can be partly made for sure; there may well also be an element of born though I've never met any gay children. But that is irrelevant. I was born with both beneficial and harmful tendencies, and so was everyone else. To be an adult is not to 'go with the flow' like an instinct-based animal, but to choose the beneficial and shun the harmful. In our openly hedonistic society it is no surprise that people find this more difficult than in a more moral one - since they are not even encouraged to do so, which tends to take away the incentive.

"it upsets me how much this rubbish is getting to you."

Thanks, Erika! A friend tells me I do better 'righteous indignation' than anyone she knows:-) What bothers me most is the absolute refusal to even acknowledge the truth. He made a claim a while ago about soaring rates of violent crime, then ignored a link to a report that showed decline in violent crime over the past 30 years. My profession involves the critical reading of scientific journals. Yet, when I tell him that his "evidence" for his eggregious comments is bad "science', to the point of being worthless, he still refuses to back down. And he thinks people see him as a seeker after truth! Thanks for the concern, I'll try to tone things down, but it really makes me angry when, after repeatedly telling someone the struggle for self acceptance gay people go through, he still comes back with this attitude that you sinfully, rebelliously chose it (and thus deserve what you get, presumably) or are sick or an addict or whatever. I don't mind that he thinks God hates me. I don't even mind he thinks I deserve to be a second class citizen. I mind very much when he ignores my experience then spouts lies about me claiming they are science! If he's going to judge me adversely, that's fine, but he could at least judge what I am, not the deformed creature he needs so badly for me to be that he will spread lies about me to justify his attitude. That's just wrong, but, as NP has been reminding us, there is a Judge. All the same, I'm gaining a better understanding of where Merseymike's anger comes from. If he's had to deal with people like this for any length of time, he's actually pretty restrained! And I understand better why it is that sometimes you seem to take offence that I could not predict. I seriously have never met anyone so willfully ignorant about gay people.

"The question is: which of them are beneficial, and which harmful?"

The question is what right do you have on the other side of the pond to deny my life in favour of your stereotype of me? We all have life experiences? Mine is that sexuality is not chosen. What were your experiences that told you otherwise? I'd suggest that life experiences that take you away from fear, self-hatred, dishonesty, and possibly suicide are beneficial, while those that lead you to ignore anything that challenges your preconceived notions while propounding as fact that which is clearly lies and propaganda, and refusing to be corrected on this point, were probably not so beneficial.

Christopher, I respect that your beliefs as to my sinfulness are sincere, and based in what you understand Scripture to teach. I am not seeking to change those beliefs. I have said I would accept your adverse judgement of me, if it were of me. But it isn't. You are judging a stereotype of me and not only refusing to let go of that stereotype depsite being shown it is not true, and, what's worse, quoting vicious propaganda in support of your position. As if that were not enough, when it is pointed out to you that the "science" you quote is not science at all, you still refuse to drop these vicious lies. PLease, if you feel it is your Christian duty to oppose gay inclusion, or to call for gey repentance and celebacy, by all means do so, but do it on the basis of truth. Please stop using lies and propaganda, and please at least try to get rid of your stereotypes. Gay people are telling you they didn't choose their sexuality, why do you insist on claiming that they did?

Christopher-You speak of incentives of a hedonistic society. So why don't you let the church offer stability to combat it? And that doesn't mean forcing people into marriage arrangements against their will.

You've met gay children. Like "straight" children they've not sexually developed. And "developed" is what I would answer for your either/or choice of "born" or "made".

Again-answer my question, do you SERIOUSLY think shunning (if you can't convert, i.e. 'control') these LGBT folk that this is what God wants?

On another link you mention the 1950's being better for race relationships. What planet where you on at that time? Where you even alive?

No wonder Mr. Gates of the Guardian has given it up. Christianity is working very hard to make itself irrelevant.

Ford - in mentioning me, are you saying I am as bad or worse than Christopher?

Anyway, you are often good at loving "enemies" so I am sure you will show Christopher some love soon

Christopher: I was a gay child. I did NOT choose to be gay. Coming from a Christian background, who on earth would?

Ford: I don't think it's wrong to be angry about those things at all. If you look at how women's ordination was finally achieved in England, it was at the end of a process of the expression of a lot of anger at the previous injustice of the situation. (Women gained the vote in the UK after a similar prolonged expression of anger at injustice.) It's perfectly understandable - and we see Our Lord getting pretty wound up about the money-changers in the Temple, after all.

"you are often good at loving "enemies" so I am sure you will show Christopher some love soon"

Actually, NP, I'm not very good at that at all. I just don't seek to make my inability to love my neighbour into a Biblically approved virtue. And "as bad or worse"? I can say what either of you does that makes me angry. I can point out the ways you stray from the Gospel, as far as I can see it. I can plead with you for a change of heart. I can challenge you to behave honestly and truthfully. I cannot say that either of you is "bad", nor can I judge which is the worse. You both can, and do, do the same things for me.

Fr Mark
There's anger and anger.
I can get really angry about the nonsense produced here as theology but it doesn't always get to me at a very deep personal level.

Whenever I read something by one of the right wing I-know-it-alls that makes me feel so angry that I'm close to tears and find that I can't sleep because it keeps churning in my mind, I know that I'm letting things get to me far too much and I usually take a TA break for a while.

The righteous anger is helpful and can be productive. The other kind just makes you weak, helpless, wanting to lash out and achieves nothing.
I can see where Merseymike is coming from but I'd much rather not end up in that place.

NP: no, you are worse than Christopher. At least one can engage in something like a discussion with him. You ignore anything that doesn't fit your prejudices; judge everyone else; quote Scripture as a weapon; and sound incredibly smug and superior. I realise such behaviour is probably a sign of deep insecurity somewhere along the line, but we don't need to read it here, you know.

Erika says "I can get really angry about the nonsense produced here as theology..."

Hope you do not mean support for the consistent theological position of the AC's bishops that certain behaviour is "incompatible with scripture".

I have not seen strong theological arguments to show our bishops are wrong....and they happen to be in agreement with the RCC and 2000 years of Christian tradition.....so, maybe it is the "theology" which talks about everything apart from the bible in order to justify certain sins which is deficient, Erika?

"...they happen to be in agreement with the RCC and 2000 years of Christian tradition..."

Why is it that someone who makes disparaging remarks about liturgical vestments and transubstantiation and reverent treatment of the consecrated elements is so concerned with being in agreement with the RCC?

Didn't we form this church 600 years ago precisely because we disagreed with them?

We don't get to choose our sexual orientation,.

'S up to us to enjoy it though.

I can't imagine the world with out lesbians, gays and all the rest ! Can you ?

We even survived the full force of the Law of England. Proud or what ? You bet we are !

I give thanks for my lesbian and gay forbears ....

What behaviour would you be taking about, NP?
Slander? False witness? Pointing to the speck in the eyes of others?
Oh no, I fully agree with traditional Anglican teaching on all those fronts! Don't worry.

"As is the fact that what happens (often by chance) during these formative years tends to determine one's self-identity / image of who one is."

Christopher Shell!

You don't k n o w this.

Erika - if you are not sure, pls see 1 Cor 6 or Eph 5:1-21

NP
The point I'm making is that there are many sins that are incompatible with scripture. According to your Ephesian quote it includes jesting. I agree, I jest a fair bit with you on this forum, so I apologise for that.
As for being drunk on wine... yes, that too. Would you like to make that a communion splitting issue?

Should you mean sexual immorality, I don't feel guilty. My love is holy, not immoral, whatever bishops who don't know me and haven't ever listenend to me might say.

Any other points you might like to make?