tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post8741059484029966652..comments2024-03-29T17:55:30.203+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: Moving on but not away from Lambeth 2022Peter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-34002862294999987012022-08-22T07:47:15.316+12:002022-08-22T07:47:15.316+12:00Postscript
A few times lately, + Peter has mentio...Postscript<br /><br />A few times lately, + Peter has mentioned meeting conservative bishops from TEC. Of course he did!<br /><br />TEC is not liberal. Although thin on the ground, it's so diverse, decentralised, and expansive as to be a communion in itself. So here and there we find pockets of this and that. When Episcopalians are liberal, they can be very liberal. When conservative, they can be very, very conservative.<br /><br />Outbreaks of angst about something done up here have come most quickly to minds that set their expectations for Communion members around oh The Church of Wales. A true national church comparable to say The Church of Sweden or The Church of Greece where everybody is willing to accept the consensus that emerges from their one conversation about a shared tradition facing common local problems. <br /><br />TEC has never been that. It reflects the kaleidoscope of the American experience. A controversial General Convention vote does not so much declare the deep consensus of a united body as remove a restriction on some pesky group that is violating it anyway. <br /><br />The drum-beating for *eucharist without baptism* up here is a case in point. The proponents say that they are already doing it. Their diocesan canons already permit what the national canons forbid. They just don't want to be in violation of a national canon when they do what they do. Since they have to attend the General Convention anyway, they may as well lobby for change. So, convention after convention, they wear down the resistance of the rest of the dioceses. If they succeed, this will not stop *baptism before eucharist* anywhere. It will pound another nail in the coffin of national norms. Some care, some don't.<br /><br />But then, the eucharists that I attended in my first year of university were in Latin. On the ground, the Episcopalian chaplaincy-- in evangelical Southern Virginia of all dioceses-- was celebrating *ad orientem* in the Use of Sarum, whilst the Catholic one was slide shows and folk songs with microphones in a hall. The canon law rationale was that the site was both a *royal peculiar* and a *collegiate chapel* in which Latin was therefore doubly permitted by the pertinent canons. That there was a canon law rationale, never mind that one, was nearly as startling a *ressourcement* as the rite. <br /><br />The takeaway here is not so much an evaluation of TEC-- what would be the point?-- as a clarification that persons and places vary-- temperamentally, developmentally, and so involuntarily-- in the degree of cohesion that they expect in a church. Not only are those expectations often behind their initial judgments about this or that beating of drums, but travellers may change their minds when they hear the drumbeat again in settings that are more wild or civil. <br /><br />Which is to say that *wild* and *civil* cut across many senses of *conservative* and *liberal*. But that is a topic for another day.<br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-28097923696465439952022-08-21T20:33:45.065+12:002022-08-21T20:33:45.065+12:00Hi Mark.
"What is a *Christian* vision for s...Hi Mark.<br /><br />"What is a *Christian* vision for same-sex marriage? I.e. How would that differ from a "state" (secular political) one?"<br /><br />As it is 3 am here, I am skipping the salient story of why and how, after millennia of family ceremonies, churches took charge of weddings in the C10-13, thereby blundering into the question whether the legal procedure, when done in a church, was then also in some sense a sacrament. <br /><br />The state sees rights and property arranged so that two people are a sort of legal corporation. The human community sees pairbonding, which happens among mammals generally. Protestant churches, defending against a view that celibacy is the preferred state of life, have had a vision of MWM as *condition of life* (39A) that is as much a school of virtue as a monastery. Which is substantively the argument for SSM.<br /><br />"why these schismatic movements in the US, NZ, and now Oz over homosexuality, when everyone stayed together when the resurrection of Jesus was being shaken?"<br /><br />Up here, everyone didn't stay together. Schisms that now belong to ACNA have been splitting from TEC since the early C19. <br /><br />In this latest episode, TEC had fairly conservative leadership at the top even as John's high liberalism was roiling some seminaries and dioceses below it. In those years, schism would have been surrendering when conservatives had the high ground. Why would they do that?