Thank you Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

Finally a clear statement from The Episcopal Church of the USA about the vile laws in Nigeria and Uganda.

The Episcopal Church has been clear about our expectation that every member of the LGBT community is entitled to the same respect and dignity as any other member of the human family.  Our advocacy for oppressed minorities has been vocal and sustained.  The current attempts to criminalize LBGT persons and their supporters are the latest in a series, each stage of which has been condemned by this Church, as well as many other religious communities and nations.  Our advocacy work continues to build support for the full human rights and dignity of all persons, irrespective of gender, race, national origin, creed, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability or inability.  To do less is effectively to repudiate our membership in the human community.  No one of God’s children is worth less or more than another; none is to be discriminated against because of the way in which she or he has been created.  Our common task is to build a society of justice for all, without which there will never be peace on earth.  Episcopalians claim that our part in God’s mission is to love God fully, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  That means all our neighbors.

Full Marks to her.

In comparison the statement by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York is barely worth 50% and far too little, far too late.
They were probably, as usual, trying not to upset the GAFCON bishops too much and as usual they were unsuccessful  as is seen in the typical replies from those individuals.

Meanwhile, here in Aotearoa/New Zealand the silence is deafening. I know it is just coming to the end of the silly season when in Australia and New Zealand everyone goes on holidays but we wait to hear something.
I expect they will wait until  the General Synod to be held in May when there will finally be a report from the Gender Commission.
Discovering what is happening in the local diocese, let alone the province, is almost impossible.  I am very fearful the many on Synod who say they are welcoming of LGBT people will be too afraid to upset the fundies and just extend the process.  I am unwilling to wait any longer.

Here in New Zealand the only remaining establishments of discrimination are within the churches. I am finding it more and more difficult to justify being a member of such an establishment.
Depending on the decisions of the Synod in May, I could need to withdraw my support from the Anglican church of Aotearoa/New Zealand including my regional diocese and my local parish.

Unlike many gay brethren who have broken all contact with the church, I would be unwilling to forego regular participation in the Eucharist so hope it will not come to that.

I am dismayed that there is some news that our church will be welcoming visitors from the GAFCON church of Kenya.  It is some bizarre form of reverse evangelism.  It is under the auspices of CMS.
I regret my youthful support of CMS. I have written before how a previous Rector left my parish in Sydney due to his feelings of same-sex attraction. He became the diocesan leader of CMS. The lack of support from that organisation led to his subsequent suicide.

While CMS may have provided some medical and educational benefit in the areas in which it worked, I consider most of their efforts to have contributed to the benighted churches that exist in those areas today.  It is a longtime since I have directly supported any overseas missions run by a church.  I much prefer my money to go to secular work such as Medecins Sans Frontiers.
We have been asked to pray that these Kenyans are granted visas. While happy for them to come to our beautiful land as tourists, that prayer is not on my list.  If they do arrive, I will not be at my local church those days.

Sermon Fr John Beer at St James

The sermon by Father John Beer, one of the honorary associate clergy at my church. Remember this is a church in the Diocese of Sydney under Archbishop Peter Jensen
Worth the 2 hour train trip each way.
SERMON FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF PENTECOST
JULY 6, 2008. ST JAMES’ KING ST.
(Members of the Order of the British Empire Association present at 11am.)
READINGS: Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67.
Psalm 45: 10-17
Romans: 7:14-25
St. Matthew:
It is our pleasure welcome to St. James’ this morning members of the Order of the British Empire Association. And in doing so it is interesting to observe that during the 19th century the Christian religion and the Anglican expression of it spread all over the world as part of the great missionary endeavour of the Empire. It was a religion that was comprehensive and tolerant and which was planted in Australia under difficult circumstances, as Richard Johnson, the chaplain appointed to accompany the First Fleet attempted to plant the seeds of true religion among an unwilling and motley group of convicts and settlers.
The first and only Anglican Bishop of Australia, William Grant Broughton, was enthroned here in this church of St. James’.

