He doesn't get it

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid has accepted what Dame Louise Casey said in her Report about some sections of society not accepting British values such as tolerance.

Javid said that people could not play a "positive role" in British public life unless they accepted basic values which include democracy, equality and freedom of speech. That is true.

That these three basic values are contrary to the ideology of those claiming to be suffering most because they are not allowed to do as they please in their host country appears to have escaped him. Sharia is preferred to democracy, equality is an alien concept and free speech is a one-way vehicle.

There are diverse views within groups as illustrated by the Muslim housemates in the previous entry. Many public servants may be sufficiently relaxed or ill-informed about their faith allowing them to accept the idea of a British values oath. They are not the problem. It is those who are prepared to follow their supremacist ideology to the letter with the promise of salvation if they die in the process.

The idea is well intentioned. It is based an typical British values which requires a sacred Oath to be sworn or an affirmation to be made. If the values expressed in the sacred book of choice are alien to British values the idea is dead before it starts.

What is needed is a proper evaluation of an ideology which expects others to accept that it is a religion of peace but regards any questioning or perceived criticism as Islamophobia.

Better understanding is the key. A comparison with traditional Christian values on which our culture is based is paramount but politicians and religious leaders shrink from the challenge as they ignore the Great Commission and validate other faiths to the detriment of Christianity.

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Highlighting what we understand marriage to be

Like many readers,  I have been awaiting the publication of 'Highlights' following the April meeting of the Church in Wales Governing Body to read how the Archbishop's determination to open his churches to same sex marriage ceremonies regardless of the cost to the Church would be presented.

'Highlights' absence may be due to the retirement of the well respected Archdeacon who put it together or perhaps the bishops' same-sex marriage statement and Pastoral Letter are intended to replace the publication this time.

The above video graphically illustrates differing attitudes to marriage today and nails the notion that defenders of traditional marriage are either homophobic or religious bigots but this does not stop militant gay rights activists from condemning anyone who holds a contrary opinion to theirs as lacking in love and understanding.

The bishops of the Church of England are "all in agreement that the Christian understanding and doctrine of marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman remains unchanged". The bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada avow to guard church unity against "mounting pressuredanquot;, but the bishops of the Church in Wales have again sold out to secularism by offering prayers (not a blessing) which may be used to celebrate same sex unions in church.

This comes as no surprise when the Archbishop, Dr Barry Morgan, fervently follows the lead of the US Episcopal Church (TEC) in dumping traditional Christian values in favour of TEC's disastrousLiberation Theology.

In the process of endorsing gay marriage the Bench of Bishops has engaged in deception on a massive scale using sympathetic clergy to influence what remains of their flock. This has included attempts to persuade the Mothers Union to support the policy and to vote on a personal basis regardless of views canvassed from congregations while demeaning the views of supporters of the traditional doctrine of marriage as the basis of family life.

The Archbishop's liberal leanings were well known before he sought the support of the Standing Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales. The Commission's sympathetic findings, summarisedhere, were duly printed and made available to congregations prior to diocesan 'consultations'. The procedure was for guidance only so a positive response could be used as justification while a negative response could be dismissed as the result of prejudice.

All this was designed to ensure that the Governing Body delivered the required verdict but when that failed the bishops simply did their own thing and published their Pastoral Letter to permit what had been rejected. What is unlikely to be found in churches is thetheological rejection of the bishops' Pastoral Letter. But then the bishops' understanding of marriage is not Christian, it is secular.

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I wasn't expecting this

Addressing 'The Challenge of Secularism' at the 2018 meeting of GAFCON in Jerusalem the Rt Rev Dr Gavin Ashenden spoke about The Challenge of Cultural Marxism to the Church.

Explaining how the deception works,  Dr Ashenden explains how "a 3rd wave feminism extended parity into the area of social and sexual engineering. It involved the re-imagining of gender. Making gender flexible and fluid according to the preferences of the imagination.

"The strategy was first feminism and the introduction of the virus of equality , then gay marriage , based on the same artificial notion of equality, then the eradication of gender in the mind with transgenderism. And then paedophilia."

Referring to the latest Canadian propaganda videos "which show the increasing sexualisation of children as they are educated to become ?Allies? Of the LGBTQI , the bishop provided a reference to this sample video

"Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man"!

