The BBC discusses the forthcoming debate this afternoon Clergy face end to ‘job for life’
Financial Times Church review threat to clergy ‘jobs for life’
Reports of this afternoon:
Press Association Call to End Church ‘Jobs for Life’ Welcomed
Guardian Stephen Bates Synod votes to remove vicars’ freehold rights at churches
The Times Ruth Gledhill Anglican clergy to lose the right to a job for life
Yorkshire Post Michael Brown Here endeth your job for life, the nation’s vicars told
Financial Times Synod backs curbs on right to housing
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Synod backs move to end clergy ‘jobs for life’
Telegraph editorial against this decision House of prayer to let
The official report of business concerning the motion and vote on the Clergy Terms of Service report can be found in this RTF document and the key paragraphs are reproduced below the fold here.
0 Commentsentry revised Tuesday evening
The General Synod February sessions began on Monday evening.
The Church Times reports are now in the subscription-only part of that website.
Official record of business on day one are posted as an RTF file here. To understand that summary you also need to read Order Paper I which contains the wording of the amendment. The relevant texts are reproduced below the fold.
Press coverage of this evening’s synod session:
Press Association 6.40 pm Church of England Rejects Call for Royal Wedding Debate
BBC ‘No church debate’ over wedding
Sky News Church Rejects Debate On Charles’ Wedding
Guardian Stephen Bates Synod is refused a royal debate
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Synod rejects royal engagement debate
Yorkshire Post Archbishop leads prayers for couple – Synod will not debate Royal marriage issue
Associated Press Royal Wedding Highlights Divorceee Roles
Press coverage of the earlier House of Laity meeting:
The Times Ruth Gledhill Church aims to put clergy in the dock with modern heresy trials
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Clergy who deny doctrine may face trial for heresy
Earlier press coverage today:
Reuters Anglicans debate women bishops
Press Association Women Bishops on Synod Agenda
BBC A suitable job for a woman
Telegraph General Synod refuses to discuss royal wedding
The Times Royal wedding plans spark Church row
Guardian Tough talks on synod agenda
Earlier BBC reports were linked from here.
2 CommentsInclusiveChurch has issued this press release:
Inclusive Church calls for a safe space in which gay Christians can speak
The Windsor Report has repeated the call for the Anglican Church to listen to the experience of gay men and women made at the last three Lambeth Conferences. If the church is to take this call seriously, it must create a safe environment in which people can talk. In particular, this means that clergy must be able to speak out without fear of losing their job or having other sanctions placed on them. InclusiveChurch calls for a clear and unequivocal moratorium on the disciplining of lesbian and gay clergy who wish to speak honestly about their sexuality.
The Rev’d Dr Giles Fraser, one of the founders of the movement said, ‘For nearly thirty years, the Lambeth Conference has called for the church to listen to gay and lesbian people. Yet, in many parts of the communion, this process has not begun. In many places those who speak out are attacked and persecuted. The church must make practical moves to enable gay and lesbian people to share their experience of Christ in their lives. Without making a safe space for this to happen, the promises made at Lambeth Conferences, and more recently by the Windsor Report itself, will be seen as hollow.”
Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitude, part of the InclusiveChurch network, said: ‘The listening process has begun to happen in the majority of English dioceses. There are now many examples of good practice that other dioceses could learn from. It must be a process that the whole Anglican church engages in, not only in the UK but across the Communion. That means creating the right conditions for listening and putting the necessary resources in place. This is the challenge that the Windsor Report poses to the church.’
The InclusiveChurch website has also published two articles relating to Some Issues in Human Sexuality published last year:
‘Some issues in human sexuality’ – Cambridge biblical scholars critique the CoE Bishops’ report
A Response to ‘Some Issues in Human Sexuality’
Earlier articles can be found listed here.
5 CommentsUpdate Monday
Also Synod debates women bishops issue
and this 8 minute segment from the Today radio programme: Listen here to David Houlding and David Phillips:
The General Synod of the Church of England is split over the marriage of Charles and Camilla.
And also, from earlier in the morning, this 4 minute discussion with Robert Piggott, covering the whole synod agenda.
——-
First, Alex Kirby has published a review of the General Synod meeting next week, titled Anglicans fret over divisive issues.
Second, Jane Little has written about The Church, Charles and Camilla.
Third, the Sunday radio programme had three items relevant to all this. Real Audio required.
Charles & Camilla Listen (6m 57s)
We begin with the story that has dominated the secular press this week and seems likely to dominate next week’s Church of England Synod in London next week too; the news that the man destined to be the Church’s Supreme Govenor is to marry a divorcee – the deed of course being done in a civil ceremony and not before the altar. The Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as she will then be known, will have their union blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the conservative evangelical group the Church Society is far from happy – the group’s general Secretary David Philips is on the line. The Right Reverend Anthony Priddis, the Bishop of Hereford, chairs the church of England’s committee on such matters – FLAME, which stands for Family Life and Marriage Education.
Cathedral Deans Disco Listen (6m 58s)
There is a proposal before the General Synod of the Church of England this week which would have taken a lot of the fun out of Anthony Trollope’s account of office politics in the Cathedral Close at Barchester but is, in the view of the man behind it, necessary if the Church is to meet the challenges of the modern world. Anthony Archer – who is involved in high level appointments both in his professional life and within the church bureaucracy – says the way senior jobs are awarded in the Church is “shrouded in secrecy” and needs to be changed. Anthony Archer joins us as does Colin Slee the dean of Southwark Cathedral.