<br /><br />For example, the Virginia Theological Seminary outside Washington was split between its traditional evangelicalism and the liberalism that began to influence the three Virginia dioceses in the 1930s. The truce kept an uneasy peace by allowing each side to control certain appointments in the faculty. But some nevertheless began to plan for a future outside TEC.<br /><br />When TEC suddenly had liberal leaders, they promoted the ordination of women. Since Anglicans care about orders even more than they care about sex, quixotic bishops from overseas consecrated rogue bishops for the hodge podge known as the Continuum to save the succession in North America. <br /><br />Meanwhile, at VTS, liberals voted against tenure for the evangelical nominee in Church History. That violated the truce that had kept the peace. Evangelicals on the faculty quietly laid plans for a new independent seminary outside Pittsburgh, the Trinity School for Ministry. Trinity is now a seminary for ACNA.<br /><br />So when GAFCON and the GSFA formed, something more ambitious than just another schism was already beginning to coalesce from the swirling dust up here. After some false starts, a symbiotic relationship developed among GAFCON, the GSFA, and ACNA. Now that relationship is the template for entryism down under.<br /><br />Conservatives used to pound tables demanding that something be done about a certain Virginia liberal named John Spong, eventually Bishop of Newark. Now we know that those playing the long game had responded to such "high liberals," as our John calls them, by building the new institutions and relationships that eventually made the ACNA possible.<br /><br />Homosexuality? It was useful as a *casus bellum* that lay people on all continents could understand. It could easily be tied to the favourite topic of Anglican clergy, holy orders. But even if That Topic had somehow cooled off, I still think the reaction set in motion by excesses of the 1960s-70s would have resulted in something like ACNA. <br /><br />BW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-21124157223673352062022-08-21T20:08:33.484+12:002022-08-21T20:08:33.484+12:00Thanks Peter. That helps.
Presumably a traditiona...Thanks Peter. That helps.<br /><br />Presumably a traditionalist group could have asked synod (like Global South asked Lambeth) etc to confirm that the full resurrection of Christ's body is an essential part of Christian doctrine. Maybe that happened? <br /><br />And as far as I understand nothing has changed to the....what do we say, "statutes"....of the AC in Aotearoa and Polynesia, and yet we have a schismatic group. That's the case in Oz too, isn't it? <br /><br />Is it specified, and where in our church...constitution? Prayer Book?...that Christian ministers need to be heterosexual, that civil unions can't be blessed, that marriage is between a man and a woman? <br />Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-9134594805540109622022-08-21T18:57:29.488+12:002022-08-21T18:57:29.488+12:00Hi Mark,
The answer to your question often goes so...Hi Mark,<br />The answer to your question often goes something like this:<br />When bishops were questioning the resurrection, no general synod or convention actually backed them up by changing the creeds (or omitting them) or othewise promulgating change to doctrine in constitutional or liturgical statements.<br />Now, has come an issue on which (it is argued) Scripture is clear (like with the resurrection) but nevertheless general synods/conventions have made a change (in fact, or, it is argued) to doctrine, and thus a line has been crossed (against the authority of Scripture) which was never crossed previously.<br />Questions still arise (e.g.) what change has actually occurred (so, for instance, changes in TEC/Scotland are different to changes in ACANZP/Australia); and whether there is a need to respond to such change via disaffiliation; and whether or not sufficient protection exists in each province for those whose conscience theologically differs from the promulgated change.<br />Clearly those who disaffiliate think there is either good reason to leave or insufficient protection should they stay or both.<br />Yet, I found I could go to Lambeth and find conservative TEC bishops who had not felt the need to leave … and bishops from Australia with similar convictions to Sydney bishops but feeling they should be at Lambeth rather than staying away.<br />We live in interesting times!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-21938929763867776532022-08-21T18:55:40.797+12:002022-08-21T18:55:40.797+12:00Can I suggest a starting point:
The intimate, com...Can I suggest a starting point:<br /><br />The intimate, committed relationship (between two same-sex people) becomes a way of knowing, embodying, and birthing Christ's love and presence in the world. Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-6618124068939045972022-08-21T17:56:15.517+12:002022-08-21T17:56:15.517+12:00Thanks John. I enjoyed the article by Lance, thoug...Thanks John. I enjoyed the article by Lance, though I had to ignore the line that "western provinces of the Anglican Communion are in need of reform in favour of (re)submission to the supreme authority of Holy Scripture" (ugh! - death to the Paper Pope!) and just keep reading for the good bits. <br /><br />Good to hear him raising this issue. So what is the answer....Peter, John, Bowman, Archbishop Tempier: why these schismatic movements in the US, NZ, and now Oz over homosexuality, when everyone stayed together when the resurrection of Jesus was being shaken? If no one is able to enlighten me differently, I'm sticking with sexual repression and primitive scapegoating. <br />Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-27145480641138485612022-08-21T17:38:21.063+12:002022-08-21T17:38:21.063+12:00In response Bowman, the question that has yet been...In response Bowman, the question that has yet been fully spoken to, at least in this ADU thread, is: <br /><br />What is a *Christian* vision for same-sex marriage? I.e. How would that differ from a "state" (secular political) one?Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-70574249878941748972022-08-21T17:17:24.529+12:002022-08-21T17:17:24.529+12:00John said "The moment of high liberalism has ...John said "The moment of high liberalism has passed but, yes the resurrection might be a much better place to make a stand. At his first media conference as Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen attempted to make it central; "I stake my life on the resurrection of Christ."<br /><br />I guess most Anglicans believe in the Resurrection of Christ. The thing is, what do you do about it?<br /><br />Do you actively split away from your parent Church in the Body of Christ because you doubt the will of God to redeem those who, leading lives of prayer, sacramental fellowship with others in Christ, and personal reflection, think differently from you on how the interpret the scriptures? If the Death and Resurrection of Jesus means anything it means that, by his death and resurrection Christ has redeemed the world. <br /><br />Is it the task of any Church Leader to deny anyone that free gift of our Creator? Does not judgement belong to God alone? And did not Jesus say that 'God alone is Good? How can we set ourselves up as paragons of virtue; rather than as poor beggars showing other showing other beggars where to find Bread? (Jesu, Mercy; Mary, Pray for us sinnners).Father Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-40898160383223038202022-08-21T16:23:29.146+12:002022-08-21T16:23:29.146+12:00William, Bathurst's main debt was over loans t...William, Bathurst's main debt was over loans taken out to set up schools in Dubbo and Orange. the diocese has now sold all of its schools. there were smaller but still substantial payments for sexual abuse. The diocese attempted to repudiate the debt and lost a court case that should never have been brought. At present, the Diocese of Sydney is funding Bathurst's bishop and diocesan registry. Bishop Mark Calder is making a good job of rebuilding the diocese and has just moved past the halfway mark in finding ministers for a pile of vacant parishes, and the people of the diocese can rejoice in that.John Sandemanhttp://www.theothercheek.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-41423380615385565032022-08-21T11:44:11.992+12:002022-08-21T11:44:11.992+12:00From a current project, I have digressed to pay un...From a current project, I have digressed to pay unexpected attention to Stephen Tempier, the archbishop of Paris who on 7th March 1277 famously condemned 219 propositions being debated there. Were he alive today, he might condemn propositions like these--<br /><br />There is no difference between the ethic proper to a disciple of Jesus and the ethic proper to a good citizen.<br /><br />Thinking with the church is agreement with propositions that it approves. <br /><br />Thinking with the church is improvising as a character in the story begun in the scriptures.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Justice is a characteristic virtue of churches and higher than faith, hope, and love.<br /><br />The more uncompromisingly a church pursues justice the more truly churchly it is.<br /><br />The whole truth of every social institution is the testimony of those who resent it.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Churches exist to change the world around them.<br /><br />Churches have no inner life of their own that is not for the sake of the world.<br /><br />Churches are civic institutions with distinct brands of ritual.<br /><br />Individuals may have a mystical life in the Son, but a community in the Body cannot.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Science is a characteristic activity of churches and higher than baptism, eucharist, and penance.<br /><br />In the human sciences, consensus emerges simply, swiftly, and self-evidently when the church’s need for it arises.<br /><br />Once scientific consensus has emerged in the human sciences, believers are obliged to accept it.