Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich: Dr Karowei Dorgu
Updated to add press reports
Press release from Number 10
Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich: Dr Dorgu
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
First published: 20 December 2016The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Prebendary Dr Woyin Karowei Dorgu, MBBS. BA, MA, to the Suffragan See of Woolwich.
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Prebendary Dr Woyin Karowei Dorgu, MBBS. BA, MA, Vicar of St John the Evangelist Upper Holloway, in the Diocese of London, to the Suffragan See of Woolwich, in the Diocese of Southwark in succession to the Right Reverend Michael Geoffrey Ipgrave, OBE, MA, on his translation to the See of Lichfield 10 June 2016.
Background
Reverend Prebendary Dr Dorgu is aged 58. He was a GP. He studied at the London Bible College for his BA, and studied for his ordination at Oak Hill Theological College from 1993 to 1995 and also holds an MA in missiology. He was Curate at St Mark’s Tollington in London Diocese from 1995 to 1998, before moving to be Curate at Upper Holloway in the same diocese until 2000. From 2000 to 2012 he was Team Vicar at Upper Holloway before becoming Vicar in 2012 and from 2016 he has been Prebendary at St Paul’s Cathedral.
He is married to Mosun, a doctor. She is a consultant child psychiatrist who works for the NHS and they have 2 grown-up children.
His interests include reading, cycling, travelling, cooking for guests and he is a keen Arsenal FC supporter.
Southwark diocesan website Bishop of Woolwich Appointed
London diocesan website New Bishop of Woolwich announced
Dr Dorgu will be consecrated in Southwark Cathedral on St Patrick’s Day 17 March 2017.
Press reports
Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Church of England appoints first black bishop in 20 years
Ruth Gledhill Christian Today First Nigerian Bishop In Church of England Counters Islamist Terror With Message Of Love In Jesus Christ
32 CommentsFebruary General Synod – outline timetable
Update 15 January 2017 — A slightly revised timetable has been issued. The table below has been amended; changes are in red.
The outline timetable for the February General Synod of the Church of England has been published today, and is copied below. Further papers will be published on Friday 20 January 2017.
[The published timetable does not explain the asterisks against certain items, but these clearly indicate timed business, eg Questions on the Monday will start not later than 5.30 pm.]
GENERAL SYNOD FEBRUARY 2017 GROUP OF SESSIONS
Timetable
| Monday 13 February | |
| House of Clergy will meet from 1.30 pm – 2.30 pm | |
| 3.00 pm – 7.00 pm | |
| 3.00 pm | Worship |
| 3.15 pm | Introductions and welcomes |
| 3.25 pm | Report by the Business Committee |
| 3.50 pm | Motion on General Synod February 2018 dates |
| 4.00 pm | Motion on General Synod dates 2019-2020 |
| 4.15 pm | Debate on a Motion on the Anniversary of the Reformation |
| 5.00 pm | Presidential Address by the Archbishop of Canterbury |
| *5.30 pm | Questions |
| 7.00 – 7.15 pm | Evening worship |
| Tuesday 14 February | |
| 9.15 am – 1.00 pm | |
| 9.15 am | Holy Communion |
| 10.30 am | Farewell to the First Church Estates Commissioner and Response |
| 10.55 am | Private Members Motion on “Preliminaries to Marriage” |
| Legislative Business | |
| *12.00 pm | Mission and Pastoral etc. (Amendment) Measure – Final Drafting / Final Approval |
| 12.35 pm | Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure – Final Drafting / Final Approval |
| 2.30 pm – 7.00 pm | |
| Legislative Business (ctd…) | |
| 2.30 pm | Legislative Reform Measure – Revision Stage |
| 4.00 pm | Statute Law (Repeals) Measure – Revision and Final Drafting / Final Approval |
| 4.30 pm | Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure – Revision and Final Drafting / Final Approval |
| 4.55 pm | Phase II Simplification Measure – First Consideration |
| 5.55 pm | Draft Amending Canon No.38 – First Consideration |
| 6.25 pm | Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Amendment Regulations 2017 |
| 7.00 – 7.15 pm | Evening worship |
| Wednesday 15 February | |
| 9.15 am – 12.30 pm | |
| 9.15 am | Worship |
| 9.30 am | Motion from the Bishop of Leicester for a proposal for a Petition to Her Majesty in Council for the creation of a suffragan see for the Diocese of Leicester |
| 10.00 am | Appointment to the Archbishops’ Council |
| 10.15 am | Diocesan Synod Motion on “Fixed Odds Betting Terminals” |
| (Legislative Business ctd…) | |
| 11.30 am | The Church of England Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2017 |
| *12.00 pm | Introduction to the work of the Bishops’ Reflection Group on Sexuality |
| 2.00 – 4.30 pm | |
| 2.00 – 4.30 pm | Group work |
| 5.30 pm – 7.00 pm | |
