Lambeth Diary: Rowan accused of 'betrayal'

In a comment piece in tomorrow's Times, the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, will accuse the Arcbishop of Canterbury of a betrayal at the very deepest level. He will argue that even the Pope is elected by his peers, but Dr Williams in his office is little better than a remnant of colonialism. 'The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous Provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government,' he says. Nor is the absence of Uganda, Nigeria and other Global South churches a sign that they want to leave the Communion. Far from it. It is a sign of how much they care that it endures. Read it all from when it goes online at 2100 BST and in the paper tomorrow, it is strong stuff!

(Update: AB Orombi's article is now available here, and see also our news story from the conference for that day.)

Running parallel to the indaba groups in which sexuality is being debated is the Covenant and Windsor Continuation Group, which has drawn up plans for a Pastoral Forum. Here is Joanna Clegg's video of the press conference at which Bishop Clive Handford, retired bishop of Jerusalem, explained how far the bishops have got.

It all comes on a crucial day for Lambeth.

Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi has also made it clear today that there is no way he and his colleagues will cease their interventions in the US.

As I write, Peter Tatchell of Outrage has just got off the train at Canterbury and is running up the hill with his 40 foot banner, Stop Crucifying Queers, which he plans to stake out in the grass outside Rutherford College where the bishops are now enjoying one of their thrice-daily three-course meals.

Tatchell told me on his mobile: 'The Archbishop of Canterbury appears more interested in appeasing and accommodating homophobes than standing up for human rights of lebians and gay people. He is putting unity before compassion and justice.

'There should be no collusions with homophobic Anglican bishops like Peter Akinola and Henry Orombi who support the jailing of gay peopel and the banning of gay churches.

'Dr Williams would never appease a racist or anti-Semitic bishop. Why is he appeasing homophobes?'

It is likely that the liberal Christian groups such as Integrity will distance themselves from Tatchell though. Protesting with banners is not their style. Theirs is a more subtle approach.

Not like mine.

Yesterday, I was running round the campus asking bishops the question: 'When did you last beat your wife?' I'll explain why in my next blog. (Can it really be true that at the age of 48, married with a small child and living in Kew, I am at the historic seat of British Christianity asking bishops time and time again, what they think about gay sex and wife-beating? Am I in some strange dream? It is so embarrassing. What's gone wrong with my life?)

I met a bishop from Sudan. The Sudanese caught the attention of the world early on in the conference with their statement that Gene Robinson should resign.

'What are you planning to do now?' I asked the good bishop, meaning what cunning strategy did they have devised to make things go their way at Lambeth.

He looked at me thoughtfully.

'Now, we are planning to get on a train and go to London and go shopping with our eyes.'

I was not to be deterred.

'How has the Archbishop of Canterbury done here? What do you think of him?'

His eyes lit up.

'The Archbishop of Canterbury is like a saint. We are so impressed. We have never known anyone quite like him. He has had all these important people here, the Coptic archbishop, the Orthodox, the Chief Rabbi, all these Cardinals. Every time he puts them on the podium and lifts them up above himself. It is as if he is saying, listen to these people before you listen to me. Oh he is such a leader. He is a true Christian. He is so humble. His witness has been so powerful. That is the message we are taking back to Sudan.'

That is a snapshot from Lambeth today. 

Comments

[Christopher]

Hey Jesurgislac

I have just visited your website and found what you say very inspiring. I recommend others to take a look. There is a world of difference between believing in Jesus and actually trying to follow his example. When faced with the outpourings from Orombi and Akinola and their GAFCONite supporters it seems clear enough to the rest of us non-believers that they have rather missed the point.

[Lapinbizarre]

Nothing like posting on a dead thread. Just to note that the Anglican TV link given above is now up and working.

[Jesurgislac]

'The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous Provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government,' he says.

I think Orombi's got a point.

But a man who thinks it's acceptable to torture, rape, and murder lesbians is not a man I want to listen to about religion.

[Observer]

Archbishop Orombi's got a very good point....why should 50-70m Anglicans in the world have their leader chosen by British politicians???

(historical accident is not a good reason)

[Theo Dexter]

Christopher

Thank you for the clarification of your position. I am sorry for my misunderstanding. It was not my intention to put words in your mouth or to “negate” other parts of scripture.