<br /><br />While scientific consensus has not been reached, believers are obliged to accept by faith what the church declares to be known by reason.<br /><br />In a tension between scientific consensus and the *consensus fidelium*, the former always corrects the latter.<br /><br />If any say that science is an all too human activity that only advances one funeral at a time, let them be anathema.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Churches of the past sinned in not anticipating the superior knowledge and mores of the present.<br /><br />God has undeniably revealed that each marriage ends with the death of a spouse.<br /><br />God has undeniably revealed that St Paul erred in commending celibacy.<br /><br />The church cannot possibly have a call from God to promote celibacy.<br /><br />Because God wills that sex be a strictly individual matter, the social and economic effects of non-procreation are not important to the church.<br /><br />Spiritually, sex is the same in all from puberty to death.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Case studies show that no part of the knowledge of God is influenced by the example of a father.<br /><br />In God’s sight, a man who impregnates a woman has the same responsibility to her that he would have to a man that he similarly loved.<br /><br />To God, a child born from purchased sperm has no relationship with the seller and vice versa.<br /><br />God sets no limit to the influence that parents may exert on the the genetics and epigenetics of their descendants.<br /><br />*<br /><br />God has said nothing to men about women and nothing to women about men.<br /><br />Christ on the cross did not reconcile women to men or vice versa.<br /><br />God is indifferent to concord and discord between the sexes, whether in churches or in societies.<br /><br />Everything awry in human sexuality is reparable in the present aeon without divine assistance .<br /><br />God has revealed that nothing in human sexuality is tragic or evil.<br /><br />A church that does no weddings is is no church at all.<br /><br />*<br /><br />BTW, any time-traveling readers who happen to be debating these in C13 Paris have a week to ask the archbishop or his chancellor for a penance. After that, excommunication. <br /><br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-77417886035121613832022-08-21T10:21:00.170+12:002022-08-21T10:21:00.170+12:00Correction: I confused Ballarat, Victoria, with Ba...Correction: I confused Ballarat, Victoria, with Bathurst, NSW <br />Australia is a big place!<br /><br />Pax et bonum, <br />William Greenhalgh Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-13504319798529112972022-08-21T09:56:23.077+12:002022-08-21T09:56:23.077+12:00John: yes, this outside observer was aware (mainly...John: yes, this outside observer was aware (mainly through David Ould's blog) that Australian Anglicanism is a "complicated beast", in origin I suppose because of the articles of confederation. Is it correct that about a third of all Australian Anglicans live in Sydney Diocese? <br />What about Ballarat? An English Anglo-Catholic David Silk was bishop there some years ago; he is now retired somewhere in England and has been ordained in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I think I read somewhere that Ballarat got deep into debt over liability for sexual abuse cases, and buildings had to be sold. It must be devastating to be an Anglican there and know that your hard earned giving has been swallowed up in criminal liability because a bishop didn't do his job properly. But that is a reality Catholics in Pennsylvania and Milwaukee (under Rembert Weakland) know only too well,<br />BW: I am glad you agree with me that deposing a thousand TEC ministers (retrospectively laicizing them ab initio, as if they had never been ordained in TEC) amounted to theft of income owed to their pensionable service. In most places in the world this would be illegal. I have heard that in some circumstances in America you can lose your pension but that is a basic injustice.<br /><br />Pax et bonum<br />William Greenhalgh Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-41354141624767828592022-08-21T09:51:05.325+12:002022-08-21T09:51:05.325+12:00"What sort of message does that send the LGBT..."What sort of message does that send the LGBTQ community if not one of obsessive contempt and disgust?'<br />An excellent question and one that deserves more than a brief response here. <br /><br />At the risk of being one of those persons who lands in a comment thread only to advise people to go elsewhere on the web, that is the concern of one of the guest writers on www.theothercheek.com.au Why put the LGBTQIA people at the centre of our Anglican controversy when logically we could have divided (if we had a mind to) over belief or otherwise in the resurrection?<br /><br />That's a beginning of an answer to Mark's question. I believe that the Gafcoin movement now has a responsibility of speaking up for the human dignity of LGBTQIA persons in the face of draconian legislation in Africa. That won't go as far as mark argues in terms of life in the church. But it could make a difference to lots of people.<br /><br />The moment of high liberalism has passed but, yes the resurrection might be a much better place to make a stand. At his first media conference as Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen attempted to make it central; "I stake my life on the resurrection of Christ." John Sandemanhttp://www.theothetcheek.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-44734219101733150992022-08-21T09:26:49.451+12:002022-08-21T09:26:49.451+12:00SAPERE AUDE