What an extraordinary and ironic reversal we are witnessing to-day as the African bishops and others from the Third World are attempting to impose their particular brand of Anglicanism back in England and elsewhere - an Anglicanism that is both Biblically literalist and intolerant!
And what another ironic contrast - as our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are saddling up in the paddock at Randwick Racecourse for a big evangelistic and eucharistic rally, our Anglican leaders from around the world are gathering at Lambeth in an atmosphere of conflict and dissension!
Last week a substantial group of Anglican bishops clergy and and lay people from various parts of the world met in Jerusalem for a conference. It was designed primarily to bring about a change in the structure of the Anglican Communion. Ever since 1867 the Archbishop of Canterbury has summoned bishops from the various provinces around the world to meet at Lambeth Palace to share fellowship and exchange ideas and issue statements on questions relating to the faith in the contemporary world. This conference has no coercive power. We don’t have in the Anglican Church an infallible pope or, for that matter, an infallible Bible, although some believe we have the latter.
Having been excluded from entry into Jordan where the conference was to be held originally, the conference moved across the border to Jerusalem, much to the annoyance of the Bishop in Jerusalem. Our own archbishop and his assistant bishops were present at this conference. According to a newspaper report they were engaged in what Dr. Jensen called ‘a battle for ideas between the liberal wing who want to export their ideas to the rest of us and the Biblical Anglicans’.
This may be so, but even though controversy in the Anglican Church, has been at times as fierce and inhuman as other kinds and filled with bigotry, partisanship and bitterness, we ought to remember that it as also produced a fellowship in which, for the most part, different traditions in doctrine,worship and life have lived together and enriched each other.

The problem we have to solve is a difficult but not insurmountable one As the Archbishop of Canterbury said last week, ‘it is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Anglican Communion. If they aren’t working effectively. The challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise short term solutions which will only continue to create more problems. The group of bishops and others who have been meeting in Jerusalem have been joined by large number so African bishops and others from Third World countries, unlike affluent Australia or America, who are living with incredible ethnic strife, widespread disease and crushing poverty. The fact that they are being harnessed to advance the power and influence of people living in the richest suburbs of the United States is surely an obscenity. As the ABC Religion Report on Wednesday commented the funds for this conference undermining
Lambeth have been bankrolled by five American foundations and by a group of American multimillionaires with some very wacky ideas. They have poured millions of dollars into a movement to undermine the Anglican Communion and to try to mould it into their particular Anglican mindset.

This crisis has arisen all because the Anglicans in the Diocese of New Hampshire in the United States elected as their bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, now divorced and living happily ever after with his male partner. Much has been said and written in the media on this matter and will continue to be with the medias insatiable appetite for sensation and scandal.
Before putting it aside I should mention that Bishop Robinson actually attended a Eucharist here in St. James’ last year!

The sad fact is that the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem, while claiming to be about Biblical truth is really about power - endeavouring to set up an alternative Anglican power structure that will exclude those who refuse to toe the line. As Bishop Tom Wright of Durham has said, what we need is some kind of agreed process by which to handle problems so that the church can get on with being the church in all its glorious diversity in unity.

St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians was written to a church with more than its fair share of troubles, conflicts and problems. In our reading this morning from the Letter to the Romans St. Paul anguishes over his own conflicting actions: ‘For I do not know what I want’, he says, ‘but I do the very thing I hate. ‘ The evil I do not want is what I do’.
To counter this St. Paul summons his readers to a unity in Christ by that allfulfilling virtue called love. It was into this world that that Jesus brought the simple and liberating message that God is love - that he loves and values all people, not merely collectively but one by one regarding the smallest child as of infinite worth. And the truth is that God will not love us if and when we become good - he accepts us and loves us now and as we are. He draws us into his cleansing and life-giving fellowship. Week by week and day by day He welcomes us to his table to feed us with the bread of life.

