The norm!

Photograph: Per Lindgren/Rex Features

TV commentators among others are working themselves into a frenzy as 'gay marriage' day approaches. In a pathetic vote buying move, the Deputy Prime Minister,Nick Clegg, has decided that the Rainbow flag will be hoisted over Whitehall to mark the occasion. A sort of metaphorical 'Jolly Roger' designed to say 'up yours' to the over 668,000 Britons who signed the Coalition for Marriage petition only to be ignored by the governing coalition.

Was it coincidence I wonder that the BBC's Question Time was held in the 'gay capital', Brighton, last night where the audience seemed to think that the only expression of love is marriage. What does that say about hetero-sexual couples who are shunning marriage? Love is love but there wasn't much love shown towards the two brave ladies in the audience who stood against the rest to defend the traditional principle that marriage is the complimentary union of one man and one woman. My impression from the debate was that the audience imagined there was something profoundly wrong with anyone who had not been bitten by the Zeitgeist.

As predicted each demand has led to another. Not satisfied with civil partnerships, same-sex marriage was being demanded as a right immediately afterwards. Having achieved that goal there are demands that the Church conform. Practicing Anglican, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow who owns a surrogacy company and his civil partner Tony, the 'gay dads' of five, will be among the first to undergo a civil marriage ceremony tomorrow, Saturday, but still intend taking the Church of England to the European Court if necessary so that they can have a church wedding ignoring "the very fact that you take another believer to court means you have lost the battle already (1 Corinthians 6).

Ben Bradshaw MP who claimed to be an Anglo Catholic but now uses that hideous label of duplicity 'a liberal catholic' has "thrown down the gauntlet" to the Church of England, saying it should confirm whether it would defrock a priest for marrying a same-sex partner - storyhere. The Archbishop of Canterbury has already signalled that the Church of England will mount no more resistance to gay marriage among churchgoers, another step towards the extinction of the Anglican Church in this country as the elderly die out.

One priest who plans to defy the Church makes his position clear in an interview for the BBC here. The Rev Andrew Cain of St Mary's Kilburn and St James' West in north London, is prepared to defy a Church of England ban on the blessings of same-sex marriages and is planning to get married to his civil partner in June. His reasoning? - He says "The generational change as it comes suggests that a more generous acceptance of sexuality is increasing and will be the norm very soon indeed. And I think that once people start to experience same-sex marriages in the way that they experience same-sex partnerships it will become utterly unremarkable. It will be just like everybody else." - Just like the Vicar of Dibley, familiarity makes the situation appear normal, a variation on 'if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself'.

For the young the situation is already 'utterly unremarkable'. A BBC poll shows that younger people are more likely to support same-sex marriage with 80% of 18 to 34-year-olds backing it compared with 44% of over-65s, suggesting that the young have been successfully brainwashed by a minority with accusations of bigotry if there is any dissent. As a Catholic priest responded to the news, "It is a great irony that those seeking to increase tolerance do not extend that to those who disagree with them."

Adoration of the Golden Calf - Nicolas Poussin, 1629

From an entry datedFebruary 17, 2013:

"Women want to be priests and bishops, men want to be wives, women want to be husbands, same sex couples want to be married and have children. I want, I want, I want, I want. And our priests say, if that is what you want, have itdanquot;!

'The norm' it seems now requires everything including faith to be adapted to suit current fashion. Even clergy twist the Bible to suit themselves using it as a tool of self justification. As the Rev Andrew Cain said in his interview "The Gospel is always about justice, Christ chose to include people who in His society were excluded and marginalised and the Church should be leading in the inclusion of excluded and marginalised people in the world today. That is what we are called to do".

I don't recall reading of any rush to same-sex unions as a result of what Christ said or did. That is the new norm! So what will the next generation hold?

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More luuuuv and lots of it, for some

Do you see the archbishop chatting-up the ex-minister? He hasn't a clue what he has started. Llandaff next!                                        Photo source: Wales Online

Love is the thing. Presiding bishop Michael Curry drawled it out at the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle:

The liberal infiltrators who have targeted Anglicanism continually talk of love, rolling all forms of love into one. It embraces every desire.

The liberal propaganda machine is spread widely, so much so that when discussing gender fluidity with a group of secondary school pupils they confidently predicted that pansexuality would become the norm. [See Postscript: Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids]

Schools, television, newspapers, church, in fact everywhere, 'education' has become the means of encouraging almost anything and everything except traditional marriage resulting in a massive increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

'Love' without qualification is all. We should not be surprised, then, when impressionable teenagers interpret the message as 'do as you please'.