Gay Blessings Listen (7m 3s)
0 CommentsAnother of the big debates at the General Synod next week will concern the Windsor Report – the Anglican Communion’s study into how to preserve church unity in the face of the divisions over homosexuality – the BBC’s Parliament Channel will be broadcasting the debate live from nine o’clock on Thursday morning.. One of the main triggers which brought those divisions to a head was the decision of a Canadian diocese to authorise a service of Blessing for same sex unions. Such services are forbidden in the Church of England at the moment – and gay clergy aren’t allowed to be homosexually active. But both of those rules are often flouted in reality, and when the Civil Partnership Act comes into force later this year the questions about the Church’s position in this area will become even more pressing. – Christopher Landau reports.
These debates will occur on Wednesday, following a service of Holy Communion at which Rowan Williams will preside and preach. The starting time of the debate will therefore be around 10.15 a.m.
Glyn Paflin reported on this in the Church Times last week:
About two and three-quarter hours have been set aside on the Wednesday morning for a take-note motion on the Rochester report.
The motion will be moved by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who chaired the House of Bishops’ working party on women in the episcopate, which produced the report that bears his name, Women Bishops in the Church of England?
In the afternoon, at 2.30, the Synod has until 3.45 to debate a motion in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which says: “That the Synod welcome the report from the House of Bishops (GS 1568) and invite the business committee to make sufficient time available at the July group of sessions for Synod to determine whether it wishes to set in train the process for removing the legal obstacles to the ordination of women to the episcopate.”
The paper issued to synod members explaining how the debates will be structured is GS 1568 published only as an RTF file, but reproduced here below the fold.
The basic document under consideration is GS 1557, the Rochester report Women Bishops in the Church of England? This can be downloaded as an 800K PDF file here, or as three separate smaller ones from here.
Annex 1 of this report details the varied status of women’s ordination across all 38 provinces of the commmunion (and beyond, in other churches with whom we are in communion). An html copy of part of this annex (including the footnotes which are essential for deciphering it) is accessible here.
An earlier brief note on the Rochester report can be found here.
National press coverage from November was listed here and here.
Also church press coverage including a number of excellent articles is listed here and here.
0 CommentsNext Thursday, the General Synod of the Church of England will debate a motion relating to the Windsor Report. The event will be covered live by the BBC Parliament TV channel from 8.50 am GMT. See report confusingly headlined Gay bishops on BBC Parliament.
The exact wording of the motion to be debated is below. For further documentation relating to this debate, read this earlier report.
The motion to be moved by the Bishop of Durham and debated by Synod (starting at 9am on Thursday 17 February) is:
That this Synod
(a) welcome the report from the House (GS 1570) accepting the principles set out in the Windsor Report;
(b) urge the Primates of the Anglican Communion to take action, in the light of the Windsor Report’s recommendations, to secure unity within the constraints of truth and charity and to seek reconciliation within the Communion; and
(c) assure the Archbishop of Canterbury of its prayerful support at the forthcoming Primates’ Meeting.
My own analysis of this is below the fold.
1 CommentIn The Times today Geoffrey Rowell has a Lenten meditation based on a recent visit to Majorca and participating in a local pilgrimage there. Journey reveals signs of the new life of spring. He concludes:
When I was young I remember a teacher demonstrating the way in which disordered iron filings on a piece of paper arranged themselves in a pattern once a magnet was placed beneath them. In the same way, if we but open our lives to it, the magnetic love of God can order our disordered love, “setting our feet upon a rock and ordering our going”, as the psalmist put it. And what that love of God is we see and know in the Cross of Christ, the “very book of charity laid open before us”, and in his Easter victory. Lent is the springtime of the soul because it leads to Easter, and Easter leads to Pentecost and the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
It is this for which we were made. It is this for which the world is made — so its beauty points us to God, the source of all beauty. The transfiguring grace of the Holy Spirit enlightens our eyes so that the source of all our seeing is rinsed and cleansed to know the “dearest freshness deep down things”.
There is repentance needed here also, for the world is so often made ugly, disfigured and polluted and its resources wasted by our greed and destruction. Sin, although inescapably personal, has social and corporate dimensions and consequences. We need both to see and to choose aright in caring for the world which God made and which he saw was good. As John Keble put it in words we could use as a Lenten prayer:
Thou who hast given me eyes to see
And love this sight so fair,
Give me a heart to find out Thee
And read Thee everywhere.And in so reading, to pray that we may be given that right judgment in all things — in the ordering of our love, the shaping of our lives, and our care for creation — which is the gift and grace of the life-giving Spirit of God.
In the Guardian Paul Oestreicher writes from Dresden about the anniversary of the RAF bombing: Spirit of the white rose.
To come to this city as it remembers the burning pyres of February 1945, on behalf of its twin city Coventry, is to come with mixed emotions. These are even more complex for me. As a child who fled Hitler, I remember my grandmother – a victim of the real Holocaust. In an address to the people of Dresden, representing Coventry cathedral, I shall remind people of Coventry’s provost who, six weeks after the blitz of 1940, preached a sermon in the ruins of his cathedral in which he rejected all thoughts of revenge. He declared that when the war was over he would work with those who had been enemies “to build a kinder, more Christ-like kind of world”. The people of Coventry at that time shook their heads. It didn’t fit in with a world in which popular opinion had it that the only good Hun was a dead Hun.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about Why they can’t wed in church and Lord Carey writes in the same paper: Royal ‘I do’ poses fewer problems than ‘I don’t’.