The “Cities of Refuge” concept I hold dear as it has much to teach us with regard to those seeking asylum and about the poverty of the vendetta. We all need a place of safety sometimes.

The Bible – “Human Construct” or “God Breathed.”?

That’s a debate I would like to have one day on another blog.

[Lapinbizarre]

Not "full of conspiracy theories", "Saint". Just the one. That a certain Central African Primate, one who some months back amusingly observed that "we should not accept any donation that comes our way and has strings attached" is, by his own admission in a strangely "missing" television interview, very deeply indebted indeed to those on the Radical American Right whose agenda he is loudly and busily plugging.

Just the one conspiracy theory, "Saint". How many conspiracy theories would you estimate are racing away in your own parallel universe?

[Lapinbizarre]

I have little to add to the observations and questions that Katie addressed to you on the adjacent, July 31st "'Pastoral Forum' proposed" thread, Mr Cohen. Arrogance and Anger are also Deadly Sins, David.

[Lapinbizarre]

Your colleague Rod Liddle cuts to the chase in today's Sunday Times with his piece "That’s the spirit, Bishop Bigot. Let’s hate everybody.":

"I cannot see our Lord getting on too well with Orombi, either. This pig-headed and vengeful cleric has conducted a campaign of persecution against the one decent bishop – or former bishop – his country has. Christopher Ssenyonjo, a heterosexual who believes that the church should at least talk to queers, has been vilified, defrocked and even threatened with arrest by Orombi for challenging his diktat."

[saint]

El Bizarro, you really have your tin foil hat on haven't you? Full of conspiracy theories aren't you? Been kidnapped by aliens lately have we?

Who paid for Gafcon

The people who attended and their supporters. A far far cheaper affair than Lambeth AND a cost that wouldn't even put a dent in the budget of a single parish in NY.

Now your turn: Who's gonna pay for Lambeth?

"How do they square the language of anti-English (anti-Anglican?) colonialism with the fact that certain white Americans and Brits have arrogated to themselves the right to 'interpret' the Africans to the rest of us?"

Some "white Americans and Brits" - and Jensen is an Aussie BTW - don't think of themselves as white or black or pink or blue or grew up swallowing a pile of marxist shit about class consciousness. Gosh Bizarro, maybe they know each other, consider each other brothers and sisters, are friends. Horror!

Your turn: Why is it always the liberals who play the race card and always mention colour and always come out with the most elitist comments?

Who engineered the timing of Orombi's article.

Dunno. But good timing wasn't it?

Your turn: Who engineered Lambeth so no resolutions could be made and no action could be taken? Who engineered the press conferences and the lack of press access? Who engineered the sideshow with every permutation of gay? Who engineered the perpetual self-promoting world tour of the June Bride?

Hey here's a few more mysteries for you to solve El Bizarro.

Name one bishop who's "crucified queers".

Give me evidence of one "death threat" against the hyperventilating Gay Gene. Who paid for his "security" and why isn't the police involved?

Oh play the numbers games for the idle hours:

How many days has Mr Robinson actually spent inside his diocese being a bishop in the past year?

How many days has he and Mark needed to have a "rest" in the past year? From what?

What is the average number of times Robinson mentions the world "I" or "me" per 100 words.

And a real mystery at least for you, even if for noone else: how many Christians - Anglican or otherwise - have been martyred in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in the past 20 years, killed because they were simply Christians?

[Christopher]

Theo, I agree people should be treated with respect but not necessarily ideas. That's why religious people should not expect respect for barmy ideas and practices; they can and should be tolerated unless those ideas and practices are actually harmful or against the law.

I would not prefer to remove Judges and Joshua from the Bible. You seem to put into my mouth (Where's the respect in that?); I would prefer people to see the bible for what it is, human construct, a composite of varying piece of literature, some of it benign, some of it malign but as a whole a fascinating record of the way myths emerge.

Now you were kind enough to give me a piece of advice so here's some for you. Do not assume I am treating others with disrespect simply because I do not bow down to their authoritarianism or questioning their worldview.

And to return to Joshua and Judges, do you really think you negate the passages advocating genocide simply by ignoring them and pointing to something something you do like in the text?

[Malcolm+]

No one - not even the staunchest "conservative" slandermonger - believes for a moment that the release of this quasicoherent diatribe in the dying days of Lambeth was a coincidence.