| 5.30 pm | Take Note Debate on a Report from the House of Bishops |
| 7.00 – 7.15 pm | Evening worship |
| Thursday 16 February | |
| 9.15 am – 1.00 pm | |
| 9.15 am | Worship |
| 9.30 am | Farewell to the Bishop of London |
| 9.45 am | Speech by The Most Revd Dr Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon – Secretary General of the Anglican Communion |
| 10.15 am | “Setting God’s People Free”: Debate on a Motion from the Archbishops’ Council |
| Legislative Business (ctd…) | |
| 12.15 pm | The Safeguarding (Clergy Risk Assessment) Regulations 2016 |
| 2.30 pm – 5.00 pm | |
| Legislative Business (ctd…) | |
| 2.30 pm | Amending Canon No. 36 – Canons B 8 – Revision Stage |
| 3.20 pm | Amending Canon No. 37 – Canon B 38 – Revision Stage |
| *5.00 pm | Prorogation |
Deemed Business
Legal Officers (Annual Fees) Order 2016
Contingency Business
Private Members’ Motion on “Mission and Administration”
Opinion – 17 December 2016
Simon Jenkins Reform Magazine Jumble sales of the apocalypse
Paul Bayes ViaMedia.News Couldn’t We Just “Dissolve the People”??
Richard Peers Snoring, belching and farting: the stuff of koinonia – Retreat 2016: Glenstal Abbey
Rachel Pugh The Guardian Meet the vicar who’s swapping the sacristy for the surgery
Andrew Brown Church Times The Corbynista path to irrelevance
Jeremy Worthen Church Times The theology behind Renewal and Reform
Kenwyn Pierce Renewal and Reform Peer review – why bother?
Gary Waddington The Busy Priest Estates, the Poor and Culture War Stereotypes
David Goodhew The Living Church Is Anglicanism Growing or Dying? Statistics, the C of E, and the Anglican Communion
Andrew Goddard Church of England Newspaper Why 2017 will be a crunch year for the Church of England
26 CommentsTrouble at York Minster – today's developments
Updated Saturday evening and Sunday evening
We reported in October that York Minster’s team of bell-ringers had been disbanded.
The last few days have seen reports that the Minster has been having difficulties recruiting temporary bell-ringers to ring over Christmas, eg The Guardian and The Telegraph.
The Minster has today issued a statement giving more details of their decision to disband the bell-ringers, as reported here by Minster FM: Minster claims there’s been “intimidation” over Bellringer row.
York Minster says bellringers who’ve offered to step in to help the cathedral have suffered intimidation on social media and in the local media.
In a statement from The Chapter of York they also claim at least one member has been threatened with legal action.
They say despite this, they’re still exploring options for the ringing at Christmas and hope those wanting to volunteer will be able to approach them without the fear of intimidation.
The Minster statement in full also goes over the details of why this situation happened which were reported in the media back in September [sic] …
The article goes on to quote the Minster statement in full.
John Bingham also reports on this story for The Telegraph: York Minster bell-ringers sacked over stance on ‘ongoing’ abuse risk to children.
York Minster’s team of bell-ringers were disbanded because they refused to accept that a leading member of their group had been assessed as presenting an “ongoing risk” of child abuse, the minster’s governing body has said…
In what amounts to the most detailed explanation of the saga to date, they made clear that the apparently sudden decision to disband the 30-strong ringing team in October was just the “culmination” of weeks of discussion about the issue…
Updates (Saturday evening)
The York ringers have issued a statement in response to that of the Dean and Chapter, denying any suggestion of intimidation. They continue to put their side of the story and again ask the Dean and Chapter to discuss the matter with them so that it can be resolved. Their statement can be read here.
(Sunday evening)
Archbishop Cranmer Peace on earth and good will to all men – except the sacked bell-ringers of York Minster
Because of the nature of this story we ask all commenters to be especially careful in what they write. Comments containing ad hominem remarks will not be published.
4 CommentsArchbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon interviewed by CoI Gazette
Ian Ellis, editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette, recently interviewed Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Secretary General at the Anglican Communion Office. The full interview lasts 45 minutes, and the recordings can be found here.
There is a report in the Church Times today: Idowu-Fearon: US conservatives manipulating African Anglicans.
THE importance that African church leaders attach to the question of same-sex relationships is the result of interference by conservatives in the United States, the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, has said.