0 CommentsThe policy of the Church of England on this matter is well documented but, as the items are not obvious on the CofE website, they are listed here. There is a link to them from the main CofE advice page on Weddings.
The general information page is Marriage in Church after Divorce.
This refers to several other documents. The two key ones are:
0 CommentsMarriage in church after divorce – Form and explanatory statement – A leaflet for enquiring couples but this is available only in PDF format – four of the six pages are the application form, but the one-page explanatory statement is reproduced here below the fold.
Advice to the Clergy which is naturally more detailed, and is available from the CofE website only as an MS Word document. An html version is accessible here.
Some news reports purport to tell us what some primates think about the Windsor Report:
Christian Challenge ANGLICAN PRIMATES’ PATIENCE WITH ECUSA’S “DELAYING TACTICS” LIMITED, GOMEZ WARNS
and this: ON WHAT IS OUR ANGLICAN UNITY BASED? – Statement from Five Primates (PDF file)
A number of analyses relating to the Windsor Report have been issued by people who stand on the conservative side of the presenting issue. Here are links to several of these:
Anglican Mainstream issued a Briefing Paper – Church of England General Synod
This is milktoast compared to the next two items.
Church Society, Reform and Fellowship of Word and Spirit issued a brief thunderbolt: Joint Statement on Windsor – CS, Reform and FoWS
Australian evangelicals issued a huge document,criticising the WR in detail, including a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary. Links to the document available via sydneyanglicans.net New rules needed: Aussie evangelicals respond to Windsor Report
If you want a newspaper summary of this, the Church Times had one: Eames found erring
The ACO has announced details of the forthcoming meeting in release ACNS 3939: Media Advisory on the 2005 Primates Meeting from which some extracts are:
The Primates of the Anglican Communion are to hold their regular meeting at the Dromantine Conference Centre near Newry, Northern Ireland, between 21-25 February 2005.
The meeting of the 38 provincial Primates of the Anglican Communion will be centred on Bible study, Eucharist and retreat led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams. It will include careful study of the Windsor Report – the recommendations of the Lambeth Commission on Communion published in October 2004 – and its ongoing reception process.
Chairing the meeting will be Archbishop Rowan and it will be hosted by the Primate of All Ireland and chairman of the Lambeth Commission, the Most Revd Robin Eames. The recently commissioned Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, the Revd Canon Kenneth Kearon, will act as the meeting’s secretary.
As at former meetings, the discussions held over these five days are closed. At the end of the meeting, it is expected that the Primates will issue a communiqué, and that a press briefing will be scheduled at the Dromantine Conference Centre.
A web site containing extensive information regarding the meeting, the Primates, and related material is now online and can be found here: www.anglicancommunion.org/primates/
The Lambeth Commission of Communion web site, the Windsor Report, and related material concerning the report’s reception process can be found here: www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/index.cfm
The new web pages contain inter alia the following:
0 Commentsan Introduction page which summarises the recent history leading up to this meeting.
Official statements on the Windsor Report issued by provinces
A current news page for the 2005 meeting: so far it contains only a link to ACNS 3939.
As explained in this press release dated 20 January, a meeting was held on 1 February between the Windsor Report Reception Reference Group and a coalition known as Inclusive Communion:
At the initiative of Changing Attitude, a meeting has been organised with Canon Gregory Cameron, Deputy General Secretary Anglican Consultative Council. Canon Cameron is secretary to the Reception Reference Group, appointed under the chairmanship of the Most Revd Peter Kwong, Primate of Hong Kong, to assist the primates by monitoring the way in which the Windsor Report has been received across the Anglican Communion
The meeting on 1 February will include representatives from member groups of Inclusive Communion, the international lesbian and gay Anglican body established in 2003. Groups known to be sending representatives include Changing Attitude, Integrity USA, LGCM, the Lesbian and Gay Clergy Consultation and the General Synod Human Sexuality Group. Changing Attitude Scotland and Integrity Uganda also hope to be present. Other Inclusive Communion member groups have been invited to submit written submissions.
In the event, the list of those attending was:
Michael Hopkins and Susan Russell (Integrity USA)
Colin and Sally Rogers (Changing Attitudes, England)
Kelvin Holdsworth (Changing Attitude, Scotland)
Paul Collier (General Synod Human Sexuality Group)
Giles Fraser (Inclusive Church)
Richard Kirker and Anthony Braddick-Southgate (LGCM)
Bertrand Olivier (Clergy Consultation)
The group presented this document, summarising their responses to the Windsor Report and this one summarising what Lambeth Conferences and WR have said about listening.
Susan Russell wrote this report of her experience on this trip: A California Yankee in King Arthur’s Communion.
Some other documents by individuals or groups represented are listed below.
