At last the NZ Archbishops speak

Finally there is a response to the disgusting laws recently passed in Uganda and Nigeria

Dear Friends and Colleagues in Christ,
Anglicans throughout Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia continue to wrestle with divergent views on many aspects of human sexuality, and on a Christian response to the marriage or blessing of same gender couples in particular. However, we believe that all Anglicans are united in condemning homophobic attitudes or the persecution of people on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Many of us will have seen reports this week (eg: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26320102 ) that Uganda’s President has signed into law a bill that toughens penalties for gay people.
This new law includes the provision of life sentences for certain of these new ‘crimes’, and the legislation appears to have been passed with the encouragement of Uganda’s Joint Christian Council – which includes the country’s Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican bishops.
We recall Resolution 1:10 from the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which encouraged Anglicans throughout our Communion “to minister pastorally and sensitively to all, irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals...”
We note with dismay these developments in Uganda, and encourage you to remember that country, those placed further at risk by these laws, and those who lead the Church and the state in Uganda, in your prayers.
Archbishop Brown Turei
Archbishop Philip Richardson
Archbishop Winston Halapua

A Pox on all their Houses

Just over 2 weeks ago, the House of Bishops in England issued a statement which, to put it mildly, was disgraceful.  A torrent of abuse has rightly descended upon them. Now the academics of the Church of England are pointing out that it contains downright lies.
There is only one courageous bishop speaking out and, as he is a Suffragan bishop, he is not a member of the house. Bishop Alan Wilson of Buckingham is worth all the rest put together.
As he says
"But, being English, the powers that be prefer to freeze me out on a naughty step and occasionally patronise me, than actually to talk about the subject in a grown-up way, which would be unbearable."

It seems that only Assistant bishops are willing to speak out. As far as I know the Assistant Bishop of Auckland is the only Bishop in Aotearoa/New Zealand to speak up about the horrific laws in Uganda and Nigeria which to their shame have been applauded by the Anglican (and Catholic) bishops of those countries.

To get back to the House of Bishops in England. One of their number, in fact number 2, will soon be in Dunedin and plans to wander about the Diocese with out own bishop.  Almost makes me want to pray for snow, sleet and hail.

The main reason, we presume, for the statement was to continue to pander to the GAFCON churches. And all to no avail.   Their spokesman, the archbishop of Kenya has criticised them as not being tough enough. He probably is disappointed his own country is fairly mild in comparison to neighbouring Uganda (only 14 years imprisonment instead of Life and they wanted death).

And I am expected to welcome "missionaries" from Kenya at the end of this month. I will be going nowhere near my church while they are here.  They are supported by the Church Missionary Society.
A search shows me that the most homophobic dioceses of the Anglican church were all established by CMS.  I note that it had only a small influence in South Africa which has a totally different view.
This was seen in Archbishop Desmond Tutu and has been continued by his successor Archbishop Thabo Makgoba.



CMS is this year celebrating 200 years since Rev Samuel Marsden first preached in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Of course, having grown up in Sydney,  I have always known that Samuel Marsden was the "flogging parson" a figure of scorn, no advertisement for the church.

Meanwhile back in the Church of England, you can bless cats and dogs, you can bless ships but not loving monogamous gay marriage.
And they wonder why surveys show that people under 50 are rejecting the church.
And do not upset the hate filled, murdering, bishops of Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya.

Congratulations to new Bishop of Waikato & Taranaki

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/new-bishop-makes-history-5846746
I am not sure if the vieo can be viewed outside of NZ.

The first English woman to become a bishop was ordained in Hamilton today.
Right Reverend Dr Helen-Ann Hartley today became one of three female bishops in the Anglican Church in New Zealand, and the second to be ordained here.
She also became the first ever female priest trained in the Church of England to be ordained as a bishop.
Dr Hartley could not have taken this step in her home country of England, where the Church is still debating whether it wants to allow women to be bishops.
"They will get there, and they will get there soon, and I hope today will be an encouragement for all those people who are working hard for the ordination of women," she says.
But Dr Hartley says she didn't move to New Zealand to break any glass ceiling in the church.
"This is not a career move or ambition, it is a calling that the church and God had bestowed upon me," says the new bishop of Waikato and Taranaki.
However, she admits it does send a very public message.

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"It is significant, it is an affirmation that this is a job that men and women can do equally," she says.
"This is a huge day, this is a life-changing day in many ways."
Dr Hartley would not be drawn on whether gay and lesbian worshippers should be able to be ordained, saying that is something for the Church to debate and decide on.

I am not surprised at her final comment but do note the interest in the media on the matter of LGBT acceptance in the church. We wait until General Synod in May.