In an interview with The Church of Ireland Gazette, published last week, Dr Idowu-Fearon said that Anglican leaders in Africa seemed “to be so much taken in” by the issue, not because of concerns about the impact on relations with Muslims, but as a result of “very strong minority conservatives” in the US.
“The very strong minority conservatives, not in the UK but in America, they have found a footing amongst some of the leaders in Africa,” he said. “They are the ones that sort of pumped this thing into the leaders, and the leaders decided to make it an African thing. It is not an African thing. There are homosexuals everywhere — even in my diocese.”
He denied that African leaders were anxious about relationships with Muslims: “It’s not true. It has not stopped church growth in my part of Nigeria. . . Nobody talks about it.”
Another report of the interview has been published here: Are the Leaders of Africa’s Anglican Churches “Despotic”?
25 CommentsGod-with-us
‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)
To speak of God being with us might be good news, or bad news, depending on what we believe God’s character is like.
When Nazi troops marched into Paris in 1940, their regulation belt buckle bore the legend ‘Gott mit Uns’, God with us, and I wonder how the French felt about what that God was visiting on them? The badge of the English Defence League bears a cross, below which the Latin inscriptions translates: ‘In this sign you will conquer‘ invoking the militant power of an Anglo-Saxon warrior God.
Even people who do not espouse a political or military cause find themselves readily imagining a vengeful God. When someone encounters personal tragedy or misfortune, I find them looking for what they might have done wrong, for which this devastation is punishment, a retribution for a past sin. Or they may simply see their pain as a sign that God has brutally inflicted a tragedy or, at the very least, been asleep on the job allowing catastrophe to befall them.
The ‘Son of God’ in the world of the Christmas stories is a title for Caesar, presiding over the brutal imperial army occupying Jesus’s homeland. The Roman God-with-us means domination by brute force — a fearful God-with-us.
The stories of Christmas were written to challenge and subvert this dark idea of God’s character. Matthew’s God-with-us is hunted by a king, one who has to leave his country. Luke’s God-with-us is visited by the poorest in the neighbourhood. This is not a brutal God, this is a God alongside people who are powerless, people who have been done to, people who feel forgotten. This is the character of the God of the Christian Gospels.
Andrew Spurr is Vicar of Evesham with Norton and Lenchwick in the diocese of Worcester.
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
8 CommentsStatement from the College & House of Bishops
Press release from the Church of England
Statement from the College & House of Bishops
13 December 2016
The College of Bishops of the Church of England met at Lambeth Palace on Monday 12th December.
The meeting began with a service of Holy Communion and reflections from the Archbishop of York. Discussions on issues of sexuality took place as part of a process of episcopal discernment which began in September and continued at the meeting of the House of Bishops in November.
The college discussed the reflections of the House from their November meeting and also received an update from the Chair of the Bishops Reflection Group on Sexuality.
As with the meeting of the College of Bishops in September and the meeting of the House of Bishops in November the discussions took place in private and participants have agreed not to comment on the contents of the meetings beyond their own views.
The Bishops agreed to consult the General Synod in February as well as updating Synod as to where their discussions had reached. More information will be available when those consultative materials have been prepared in January 2017.
The meeting closed with evening prayer and reflections from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The House of Bishops met at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday 13th December. A full and diverse agenda included substantial discussions on safeguarding, discussions on Renewal and Reform activity – including lay discipleship, simplification legislation and resourcing – and ecumenical issues as well as considerations of work with student groups.
8 CommentsChurch Representation Rules 2017
Updated 13 Dec 2016
A new edition of the Church Representation Rules of the Church of England has been published: Church Representation Rules 2017. The previous edition was dated 2011.
The rules are available online, but it should be noted that the changes made in July 2014 are not yet included there. These changes are contained in The Church Representation Rules (Amendment) Resolution 2014 (SI 2014 No. 2113). So far as I am aware these are the only changes since 2011. See second comment below for other changes.
Nearly all the changes made in 2014 related to elections to General Synod. There were also some amendments to the forms in Appendix I to make it explicit in each case that only lay persons are entitled to be entered on the church electoral roll.
28 CommentsOpinion – 10 December 2016
Andrew Lightbown Renewal, Reform and the ‘resource church’
Sarah Schofield What matters most is how I read my own parish
Richard Peers Advent 2 Sermon: Renewal & Reform, Philip North and Beechgrove
Philip North Church Times Heeding the voices of the popular revolution
The Guardian view on Christianity in Britain: neither here nor there
4 CommentsThe Desert Shall Rejoice and Blossom
Isaiah says ‘the desert shall rejoice and blossom’. The new series of ‘Planet Earth’ programmes makes us keenly aware of how close desert and fertile land can be. Through time-lapse photography we have seen the transformation of dry land by rainfall, shortening the time taken for the flourishing of greenery into a few seconds. Grasses grow on flooded plains and can produce seeds in days.