Michael Hopkins Broken Promises Result in a Broken Church
A Scottish Response to the Windsor Report
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement Response to the Windsor Report
Changing Attitude Recommendations for responding to the Windsor Report
Steve Parish writes in the Guardian about women bishops: All her own work:
We’ve had Anglican women bishops for many years, but the “mother” church will have to wait. The report, Women Bishops in the Church of England? goes to the general synod this month to start a process that, even with a fair wind, will take five years of debate, consultation, legislation and parliamentary approval before royal assent could be given to such ordinations.
There’s time to look afresh at fundamental issues, as the report claims that it “takes nothing for granted”. That’s not strictly true. It does assume that Junia – described, with Andronicus, as “prominent among the apostles” in Paul’s letter to the Romans – was female. So outrageous was that to many commentators (even today) that they argued that it must be a textual error for the masculine “Junias”. Or it is argued that the translation should mean that Junia was “well-known to the apostles” – but not one of them.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about an event that has not yet happened, in The death of the Pope.
Robert Fox writes in The Tablet about Iraq, The long march continues.
So also does Jonathan Sacks in The Times, True faith speaks in the voice of reason.
In the American journal Commonweal, an American RC priest writes about the expected statement from the Vatican about homosexuals in the priesthood, A Gay Priest Speaks Out.
2 CommentsTwo other bloggers, Simeon in the Suburbs and Salty Vicar have noted that a Rwandan Anglican bishop who was visiting St Louis, Missouri recently compared the actions of the ECUSA GC 2003 to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The original St Louis Post-Dispatch article Rwandan bishop’s visit here underscores division reports that:
5 CommentsThe Right Rev. Josias Sendegeya, Anglican bishop of Kibungo, Rwanda, and his wife, Dorothee, were in neighboring Burundi during the genocide that took place in their country 10 years ago. Dorothee’s mother and father, brother, sister and eight nephews and nieces were all murdered by Hutu extremists.
Sendegeya draws a parallel between the atrocities committed in Rwanda in 1994 and what happened to the Episcopal Church USA in 2003, when American bishops consecrated an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire. The move was seen as a repudiation to more conservative elements of the global Anglican church who oppose the consecration of homosexuals, and it especially offended Anglican bishops in Africa.
“The Rwandan people know what it is to suffer,” said Sendegeya, speaking in French through a translator on a recent trip to St. Louis. “We experienced genocide and the horror that no one in the world came to help us. What has happened in the Episcopal church feels like a genocide, too. But it is spiritual rather than physical.”
Sendegeya believes that the Anglican diocese of Rwanda has come to the rescue of some conservative Episcopal communities in the United States through one of its arms, called The Anglican Mission in America. In 2000 the Rwandan church began establishing footholds in the United States through its mission by usurping the authority of the local American bishop who was typically considered unsatisfactorily liberal by some conservative congregations in his diocese.
Sendegeya is the provincial secretary of the Rwandan church and was in the U.S. for an Anglican Mission in America conference in South Carolina. He then traveled to Memphis and St. Louis to visit individual churches that are based in the United States but are under the authority of his country’s church.
Update Monday 7 February
This bill is dead. See Religious property bill killed in Senate
A bill that would have given congregations that break away from their denomination leverage to retain control of church property died Monday in the state Senate.
Its sponsor, Sen. William Mims, recommended that the measure be referred back to the Senate General Laws Committee, effectively killing the bill.
“My hope is, Mr. President, that it can be solved in the legislative session next year,” said Mims, R-Loudoun.
An extraordinary story is unfolding in Virginia where the state legislature is currently in session.
The Washington Post reported it as Virginia Bill Would Alter Rules on Church Property saying in part:
RICHMOND, Feb. 1 — A bill before the Virginia Senate has alarmed the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations that are deeply torn over the ordination of gay ministers and the blessing of same-sex marriages because, they say, the measure would give local congregations unprecedented powers to break away from their national denominations.
Several major church groups on Tuesday urged lawmakers to reject the bill, which they said would entangle state government in church politics.
The bill, now on the Senate floor, would allow congregants to vote to leave their denominations and keep their church buildings and land, unless a legally binding document such as a deed specified otherwise.
The Post also ran an editorial column yesterday opposing the legislation Taking Sides which starts out:
YOU MIGHT expect that in its short legislative session the Virginia General Assembly would have more important business than intervening in internal arguments within the Episcopal Church over gay rights. But a bill pending in the state Senate would make it far easier for Episcopal congregations upset at the church’s consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire to bolt from the national church yet keep their buildings and property. The bill, championed by Sen. William C. Mims (R-Loudoun), responds to a real problem: Mr. Mims argues persuasively that Virginia law on the subject is archaic. But his bill would make matters worse, not better. It should be voted down.
The Associated Press carried Virginia’s religious leaders blast church property bill
Other papers in Virginia have also reported and commented on this development:
Richmond Times-Dispatch Churches fight Senate bill – They warn measure is government meddling in affairs of churches
The Falls Church News-Press said in an editorial
Loudoun State Sen. William Mims’ Senate Bill 1305, which would empower local congregations within a church denomination to control their own property, is a blatant, self-serving attempt to cause the state legislature to weigh in on behalf of dissidents within the Episcopal Church opposed to the recent consecration of an openly-gay bishop. Northern Virginia is a hot bed of local Episcopal congregations, including the Falls Church Episcopal Church, that are threatening a schism within the larger Episcopal denomination, but are currently deterred by the fact that the larger church controls the destiny of their property. Mims is a member of one of those dissenting churches.