The "conservatives" have enacted a very deliberate and detail plan to derail the conference which the GAFFEPRONE Primates lacked tho courtesy or the courage to attend.

There is a word to describe a person who stands on the sidelines and throws metaphorical bombs.

The word is "coward."

And lest anyone fail to follow my meaning, I'll say it clear.

Henry Orombi is a coward.

[David Cohen]

LPB, who paid for Lambeth? More to the point, who IS going to pay for Lambeth? So that a tiny fraction of the Communion could engage at great expense for two weeks and come up with - nothing?

Who paid for the rabble of gay activists surrounding the entrance?

All very fair questions.

[Lapinbizarre]

Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, has posted a devastating analysis and critique of GAFCon and of the GAFCon-related antics during Lambeth at the Fulcrum website. Among his questions (these are just three of twelve) Bishop Baines asks:

"Who paid for GAFCon? (If what I have been told is true, then this is a new form of colonialism imposed by people with not-so-hidden agendas - to do with power - to achieve their own goals.)"

"How do they square the language of anti-English (anti-Anglican?) colonialism with the fact that certain white Americans and Brits have arrogated to themselves the right to 'interpret' the Africans to the rest of us? See, for example, Peter Jensen's embarrassing intervention when the Primates of Nigeria and Uganda failed to condemn the torture of homosexual people in their respective countries. Or, see the fingerprints of people like Chris Sugden on every bit of malice that appears."

"Who engineered the placing and timing of Henry Orombi's article in The Times today?"

All very fair questions.

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/blog.cfm?thread=7456

(item posted by Nick Baines, Saturday 2 August 2008 - 12:21am)

[saint]

Perhaps Archbishop Henry Orombi of Kenya,...

...says Fr Ron Smith.

Kenya?

What was it that Christopher was saying about education?

[Theo Dexter]

Christopher

Please do not move the goal posts. He called people stupid and indicated that they were poor scholars. This has been shown to be untrue and is deeply offensive.

It appears that you reject some of the Bible and would prefer that Judges and Joshua be removed from Scripture.

Perhaps you should consider instead learning about God’s love through the provision of “Cities of refuge” in Joshua and learning about women in leadership in Judges.

Please treat others with respect.

“Walk humbly with your God”

[Rick Beekman]

Robert Ian Williams;

"Why is Paul so adaptable on woman and not on homosexuality"?

Answer; Homosexuality is a sin..Woman are Not "A Sin" they have a Soul like Men...

[Betsy Tom]

I am an Episcopalian who loves the church and its form of worship. That said ,since 2003 I[with my husband, a cradle Episcopalian] have been attending an Ahglican church. We are still amember of a church that is apart of ECUSA. but do not attend. As I wrote Bishop Peter Lee, it is one thing for me to teach our children and grandchildren tolerance for beople of a different persuasion; it is horse of another color to ask them to admire and look up to someone like Bishop Robinson who is supposed to be a person to emulate.

[J Pearce]

"...most of the leaders of the Global South churches are far better educated than their western counterparts.."

Yeah, right! The definition of “education” here, being, slightly more adept at quoting the Bible than other people, right? Have these so called “educated people” studied science, or philosophy, or sociology, or basic Latin, or History?

Lets face facts. No, they haven’t.

So. We are talking about the intellectual contributions of a bunch of third world activists who haven’t a clue how first world education, or democracy, of general lifestyles, actually work.

Its not called the third world for nothing. Lets please ditch the sad, quasi-PC moral relativism, OK?

I am constantly amazed by the ridiculously asinine comments from people (plenty of women, it seems – is there some sort of pseudo-sexual issue here about African males?) who wish to see some “resurrection” of primal Biblical values in line with the wishes of particular male, African Christian leaders.

To an outsider, this seems quite simply all about male power. The cross as a metaphor for the phallus. It is an indictment of modern Christianity that such recidivist’s command such a following amongst educated westerners.

Well, when the lights start going out, the rapes begin and the unwanted children are tossed into pits, I wonder where these fawning acolytes of Biblical barbarianism are going to be then?

S**king a big fat one, no doubt.

[Lapinbizarre]

The charity, Mr Cohen - and charitable it undoubtedly is - is on the part of Orombi's "orthodox brethren". "You got to dance with them what brung you", as we say down South.