But the biblical miracle can fail. We observe that deserts are advancing everywhere. Last year’s water hole has dried up. The spring that was once fresh is now brackish. The programmes have also featured numerous scenes where the carnivorous hunter misses its prey, and might eventually be just one meal away from dying of starvation. ‘Planet Earth’ illustrates the fragility and precarious nature of life.
The biblical prophets, living on the margins of fertile Lebanon with its celebrated Cedar trees, and the treeless Negev Desert, were well placed to appreciate how unreliable the fertile lands can be. In a broadcast this week about endangered giraffes the researcher mentioned that the biblical pattern of lean years and good years never goes away.
December brings a lean time of year close to us with the re-opening of the Cambridge Churches (and Synagogue) homelessness project, where a hearty supper, and a warm bed for the night in a place of safety are provided for men who would otherwise be sleeping rough. As we share a meal together we become aware of how similar our lives are. Perhaps only a single misfortune has pushed someone over the edge to the point where he loses everything. It is as though the seasonal rain failed to materialise. The lean year proved too much to bear. All there harshness of the desert and the fragility of lives on the edge are set before us.
Once everything is lost, rebuilding is a lengthy business, and it can be difficult to maintain the long term support which is needed if homeless people are to regain the stability and support which a home would provide. The routine of having a place to stay every night instead of sleeping rough helps to break the cycle. And the regular contact through having accommodation provided every night in the winter months can provide the basis for rebuilding lives and moving towards a safer and more stable future.
Paradoxically, it may be in the harshest time of year that the most effective support can be given. Isaiah’s vision may be realised and lives can blossom once more.
Tom Ambrose is a priest in the diocese of Ely.
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
0 CommentsEmployment Appeal Tribunal judgement in Pemberton case
Updated with diocesan press release
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has today issued its judgement in the case of The Revd Canon Jeremy Pemberton versus the Acting Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, The Rt Revd Richard Inwood.
The full text – approaching 20,000 words – of the judgement can be found here (.doc format), or over here (.pdf format) or here as a web page.
There is a summary included in the full text which is reproduced below the fold. Note that the cross-appeals from the Church of England were also rejected by the court.
Here is a press release from Jeremy Pemberton:
Statement after Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling
I would like to thank HHJ Eady QC for the obvious care that she took to consider properly the novel and complex issues of law raised by my appeal. The result is, obviously, not the one my husband and I had hoped for. I appreciate that this case was a source of hope for many people and I am grateful that the judge has recognised its significance and indicated that its importance warrants permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
I am now going to take some time to consider the lengthy judgment with my husband, and we will decide on the best way forward, having taken advice from my lawyers. I would like to thank Laurence for his unwavering love and support throughout this process, my legal team of Sean Jones QC, Helen Trotter, the Worshipful Justin Gau, and Susanna Rynehart of Thomson Snell & Passmore – all of whom have been acting pro bono since 2015 – my family, friends and all those who have supported me thus far. I will not be making any further comment at present.
Here is a press release from the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham:
32 CommentsEmployment Appeal Tribunal ruling
For the second time, a tribunal has found in favour of the former Acting Diocesan Bishop, the Rt Revd Richard Inwood, on all the claims made against him by Jeremy Pemberton.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal in London upheld the decisions made by the Employment Tribunal held in Nottingham last year.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham said: “Churches across the diocese continue to offer a generous welcome to people from all backgrounds and we remain fully engaged in the Church’s exploration of questions relating to human sexuality.
“The Church of England supports gay men and women who serve as clergy in its parishes, dioceses and institutions. It has no truck with homophobia and supports clergy who are in civil partnerships, as set out in the House of Bishops guidelines in 2006.
“We recognise that it has been a long and difficult process for all those concerned, and we hold them in our thoughts and prayers.”
Meeting the judge
And there she was, in my face again. I was having a quiet chat with Jim, and she was there shouting at me again. It was a dispute over a house, and frankly she was not being realistic. That of course is the trouble with these people. They don’t accept reality. Which was that Jud needed a bigger plot to make the development he had on worthwhile, and her house got in the way. That is how it is. I was the judge and she needed to accept that.
But she didn’t accept it, and there she was, in my face at every turn. I was furious. Jim was laughing of course. ‘It’s not like she can DO anything, is it?’ he said. The trouble was that to ignore her was one thing, but to take action against her would cause the wrong kind of talk.