The Roanoke Times had Senate may skirt church property measure
The Hampton Roads Daily Press published an editorial Internal affairs which concludes with these words:
This is not territory on which the General Assembly should be treading. It is a direct, frontal attack on the right of a denomination to manage its affairs, both with the faithful and with those who leave its flock.
The bill comes from an unsavory source: a relentless, multi-front campaign to constrain the rights and protections of homosexuals. Does anyone believe that the General Assembly would be intervening if the decamping churches were in favor of gay rights?
The Episcopal dioceses of Virginia and across the nation – and other denominations – are trying, in their varied ways and with their varied challenges, to address the rift over homosexuality and larger issues, both doctrinal and social. For the General Assembly to intrude in internal church governance, especially in a way so clearly favoring one faction, is likely unconstitutional and is definitely dangerous and offensive.
The full text of the legislative proposal can be found here.
In case you thought this was nothing to do with the American Anglican Council, they have published this press release enthusiastically supporting the proposal. And copied it over here to make sure we all see it.
3 CommentsFor some weeks, I have been meaning to post about a story that The Living Church magazine in the USA is reported to have published about a complaint from Peter Akinola concerning misrepresentation of his remarks: Archbishop Akinola Responds to Accusations which said:
Concerned that a remark he said he never made continues to be circulated, the Primate of Nigeria, the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, has denied accusations that his opposition to the episcopacy of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson is driven by revulsion of homosexual persons, saying his actions arise from the concern that false teachers are leading the Episcopal Church astray.
“It’s all about responsibility,” Archbishop Akinola told The Living Church. “Everyone has sinned. Everyone needs to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus. If people come to the church and do not hear the message of new life, then we have not fulfilled our responsibility.”
During the debate Oct. 15 at the Diocese of Dallas’s convention [TLC, Nov. 7] over affiliating with the Anglican Communion Network, accusations impugning the archbishop’s beliefs were leveled. “The primate of all Nigeria refers to homosexuals as animals and refuses to repent of that,” said the Rev. Mark Anschutz, rector of St. Michael and All Angels’ Church, Dallas. “I cannot be a party to that kind of network.” That quote was repeated again in the Jan. 23, 2005, issue in a letter to the editor written by Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent for The Guardian and author of “A Church At War.”
A number of other British and American newspapers have also repeated the remarks.
The July 13, 2003, issue of The Economist, relying upon an account of synod in the Diocese of Abuja by the Nigerian press, quotes Archbishop Akinola: “I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don’t hear of such things.”
In response, Archbishop Akinola argues, “We are not being responsible or faithful if we say, ‘Let us bless your stealing. Let us bless your adultery.’ When the church in the West says, ‘We bless your homosexual union,’ they have failed people. We should love them better than that,” he said.
In an article he wrote for the Church Times around the same time as the Economist report of July 2003, entitled Why I object to homosexuality Peter Akinola set forth his views on homosexuality at length (it’s around 1000 words long and should be read in full by everyone concerned to understand him) concluding with this:
Homosexuality or lesbianism or bestiality is to us a form of slavery, and redemption from it is readily available through repentance and faith in the saving grace of our Lord, Jesus the Christ.
This last week, the archbishop made a further statement, this time about poverty. In the story from the East African Standard (Nairobi) that I linked to earlier in a different connection, and also in a later report via AllAfrica.com Homosexuality: Church in Africa Not United we learn that:
Some African church leaders, including Archbishop Ndungane and Nobel Peace prize winner, retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have questioned why the Anglican church is spending so much time on the issue of homosexuality, when there are pressing issues such as war, Aids and poverty to be addressed on the continent.
But annoyed at the prolonged questioning on this one issue, Archbishop Akinola, who has led the fight against acceptance of gays in the church and the ordination of gay clergy, said: “I didn’t create poverty. This church didn’t create poverty. Poverty is not an issue, human suffering is not an issue at all, they were there before the creation of mankind.”
Andrew Brown, writing in today’s Church Times comments:
2 Comments“Human suffering is not an issue at all.” If I worked in the press department at the Episcopal Church in the United States, I would kit out every member of the delegation coming to England next week in a T-shirt with Akinola’s face and that slogan. Then I would offer one, in front of the cameras, to Dr Williams. How fortunate for everyone that I’m not.
In a spirit of perversity, it’s worth defending the idea that strict and homophobic Churches are effective at combating poverty. Archbishop Akinola is mistaken when he supposes that homosexuality is a choice, like adultery, against which one can guard by vigilance. But the idea of ceaseless moral vigilance is not a stupid one. In fact, it is essential for the kind of civil society in which poverty can be overcome because trustworthy institutions and professions exist, and corruption is squeezed out.
The trouble with this argument is simple. It seems to work quite well in Asia; but those African countries with the most bigoted Churches are also among the most corrupt. Maybe they just aren’t strict enough.
Update 11 February
Anthony Archer has an article in the Church of England Newspaper
Bringing the appointments system home
Update 4 February
The Church Times has a report on this subject Let us vet new bishops, says Synod member
The General Synod is scheduled to debate this private member’s motion sometime after 2.30 pm on Thursday 17 February. It has been given some prominence in the official press release about the forthcoming session, which says:
Senior Church Appointments
This private member’s motion from Mr Anthony Archer seeks to ask the Archbishops’ Council to set up a working party to undertake a wide-ranging review of the offices of suffragan bishop, deacon, archdeacon and residentiary canon, and the law and practice regarding appointments to these offices. In doing so, the motion proposes that the Church should adopt an integrated, consistent and transparent method of making appointments to senior ecclesiastical offices.