This goes way beyond tolerance and understanding. How did we allow ourselves to get here?

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Queen wins

Three bishops from the same class in St Michael's College, Llandaff          Source: Church in Wales

In a previous entryFrom hat trick to three card trick I wrote the bishops' consultation on same sex marriage ... is akin to the classic three card trick, otherwise known as 'find the queen', designed to win regardless.

Hey presto, the queen wins. Like loyal subjects, members of the Governing Body queued to speak of love and equality, apparently understanding neither. They swallowed what they had been fed and regurgitated the poisonous rubbish fed by the bench of bishops, unworthy of the office they hold for leading astray those in their care. The souls of the righteous being sacrificed by false prophets.

Archbishop John Davies told Premier Christian Radio: "There was a very significant majority in favour of us making a formal move ahead and discussing provision further".

The Church in Wales even published this deceptive tweet

Church members did not have a vote. A majority of bishop affirming members of the Governing Body perhaps but of the wider church?

So far as the membership of the Church in Wales is concerned its Governing Body has become an irrelevant tool of the bench.

As the 2012 Church in Wales Review observed, "We do not believe that the present system of elections to the Governing Body always results in a true reflection of church opinion.  At the moment there is very little knowledge for people to go on when making up their minds for whom to vote." (page 5)

Not that it would make a jot of difference when members decide on their own volition to vote on the basis of personal preference instead of on the expressed wishes of church members.

The bench has now positioned itself so that it will be at odds with the rest of the Anglican Communion as the Scottish Episcopal Church discovered following their unilateral decision to allow same sex marriage in church.

Governing Body agreed that ?It is pastorally unsustainable for the Church to make no formal provision for those in same-gender relationships.?

On what evidence? A bald statement that is in direct contradiction to the archbishop's keynote speech. "Play your part, great or small, in spreading the Gospel message,  urges Archbishop".

The gospel of the bench is not the gospel of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The pretence of it being so has become widespread leading to the notion of an inclusive church in the living catholic tradition which may be translated as homosexual practices are affirmed here with the expectation of imminent blessings by the church.

Affirming catholicism affirms that which should not be affirmed. It has little to do with the catholic faith as received. It claims catholicity while behaving contrary to the catholic faith with consenting clergy joining the Society of Catholic Priests, an 'Anglican society for men and women serving as Priests throughout the Anglican Communion'.

It is window dressing claiming allegiance to the catholic faith while acting contrary to it.

The wider church is appalled at these deviations from the faith by churches which use self-governing arguments to adopt practices that are contrary to the gospel.

Declining numbers demonstrate that they cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.

From Church in WalesReport on Membership and Finances 2017

"The rate of decline in average adult Sunday attendance between 2016 and 2017 is in line with the general annual trend since 2010":

Average Attendance - over 18 Sundays: 27,359 (2017)   28,185(2016)   - 826 (2017-2016)   - 3%

In 2006 the average weekly attendance aged over 18 was recorded at 39,490 showing a fall in adult attendance of 31%, almost one third in just over a decade.

At that rate of decline there will soon be no Anglican church to care pastorally or otherwise for anyone.

What the archbishop was really saying in his keynote address is that the Church in Wales is in crisis. Parishes which had ample clergy now find that there are more churches than there are clergy to run them so the laity must pull their weight when the bishops do not as they play politics jeopardising the souls of their flock.

A clue to the way the bishops think is in the Conclusion to GB's Agendum 14

A Framework for Healthy and Joyful Mission in the Church in Wales

A Report to the Governing Body September 2018

Andy Bangor:

"We believe that every person in our province has the right to hear the message of Jesus Christ in a way they understand. Our responsibility as a church is to play our part with God and other Christians so everyone can hear, engage with and respond to this message."

That will be the favoured group of the bench sorted but not everyone is in it, just a minority, so to hell with the rest.

The majority in the wider church will, of course, be aware that the bench of bishops have that the wrong way round.

Postscript [18.09.2018]

There are some relevant comments under an Anglican Ink article including this personal testimony:

"I cannot tell you how devastated I am at this lurch away from the Gospel. When it was discussed at a Parish level a few years ago, St David's was one of the more conservative dioceses and I was much encouraged by the 'traditional' views expressed by representatives from the Cathedral, but since then there has been a complete change of staff, reflecting a more liberal agenda."

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