First, she caught me at the gates, where I sat with the other elders. She stood there crying out about the Law – and what it said about widows and justice. And I made a joke of it. I turned to Jim and said: ‘She got a right good education, didn’t she?’ and that turned it off.
Then I was in the market place and it was the prophets. I got Amos, and his comments on selling the needy for a pair of shoes. I got Micah, and the Lord requiring justice and mercy. I raged inside. But I said: ‘I’ll prophesy then, that you will lose your voice shouting.’ And that again made a joke, and John thought it quite funny.
I mean, I wasn’t selling her into slavery was I? Or beating her up? All I was doing was ensuring that a much-needed development went through, and that those who ought to benefit from enterprise did.
And then in an alley way, I was alone, except for the nonentities around me. Her eyes held mine and I saw the anger, and time and place swung away. Her face, the sexless ageless face of a woman past child bearing, was now crowned with gold, and light and fire played in the gold. She grew, and now she was three, four times my size, and she moved back, and I saw robes flowing around her, embroidered, coloured. I was no longer sure if she was man or woman. This regal figure stood on the warm fiery backs of two immense creatures, like female sphinxes, whose wings bore the monarch aloft. Around the figure were others. Those who looked like angels. Then there were wheels on fire, dragons, a monstrous bull, an eagle. There were dark figures which filled me with fear, and bright ones even more terrible.
Then I saw the figures of men and women. They were dressed in rags, and robes, and clothes I cannot describe. They all turned to the throne, which now filled the whole of the sky and they cried out, ‘How long, O Lord, how long? We hunger and thirst to see right prevail. Fill the hungry with good things!’ I could not count them, and I could never describe the longing and the anger of their voices.
The figure on the throne turned to me, and still with the face and the voice of the widow thundered: ‘Grant me justice!’
I wet myself.
I was suddenly standing in a dark alley, and I stumbled home and the slaves got me to bed.
The next morning, I went to the gate. Jud was there. I sat down. The widow came forward. She did not say anything. She looked at me. I gave her justice. I heard the disgusted comments of Jud, Jim, John. I cared. Oh, yes, I still cared. But caring or not, well … it is an easy thing to say you do not care for God or humankind, isn’t it? It is different when you meet them.
Luke 18: 1-8
Rosemary Hannah is a historian and author of The Grand Designer a biography of the third Marquess of Bute.
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
1 CommentAn Angelic Salutation
For a long while they sat opposite each other, gently holding hands. She with her head bent, her body racked with sobs; the Angel calm, still, waiting for the word that would have to be spoken. At last the woman lifted her head, pushed her hair away from tear stained cheeks, and said, simply, “I can’t”. Silence followed. She was gathering her energies to offer a reason, a rationale for why her courage had failed her; why she, who had always been obedient to God’s will and law, was now withholding her consent. “Don’t be afraid”, said the Angel. He’d used those words before, at the very beginning of the meeting, when his sudden presence, and the light that quietly emanated from him, had so clearly scared her. Now half-formed sentences began to tumble from her: about her place within this close knit community; the shame that the inevitable gossip and accusations would bring both on her and her family; the loneliness of a life as a tainted woman, one no man would take as wife; the pull towards prostitution, in the struggle to sustain herself and the child she would bear. It was too much. Please let this cup pass from her.
The Angel still held on to her as tightly as ever. Only when she had emptied herself of both her words and her tears did he respond. “Fear not”, he said, for a third time. “God loves you. He loves you as deeply as ever. This was never a command, always an invitation to come on a particular journey with him. Go in peace. Marry. Have children, and bring them up in that same love of The Lord which you yourself know. And teach them this; that God, in their generation, will do this great thing. Tell them to be alert, to watch for the signs that the Promised One is coming among them. Live long, do not regret your decision today; but of your mercy, when you hear of Him, pray for His mother.”
He stood up, passed out of the house, walked perhaps a stone’s throw away from the building, then stopped to wipe a hand across his eyes. He gazed back at the woman’s home for some minutes. Silently, he held her and all that she was before the One who had sent him. From somewhere within his robes he pulled out a scroll and unfurled it. It was a list of names, women’s names. Many had already been crossed through, and now there was another to strike out. He looked at the details for his next assignment. Another unpromising village, another pious but conventional upbringing. Another dispiritingly traditional name. Mary.
David Walker is the Bishop of Manchester
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
17 CommentsOpinion – 3 December 2016
Martyn Percy Understanding the Ministry of the Church Today: a lecture in honour of the late Rev’d Canon Dr Ian Tomlinson
Diana Butler Bass Washington Post Forget red and green: Make it a blue holiday instead
Justin Welby New Statesman Travelling to Pakistan, fighting face-blindness and getting cross with myself
The Archbishop of Canterbury writes The Diary.