[Christopher]

"...most of the leaders of the Global South churches are far better educated than their western counterparts.."

They may be educated, though who says more highly so than Tom Wright or Rowan Williams? But I am sure you will agree that it is possible for a dimwit to be educated beyond his intelligence, which I take to be Paul Halsall's point, so strings of degrees are no guarantee of subsequent performance. It is amazing what otherwise apparently intelligent men are prepared to believe about their deity from the bizarre accounts of his activities in the book of Joshua or Judges, say, and think that is consistent with anything that can be described as loving. Their god is all too human, too tribal, but they can't see it, perhaps because it is so much a reflection of themselves.

[David Cohen]

Ron Smith notes that the Global South has historically been the recipient of support from the West in establishing the Church in a number of countries. This presumably has his approval, although he seems to think that there is some kind of duty of gratitude involved which should keep them permanently in submission to their patrons.

In the next post, lpbizarre seeks to suggest that there is some sort of conspiracy going on, with large sums of money involved. How very charitable of him!

The facts are that a number of churches and provinces have broken communion with TEC, and no longer accept its largesse - which does, at least in the mind of Mr Smith, come with strings attached.

In place of TEC funding for various programmes and projects, gifts are being sent instead from congregations which no longer support TEC and its agenda, in support of missionary work by churches which remain identifiably Christian.

Sadly TEC has done nothing at the Lambeth Conference to dispel the view that it has become another kind of organisation - the UN in high church outfits.

[Lapinbizarre]

Evidently the record of Henry Orombi's "so much money" interview has been retrospectively cleansed. Search of Orombi's name at Anglican TV brings up nine videos, dated from May 2007 through July 2008. One of these, a May 2008 live stream, is understandably not accessible. Of the eight remaining interviews and sermons, all but the "so much money" interview are accessible immediately. That single interview can no longer be viewed. Wonder why?

For them as may be interested, the figure of $200,000+ is given in the suppressed interview - a figure confirmed by an off-camera female voice (Alison Barfoot?) - as having been received by the Archbishop as of September last from "our orthodox brethren". How much more money has he received since then?

[Father Ron Smith]

Perhaps Archbishop Henry Orombi of Kenya, would do well to spend time as a humble member of the Anglican Melanesian Brotherhood. That might help him to see that personal ambition is out of place in the Church of God. Pretty dresses don't necessarily add up to wise episcope.

His elevation to the episcopacy of his own Church in Kenya, is surely not entirely free from the wordly influence, which he claims to have been paramount in the election of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Don't make me laugh!

Remember, though, that King Cyrus of Persia was used by God to free the Israelites from captivity. God can equip and use anyone to do his work in the world. He prefers, though, a man or woman of humility (like Bishop Jawani Luwum, or Mary Magdalene) - people with latent spiritual gifts, and a willingness to undergo costly discipleship, to preach the Gospel of liberation that Jesus enjoined on his Apostles.

Whether or not the Holy Spirit is involved in the election of a bishop in the Church, one can only tell by the fruits of their ministry - whatever the influences brought to bear on their election. Good Pope John was one such humble prelate, but look what the Church has done in his case - through failure of nerve to implement his active engagement with the world, which still cries out for evidence of a Church looking for justice, love and peace.

++ Rowan has a goodly record of personal integrity - something singularly lacking in bishops who blatantly invade the established Churches of other Provinces in the Communion - in the guise of some sort of spiritual terrorism. Especially when those Provinces helped to nuture the ministries and education of the African Churches now hell-bent on invading their mission territory.

The hubris of this young, wet-behind-the-ears prelate is proven by his brash statements about colonialism and the Anglican Communion.

Is it not a reverse type of 'colonialism' that he, and some of the other African Primates are enacting, in their ambitious plans for their territorial expansion into TEC and the Canadian Church?

[Malcolm+]

"leaders of the Global South churches are far better educated than their western counterparts, whose theological studies and training tend nowadays to be little more than sociology."

Yet another baseless assertion.

Facts, dear Alan, might bolster your case.

[RudigerVT]

Fr. Craig, let's not forget that GW Bush has degrees from Yale. And Harvard.