"Enlightenment is not being afra...SAPERE AUDE<br /><br />"Enlightenment is not being afraid to know anything."<br /><br />--Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment?<br /><br /><br />"rather than being opposed to the view itself, which I still don't understand why you find so...unreasonable?"<br /><br />Debates like the one over That Topic are polarised in that those at each pole assume things that those at the others do not. Often, they do not see which of their own ideas are load-bearing assumptions, nor that these assumptions are not data. If they do see all that, they often cannot "give an account" explaining why they believe them. When they try, they often speak in language that lacks traction with reality that others see. <br /><br />Few do the obviously persuasive thing: leave the bubble to engage others on common ground and work to expand it until others can see that it has finally included the bubble itself. Why are those at the poles such bubble-dwellers? It's just easier to believe that others have a burden to prove you wrong on your chosen high ground. And the human animal is very comfortable with tribal warfare.<br /><br />The poles' understandings of others' positions is not better. They pay attention to what shocks them rather than to the fabric of others' ideas. They especially fail to distinguish positions between the poles from the poles themselves. So, as a centrist with broad sympathies, poor + Peter is read as a conservative by liberals and as a liberal by conservatives. <br /><br />So a reasonable, independent thinker who wants the truth might filter out the axioms at all poles, coolly reality check each of them outside its protective bubble, note anything else important that no pole cares about, synthesize a rough draft of the truth, and finally seek criticism of it from a diverse group. <br /><br />Two or more such thinkers will not replicate each others' results. But they are likely to see their disagreements with a clarity and charity that those at the poles lack. In that way, their rough drafts better serve the Body of Christ than the ineffable perfection in which each alienated pole believes. There is no higher good than to serve Christ for his own sake.<br /><br /><br />BW<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-77484441930974108632022-08-21T07:51:40.969+12:002022-08-21T07:51:40.969+12:00So John I think you're saying you object to Ru...So John I think you're saying you object to Russell's view being "imposed" (?) on the rest of the church, by blocking certain bishop appointments etc,<br /><br />rather than being opposed to the view itself, which I still don't understand why you find so...unreasonable? <br /><br />For my part, I really struggle to understand the "conservative" view of 'pastoral care' for LGBTQ people, which purports to treat them with love and respect while basically saying that homosexuals are intrinsically disordered, abnormal, sub-par, etc. <br /><br />So I don't get how Lambeth can both affirm the need to uphold the human dignity of LGBTQ people with one hand, while denying rainbow christians full participation in the life of the communion and the church - or more extreme, actively preach that homosexuality is "sinful" (cue the politics of hate and violence).<br /><br />The Diocese of the Southern Cross *looks like*: while we could stay together and find a way to keep talking over such differences as the resurrection of the body, over this central salvation issue of whether homosexuals ate intrinsically disordered or not we must certainly disagree and part company. What sort of message does that send the LGBTQ community if not one of obsessive contempt and disgust?<br />Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-9117739271677648242022-08-21T07:02:33.109+12:002022-08-21T07:02:33.109+12:00"From Judas Iscariot to the present day, the ..."From Judas Iscariot to the present day, the doctrine of the Church is money, money, money, and don't you forget it."<br /><br />-- attributed to Gerald Bray<br /><br />"Draw up a little list, like Richard Nixon? Depose them from the ministry, perhaps? This is what happened to about 1000 clergy in the American Episcopal Church..."<br /><br />Not quite.