The wording of the motion has been published here.
The briefing note numbered GS Misc 765A prepared by the member concerned, Mr Anthony Archer, is available here in RTF, but is more accessible here as a web page.
The background note numbered GS Misc 765B prepared by William Fittall Secretary-General, is similarly available here and accessible here.
The printed version of this also reprints the text of GS Misc 455 Code of Practice for Senior Church Appointments issued in 1995 which is not available electronically from the CofE website, but is accessible here.
Other documents have been issued by the Secretary General in connection with this motion:
GS 1405 Working with the Spirit: Choosing Diocesan Bishops – the Perry Report published in 2001 (as a PDF file about 0.5 Mb)
(no number) Briefing for members of Vacancy-in-See Committees (RTF format) – accessible copy here
GS Misc 770 CHOOSING DIOCESAN BISHOPS A report on progress on the implementation of the Report of the Steering Group appointed to follow up the recommendations of “Working with the Spirit” – this is not yet on the CofE website, but is accessible here.
We are also promised, in GS Misc 770, an electronic copy of GS 1465 “Choosing Diocesan Bishops. The Report of the Steering Group appointed to follow up the recommendations of Working with the Spirit”, but neither this, nor new paper copies of it have appeared yet.
Last July questions were asked about appointment of deans and the BBC carried an interview with Anthony Archer and others.
And finally, for the moment, Mr Archer has prepared a note for his colleagues on EGGS, which he has given TA permission to publish. It can be found here.
1 CommentGuardian Stephen Bates Gay Ugandan Christian denied visa to visit UK (well OK it’s just as much a story from the UK about the Foreign Office)
A gay Ugandan Christian has been denied a visa to enter Britain in order to attend a meeting at the invitation of the Anglican church next week because there is a warrant for his arrest in his home country where homosexuality is punishable by life imprisonment.
Chris Stentaza, a headteacher at a church school who was dismissed from his job and forced into hiding after speaking at a conference of gay Christians in Manchester 15 months ago, has been rejected for a visa by the British high commission in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, apparently because of his sexuality.
He had been invited to join a delegation due to meet Canon Gregory Cameron, the secretary to the church’s commission responsible for last October’s Windsor report, investigating ways of keeping the worldwide communion together after the row over the promotion of gay clergy.
Update Monday 31 Jan
Today, the Guardian carries a letter about this Christian persecution
Chris Stentaza’s experience of persecution (Gay Ugandan Christian denied visa to visit UK, January 29) has become extremely common among gay Christians in Africa.
The most recent wave of imprisonments and beatings in Uganda started in 1999 when President Yoweri Museveni launched a crackdown on homosexuals, publicly supported by the Anglican archbishop.
Just last month, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission reported that the persecution of homosexuals in Uganda had intensified following the Anglican church of Uganda’s aggressive campaign against homosexuality that was launched as a direct response to the American church consecrating a gay bishop.
Throughout Africa, gay Christians are frightened, isolated and desperate. Those who are open about their sexuality are commonly excluded from church life and refused baptism and communion. They can be subjected to verbal abuse by their priests and bishops. Those working for the church are sacked.
The Anglican church has committed itself to listen to the voices of lesbian and gay people. Yet the church attacks and excludes them as soon as they make their voices heard. The bishops of the Anglican communion must make it possible for listening to take place and engage in the dialogue that it has been so repeatedly promised.
Rev Colin Coward
Director, Changing Attitude
Rev Dr Giles Fraser
Chair, Inclusive Church
Rev Kelvin Holdsworth
Changing Attitude Scotland
Rt Rev Barry Hollowell
Bishop of Calgary
The Rev’d Susan Russell
President, Integrity USA
East African Standard, Nairobi African Anglicans firm on gay bishop
African Anglican Archbishops yesterday rejected the apology by the American Episcopal Church over the ordination of a homosexual bishop and the wedding of gay couples.
The clerics, representing 50 million faithful, asked their American counterparts to repent instead.
“They have only apologised and not repented,” said Dr Reverend Bernard Malango, the Archbishop of Zambia.
“Apology does not make sense to us, the biblical word is repentance,” said Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.
They were speaking late yesterday at a news conference in Nairobi at the end of a two days meeting skipped by South Africa’s archbishop Njongokulu Ndungane, the only pro-gay voice in Africa.
The meeting dubbed third Trumpet, was chaired by the Nigerian Primate archbishop Peter Akinola was also attended by representatives of representatives from South East Asia, Latin America and Asia.
or this report from Associated Press Anglicans Abroad Say Apology Not Enough
Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola noted the U.S. bishops apologized to individual church members in a letter issued earlier this month expressing “sincere regret” for consecrating V. Gene Robinson in November 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire without full consideration of other Anglicans’ objections. But Akinola told journalists they failed to repent for an act he said was contrary to their faith.
“That gives us a very big question mark whether we are together or not,” said Malawi’s Archbishop Bernard Malango.
