People in glass pools shouldn't sink any lower!

The Episcopal Church seems hellbent on being the modern day version of the Synagogue of the Libertines. All things to all men, women, and 101 genders in between. The episcopacy is modelled in their image and for their designs and fancies. Out goes anything much that St.Paul spoke about. Sin is now an optional extra in the polity of the church. In fact, the only sin that can be committed in the Episcopal Church is gainsaying the liberal agenda.

It's a farflung experience from the days when the church had some moral backbone. Now the essence of faith is that there are virtually no wrongs that can be done other than be a follower of traditional doctrine.

Mary Glasspool has been elected as a female prelate in the diocese of Los Angeles. Exactly what the angels think is not credited to the shinanigans. Ms Glasspool is the very model of a modern Episcopalian. She is also a lesbian in a 21 year-old relationship. Her lifestyle is at odds with traditional teaching. She has turned the received wisdom of understanding what sin is into a rejection of the faith in favour of her own views on moral conduct. It is far more than the Pick 'N Mix at Woolworths. This is like walking into the old Woolies and demanding that the selection of chocolates and candies on offer be removed so that a whole new range can be brought in just for personal satisfaction.

When Jesus met with the woman caught in adultery he forgave her. Her accusers had fled not willing to condemn her because of their own sins. He said to her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more". The whole thing about that was not sinning anymore. It is a state of being seemingly lost on the hierachy of the diocese of Los Angeles.

This has caused a stir in the press. They love a good contretemps in the church. But the one comment that is a bit rich is from Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's and one of the founders of the liberal Inclusive Church network. He says it "is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia". Utter tripe, but there you go. Those opposed to rewriting the Faith are not phobic of anyone, but want sinfulness rightly explained and explored.

I do not come to the blogosphere as some paragon of virtue. We all do things we should not. But I would be very much against getting my personal baggage encoded as some sort of new sacramental doctrine for others to follow.

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury is somewhat uneasy about the whole thing. Difficulty for him is that he has helped to get the door open a bit. He's now trying to put a brand new self-closing mechanism on it. Best really to let the Episcopal Church leave the Anglican Communion so they can follow their hearts and desires in a new direction. I don't have anything against Ms Glasspool and her beliefs. Everyone is entitled to freedom of expression and belief. I just don't want her trying to force me to follow in her footsteps.

Key to Anglican distress

The Revision Committee of the Church of England (overseeing the introduction of women bishops) has just given a snub to traditionalists by not giving any safeguards to protect their beliefs. Maybe this was a change of mind due to the Pope's recent intervention in the matter. It pleases the zealots of the winner-takes-all variety. They want a church without compromise to their heady mixture of secular notions and equality measures. One such person at the forefront of this bandwagon with bullbars on it is Christina Rees. She is a long-time proponent of browbeating her opponents into eventual submission. A lot of what she says is tempered with un-Christian sentiment and a desire to promote wordly ideas over the sacred.

She is chair of a group called Women and the Church and she says that the plans show the Church is committed to equal treatment. "This is wonderful news. It's a major breakthrough as it expresses the view that men and women are equal in the sight of God. I'm glad that we have not ended up with a political compromise and the committee has instead ceded to the will of the people." The implied barb is that those who do not agree with her do not see that men and women are equal in the sight of God. Of course, that is baloney, but her insidious detractions hold sway in the prevailing world. What is lost on her is that orthodox Christianity has never understood that men and women are "equal" in this world. They have complementary states of being for living out God's purpose. One without the other diminishes humanity. However, a crude equalisation of human beings is something traditional Christians cannot accept as being part of the Catholic Faith.

Many Anglican catholics are viewed at best as a mildly eccentric group and at worst as a unsavoury cuckoo in a very precise and politically correct nest. In my own family, my catholic beliefs within Anglicanism are seen as difficult to comprehend. Most prefer a religious adherence that never questions, never sets boundaries, but has the glow of a feelgood factor. Low on the doctrine, high on the octane. And please believe me when I say I don't mean this in a nasty way. They have said as much themselves.

Robert Key is a Conservative MP. In matters of religion, though, he is anything but conservative. More like a radical with a rapier. He is a man with little sympathy for pain of the consciences of dedicated priests. He wants no truck with safeguards or episcopal oversight. It's a love it or lump it arrangement. When this measure gets to the House of Commons, some odd alliances will come to the fore. Key has no desire for compromise or compassion. Pity!

With the Pope's provision for an Anglican enclave in the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Anglicans are caught between going or staying. If we go, we may find the journey longer than we thought. If one reads Damian Thompson's blog or Ruth Gledhill's it is full of Catholics (RC's that is) deriding Anglican orders, verbally abusing the concept of "Anglo-Catholics" (they put the inverted commas round anything catholic to highlight differences). There are those, like Damian, who see this new Anglican Rite as a great thing. If we stay, we may get our PEV's removed and a female prelate demanding the legal right to officiate at a service. This happened in the USA when women bishops, Jane Dixon in particular, tried to enter churches where they were not accepted as sacramentally valid.

The answer to the distress is really simple. Anglicanism has always been a via media. Now it's turning into via one way. I'm not about to say women cannot be bishops if that's their belief. The position currently is that we have impaired communion. Anglicans are either in or out of communion with each other. Some have left the Anglican Communion altogether. It is far better to be together with mutual respect than not.

I suspect many will stay. If we get to the stage where a woman bishop is determined to enter a church formerly under the oversight of a PEV, then life will be hard. Maybe she might call the police in. Who knows? We've been here before when priests were put in jail for contravening a law that impinged on catholic practices and belief. It may happen again. But not if faith, hope and charity have a deciding part in future developments.

Rigorous Roman rhetoric!