What's yer point?
LPR

[Oliver NIcholson]

The Pope of Rome may be elected by the cardinals, but the Pope of Alexandria is chosen by a boy blindfolded and asked to pick one of a number of slips of paper bearing names of candidates from a pot which has been on the altar during the Liturgy. Amazing how many ways the Holy Spirit works in Christ's church.

[dwstroudmd]

Let’s have a little clarity here. If both partners are of the same sex, is the incidence of “spouse” abuse higher or lower than the percentage in the general man-woman pairing? The Journal of Interpersonal Violence reports it as >30% “reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse” among lesbians and the Journal of Social Servic Research reports “the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that of heterosexuals”.

So on this basis there’s a one in 3 chance that certain prominent married lesbians from All Saints, Pasadena, have engaged in physical abuse and a greater than 50% chance that a certain country bishop from New Hampshire has as well.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics from the USDJ reports that married women have the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types relationships. The Medical Institute for Sexual Health concurs reporting that marriage (between a man and a woman) have the least violence compared to dohabiting or dating relationships.

So, if sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, we can opine that more physical abuse occurs between lesbian couples and male homosexual couples than among heterosexual couple as a percentage and that the stance of the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC is likely to INCREASE partner violence. That’s certainly a justice issue that the gay agendites do NOT want to talk about.

Here’s to Bishop Roskam for raising the issue. Let’s have her statistics in support of her opinion.

[Merseymike]

Generally, people don't manage to succeed in their asylum claims for being 'nice', but because they have been oppressed and persecuted in their own country. The personal characteristics of any individual don't come into it. The situation they claim asylum from does. And the UK government doesn't offer asylum easily. Stick to the topic, do.

[Oliver NIcholson]

The Pope of Rome may be elected by the cardinals, but the Pope of Alexandria is chosen by a boy blindfolded and asked to pick one of a number of slips of paper bearing names of candidates from a pot which has been on the altar during the Liturgy. Amazing how many ways the Holy Spirit works in Christ's church.

[Fr. Van Windsor]

Dear Jenny:

You may very well be correct. Yet, no one should be beaten, threatened with their lives, or afraid, just because they are foul and odious human beings at times. If that were the case all of us, from time to time, would be afraid to enter, and write on, blogs like this one. Perhaps his new found freedom went to his head, as well as easy access online to others who live the lifestyle he espouses. Pray for him, but don't blame a reporter for reporting.

[Robert Ian Williams]

Yet some would see Archbishop Orombi as a "liberal innovator" by being an enthusiastic supporter of female ordination.

Why is St Paul adaptable on women, but not on homosexuality?

[Ramon Rodriguez]

Ruth:
If the tone of the contributors to your blog is representative of the emotions heating up in trying to mediate the issues at hand, the good bishops must be ready to strangle each other, in Christ.

[Bill Channon]

Hallsaall,

I don't know about other African primates and bishops bu ++Orombi, in additon to degrees in Uganda, has an earned degree from Nottingham University.

++Akinola has, again in addition to Nigerian degree(s) has an earned masters degree from VTS. Neither of these men are uneducated buffoons as you indicate. Whatever you might believe or like to believe, both are inspired and charismatic speakers and are unabashed apologists for their faith. Neither are they primitive, barely out of the trees, seekers of their own grandisement.

These men preach almost exclusively of a holy life based on the words of Jesus, His virgin birth, his claim to be the ONE WAY to God, His Crucifixion and Resurrection in the body, His Atonement for our sins, His great commission to His followers to preach the word of salvation to the world.

They work in their countries to help the ill, the hungry,, the uneducated. to try to resolve the problem of AIDs and the sin that spreads it. What more would you want in leaders like these??

[robroy]

"'Dr Williams would never appease a racist or anti-Semitic bishop. Why is he appeasing homophobes?"

This is a great example the hate speech that Rowan spoke against. Simply espouse Christian doctrine that would not have raise an eyebrow of all the church fathers, all the popes, all our grandparents, etc., and the revisionistas put you in a category with racists or anti-semitics.

I was called a "faggot beater for Christ" because I questioned Mr Davis Mac-Iyalla. My doubts were born out by the revelations just 24 hours afterwards.

Who are the hateful ones?

[EmilyH]

+Orombi and +Nzimbi have proven 3 things by their quick responses: 1. They have no respect for +Cantuar 2. They have no respect for Lambeth and its committees and their non-intervention comments 3. They have no "domestic oversight" Should they wish, they may act as autocrats. They have put Lambeth on notice on what a GS led Communion would be like.