The zeitgeist has been promoted shamelessly by people, including clergy, as a means of advancing their own preference. 'Get used to it', is their response. 'People will think nothing of it in time' as if that were justification for not defending traditional marriage, the foundation of family life.

If these people are right, why are church pews emptying?

In a recent twist, the Right Rev Rachel Treweek reportedly argued that only God can provide unconditional love. Previously she has argued that the Church of England should stop using male pronouns when referring to God in order to counter the erroneous belief that the Almighty has a gender.

From The Times (£).You can’t have love without faith, says woman bishop

"The first woman to become a senior Anglican bishop has questioned whether people can really have love or hope if they do not believe in God. The Right Rev Rachel Treweek shattered the so-called ?Stained-glass ceiling? When she was made Bishop of Gloucester in 2015, less than a year after the Church of England had voted to allow women to join its House of Bishops. At the time, she said that she would encourage British Christians to ?Speak out with confidence about their faith? After years of reticence over mounting robust public defences of Anglican belief."

She seemed to be implying that people in extraordinary loving relationships, with whoever/whatever must have a greater belief in God.

Following a tweet from Humanists UK which said how "deeply, profoundly offensive it was to the 53% of people in the UK that have no religion" the bishop has sincedenied that she said anything of the sort.

In an anxiousvideo response the bishop wondered aloud "if without faith we can really know deep hope and love", which appeared to take her back to what she said she did not say.

Unable to stop digging a deeper hole for herself she mentioned love sixteen times referring to her 'own brokenness', the 'bomb attack in Manchester' and 'bishop Michael Curry's Royal wedding sermon'.

Persecution has reared its head in anothercontroversy. Church of England evangelicals are claiming that they being "forced out" for being gay.

"Jayne Ozanne, 'an influential Church of England evangelical who is gay', has promised to raise the issue at the General Synod next month and ask whether churches are breaching the official guidelines of the House of Bishops. Speaking to The Sunday Times, she had "learnt of dozens of cases recently" and said she expected a #MeToodanquot; moment for the Church to be stirred up."

The Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas, had criticised a letter extending welcome to same-sex couples last month by Lichfield diocese. Bishop Thomas, who chaired the conservative Evangelical pressure class Reform until 2015, was responding to recent guidelines issued by the Bishops in the diocese of Lichfield to all clergy and lay ministers which seek to end ?Intrusive questioning? On sexual practices.

The Dean of St Paul?S, the Very Revd David Ison, expressed concern about the Bishop of Maidstone?S comments on the Lichfield diocesan letter seeking to define ?Radical Christian inclusion?. In a blog contribution, he also criticises the Church of England bishops more generally for ?Institutional dishonesty? About clergy in same-sex relationships, which, he says, is damaging to mental health as well as corrupting of the institution.

With so much talk of love and inclusion you might have thought that a place at the table could be found for traditionalist Anglicans but not a bit of it.

The only chance of a welcome is to become a Muslim or ignore one's conscience and fall in behind those who already have.

Postscript [13.06.2018]

From The Conservative Woman blog (H/T Twitter)

Jordan Peterson: We are funding the destruction of Western civilisation

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Advent IV: Reflecting in the darkness

The Advent Wreath                                                     Source: Church of England

"Advent marks the beginning of the church year. It is a time for reflection in darkness, for renewal of hope and for a movement towards a beginning." - Church of EnglandAdvent and Christmas

For many Anglicans the 'renewal of hope' has taken an unexpected turn. It truly is a time for 'reflection in darkness'.

They have not lost their faith but they have lost their Church, abandoned by bishops who claim to be moved by the Holy Spirit but follow the spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist.

The clearest possible signal of the direction of the Church of England, as in the Church in Wales and other liberal Provinces,  has come from the Archbishop of York designate who believes that the Church should look to society rather than to scripture and tradition for guidance.

Consequently thousands of Anglicans have been left by their Church to reflect in darkness. Some have made the journey across the Tiber. For others that journey presents its own difficulties, particularly for disaffected Roman Catholics who found their spiritual home in the catholic and reformed Anglican Church.

Pray that the truth will be revealed. Pray forGavin Ashenden who will be received into the Roman Catholic Church today, for those led astray by errant bishops and particularly for all those left reflecting in the darkness.

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