Variety and comprehensiveness have always been part and parcel of the Christian religion and of Anglicanism in particular since the days of the English Reformation. Diversity and variety will invariably create tension. Those who believe they are the sole guardians of Biblical truth will always demonise those from whom they differ and try to impose their way of believing and doing upon others. What we have to determine now is how are we todecide what forms of diversity are acceptable? We need some agreed process by which to handle such problems. As we the Christian community gather around God’s altar here this morning, let’s leave all this to the learned bishops at Lambeth over their cups of tea (or something stronger). In the meantime let us get on with the job of being the church in all its glorious and appropriate diversity.

There’s no point fighting over again the battles of the Reformation in an age when as the Herald Editorial noted on Tuesday the church is ‘Faced with steadily falling attendances’.
St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians makes it clear that conflict and disunity have been a feature of church and certainly of Anglican life for centuries as the church has become entangled with politics and culture. Yet Jesus who came to make all things new, eschewed worldly power as he hung on the Cross.
The Church from the very beginning has seen itself as having the responsibility to hold up a mirror to power and speak the truth to the powers that be. By its very nature the Body of Christ has to be involved in the life of the nation and that must include the nation’s political, social, economic and cultural life. For centuries it was only the church that ministered to the destitute, maintained hospitals and infirmaries and schools. And it has always supported the powerless. The Church of God says ‘Jesus is Lord of the world and the powers that be must be accountable. And if those secular powers collude with the powers of destructiveness and dehumanisation they must be called to account.
As St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians: For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places.

Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Christian church has recovered from more than one cataclysm and will also triumph over another. We are called to-day in these turbulent times to recover the essential quality of the Christian faith - to make all things new - we are to labour not for the meat that perishes but for that which endures to eternal life. Jesus did not present us with a creed but a life to live and proclaim - it was by the quality of his own life that Jesus drew his followers into a way of life by which they were liberated, forgiven and set free from self-regard.

Our task is to demonstrate the the relevance of Christ to the ideas and actions of our time, to expand our understanding of what faith in Him involves. This is no easy or simple task but it does mean that if it is our joy and duty to live eternally by believing on Him whom God has sent’.
If anyone be in Christ he is a new creation. The Gospel is all about change. What impressed those who heard Jesus was that he was different. Those who heard him said: He speaks as one having authority and not as the Scribes. They were struck by the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. ‘I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance’, says Jesus.

We come forward this morning to receive the Bread of Life and then go out to be the church and serve God in the world, remembering that He calls us to follow him. We do this by what we ARE rather than by what we say.
It is much easier for us to be judgmental and to cast stones towards someone we dislike or disagree with than to look to the faults in ourselves and try to bring about change. Conversion is essential but it is no magic bullet - like John Bunyan’s Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, it sets us out on a hard road towards the heavenly city and there are many obstacles. We are to continue the journey, remembering that we do not make it in our own strength.

Bishop Farran speaks out

Bishop Brian Farran of Newcastle (Australia) has always been the local bishop willing to state his mind about GAFCON and Archbishop Jensen.He was interviewed by Stephen Crittenden on The Religion Report on July 2
I have copied the most interesting parts.

Stephen Crittenden: The Bishop of Newcastle, Bishop Brian Farran, who lives right next to the Sydney Diocese says Archbishop Peter Jensen has created difficulties for his relationship with the rest of the Australian church.

Brian Farran: Well I think it's particularly difficult within the province of New South Wales where the Archbishop is the Metropolitan. I think there's in fact emerging as he has, probably by default, as a principal leader of the GAFCON movement, and their statement in which they really encourage the formation of what seems like a church within a church. I think it would be difficult for him to come back and operate as if nothing has happened, and that the relationships that we have normally, through say our Primate with the Archbishop of Canterbury, that they're going to be a bit muddied by his relationship with this secondary movement.

Stephen Crittenden: many Anglicans in Sydney who'd like to escape it. I mean is this the time when some kind of Episcopal oversight needs to be offered to alienating Anglicans in Sydney?

Brian Farran: Well I personally don't agree with alternative forms of Episcopal oversight, so I'm finding myself rather constrained in all of this. Certainly I've been in contact with some of the Anglicans in Sydney who sometimes flee up to Newcastle actually for a dose of liturgical renewal, and they themselves have said that they're totally disappointed that the Sydney bishops are not going to be at Lambeth, and they really do feel abandoned in that. So I guess there will be people in Sydney who are looking for some kind of insight from Lambeth and some follow-on.

