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| The Dean of Salisbury addresses Gay Pride marchers. Source: Facebook |
The above still from a gay pridevideo on Facebook last Summer shows the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Rev June Osborne, encouraging participants to be strong in difference, standing against "prejudice and hatred" and to march with pride in Salisbury after she gives the parade her blessing.
Lobbyists interpret 'dislike' as 'hatred' and 'disagreement' as 'prejudice'. Allegations which stick whether or not they are based on factual evidence. Charges of homophobia are used as a matter of course to stymie any discussion on the legitimacy of accusations that LGBT people are treated unfairly. Say it often enough and people will believe it without checking the facts. Introduce something and people will get used to it. That is the strategy and it has worked, hence the liberal drift of the Church.
When a senior church person speaks, people are expected to take note. The fact that senior church persons increasingly speak not for the Gospel but for the advancement of liberal values in the Church makes the dilema all the more serious.
Even though the implication is false, 'spread love not hatred' is a mantra that has become fully in tune with Anglicanism in the UK today as it drifts away from Christianity towards paganism. Love is all but the meaning of love has been twisted to mean acceptance of just about every desire. If you are not 'for' you are regarded as 'against'.
The image of the Dean of Salisbury at the gay pride march is considerably different from the image projected on the Church in Wales website where she is presented as a thoroughly competent woman who will take the Church forward. But forward to what? The irony of the 'homophobia' charges after Jeffrey John's rejection by the Electoral College will not be lost when the reality of another LGBT promoting appointment dawns on unsuspecting Anglicans in Wales. June Osborne previously lent her name to the suppressedOsborne Report on homosexuality which should have been published in 1989 and was finally published in 2012. Some think the Report damaged her chances of preferment in England.
The die has been firmly cast in Wales. Interviewed in Llandaff Cathedral on BBC TV News yesterday evening bishop John Davies candidly explained that: "There is no truth whatsoever in the allegation that the bench of bishops or indeed the Electoral College of the Church in Wales is homophobic. I have said on countless occasions that homosexuality, participation in civil partnerships is no bar whatsoever to ordination in the Church in Wales whether that be to the order of deacons, priests or bishops."
The charge of homophobia was clearly absurd given the grovelling apology by the bench of bishops to the LGBT+ community for perceived errors. There followed the Changing Attitude, Iris in the Community propaganda film alleging homophobia while promoting the LGBT+ cause despite the gay friendly stance of the bishop of St Asaph who not only has appointed a LGBT chaplain but has a transgender ordinand waiting in the wings. So at some stage there will be a 'she' at the Altar though she is he, preferring to be thought of as she.
All minorities are regarded as acceptable in the Church in Wales with the exception of orthodox Christians. After the stitch-up which saw the first woman bishop in Wales involved in MAE Cymru's 'Saints and Sparklers'event it appeared that things could not get much worse.
What has become known as the liberal drift in England is overwhelming the Church in Wales with seemingly no-one able to repel it. When the bishop designate said "I do want to be a bishop for absolutely everybody, [including] those who might have wished for another candidate", did she really mean everybody, including loyal, conscientious Anglicans who have found that their Church has left them without provision.
Para 346 of the Osborne Report will be of particular interest for traditionalists:
We believe that the bishops, as the focus of unity of the Church, need to affirm the catholicity of the inclusiveness of the Church. The bishops have an important role in helping the Church live with unresolved issues. The way to resolve the conflict and tensions between groups is not by exclusion of one or more minority groups.
Exclusion has been used as a weapon in the Church in Wales since the retirement in 2008 of the Provincial Assistant Bishop. Every minority has been deemed worthy of inclusion except orthodox Anglicans. Are they not worthy of love?
This problem has become all the more pressing with the appointment of a second women bishop to the most Anglo Catholic and populous diocese in the Province. Many more Anglo Catholic clergy who have kept the faith find themselves with nowhere to turn. They deserve better.
I hope the new bishop of Llandaff along with the rest of bench will now consider the dire position of the orthodox minority in the Church in Wales. Many of these loyal Anglicans are now elderly, often lonely with little to sustain them other than their faith but after years of service they find that their church has left them.
The bishop designate claims that women can make a difference. To date that has been wholly negative resulting in a code of practice designed for exclusion. If women want to make a difference they can start by making arrangements to include all, not just all those caught up in the liberal drift.
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