My own bishop, whose wife features prominently in the video, holds the same line despite his previous sermons on the matter.
I have already stated that I would not worship in England until they allow women to be bishops which is not much of a threat since I have no plans to visit before 2016 but after the recent deplorable statement by the English bishops I still might only enter churches and cathedrals as a tourist unless there are major developments in that time.

Goodbye and Good Riddance

As far as I am concerned the best thing Benedict has done is resign. Not that I expect that whoever is chosen to follow him will be any better and could possibly be worse. The African cardinal that some are proposing is apparently even more conservative. But all the possible candidates have been chosen by the previous or present conservative popes which does not allow for any change for the better.

As I have often said, I owe much to Catholic friends and I am thankful for the fact that I taught for much of my career in Catholic schools. It was Catholic brothers and sisters and even a few priests who helped me as I was rejected by the evangelicals of the Sydney Anglican diocese.  But they were not the type to be promoted in their church.
Although I had a few quibbles with doctrine, my main objection to Roman Catholicism has always been the control by the hierarchy and the position of Pope. I am sickened to see young people almost worshipping the Pope as he gives his last this and that this week.

Popes are men and some are good and many have been bad. The fact that they are elected by their own kind only perpetuates the conservatism of the church.

I am glad to belong to a church where the leaders are elected by both clergy and laity and generally expected to retire when they reach a certain age. There is only one current Anglican bishop (and he is retired but active) whom I unswervedly admire and that is Desmond Tutu but while I would be overwhelmed to meet him, I still realise he probably has faults like all of us.

I was quite happy to see the retirement of Rowan Williams, he was a great disappointment, mainly because he was weak and gave way to the conservatives. We wait to see what Justin Welby will bring. Although an evangelical he may be strong enough to withstand the fundies.
The point is they are all men with strengths and weaknesses.

Benedict declared people like me to be disordered so while not wishing ill on any man I have no interest in what happens to him from now on.  It would be nice to see a better Pope elected but I will not be holding my breath.

SHAME ENGLAND SHAME

That is it. I do not care who is Archbishop of Canterbury. I am a parishioner in a parish in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and do not give a damn who is in the Church of England. We should break all ties with them.
I will not darken one of their doors next time I go to England.
However I will pray for the women and many of the good men in that church.

If a church decided that black people could not be bishops, no one would expect me to share in Christian worship with them.  I believe sexism to be as great a wrong as racism.  I left the Sydney diocese with its misogynist leaders for whom I had absolutely no respect. I would never enter an evangelical woman hating church. Hopefully none of my friends will be buried from one. But then most of my friends, except for those I meet at church, rarely enter a church and consider my regular attendance as a particular interest of mine similar to our membership of walking or movie or garden groups. The headlines that will follow this decision in England will confirm their beliefs.  In the English papers already the atheists are crowing with glee.  The cartoon by Bishop Alan Wilson says it all.

Some comments from Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow in the Scottish Episcopal Church (Note NOT the Church of England) which reflect my thoughts precisely.

The Church of England looks foolish and we all end up being tarred with the same brush.

The abject failure of Rowan Williams’s archepiscopate is now complete.

Looking on at the passion of the Church of England from outside, one finds oneself trying hard to substitute compassion for pity.  

The Church of England gets its chance to prove that it worships at something other than the altar of compromise.

Bishops

I am happy to belong to an episcopal church but I am also happy that in the Anglican church we do not need to treat our bishops as little gods.

On Tuesday, while walking with the 60+ group I have recently joined, I was telling one lady how, before I moved to Dunedin, the only person I knew was the Vicar of Roslyn but shortly after my arrival he became the Bishop of Dunedin.  She asked me what I now called him with several suggestions (right rev, your worship).  I answered "I call him Kelvin".

I am glad to now live and worship in a diocese where I can respect the bishop and be in agreement with most of what he says.  I probably disagree with him on some matters and, if the opportunity arose and it was important enough, would tell him so.  From what I have seen so far they are more matters of degree rather than substance.  I respect his position as leader of the diocese and, in some mystical fashion, I honour that particular role conferred on him by ordination practised during church services particularly the Eucharist.  He will be returning to the parish of St John's Roslyn in a few weeks time for the Patronal festival and (I think) confirmation.

However in my previous life in the Diocese of Sydney I believed the bishops to be in grievous error.  They are preaching a gospel of hate completely different to what I have been able to discern as the teachings of Christ. Their gospel has no room for people like me who were created gay. Their views of women are not much better. Therefore they had lost all credibility with me and I had no respect for their position. If Archbishop Jensen had arrived at my parish church I would have immediately walked out.  I did attend one confirmation service where  Bishop Forsyth of South Sydney presided.  However it was difficult, his sermon and his actions confirmed my belief in his hypocrisy and I left by a side door. I did not attend the following year.