Brian Farran: Yes. He's (Greg Venables who's the Archbishop of the Southern Cone) going to go. And I guess he will be a probable spokesperson for the GAFCON experience. The only Australian bishop that I'm aware of who went to GAFCON and is going to Lambeth is the Bishop of Armidale, Peter Brain. So it will be interesting for the Australian bishops to hear from him directly.

Stephen Crittenden: The BBC the other day was painting Archbishop Jensen almost as a patient reconciler. I wonder whether world Anglicanism perhaps doesn't sufficiently recognise the organisational significance of Sydney in all of this. They don't have quite the experience that people like you have, living right next door.

Brian Farran: Well that's a possibility. I mean we here in Newcastle experience the intrusions of Sydney, although of course they're in one sense, second order intrusions, and they're not actually initiated by the diocese as such. But there are parishes within Sydney that plant churches within the diocese of Newcastle as sort of evangelical beacons, although we do actually have classic evangelical parishes within the diocese. But these are bypassed by these initiatives.

Stephen Crittenden: And would you expect to see that kind of activity increase?

Brian Farran: It could be possible. I don't think it would be initiated necessarily by the Archbishop but I think there are some fairly gung-ho people around and they may take the lead from what's happening through the GAFCON initiatives themselves.

Brian Farran: It could actually degenerate into almost an ecclesial form of consumerism where people for a whole variety of reasons want to choose which bishop they have.

I have often wished we could have episcopal oversight from either Newcastle or Bathurst but, as stated, those bishops being true to the Anglican Church do not believe in such intrusions even though they suffer from them. Perhaps if those people referred to as gung-ho in the Sydney Diocese do become more obvious in their planting, some reverse activity may finally occur.

I hold Peter Jensen in complete contempt and if he were to enter a church where I was worshipping I would walk out or perhaps if he were preaching I could copy the Aborigines and their response to John Howard and stand with my back to him.

Musings on Jensen and Gafcon

I have been following all the discussion on GAFCON but we still do not seem to know what is going on behind closed doors. I am surprised that our local city paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, has gone quiet on the issue, considering our Archbishop, Peter Jensen, seems to have taken the running in preventing Akinola and his mates from making complete fools of themselves. As Jensen is obviously not a fool, I wonder that he has got himself linked up with these thugs. Perhaps he has begun to realise some truths about them. He seems to be backpedalling from making a complete break with the Anglican communion. Is he finally realising that his view of the church is completely different to theirs?
Did he see them in all their liturgical finery?
Did he realise they are really in favour of stoning gays and do not object to the murder of a few moslems?
Or did he mention lay presidency to them over coffee and get a sharp rebuke?

Sydney Diocese has nothing in common with these people except their hatred of homosexuals. Many of the bishops with whom he is fraternising have ordained women to the priesthood, something he regards with horror. He has apparently now stated that GAFCON 'is a coalition of people who would not necessarily work together'. I could have told him that months ago. He has stated it is not possible for the Sydney Diocese to secede from the Australian Province so what is he hoping to achieve?

