Decline and fall

Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion Photo: OLI SCARFF

More bad news for the Church of England. "Attendance plunges to record low: Sunday attendance slumps by 22,000 to 765,000 as older worshippers die and Archbishop of Canterbury warns of struggle in ‘anti-Christian culture’".

Ironically much of the anti-Christian culture will be seen by the majority of the world's 80 million Anglicans as of the church's own making in liberal leaning provinces.

But there is another twist in a story which continues to dominate the media.Yesterday half the BBC's 10 o'clock news bulletin and the whole of Newsnight (I presume as I switched it off) was devoted to the death of David Bowie,"the creative force who changed Britain" as the BBC's Home Editor, Mark Easton, put it.

He wrote: "My parents' generation are puzzled by Bowie-mania, and there is another group of thirtysomethings who remain rather baffled by the attention devoted to his passing". That includes me, not as one of the 'thirtysomethings' but of his parents' generation who will have noted his death rather than his passing which is more reminiscent of driving tests.

Easton continued: " Britain has become far more tolerant of difference. And David Bowie helped us reach that place.....Would gay rights, gender equality legislation or same-sex marriage have enjoyed the broad support they do today without Bowie's androgynous challenge all those years ago? I suspect not. He gave space to oddity… and made it cool".

Gay rights and gender equality have become so skewed that what was tolerance has become intolerance and anyone retaining a sense of balance is condemned as being out of touch. It is not cool. It is a disaster.

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Indoctrination

Early in May the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool announced the "Historic Appointment of Bishop Susan Goff as Assisting Bishop of Liverpool", an appointment criticised by many as  having "crossed a line" for recruiting a pro-same sex marriage bishop.

The above video was recorded three years ago when Goff visited Liverpool before the Church of England voted in favour of admitting women to the Episcopate. Her message was that people should hold on because it was "going to happen" after seeing a woman in a purple shirt and a mitre!

We now have women  bishops in England and approval in Wales where the faithful in the dioceses of St Davids and Llandaff hold their breath in trepidation at the thought of one or other of ++Barry's feminist prodigies being thrust upon them. The campaign driven by WATCH for women deacons, priests and bishops is being mirrored by the LGBT lobby as gay clergy work towards same sex marriage in church.

At the end of May Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, preached at Liverpool Cathedral on the healing of the centurion?S servant (Luke 7) claiming that there was a likely sexual relationship between the two so Jesus must have approved of it, thus turning the healing of the sick into a case for same sex marriage (SSM). He went so far as to claim that those who oppose SSM are inhumane and un-Christian and should just get on with it as Christ did. His theory has been expertly dissected by Psephizo on his blog.

Advocates of SSM like to claim that it will be accepted in the same way that re-marriage in church after divorce is regarded as normal today. Jeffrey John expects the CofE to offer gays a "half-way dedication service" before fully accepting SSM in the church. He concludes by quoting a gay priest who preached a similar message in the 1970s implying that, given time, SSM in church is inevitable, a line regularly preached by gay clergy led by the bench of bishops in Wales and fed to impressionable youngstudents in a process of secular indoctrination.

The Catholic Church is reported to be on the slippery path trod by Western Anglicanism. Pope Francis has announced he will create a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, "signaling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution's practice of an all-male clergy".

This is the thin edge of the wedge. Starting with women deacons, Anglicanism has, drip by drip, resulted in the admission gay and lesbian bishops who are calling for SSM in churches. Giving an inch leads to disaster.

Postscript [13.06.2016]

Sri Lankan Theologian Blasts Jeffrey John's Interpretation of Centurion and Servant Sex

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Thirteen years

Original source: Getty Images

"New Archbishop takes over".Don't get excited.That was the Wales Online headline on 14 July 2003. Since then it has been all downhill for the Church in Wales (CinW):

"Dr Morgan has previously said he was heartened by the fact that the 2001 census showed most people in Wales said they believe in God. It's a question then of how to connect with those people, how do we actually connect with people who have a belief in God? One person can't change anything, but I look forward to being part of the Church in Wales' work in grappling with these kinds of issues, he said."

Dr Morgan was awarded a PhD from the University of Wales in 1986 for a thesis on "Anglican University Chaplains concepts of mission". My 22 February 2016 entry offers no hope in that direction. "Heartened" in 2001, in 2011: "The Church in Wales said Christianity is 'no longer the default setting' for many people but the picture is complex." Average CinW Sunday attendance had plummeted to 31,000 in the 2013 Membership and Finance figures.

Comrade Corbyn is sticking to power like the proverbial to a blanket. If he succeeds in bamboozling his supporters as the Archbishop of Wales has done for thirteen disastrous years the Labour party can look forward to similar decline and extinction. But there is a difference. Dr Morgan may not have been able to change anything as 'one person' but by accumulating a cadre of  like minded sycophants around him he has introduced so many changes with no thought for the consequences that many church members have simply walked with many more likely to follow when the first woman bishop is appointed and as queer theology is developed to force through same sex marriage.

While it is virtually impossible to get rid of a disastrous Archbishop the Labour party should have a better chance of surviving if Jeremy Corbyn took the advice of his fellow MPs. Unfortunately he is being driven by the Shadow Chancellor and others who insist that Corbyn stands firm as the chosen one of party members. They will not walk but neither do they command the 9 million votes cast for Labour at the 2015 election.