[Betty See]

Ms Glendhill,
Instead of gossiping about what you mistakenly call "the cunning strategy" of the Bishops of Sudan, it would be helpful if you knew a little more about the oppression the people of Sudan have seen and the threats they face.
For background information on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s activities in Sudan you could start by reading “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright.

[Fr Craig]

Good Grief MerseyMike.

I'm in full support of Gafcon. By the way I have theological degrees from Belmont Abbey College (God bless the Benedictines) Yale University, and the University of South Africa.

[Oliver NIcholson]

The Pope of Rome may be elected by the cardinals, but the Pope of Alexandria is chosen by a boy blindfolded and asked to pick one of a number of slips of paper bearing names of candidates from a pot which has been on the altar during the Liturgy. Amazing how many ways the Holy Spirit works in Christ's church.

[Jenny]

Here are portions of a blog post, by a homosexual activist who sponsered Davis MacIyalla across the US, that reports his true character, as opposed to the sanitized mythic version that was used to promote the man's assylum claim. I include the full url to the blog article so readers can view them in the wider context of the hypocrisy of homosexual "activists", for whom any means to the end they desire. They themselves betray the concept of rights and freedoms by their willingness to slander and vilefy those they hate. I challenge Ms. Gledhill to deal honestly with what is playing out by demanding substance, instead of merely peddling the propaganda of these hatemongering homosexual activists. I challenge her to recall that there were "journalists" like herself who helped raise Hitler to power, but abandoning the obligations of a journalist to be objective, to question and research the facts to present truth.

http://akinolarepent.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/uk-grants-asylum-to-davis-mac-iyalla-now-the-rest-of-the-story/

'I found his private behavior over the six weeks we were together to be rude, manipulative, arrogant, spendthrifty and destructive. ....[large snip].......Davis is occasionally prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, though I never heard him say, in his public appearances, a single thing that wasn’t true. One can question some of his interpretations of events and personalities in the Church, particularly the role of Archbishop Akinola and his associates.'

[Theo Dexter]

“US/UK/NZ/Anglicans should accept that they n ot not part of a "worldwide" communion, but a particular manifestation of Christian witness among educated Anglophones.”

No room for Jesus and the uneducated disciples then.

Have you any idea how smug, arrogant, patronizing, proud, prejudiced and plain wrong you sound?

Why not “walk humbly with your God” for a change.

Remember you gave us the world of George W Bush.
And that’s the world we are living in. Thanks.

[Theo Dexter]

“US/UK/NZ/Anglicans should accept that they n ot not part of a "worldwide" communion, but a particular manifestation of Christian witness among educated Anglophones.”

No room for Jesus and the uneducated disciples then.

Have you any idea how smug, arrogant, patronizing, proud, prejudiced and plain wrong you sound?

Why not “walk humbly with your God” for a change.

Remember you gave us the world of George W Bush.
And that’s the world we are living in. Thanks.

[saint]

Yeah Lapinbizarre, so Akinola wanted to retire and was asked to stay on for a couple more years. Yeah, that really smacks of people recognizing his shortcomings.

Thank God too, for all the bright shining theological lights on this thread. Not.

***

There is nothing wrong with your life Ruth. Remember, you are dealing with a church (or even a gathering of bishops, heavily overrepresenting the dying parts of a church) which, to quote Mark Steyn one more time with feeling, is hell bent on promoting itself as a cult for upscale Western sodomites and their attendant fetishists. So why wouldn't you be incessantly talking about every permutation of gay and a bit of wife spanking?

***

"It is as if he is saying, listen to these people before you listen to me."

To the dear bishop of Sudan: Yes God will even use an ass to speak. Yes, listen to them - the Copts, the Orthodox, the Catholics - before you even listen to Williams.

[Kate]

Well spotted Lapinbizarre! Rather turns the conservative allegation re. TEC 'blackmail' on its head.

I can only applaud, with some relief, the sound sense of all posting here - Fr. Van Windsor, RudigerVT, MerseyMike, Paul Halsall and Fr Mark.
Thank you.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

Curiously enough for Paul Halsall's colonial notions, most of the leaders of the Global South churches are far better educated than their western counterparts, whose theological studies and training tend nowadays to be little more than sociology.