<br /><br />Back in the day, various bishops of TEC probably did depose somewhere around 1000 priests who acknowledged diverse problems of conscience over matters ranging from synod resolutions through the ordination of women to the ordination of homosexuals. Usually, priests had sought to relieve their problem by getting a new job as pastor in another denomination (eg an ecumenical partner, a TEC-adjacent schism) or as a chaplain (eg for a school, hospital, prison, hospice, etc.). Bishops officially learned of their priests' qualms in the meeting required when employment status changes.<br /><br />Humanly, any employer that intentionally changes its *ethos* necessarily poses *ethical* problems for its professionals. The change may be the best reasonable decision for the business, but its staff will still have to discern whether and how they can fit into the ongoing work. This discernment is emphatically not about their credentialed profession, and not necessarily about the firm or its work. It is about the subtler alignment of self with God's purposes that Protestants call "vocation." Discerning that takes time.<br /><br />So why did TEC's bishops *depose* priests with doubts or objections to particular changes? They could have just approved the end of their contracts and kept them on the roll just as they did other clergy who were retired, teaching, chaplains, etc. <br /><br />Among so many cases in a number of dioceses, the facts and so the decisions must vary. But in every case, deposing a priest cancelled his pension eligibility. <br /><br />Actuarially, an unplanned surge of pension claims is a problem, and a sudden drop in the number of payers who will eventually receive the pensions they have been buying is a big opportunity. Administrators for any pension fund have a duty to inform planholders of the anticipated effects of workforce changes on the fund. These advised bishops that it would better to depose rather than dismiss. <br /><br />The list was compiled and counted years later for ACNA's Foley Beach. Beach presented both at + + Justin's first Lambeth Conference, and TEC's Michael Curry listened nearby without contesting either the story told or the number allegedly deposed. That, and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, confirms that this did happen.<br /><br />Offhand, I cannot think of an ethical framework in which this is not theft. And awkwardly, ordinaries who signed off on this seem not to have believed what we teach about Anglican holy orders. But it was not quite the jacobin ideological purge of later legend. <br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51075217397438270802022-08-21T06:59:23.968+12:002022-08-21T06:59:23.968+12:00Dear John
What an excellent blog - thank you!
I li...Dear John<br />What an excellent blog - thank you!<br />I liked your post on the LC itself - someone not there who understands the nuances of what happened :)Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-22750715413685821702022-08-21T00:23:05.229+12:002022-08-21T00:23:05.229+12:00William, the Anglican Church ofAustralia is a comp...William, the Anglican Church ofAustralia is a complicated beast. There are dioceses well within the evangelical camp like Sydney, Armidale, Norh West Australia and several others steadily growing more conservative. Then there are progressive dioceses like Southern Queensland, Perth, Newcastle and Wangaratta. And in the middle I would place Melbourne andCan era Goulburn though they are possibly tipping conservative.i believe the middle ground position is shrinking rapidly. when the former Primate Phillip Freier of Melbourne attempted to move a “let’s keep talking motion at General Synod it got little support. But just maybe Bishops like Peter will show how it can be done.<br />If you go to my blog I have put up some divergent views from evangelicals http://www.theothercheek.com.auJohn Sandemanhttp://www.theothercheek.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-5022989976361441542022-08-20T22:06:30.004+12:002022-08-20T22:06:30.004+12:00Dear William
I am publishing your most recent comm...Dear William<br />I am publishing your most recent comment minus your remarks about recent troubles in the Newcastle Diocese. I am doing this because I do not have time to check the accuracy of what you say and because it is something of a swipe against that Diocese that may or may not have any connection with the request of +Stuart re his clergy’s allegiances (a quite reasonable request in my view since it is fair to ask whether those in governance of one organisation are involved in another, rival organisation.<br />Peter<br /><br />COMMENT<br />John Sandeman raises some interesting questions about directions in Australian Anglicanism and whether there really is an "agree to disagree" position.<br />I rather suspect there isn't, having read a report from Sydney vicar David Ould that Dr Peter Stuart, the Anglican Bishop of Newcastle (NSW), has written to all his clergy demanding to know whether they are members of GAFCON or attended the recent GAFCON conference in Canberra at which the new Diocese of the Southern Cross was launched under the leadership of the former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies. Bishop Stuart does seem to be rattled by this new development, hence his letter.