Kelvin Holdsworth Ten Key Skills for Priestly Ministry
Colin Blakely talks to Philip Baldwin — Church of England Newspaper The campaigner who can’t stop talking about his faith
Jody Stowell ViaMedia.News A Political Advent…
Church Times Leader comment Mammon’s victims
24 CommentsPreparing the way
As a bagger of Wainwrights’s summits and occasional gully-scrambler I’ve always been faintly depressed by the vision in Isaiah 40 of every valley being raised up and every mountain lowered: perhaps it’s living in Lincolnshire which makes mountains something to be longed for rather than obliterated as the mind’s eye conjures up a landscape rather like Salisbury Plain (but without the archæology) spray-painted beige and with a café every half mile or so. Some years ago, coming down off a snow-covered Lakeland ridge, we met a group who wanted to know where the path went and whether they’d find a tea room at the end of it: we couldn’t help but feel that they were missing something.
There is a fascinating dialogue to be encountered between those passages where God prepares the way for returning exiles and those where the pathway is prepared for God himself to come — rich soil for the exegete and the poet. But it was a recent study day which changed my own take on the taming of the wilderness, as it became apparent that the clearing of the ground was not about making the journey easy and effortless. It was about making the journey possible.
This fed my understanding of what it is to be (in any sense) a spiritual accompanier. We know that we can’t make the journey for another person, for that would be hubristic and inauthentic. All we can try and do is to clear enough obstructions out of the path to make undertaking the journey feasible.
It’s essential, though, that ‘spiritual accompanier’ shouldn’t be cramped into the space marked ‘spirituality’: the Gospel of our accompanying of someone also touches the emotional and the material. When John urges people to clear the way, we may note how he tells the soldier, for example, not to place obstacles in the way of other people through extortion. And this is where the Advent preparation of the way touches on our own society and its treatment of the vulnerable and the marginalised.
An acquaintance with ‘inside knowledge’ told me of the way in which those working with the unemployed and other vulnerable groups are pressured to place as many obstacles in their path as possible to deny them their legal entitlements. Perhaps in order to provide the tabloids with red meat for the readership, the safety net has been removed to provided edifyingly hard landings for those feckless enough to lose job or health or home. Far from clearing the way, every effort is being made to ensure that, for vulnerable groups, the journey is impossible, the demands superhuman.
In the interplay between the two Advent themes of restoring homeless and of making the path straight for God we may find a mirror-image of the scapegoating and the deliberate impeding of the vulnerable which seems to play so well in Europe and the US. A faith which takes the Advent message seriously may have hard questions to ask of a society which keeps its exiles at a distance, which makes the rough places rougher and the crooked more bewildering, which ensures that the route home is as harsh and as daunting as it possibly can.
David Rowett is a priest in the diocese of Lincoln
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
6 CommentsAdvent Hope
Advent is the time for Hope.
Advent 2016 brings to a close a year for which the new word is – as the Oxford English Dictionary has declared – ‘post-truth’. What hope, we might ask, for a post-truth world?
We have witnessed two election campaigns where truth and fact were in short supply. Since Brexit we have learned not to trust the polls. The events of previous months have revealed an enormous disconnect between what’s in hearts and minds, and the political systems that we take for granted in Western democracy. So many who simply don’t believe, any more, the established democratic processes. What lies underneath that disaffection?
Many things, of course. A sense of unfairness, as some experience real poverty and see others growing richer: the widening inequalities of society. There’s a retreat, too, from the idea of unity across regions and nations, a retrenchment: why should we think about the needs of strangers and aliens, when we’re up against it? A sense of being overwhelmed by the immense global movements – 60 million – fleeing war, violence, famine, insecurity; seeking a new home. And no longer do people trust experts, professional politicians, those with experience and learning – they belong to a political system seen not as democratic, but as elitist and corrupt. The fears and disaffection is not difficult to understand. It’s a world of change, of disrupted stabilities. A post-truth world.
A world also increasingly dominated by fear. It swirls around, transferred and contagious. It undermines trust between people, between nations. It’s fuelled by those who want the fear, who deliberately terrorise to destabilise. Or who themselves are expansionist, ready to take advantage of weakness. We are caught up in global forces, including the serious threat of global warming and climate change which makes us all more fearful than we tend to admit. Massive global forces at play which stir deep fear and destroy trust.