Sadly my view of the Archbishop of Canterbury is now not much better. He has been a great disappointment and while a learned man is also able to spout arrant nonsense.

I gained a great deal from my time working for the Catholic church but I always balked at the position given to the previous Pope. While he did some excellent things, I also believed him to be in error in many other ways and would never give him any special honour and my views on this matter were one of the reasons I was unable to convert to Roman Catholicism.  I had returned to the Anglican church by the time of the election of the present Pope. I do not have any respect for him at all.

On the other hand, and the reason for this post, I consider the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, to fill the post of bishop in an excellent manner.
Her recent pastoral letter is a great response to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury which I regarded as completely non-Anglican.
His attempt to usurp some central authority and decide who is in and who is out among the Provinces is just plain wrong. That sort of thinking is what I rejected in the Church of Rome.

The Anglican church has bishops, priests and deacons to provide good order and continuity. I do not believe they exist to rule. I accept the right to disagree with them and that any disagreement I might have with them should not give them the right to refuse my attendance at church and especially at the Eucharist. That decision is between me and God.

In the discussions of the recent Synod of the Province of Aotearoa, New Zealand there was general agreement that the first 3 sections of the proposed covenant presented no problem. However they have deferred any decision to ratify for 2 years because of problems with the 4th punitary section. From my reading I fear they either worry about being ignored as a very small part of the worldwide Anglican communion or consider that the whole issue will go away in the usual Anglican manner of avoiding anything that might be disagreeable. This latter seems to be the view of Bishop Kelvin. 

I worry that he does not fully comprehend the drive and determination of those like Jensen who would happily destroy the Anglican communion if they could gain their own way.
From what I have seen, even the evangelical Anglicans in New Zealand are essentially nice unless they are stirred up by those from across the Tasman.

If this covenant, including section 4, were to be accepted by provinces like New Zealand and as a result TEC and the Province of Canada were to be treated in some way as 2nd class because of their full inclusion of Gay people, I would no longer be able to regard myself as an Anglican.

I do not believe this will happen as I feel I have moved to a Province which is moving, perhaps a bit more tentatively, in the same direction as the Provinces of North America.

Bishops

It is do as I say not do as I do for the Jensenites in Sydney.
I am indebted to Unthinking Anglicans for the following links. I really have more to do with my time than seek out the latest shenanigans of the Sydney Diocese.

I discovered that Dean Philip Jensen has been given another 5 years at the Cathedral which will take him to age 70 in 2015. Other priests in the diocese have to retire at age 65. His brother, Archbishop Peter Jensen, has also had his tenure extended past the usual date until he turns 70 in 2013.

Even more irritating is the announcement that the Reverend Peter Hayward  has been endorsed by the diocese of Sydney's standing committee to be the sixth Bishop of Wollongong.  This is a region within the diocese of Sydney. 


Now the bishops of Sydney are going apoplectic about  the election of Canon Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect. They are probably not over the moon about the election of Rev Diane Jardine Bruce either.  (I was at a dinner last month in which the speaker was Bishop Barbara Darling of the Diocese of Melbourne who pointed out that although she was born in Sydney, she is not recognised as either a bishop or a priest when she flies into her home city.)

The bishops- elect of Los Angeles were elected by the Diocesan convention of priests and lay people representing the parishes. They will not become bishops until they receive the necessary consents from a majority of the bishops and standing committees of TEC.

Peter Hayward was chosen by the standing committee of Sydney probably on the recommendation of ++Peter Jensen. The rest of the diocese had no say in it. Certainly the decision will not need approval  by the rest of the Anglican  Church of Australia.


Even when Archbishop Peter Jensen eventually retires, his successor will be chosen by Synod but whether the rest of the Australian church approves or not will not matter. 


From what I read Bishop - elect Mary Glasspool will make an excellent bishop just as Bishop Gene Robinson is.  I hold him in much higher regard than the bishops within the Diocese of Sydney. I hold them all in utter contempt.






Addendum

Just checked who are the members of the Standing Committee, very interesting.

There are 23 clergy, naturally all male except Archdeacon Narelle Jarrett who is not a priest and like the other archdeacon on the committee does not have a vote unless delegated by a bishop.

There are 33 lay persons and 7 are women. 
2 were elected from the whole synod, the other 5 were elected from the 5 regions (4 reps each)  but not evenly.  
3 come from South Sydney which probably has the greatest concentration of non-evangelical churches.