Colin Coward is surely just one of many who feel betrayed by Archbishop Rowan. Those of us who saw his elevation as a harbinger of new life in the C of E and a more loving Christian attitude have been deeply disappointed.

Re Colin Coward, and others who feel "betrayed by Rowan Cantuar" NOW, I imagine Jeffrey John must be thinking "Where ya been?" O_o

The dust up that will surely be sought and provoked by the religious right, including Gledhill and Rowan Williams (who hardly like to think of themselves as mean-spirited, let alone strictly rightwing?) is a necessary reminder of the bottom line Anglican and culturally conservative agenda - NOT to be any more antigay than usual though a few bloodied bodies will ever be needed to mark the boundaries; but a full scale return to the Old Closets.

That is pretty much exactly what all the going conservative Anglican thinking points to; we should forgive ourselves for noting the obvious. England, it seems, is well on the way, thanks and thanks again to Rowan Williams and others.

If being Anglican means nothing but being strictly FiF and Reform, then count me out - no big tent global believer oxygen there to breathe.

Maybe the lesbian bishops that Rowan Williams will so gladly do without, will also be better off in the very long big tent believer run, not having to do so much with him? I constantly pray for believers and leaders determined to be steeped in all the traditional ancient near eastern Mediterranean antigay ignorances; I don't plan my day around them.

We can lead archbishops to water, but we can never make them drink. Many will change, only long after it makes any positive difference to most of the rest of us.

"On Monday, Archbishop Luke Orombi’s assistant for International Relations, Ms Alison Barfoot, described as “funny and unbiblical” the choice of Ms Glasspool.

“We believe the Bible condemns homosexual behaviour as immoral. So how can a homosexual be a bishop?” she said. “This decision of the Episcopal Church in America [the equivalent Anglican Church there] will only bring more problems and divisions.” - Kampala Monitor -

Is this an instance of Abp. Orombi of Uganda trying to distance himself from the arguments - by using a Western Female P.A. to fire his poison darts at the LGBT community? It wouldn't surprise me if this was his tactical agenda - especially as his hateful henchmen on the Bench of Bishops in Uganda are attributing the existence of the 'Gay Phenomenon' to malign Western influence.

This may be just one more instance of his desire to apportion blame for what he considers to be a Satanic visitation upon the Church; upon the very Western consitutency that gave birth to Uganda's membership of the Anglican Communion. Perhaps now is the right time to disabuse him, and other African primitives, about the true message of the Gospel to the marginalised and powerless. But will the Communion Instruments of Unity be up to the task?

Bishop Alan's blog questions the relevance of the reluctance of the ABC to issue any condemnation in public of the proposed draconian Ugandan legislation against homosexuals, while at the same time issuing public xcondemnation against the actions of TEC in selecting two women bishops (one of the in a stable gay relationship).

I would disagree with Bp Alan on this point alone: that his action/non-action seems to portray his profound opposition to the cause of the LGBT community in the Church. This homophobic stance does not bode well for anyone who calls themselves 'Christian' - with a commitment to the Gospel of jesus Christ - let alone a Bishop of the Anglican Communion.

The consistency of the ABC's policy so far seems to affirm his determination to stamp out the possibility of arriving at any conclusions from the Lambeth charge on the Churches to 'listen to, hear, and learn from' the experience of the LGBT persons who are already part of the Church community. So much for that directive, then?

Here I thought from the headline that the Jackal of Uganda had come from hiding to make a statement. Disappointed I was to see that it was none but his Statesonian barefoot sock puppet.

There are three strands of churchmanship in the CofE - liberal or "broad church", Anglo Catholic, and evangelical. Of course, in every strand, activists in church politics are a very small minority.

Rowan Williams was understood to be a liberal Anglo Catholic.

The evangelicals always hated him. Indeed, when he was appointed, there were various papers doing the rounds from evangelicals about how he was not really Christian etc. He has never won their trust, even though he has kow-towed more to conservative evangelicals than any other group. So he's got no support there. Never has had it, never will.

The Anglo Catholics are, mostly, against the ordination of women. That ship sailed too long ago for Rowan to call it back, despite some wistful comments, quickly retracted, a year or two back. So this, his natural constituency of supporters, is not really behind him either.

The liberals were his core support. He got the job because it was felt that a liberal Anglo Catholic was what was needed after Carey, who was an illiberal evangelical. In fact, he was probably never as liberal as liberals thought, but this was a very unfortunate misunderstanding.

It has taken a long time to be dispelled. Despite constant indications that Rowan Williams had abandoned liberalism, liberals for a long time gave him the benefit of the doubt. They thought he was a hostage to Anglican Communion politics. That he was playing a long game. That he was taking nasty illiberal medicine to heal the Church with a view to pushing forward liberalisation when it was fit and well.