Akinola spoke after a weeklong meeting to discuss recommendations by an Anglican commission to resolve discord within the communion over homosexuality.
In a report issued in October, the panel urged the U.S. branch not to elect any more gay bishops and called on conservative African bishops to stop meddling in the affairs of other dioceses.
In Kenya Friday, church leaders were circumspect about their views on the recommendations, saying they did not want to pre-empt a meeting of all Anglican archbishops in Ireland next month.
About 15 archbishops attended the gathering in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Daily Champion, Lagos Tinubu, Odili Speak On Role of Clerics in Governance
GOVERNORS Peter Odili of Rivers and Bola Tinubu of Lagos states have hailed the positive roles of the clergy in secular governance, describing same as elevating.
In a brief speech that lasted five minutes, Gov. Odili said both religious clerics and secular rulers had common goal which, according to him, was serving the people and so they should co-operate.
…Gov. Tinubu, in his own speech, lauded the position taken by clerics, urging them to speak the truth always.
…The governor maintained that the church had a social responsibility to crusade against all vices, insisting that it was only by doing so would Nigerians feel challenged and retraced their steps, if they are on the wrong track.
Both Govs Tinubu and Odili praised the Anglican Church for standing firm against gay practice, saying that it was an indication that the church had come of age in Africa.
Update Sunday
Here is another item from the Standard Anglican bishop urges all faiths to reject gay unions
14 CommentsChristians were yesterday exhorted to intensify the fight against gay relationships in the church.
Mombasa Anglican Bishop Julius Kalu made the clarion call yesterday, urging all religions to come out against homosexuality and lesbianism.
“Homosexuals have invaded all religious institutions, including non-Christian ones,” said the bishop.
In a statement issued just a day after Anglican Church of Kenya bishops rejected an apology by the Episcopal Church in America over the ordination of an openly gay bishop and its support for same-sex unions, the bishop said: “We call upon all denominations to come out and condemn this evil, which is against the commandments of God.”
The bishop also expressed concern over the rampant practice of lynching suspected witches in parts of Coast Province.
Several suspected witches have been killed in Kilifi, Kwale and Taita Taveta districts over the past few months. In the latest incident, a middle-aged woman in Voi Division, Taita Taveta District, was set upon by an angry mob which beat her senseless before setting her ablaze.
A community in Kaloleni Division, Kilifi District has also put up a list of 11 suspected witches, whom it wants eliminated.
Bishop Kalu pointed out that the government has enough machinery to deal with those involved in the vice and proposed that they should be charged in court or placed in seclusion.
First, from the Church Times, Giles Fraser wrote this week about the Windsor Report and human rights, in Curb the will of the majority.
One of the oft-made criticisms of the report is that it begins to introduce a curia-type of centralisation into Anglicanism. Yet, as Aidan O’Neill says, the Church of Rome offsets the power of the Vatican by emphasising the place of conscience. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger puts it: “Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed above all else, even if necessary against the requirements of ecclesiastical authority.”
The Windsor report acknowledges no equivalent checks and balances to safeguard individuals against the will of its newly imagined ecclesiastical authority. That makes it a very dangerous document.
He went on to develop this theme in a note published by InclusiveChurch entitled Rights and Wrongs which comments on the document A Response to the Windsor Report, and included in GS 1570:
In a report out this week, members of the Church of England House of Bishops Theological Group and the Faith and Order Advisory Group have argued that “any commonly agreed standard of faith is bound to be difficult for those who disagree with it. However, a necessary part of Christian discipleship is learning to accept the constraints of living within a community that makes decisions that we may not agree with. A necessary part of the baptismal vocation involves dying to self.”
This is a shameless piece of doublethink. For Bishops Hind and Nazir-Ali, dying to self apparently only applies if you are in the minority. Furthermore, it suggests that the principled resistance to homophobia is, in fact, a form of selfishness – unchristian even. They go on to suggest “discipline to be exercised in cases where there is an explicit rejection of the report’s recommendations”. No space is offered to those who reject institutional homophobia in an act of principled dissent. No wonder people are worried as to what sort of thing the Anglican Communion is becoming.
The paper by Aidan O’Neill which is referred to can be found on The Tablet website and is titled Rights, responsibilities and religious bodies.
In today’s Guardian there is an article by Diarmaid MacCulloch about contemporary politics, The end of days: a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Telegraph continues that theme with Christopher Howse writing about Tony Blair in To kneel or not to kneel.
The Credo column in The Times is by Roderick Strange Those we have loved and lost reveal the way. However, more interesting is Matthew Parris who writes about Ruth Kelly and Opus Dei: Why Ruth Kelly’s faith and her politics cannot be separated. In particular he says:
0 CommentsIt was disappointing, then, when Ms Kelly denied that she had ruled herself out of any ministerial job on religious grounds. Instead she is anchoring her position in the time-honoured — and thoroughly dubious — assertion that she knows how to distinguish between faith and politics. Ms Kelly insisted in an interview with the Daily Mirror that her faith was a private matter which had nothing to do with her job. “I have a private spiritual life and I have a faith. It is a private spiritual life and I don’t think it is relevant to my job,” she said.
What? That is wholly inconsistent not just with the whole drift of Opus Dei’s work, but with Christ’s teaching. Of course one’s faith, and the moral code anchored in it, is relevant to one’s job. It is impossible to read the Gospels in any other way.