The talk now is not of a schism but of forming a “church within a church”. This may be okay for conservative parishes within liberal dioceses but what about those of us forced to live and worship within the Diocese of Sydney but feeling completely alienated from it. Will Jensen allow us to form a “church within a church”?
I doubt it.
I have been interested in the discussion on Father Jake's site, that occurred while I was travelling, between my good friend Alcibiades and another person from Sydney who calls himself Obadiah Slope. Having read 'Barchester Chronicles' once and seen the TV series several times, that is not a name I would choose for myself, hardly an example of a godly cleric.
Obadiah seems to think that if wealthy parishes like St James, King Street were able to take their allegiance elsewhere, they would be balanced by evangelical parishes from other dioceses. I cannot imagine Sydney allowing the trade to be both ways.
I am fearful every time an anglo-catholic parish falls vacant. St Luke's Mosman has just had their vacancy filled by Canon Bruce McAteer. He was general secretary of the Australian General Synod but I cannot find anything else about his background. Nearby St Peter's, Cremorne is vacant and they are losing Rev Dr Erica Mathieson who is getting married and is to be inducted into the parish at Hackett (Diocese of Canberra-Goulburn). Sydney born, Erica was priested in Melbourne but I believe had to return to Sydney for family reasons where she has had to work as a deacon in both St Luke's and St Peter's while retired men have been needed to temporarily run the parishes. Good luck to her, Sydney's loss is Canberra's gain.
Now I hear Father James McPherson has moved from St Mark's Granville to Maryborough (where I worshipped last September) in the Diocese of Brisbane. They advertise themselves as the only high church in the Western region of Sydney. Will they remain so?
Obadiah tells me the Sydney bishops want to maintain the few anglo-catholic parishes for those who want to worship in them. St Mark's Granville will be a test.
He refers to St Paul's Burwood in his own local area. That also happens to be the area in which I grew up and worshipped (was also youth leader and occasional preacher in later years) at Holy Trinity Concord West. It was evangelical but Anglican. The rector criticised me for not regularly attending Holy Communion even though I spent most of Sunday at the church but like most young people did not want to get up early. Today their website advertises 'meetings', one is 'traditional' whatever that means. I cannot tell when there is a service of Holy Communion.
My parents were married in St Anne's, Strathfield and my sister wanted to be married there. We therefore attended the Eucharist every sunday for 6 months prior to the wedding and as a 17 year old, it was my first introduction to an anglo-catholic liturgy. My sister still jokes at the look on my face when I was first given a piece of paper (wafer) instead of bread at communion. This church has now joined the ranks of the evangelicals.
I do not know about St Paul's Burwood (I cannot find a website). Nearby St Luke's Concord is special to me as the church where we farewelled my mother. The rector will be retiring in November and I doubt it will remain a moderately high church let alone the centre for meetings of MOW (Movement for the Ordination of Women).

No, I cannot see the Diocese of Sydney allowing liberal and/or anglo-catholic parishes to flourish within its boundaries in exchange for being able to establish elsewhere, history has shown otherwise. I guess I will continue to be ashamed when travelling to say that I am an Anglican from Sydney.
As Father Jake said in the discussion on his blog
What is clear is that the group gathered in Jerusalem is not representative of Anglicanism. Their leaders consist of Abps. who plunder congregations from other Anglican Provinces, speak out against civil rights for Muslims, teach a literal interpretation of scripture, advocate for lay presiders at the Eucharist, and believe the rape and torture of gays and lesbians in their backyards is a cultural matter which is none of their concern.

If this is the future of Anglicanism, I don't want anything to do with it.

Various - mainly gay marriage and Jensen/GAFCON

Now that I am home, there seems little to blog about.  Or rather, the things I want to blog about are already filling other blogs. 

I am so happy about the gay marriages in California and the stand made by Rev Martin Dudley in London by marrying the two male priests. Like another Martin who made a stand and defied authorities in Wittenberg where I was less than 2 weeks ago.  I feel a little wistful reading at the happiness of these people.  I have only had just one relationship which lasted 18 months just over 25 years ago. 

I am also happy to see there are problems in GAFCON or gaffecon.  I could hug the Jordanians for keeping Akinola out.  There was an item in our paper about Jensen setting off for the meeting on the same day I received yet another request for funds from Anglicare  so I finally sent off an email and told them they were wasting their money sending me letters as I would not support any organisation of which he is President. I suggested he give them the money he spends jetting about the world aiming to destroy the Anglican church.  I bet he doesn't fly economy. 

They replied "Whilst ANGLICARE regret your decision to discontinue donation we nevertheless remain steadfast in support of our President and Chairman, Dr Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney" 

which only confirms my decision.  I guess this was pointed at my referring to him as just Peter Jensen. The only titles I feel like giving him these days are unprintable. 

However, in case any of you have not visited Father Jake recently please read the article in Newsweek  Let Me Worship as I am

As far as I am concerned, it says it all.