The Jeffrey John business was a shock. And it led to recrimination.

But I sense that the toxic combination of silence (=death) on Ugandan kill-the-gays legislation and a quick draw condemnation of the election of Canon Glasspool has led to a major change. Now Rowan Williams is not just criticised for his actions or his judgment. He is denounced by liberals as a Quisling.

And so he has no support, and no credibility, left at all.

"He is denounced by liberals as a Quisling" - badman

Nah, it's just that liberal catholicism is dead in the water as a failed ecclesiology.

Even screaming closet queens can be given the gift of the Spirit to impart the Word of God. It's just that - as Lizzie's molly boys would testify - living under repressive regimes can distort one's whole approach to women and sexuality issues.

But there's ample scope for making amends. Queen Elizabeth thought lesbianism was just a straight man's fantasy - which explains why the Bible is totally silent on the matter - but then it is totally silent on the other great issues of our day: climate change, nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence, IT, (not banking I hasten to aDD) , ...

If Geoffrey and John are saddened by the antics of ABC, they are not alone., There is throughout the communion, and particularly in the United Kingdom many of us who distance ourselves from the statements of ABC. We see a person now imprisoned by his civil servants, scared of the conservative evangelicals, and much in need of our prayers.
We liberal catholics, who wish only to follow the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ , live by Gods Grace . God leads us along life's path, not Rowan. God has called us to ministry, not Rowan.
God will receive us as we journey into God, not Rowan.
God be praised.

Fr John

For any who still do not know who Alison Barfoot is. She is an American whose right wing credentials go back to a doctorate from Gordon-Conwell (Calvinist-reformed theology, in suburb of Boston, now capitalizing on Anglican crisis with a new program for Anglican clergymen), Virginia work, and on to Overland Park in Kansas. She and Stephen Noll are both working in Uganda, Noll at Uganda Christian University, both with salary lines alleged to be funded out of the US Barfoot was responsible for the infamous memo developing a strategy for the off-shore, with or without letters dimissory, accession of TEC churches by African primates. In the last couple of months, Barfoot has been much more forthcoming about the work of "bridge-building" she has been doing than previously, but she has been engaged in this work, largely religious political at least since 2004. The Barfoot memo first came to light in the discovery documents in the Calvary vs. Pittsburgh (+Duncan) case.

On the other hand --

Gene Robinson has been Bishop of New Hampshire for 6 years. Much of the energy released by that event has been channeled into work on things like GAFCON and the Covenant, neither of which may ever amount to anything. Lambeth 2008 has come and gone.

The election of Canon Glasspool has caused nothing like the reaction Bp Robinson's election did 6 years ago. There are -- so far -- no emergency Primates' meetings, no special commissions, no grandstanding by the African primates.

Bob Duncan is no longer trying to trouble TEC but now spends his time trying to figure out how to make ACNA a viable organizational entity when large parts of it have not cut ties with their overseas authorities and other parts dally with Rome. A fight over women's ordination still looms.

What was extraordinary 6 years ago is approaching the energy level of the expected, if not the routine.

If the ABC's goal was purely organizational -- holding the Anglican Communion together by muddling through a storm -- it seems to be working amazingly well.

Thanks so much to EmilyH for revealing the devious connections of the US radical right -- including their fundamentalist Chrisitian allies -- to their goal of the destruction of any part of "mainline" churches which have the temerity to speak Christian love to pseuodo-Christian power.

" one has to to ask: what exactly are the reactionaries afraid of? That their own intellectual inadequacies will be exposed, and their ‘God-given’ authority diminished, by an influx of bright priests of different genders and sexual orientations? Or that, in a more inclusive forward-looking church, they will be exposed as the bigots they are, rather than glorified as spiritual leaders?"
- George Morrison, The Times, 09 December -

This, from the heart of an 'ordinary Anglican', who says he is 'no theologian'; exposes the silly and damaging effects of hierarchical obsession with sexuality in the current stand-off in the Anglican Communion. George Morrison, in this timely reminder of the true vocation of the Church, expresses his impatience with the climate of prurience amongst the Churches' Leaders which seems to be more concerned about sexuality than the core ministries that every Christian ought to be getting on with.

To put the gender or sexual orientation of the Churches' clergy at the very top of it's list of priorities (implying that these questions are more dangerous to the Churches' mission than any other matter) - in a time of unprecedented urgency of other, much more important matters, is surely to detract from the very important Gospel imperatives that the Incarnate Jesus came to identify as of the utmost importance. Sexuality was not the most important part of His agenda.
Nor, certainly, was he concerned that it might be a catalyst for the credibility of the Gospel.

The Anglican Communion's obsession with sex is rapidly becoming a joke in the work-places - to the embarrassment and chagrin of ordinary Church goers in the community. When is this farce going to be put to rest, before the credibility of the Church in the world takes a further pasting?