Dante put those who undermine trust at the very bottom of hell. Without trust, societies can’t function. We need a basic trust between people, between nations, for stability and negotiation to happen, for politics rather than war to prevail.
The most tempting thing to do, as we feel the fear, is to fall into the same dynamic ourselves. To start to think tribally, to divide the world into us and them. To lose compassion for the other – whoever she or he might be. To fail to see the humanity and dignity of all. To distrust rather than trust. And then fear begins to have its head.
That’s when our Christian faith needs to kick in. Because if faith in Jesus Christ means anything, it must give us the resources to dig deeper than the fear, to find a bedrock that is secure and enduring.
If our Christian faith gives us anything, it is the strong assurance that the fears and terrors of this present age are not the final word.
St Paul wrote to the Colossians of Christ:
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. Colossians 1.20
As Advent begins, that deep, rich, full time in which we prepare our souls to receive the Christchild at his nativity, his rebirth at the heart of the creation, we would do well to think more profoundly who Christ is. St Paul contemplates Jesus Christ, and sees in him all the fullness of God. As such Christ is the realisation of true humanity.
Karl Rahner wrote of the Eucharist as the anticipation of the eschaton – the fullness of the end and wholeness of all things. The eschaton, for Rahner, becomes not so much the chronological endpoint of time, but rather the full completion or wholeness of all things, already realised in Jesus Christ. The Eucharist becomes the Eschaton. Each time we celebrate Eucharist together, we are already there. We have arrived at the heart of fullness of God, the heart of the fulfilment of all things created by God. There is no other moment so full of God’s love and grace as that moment.
We cannot know how God’s thoughts and ways comprehend what we call evil. We know the destructive, callous, cruel evil that is passive harm, causing untold suffering; we know also how evil can take on a life of its own, and generate systems and forces that destroy, and leave survivors suffering for generations. We know how the erosion of trust, how terror destabilises nations, how evil works; how it undermines the foundations required for flourishing life.
If there is nothing more than the fullness of God, where is evil? Is evil beyond God? Surely not, for then there is something that is beyond God’s love and God is less than God.
The theologian Katherine Sonderegger asks what God knows of evil. What can God know of evil, without compromising God’s own goodness? She writes most interestingly of the way God comprehends all things – even evil.
The Divine Wisdom comprehends evil in its scope and depth and shocking negation, its utter poverty and lack. God alone comprehends evil as such. (The Doctrine of God, 2015: 373)
In this time, when we see through a glass darkly, we can know that God comprehends evil. God knows the cruelty of callous evil, and the consequences of natural disaster, creating havoc on peoples and communities, suffering beyond human imagination. God knows this; comprehends. Sonderegger’s account of Moses’ encounter with the Living God – I AM THAT I AM – in the Burning Bush, recalls the utter magnitude of the fullness of God, that consumes all that negates God. In the Fullness of Time, when all comes at last into the presence of the Fullness of God, then all dross will burn away, will be no more.
To affirm this is to affirm the ultimate goodness and truth of the Fullness of God.
As we gather for Eucharist, we know that in him all evil is embraced by God, comprehended by a power that is greater than anything evil can do, for that power is love.
All our mundane time revolves around this Eucharist moment. This moment that takes us to the heart of everything, where we are embraced within the heart of God. At that moment we enter the fullness of God, we are held in everlasting arms, surrounded, comprehended in love, our dross and sin judged and burned away.
In that moment of fullness we know the fullness of time, which is realised once and for all in Jesus Christ. It was realised in his birth, life, death and resurrection. It is realised again, and again, in Eucharist. All life revolves around this reality.
And because we know the fullness of God’s superabundant grace and love at that moment, we can also know that all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
This Advent – as we contemplate the post-liberal, post-truth world in which we now live – let us hold fast that central Advent hope that the truth and reality of the fullness of God is realised in Jesus Christ. We are caught up into that truth and reality whenever we gather in Eucharist, whenever we are the Church worshipping, and receiving the real presence of Christ, in word and sacrament. This is the true reality, the ultimate truth. This is the reality that is God’s love, in which all things, all time is redeemed and finds fulfilment. This is the fullness of time, already realised in Christ, and God’s gift to us, now in this moment, and for evermore.
Frances Ward is Dean of St Edmunsbury, in the diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. You can support their work via this secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card. Thank you.
8 CommentsOpinion – 26 November 2016
Jonathan Robinson ξἐνος Measuring Success or Faithfulness
Bishop James Jones delivered the The Tenth Anniversary Ebor Lecture on 23 November: A Journey around Justice.
[also available in alternative formatting here]
David Ison ViaMedia.News “Absolute is NOT fabulous!”