If the voters walk the Labour Party will be condemned to thirteen years of opposition or more, if they survive at all.

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Pope Francis says no to women priests

Pope Francis will not ordain women to priesthood.           L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo Via AP

The Catholic News Agency reports that in an interview with Reuters, Pope Francis said more space has to be created for women to take on leading roles in the Roman Curia, but that priestly ordination is not an option.

?We cannot functionalize women,? He said, explaining that while the Church is referred to as a woman, the Sacrament of Holy Orders is out of the question ?Because dogmatically it doesn't work.?

?John Paul II was clear and closed the door, and I will not go back on this. It was something serious, not something capricious,? He said, adding, ?It cannot be done.?

That will be welcome news for many but unwelcome news for some Catholics who are fighting for the ordination of women. They allege that the refusal to ordain women "is not God?S intent, and neither scripturally justified nor the original practice of the church".

The Anglican Church has been down that route, the route to disaster. The implied growth as a result of ordaining women has not materialised, quite the reverse. The church has simply been used by feminists to extend their influence regardless of the consequences.

Lies and deception were used to gain power, not for the church but for themselves. They have reneged on agreements which put them where they are and sidelined anyone who does not agree with them. They have advanced LGBT rights as though that were the Gospel message while promoting same sex marriage.

The ordination of women has been an utter disaster and we are living with the consequences. Western Anglicanism is in terminal decline depriving many more women of their spiritual home. Sadly the destruction has been aided by progressive bishops and priests.

Messy Baptism is the latest feminist first in Wales. Messing up Holy Baptism. What a mess!

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Catholic-Anglican dialogue

Pope Paul VI (right) presents his episcopal ring to Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey when the two met in 1966 in what was the first public meeting

between a Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation. Source: Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS)

Years ago I would have been thrilled by the publication of the first report by Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission in 13 years which considers authority and role of laity. Now I recoil in fear and trepidation for the Church.

"Among the considerations in the 68-page report, released July 2, are questions of how the Catholic Church might learn from the Anglican experience to empower local church leaders to act more independently from Rome at times, and to give more governing authority to consultative bodies such as the Synod of Bishops.

It says that the Catholic Church can also "fruitfully learn from the inclusion of laity in decision-making structures at every level of Anglican life."

In March 1966 there was a Common Declaration by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey after their meeting in Rome. They gave "thanks to Almighty God Who by the action of the Holy Spirit has in these latter years created a new atmosphere of Christian fellowship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Anglican Communion."

"In willing obedience to the command of Christ who bade His disciples love one another, they declare that, with His help, they wish to leave in the hands of the God of mercy all that in the past has been opposed to this precept of charity, and that they make their own the mind of the Apostle which he expressed in these words: ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3:13-14)."

Anglicans in the West have become obsessed with 'love'. Not love in the sense referred to in the Declaration but as a do-as-you-please passport. In a word, eros. When an openly gay man in a realationship, Gene Robinson of the US Episcopal Church (TEC) was appointed of New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop it caused a hiatus.

Western Anglicanism is in disarray. So much so that it has been reported that TEC spends "$8 million brokering rites for sodomite marriage into the Episcopal Church and messing with the Book of Common Prayer (over three triennium) to change it so non-heterosexual marriages are forever enshrined in the BCP in order to cater to the behavior of a handful of homosexuals and lesbians who may or may not choose to get married. And Jesus will weep. https://tinyurl.com/yc2l8eqw "

Ahead of their General Convention three bishops from the TEC have proposed a "compromise resolution on same-sex marriage which they hope will move the church forwards in an 'atmosphere of mutual respect, reconciliation and the love of Jesus Christ'."

Anglicans landed in this mess because faith is decided by committee, dominated by special interest groups which claim to be persecuted, while appealing to secularists for support. This is the well tried strategy:

• Exploit the “victim” status;
• Use the sympathetic media;
• Confuse and neutralize the churches;
• Slander and stereotype [traditionalist] Christians;
• Bait and switch (hide their true nature); and
• Intimidation.

Taking one step at a time Western Anglicanism has moved from deaconess to women bishops, from a sympathetic understanding of homosexuality to brazen homosexual relationships among clergy who demand to be allowed to marry in church. All in the name of love.

The deviousness of special interest groups knows no bounds. Governance by committee has allowed them to infiltrate, dictate and regulate to the point that many cradle Anglicans now find themselves excluded while the infiltrators drive the wedge ever deeper between the Anglican Church and the Holy Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

"The future of ecumenism is in great peril with the gap widening between orthodox and progressives, said Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church a noted theologian and church historian."

Back in 2008 Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity posed the question to Anglicans: "Are you Protestants or Catholics? He said it was time to decide: "Ultimately, it is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong? Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium, Catholic and Orthodox, or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions." See Fr Z's blog entry at the time here.

Against this background it seems almost incomprehensible to read: "Will the Amazon synod open the door to women deacons?" as reported by the Catholic News Agency.

That was the road to disaster for the Anglican Church. ReadThe journey's end but for whom?

Bishop Gene Robinson putting the Anglican Church on the road to ruin

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