Update Sunday 30 Jan
Additional coverage of this on today’s Radio 4 Sunday programme. Listen here with Real Audio (7 minutes).
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There was considerable press coverage of this topic even prior to this week’s publication of the second report on the Review of Clergy Terms of Service. Some of this was inspired by the trade union Amicus. They in turn were reacting to a separate UK government decision concerning the outcome of a consultation held by the Department of Trade and Industry with its Clergy Working Group. Basically, the government has decided it will not pursue the route of requiring churches and other faith bodies to give clergy employee status provided that the churches agree to conform to a (not yet published) DTI code of practice. The issue is the Section 23 rights that employee status would automatically confer. (This is a reference to Section 23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.)
17 January Telegraph Clergy trade unions attack compromise over workers’ rights
17 January Ekklesia Clergy say Government has acted like Pontius Pilate
21 January CEN Churches ‘win exemption’ from employment laws
21 January Church Times Clergy rights under review by Bill Bowder
The new report published last Monday, GS 1564 Review of Clergy Terms of Service: Part Two (RTF format only) recommends inter alia that these Section 23 rights should be conferred on all clergy, while retaining office holder status. Those who currently have Freehold could obtain these rights by transferring to the new Common Tenure if they wish. The full press release describes the recommendations this way. The summary version press release said:
This Review, under the chairmanship of Professor David McClean, was set up by the Archbishops’ Council in 2002, following its response to the Department of Trade and Industry’s discussion document on Employment Status in relation to Statutory Employment Rights. Its terms of reference were to review the terms under which the clergy hold office, to ensure a proper balance of rights and responsibilities, and to consider in this context the future of the freehold and the position of the clergy in relation to statutory employment rights.
The Review Group’s first report, on the position of clergy without the freehold or employment contracts recommended a new form of tenure for clergy, to be called common tenure. This was welcomed by Synod in February 2004. The Group’s second report, now before Synod, proposes applying common tenure to clergy with the freehold, defining incumbents’ rights in terms of employment law rather than ownership of property, providing an enhanced Human Resources function across the dioceses, and adopting a general framework for ministerial review. Synod is asked to welcome the report, provide for a period of consultation with the dioceses and agree that the Archbishops’ Council should appoint an implementation group to follow up the recommendations in the report as a whole.
The explanation of what General Synod is being asked to do about this, as published by the Business Committee, can be found below the fold.
There is also an online summary of part one of this review here (MS Word format only). For my reports of a year ago, go to the bottom of this page
Amicus and the organisation known as the The English Clergy Association have expressed hostility to this as well. Press coverage so far:
23 January Sunday Times Vicars in revolt over ‘theft’ of their freeholds
25 January Telegraph Clergy face loss of ‘job for life’ guarantee
25 January The Times Church to end 800 years of clergy having jobs for life
25 January Yorkshire Post Bishops could get power to hire and fire vicars (this is quite misleading as nothing in this report is concerned with “hiring”)
28 January CEN New battle looming over plans to abolish freehold
28 January Church Times ‘Incapable’ clergy face the axe as freehold comes under review which is the best newspaper account of the proposals so far, though the CT also has this rather reactionary editorial Replacing the freehold
The Living Church has just published an article by Joan Gundersen who is an officer of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. Neither of these organisations has the article on their own website, but it does appear on the website of Via Media Dallas: The Center Still Holds.
This article, which was written in July 2004 but only published in January 2005, contains some statistics on the membership of NACDAP and the AAC, which are now of course partially out of date. I have therefore corrected them below where I can, and added emphasis. Further corrections welcomed.
Of the 100 dioceses within the United States, so far only
nineten have joined the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. Of more than 7,300 parishes in the Episcopal Church, only 4 percent are affiliated with the American Anglican Council (AAC), and one-third of those are in theninenetwork dioceses. Roughly one-third of the dioceses of the church have no AAC affiliates.Although there is no public listing of individual parishes affiliated with the network, apparently only about 70 have done so. For example, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, home of network moderator Bishop Robert W. Duncan, approximately 27 percent of diocesan communicants belong to parishes that have officially repudiated the network. Groups supporting tolerance of diversity have arisen in 12 dioceses [11 of which have]
withstrong AAC presences, and these groups have formed a national alliance called Via Media USA to preserve the traditional Episcopal openness to different perspectives and scriptural interpretations.
Separately the Network has this week published a letter from Bishop Robert Duncan which says:
Six convocational deans – serving the vast areas of our country (including some 200 congregations and 300 clergy) that are in non-Network dioceses – have devoted much of their energies to what has become the creative engine of the Anglican Communion Network.
The apparent discrepancy between these two reports in the number of congregations in non-Network dioceses is noticeable, and cannot be entirely explained by the delay in publication, especially since one more diocese has joined the network since July, reducing the number of congregations outside Network dioceses. Another factor might possibly be the inclusion of some non-ECUSA congregations and/or clergy in Bp Duncan’s figures, but in any case it remains an extremely small proportion of ECUSA. At least 80 of the 200 claimed congregations would be in the FiF Convocation. (Thanks to Dr Gundersen for her additional research.)
What is frustrating is the lack of information on the Network website. Not even the number of Network dioceses is correctly given, let alone a list by name of these dioceses, published for all to see. The AAC website is no better at publishing its membership statistics.
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