St Chrysostom’s Church, Manchester Bishops’ choices of funeral hymns
Nick Bundock Church Times Grief, self-criticism, and a new immanence
16 CommentsAdvent Thoughts — and Actions
One evening a couple of weeks ago as I went to enter my parish church, I almost tripped over a homeless person sleeping on the ground in the church porch. It was a cold night in our fairly-prosperous middle-class town. Sheep and goats — parable. Real people — in a desperate situation. What can we do?
As the new liturgical year begins on the First Sunday of Advent, Thinking Anglicans will once more be publishing a series of reflective pieces from a number of writers. We hope that this will challenge all of us to proclaim God’s love to the world, and also to take some practical action.
Much of what we publish and discuss is about sexuality and gender, whether that is women in the clergy or LGBT issues — so this is a reminder to us all that following Jesus Christ has other aspects too. It isn’t to diminish the importance of those topics, but there are other critical issues as well. This falls within the broad remit of the social gospel, and the very firm belief that the proclamation of social justice and the social gospel — and actually doing it, not just talking about it — is important and is a crucial part of our mission as Christians, as thinking Anglicans. Intelligent, considered discourse and engaging with such discourse in the rest of life (not just with other Christians), is something we can do to help proclaim God’s love for everyone, in a world which for some people is a very difficult place.
Over the next few weeks as we prepare to celebrate the mystery of the Word-made-Flesh, society around us indulges in a frenzy of consumption. And alongside publishing some pieces on a general theme of homelessness we want to give our readers an opportunity to do something about it. We invite you to make a contribution to the Church Urban Fund, which helps local groups work among the homeless and destitute, and tries, through local projects, to help them turn their lives around. At this time of year the CUF mounts its Advent Sleepout Challenge. It may be too late to join in the Challenge itself, but we invite you to donate money via their secure page www.cuf.org.uk/donate/advent-appeal/24/credit-card.
2 Comments‘ “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” ’ (Matthew 25.44,45)
GAFCON UK responds to William Nye letter
Updated Saturday evening
This new 1400-word article has appeared today on the GAFCON UK website: Secretary-General’s letter shows why GAFCON UK is needed.
Harry Farley has reported on it: CofE More Worried About ‘Twitter Mobs’ Than ‘What Is Right Before God’ Over Sexuality – GAFCON.
Zachary Giuliano had earlier helpfully noted over here that
… if one follows the news through, it seems that the GAFCON UK statements are being coordinated partly by Canon Andrew Gross. He is listed as the “media contact” or “press officer” for GAFCON, and has responded to criticisms of the statement. But his “day job,” as it were, is as canon for communications and media relations in ACNA, and he sometimes travels with Archbishop Foley Beach, as photos on Beach’s Facebook page and various stories attest. We have yet another sign of American Anglican conservative leadership (of a particular sort) attempting to shape attitudes throughout the Communion…
As references are being made to the process by which the Lambeth 1.10 resolution came into existence, I thought it might be useful to link to my original reporting of Lambeth 1998 which consists of a series of 22 near-daily and quite detailed reports written as the conference proceeded.
Update
And, here is the statement that was issued on 5 August, immediately following the passage of the resolution: A Pastoral Statement to Lesbian and Gay Anglicans from Some Member Bishops of the Lambeth Conference. Eventually this attracted 185 signatures, including many of those who had voted in favour of the resolution.
report from House of Bishops on today's meeting
Statement from the House of Bishops
The House of Bishops of the Church of England met at Lambeth Palace on Wednesday 23 November.
The formal meeting was preceded by a Eucharist where the Bishops remembered St Clement. Prayers were said for those across the globe who are persecuted for their faith, victims of religious violence and those with responsibility for Government.
The meeting received an update on the work of the Bishops’ Reflection Group on Sexuality by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in September 2016 to assist the process of consideration.
As with the meeting of the College of Bishops in September, the considerations of the House of Bishops took place in private, with reflections due to be shared with the wider College of Bishops next month.
It is envisaged the House will prepare material to bring to the General Synod for initial consideration in February 2017.
Ends
Notes to Editors
Background on #RedWednesday and those persecuted for their faith
http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/11/faith-communities-unite-on-red-wednesday-for-victims-of-religious-persecution.aspx
St Clement: http://www.chpublishing.co.uk/features/saints-on-earth
Statement following the College of Bishops in September 2016
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2016/09/statement-from-the-college-of-bishops.aspx
Announcement of membership and terms of reference of Bishops’ Reflection Group on Sexuality
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2016/09/bishops%E2%80%99-reflection-group-on-human-sexuality.aspx