The liberal churches of US/UK/NZ are therefore floundering in the world which he describes: their leaders are all too frequently unqualified for the job.

[Fr Mark]

Well said, Paul Halsall.

[Paul Halsall]

The CoE needs either to cease being the state church of England or to ditch the notion of a formal "communion".

Although it is unpalatable to say so, the Gafcon/Lambeth duet has confirmed that the leaders of the African churches are intellectual dimwits in their approach to theology and biblical studies. It's possible in the overall economy of salvation that they are right. But they are stupid - showing approximately the scholarly insight of a B- first year student in a self-certified "Bible College" in the U.S. south.

They need to be allowed to go their own way, like the other localised "African Zionist Methodist Episcopal Christian" groups. In time they will work out their own solutions to problems.

But in the UK, Canada, NZ, US, Most of Australia, such intellectually dimwitted approaches are impossible in a churches which are practice denominations of social and educational elites.

For a long time, faced with the massive Roman Catholic bloc, which genuinely unites intellectual elites and popular religiosity, US and UK Anglicans have relied on the notion of a "worldwide Anglican communion" - now shown to be nonsense. (It's still quite possible for a modern Catholic to be as intellectual as Newman, but like Newman, still believe in the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro- such is not an Anglican way.)

US/UK/NZ/Anglicans should accept that they are n ot not part of a "worldwide" communion, but a particular manifestation of Christian witness among educated Anglophones.

In other words, let go of the "global south", and even support it in its struggles with the Mugabes, Zumas, etc. of this world. But admit that modern Anglicans live in a world of Brown and Cameron, Helen Clark, Stephan Harper and Barack Obama.

And that is a world in which the demonisation of homosexuals advanced by the thoroughly colonised minds of such leaders and Akinola has no place.

[Merseymike]

Clearly, the Anglican ( a clue might just be in the name) Communion consists of churches whiuch look towards the church in England and its Canterbury See.

That is the Anglican Church. If some wish to transfer its HQ to elsewhere, then they create another church. The AofC has a specific role within England and short of straightforward disestablishment, they have to be able to make their own decisions. hence the importance of maintaining provincial independence.

[Lapinbizarre]

Akinola's recent, atypical low-profile and the emergence of Henry Orombi as the GAFCON's principal Central African spokesman suggest that GAFCON power-brokers have begun to recognize Akinola's shortcomings as a standard-bearer. Orombi has his questionable moments as well. In a September 2007 Anglican TV interview he is embarassingly effusive about the generosity of the American Right Wing, expressing joy at their largesse.

"... they support us, they give us money. Oh they give us money. Since we began to relate with our orthodox brethren they have given us much more money, much more money, oh yeah, much more money. They have given us more money." Unedited transcript.

Orombi might, in future, take greater care to avoid the impression that this might, in some way, be about the money.

http://www.anglicantv.org/blog/index.cfm/2007/9/9/Archbishop-Henry-Orombi

[The link is not working at present. Greater care has perhaps been taken retrosepectively?]

[RudigerVT]

Clever. Elected by peers -- like Orombi -- versus elected through anything approaching a representative-democratic process.

The method for selecting the ABC may, indeed, smack of colonialism, but these top-down provinces' systems stink of paternalism.

The fact that he could even use the term, peer, without irony, would be funny if we were, say, putting on a light opera. To wit:

No Englishman unmoved that statement hears.
Because, with all our faults, we LOVE our House of Peers!

LPR

[Fr. Van Windsor]

"Can it really be true that at the age of 48, married with a small child and living in Kew, I am at the historic seat of British Christianity asking bishops time and time again, what they think about gay sex and wife-beating?"

And here I am, priest, nearly 50 years old, married to a woman a few years younger than myself, raising two boys (7 and 11), and horrified and embarrassed that homosexuality, abortion, and a myriad of the issues taking up time, are being discussed as though they were worthy. The lives are, certainly, but not the sins. After we justify sin, we then throw food at people assuming that will make up for our willfulness in the sight of God. The Africans are correct in calling us back to the faith, and the liberals correct in calling us to show love and tolerance toward our neighbor, but we had all best be about our own sins of pride, willfulness, and the subterfuge of the Gospel, or the malaise which has struck our Church will continue like the plagues against Egypt. But, other than that, have a nice day...