Bishops in New South Wales

I know overseas Anglicans are often confused when they hear that Peter Jensen is Archbishop of Sydney. In Australia the title Archbishop is given to the Bishop of the State Capital Cities. The Archbishop does not have any jurisdiction over the other dioceses within the state. He is usually present at the consecration of any of the regional bishops which may prove interesting if any of the NSW dioceses elects a woman as their bishop.
The Primate of Australia is elected by General Synod and is usually but not necessarily one of the Archbishops. At the moment it is ++Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane.
Canberra became the national capital in 1927 and prior to its choice was not much more than a rural sheep station. It was located in the then Diocese of Goulburn which became the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn in 1950. The cathedral is in Gouburn but the administrative offices are in Canberra which is now much larger. It could be argued that there should be an Archbishop seated there.
I was glad to read in not too much a statement by the recently retired Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn +George Browning. The position is currently vacant (a woman anyone ;-)
"I want for a moment to turn to our own Anglican Communion. It is a very sad, and a sorry state of affairs, that we could be moving towards a loosening of the ties of friendship and fellowship between us, because of the insistence by some that we be committed to the law of Moses "unremembered", a commitment that apparently does not appreciate, or understand, that it is be understood and fulfilled in the life of Jesus.

Let me be quite specific. Of course homosexuality is a contentious issue in the community at large, and in the community of faith. Of course the issue is understood differently in different cultures across the world. Rightly, or wrongly, the Anglican Church of Australia, holds the position of the last Lambeth conference, a conservative position in relation to those who can be ordained and in the matter of the blessing of same sex unions.

In the light of all of this, it is incomprehensible, and I believe inexcusable, that the Archbishop of Sydney should be one of those in the forefront of anticipating division within the Anglican Communion, and has gone on public record as one who is sponsoring the proposed "alternative Lambeth" in Jerusalem in the middle of this year.

He is reported to have said the matter is much more serious than simply a matter of sexuality; it goes to the heart of the authority of scripture itself. On this I absolutely agree. It does go to the heart of scripture itself. But read the scripture: the Law of Moses is to be remembered in the light of the revelation of nature of God in Jesus.

I say to Peter Akinola and Peter Jensen, "Come with me and the Church to the Damascus Rd, come and be confronted by the voice of the Living One, the one who walks on the water and raises the dead. Come with me into the presence of the one who re-members the Law of Moses, and offers it as a tool of life, not a weapon of exclusion and death." I have written to Archbishop Peter Jensen urging him to reconsider his proposal. He has absolutely no right to impose his agenda without consultation upon the Church in the Middle East, and if he is genuine about a debate on scripture, let us have it, for I am one who rejoices in the knowledge that all scripture is to be exposed on the anvil of revelation, which is Jesus Christ."

I have already referred to the statement by + Brian Farran of Newcastle (NSW) I wrote a thank you note on the Diocesan Forum
This has now had a lengthy addition from Sandy Grant, St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong which seems to equate committed homosexual relationships with the sexual activities of the Woman taken in adultery????
Thankfully +Brian Farran has replied including:
"For me the fundamental issue in this whole matter was the need for another voice. Up to the time of my releasing my statement the only voice that Australians and international Anglicans were hearing was that of the Archbishop of Sydney. Obviously within the broad spectrum of the Anglican Church of Australia there are dissenting voices from that of Dr. Jensen. I patiently waited for others to contribute but with nothing forthcoming I decided on advice from others to make my statement.

After reading your letter carefully several times it becomes evident that you conclude that the only authentic view is your own. This applies to your exegesis of texts that you offer in regard to your understanding of the doctrine of the atonement."
"the only authentic view is your own "sounds familiar when reading the views of the typical Jensenite
The only other regional bishop whose views I can find are those of Bishop Peter Brain of Armidale who was trained at Moore Theological College but has also criticised the decision of the Sydney bishops to boycott Lambeth.

Gafcon?

How wonderful. Gafcon is a construction company in Southern California and "Gafcon ranks #12 on the San Diego Business Journal's Women-Owned Business list".