I've just had a read of some of the comments on Damian Thompson's Telegraph blog. In his post "Rome's plans for the Anglicans" we are given some very nice insights into RC pew thinking. As an Anglican Catholic I have long since known that ecumenical niceties are only skin deep with some. I'm derided as a fake catholic, attending a fake "mass" with an invalid priest in a church full of "ornaments". Now I realise that not all RC's take this line, but some reading this will give a knowing nod to themselves.

This quote - "These people have supported wymynpriestesses and mincing gay clerics with boyfriends, and such, for how many years now? What makes anyone think that they really are Catholic?" And this one - "Well, the Anglo Catholics or failing that some of us Catholics will have to go and get the Anglicans.That's not such a silly idea as it appears on first reading. If Catholics cared about the Anglicans being re-united to the Church they would make a lot more sacrifices and take real Catholicism to them." And even this one - "We have too many Anglicans in the Catholic Church already. They should take greater care to ensure that they are Catholics before they receive them into the Church."

Am I beginning to get paranoid or am I really between an eccliastical rock and a spiritual hard place? I do wish people could accept differences, live with them charitably and work out how to get on without rancour. Impaired communion exists within the Anglican Church. We live with denominational differences. However, all Christians are united by their baptism. I remember a Roman Catholic priest saying of those who were not of his persuasion, "I'm not saying they're wrong. Just that it is not right for me." A good thought.

If Roman Catholics want Anglicans to go through some sort of sackcloth and ashes penitence ritual, then that is not being Christian. Faith is caught not taught (although doctrine buttresses the Faith). I certainly don't want to catch something where I am encouraged to rubbish those I was with the week before!

Anglican cheekiness!

I read this and thought "That's a bit cheeky" but then Anglicans in high places are prone to a diet of cheekiness and churlishness these days. Some have more of one that the other and vice versa. This is the bit I thought a bit cheeky.

Former Archbishop of the Middle East Clive Handford has said that in the long term some sort of statement of shared beliefs and an agreement to abide by them would be necessary if Anglicans are to stick together. Fair enough. But he went on to say, with regard to traditionalists, "It's a bit like having a member of the family who is not getting on with the family, having an aunt or uncle who can take them under their wing while they work for the restoration of the family." Well, I'm not sure what he means because it's not a matter of "not getting on" as I can get on very well with people who have differing beliefs and I know a lot of others of the same disposition.

However, if he means accepting a process of gradual (or maybe rapid) acquiescence of new doctrines in order to placate those who have found the new formularies exciting, then I would not find that terribly appealing. It seems that devices are being promoted that keep us together regardless of conscience or integrity.

I do not feel it an abandonment of unity if the Anglican Communion has two or maybe more tiers or structures or whatever. A different form of unity, respecting difference but allowing integrity, would not be a failure. It would be a recognition that a body of Christians, all flawed in some respect, can get on with each other without having to be bound together. In other words, it is accepting that impaired communion is better than no communion at all.

Gene Robinson thinks Archbishop's position 'untenable'

The Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, thinks that the Archbishop of Canterbury is in an "almost untenable" position as he tries to retain unity in the Church. He may well be right. I agree with Gene Robinson on this point. That we should all try to stick together rather than divide.

Today at mass, our parish priest said, " Don't get too upset. Just let things develop. The Good lord has brought us this far, let's see where He leads us". I'm not talking of leaving, or going off in high dudgeon. But I would like a bit more give and take.

I told a fellow parishioner that, if dinner invites were being given out, I'd be quite happy to sit alongside Gene rather than a person keen to see my views and belief obliterated. I may disagree with the Bishop of New Hampshire, but I don't doubt his sincerity, charity, and ability to rub along with those who find his position difficult to accept or to believe in.

He appeared on the Andrew Marr show today.

Anglican woes

The Anglican Communion is probably at an impasse that has taken it to the wall of schism. Whether we want to break it down, like the walls of Jericho, I do not know. All I do know is that via media is seemingly no longer possible without some kind of realignment.

The Episcopal Church in the USA thinks that going over the boundaries and then claiming new territury of thinking is OK. They think the church is a democracy. In a limited way it should be such as individual church ordering, but the Faith itself is not open to democratic whims. It is surely a received truth or it is nothing.

In many ways, the hierachy of the Episcopal Church can be seen as revisionists. They are papalbly opposed to anything other than their interpretation of the Faith. Anything or anyone else must either kow-tow or be marginalised. It is interesting that the media in general succumbs to the blandishments of the liberal thinkers rather than engage with the traditionalists. In many ways the traditionalists have truth on their side. The Latin word traho means I hand down. In Christian terms it means handing down the faith as received. It does not mean adding new doctrines to suit the World's ways. Within that Tradition should be tolerance, understanding, and compassion.

Katherine Jefferts Schori is the former Roman Catholic now leading the Episcopal Church. She has ongoing issues with traditional Catholic teaching. Her vehemence against it colours her beliefs, to such an extent that she issues dictacts and denouncements of those Episcopalians (still in the church that is) who feel uncomfortable with the new ideas. Mrs.Schori wants traditionalists to accept her as the Presiding Bishop. If, in conscience they can't, she wishes them gone. OK for those that turn a blind eye in the hope of being left alone, but the new ascendency demands new loyalties. This is half the problem with regards to Anglican unity.

Traditionalists are often accused of wanting to have a church-within-a-church. The accusers don't seem to see that a ruddy great cuckoo has landed in the nest and is kicking out the original chicks!

I don't want to see schism, but I can't go along with all the wants and desires of the liberals. We have impaired communion at best. Full communion is there only in name. Fractured communion has happened. If the Anglican Communion is to survive it must create structures across the world that can accommodate as many diverse opinions as to what Anglicanism is. Otherwise there will be two parallel communions. Not a disaster, but neither would it be helpful to the cause of unity.