<br />If they do reply to the bishop, I wonder what he plans to do. Draw up a little list, like Richard Nixon? Depose them from the ministry, perhaps? This is what happened to about 1000 clergy in the American Episcopal Church (some were subsequently ordained as Catholic priests), and it explains why TEC is overwhelmingly liberal/progressive outside places like Texas and Florida. Those clergy who were deposed had their clergy pensions drastically cut retroactively: they were treated as if they had never been ordained. How unjust is that?<br />[omitted words re Newcstle Diocese] <br /><br />Pax et bonum,<br />William GreenhalghPeter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-11910439383170277272022-08-20T22:06:22.740+12:002022-08-20T22:06:22.740+12:00For perspective, Susan Russell is a priest attache...For perspective, Susan Russell is a priest attached to a parish in California. <br /><br />Her specialty has long been and still is LGBTQ ministry. <br /><br />The parish is in Pasadena outside Los Angeles. <br /><br />https://allsaints-pas.org/members/susan-russell/<br /><br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-61525914004105701002022-08-20T17:46:29.683+12:002022-08-20T17:46:29.683+12:00If Charlie Holt runs again for bishop in Florida -...If Charlie Holt runs again for bishop in Florida - as it looks like there will be a fresh election – and the diocese elects him, we will have a test case of whether TEC dioceses' standing committees will assent to a conservative bishop. The view expressed by Russell that only an affirming church can be God's Church for God's World is not one that truly accepts theological diversity on human sexuality IMHO. Let's wait and see what happens.John Sandemanhttp://www.theothetcheek.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-43222885733384592502022-08-20T16:43:50.521+12:002022-08-20T16:43:50.521+12:00“We cannot live into the aspiration to be God'...<br />“We cannot live into the aspiration to be God's Church for God's World unless and until we repent of the sin of heterosexism and both recognise and celebrate God's LGBTQ beloved who are part of God's World and entitled to a full and equal claim on the love, care and pastoral support of God's Church offered every other member of our human family.” (Susan Russell). <br /><br />Hi John, so what’s so controversial about this view? “Heterosexism” here isn’t implying that it is in any way wrong to be straight, just harmful to continually project that as everyone’s experience and build ideas of normality (and natural law) around this. That clearly is inaccurate and encourages the demeaning of one group of people as abnormal, sub-standard, below par etc. Its a slippery slope into a dark, ugly sea...<br /><br />This is also, as I understand it, the view of one bishop. Bowman might be able to contextualize this more. <br /><br />I don’t think that having a culture of diversity where many views are accepted and heard means that Christians/priests/bishops should be neutral and bland, God help us!<br />Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-7593500611823515172022-08-20T15:42:47.451+12:002022-08-20T15:42:47.451+12:00It was wonderful, John, to meet three TEC bishops ...It was wonderful, John, to meet three TEC bishops who are, shall we say, in the opposite camp to Susan Russell.<br />And, from memory, some 8 TEC bishops signed up to the Global South letter.<br />I realised that there is at least a shade more diversity in TEC than I had thought to be the case.<br />(This is an observation; it makes no particular difference to your comment’s concerns.)Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-91449847758703686212022-08-20T15:02:03.191+12:002022-08-20T15:02:03.191+12:00Without making any prediction of what might happen...Without making any prediction of what might happen on the south, north or west Islands I have watched the slow victory of the progressives in TEC. To take one of the most articulate progressives as an example Susan Russell and the "Integrity" lobby group called "Claiming the blessing', described as a compromise position of allowing blessings as an option back in the 2000s. <br />Here's a more recent comment post-Lambeth. "We cannot live into the aspiration to be God's Church for God's World unless and until we repent of the sin of heterosexism and both recognise and celebrate God's LGBTQ beloved who are part of God's World and entitled to a full and equal claim on the love, care and pastoral support of God's Church offered every other member of our human family.“ Over time as the conservative side of TEC has grown weaker, partly by defections, a more absolutist position has emerged on the left.<br />On the side of this Anglican Downunder website, Peter has among other "pearls" the john Neuhaus quote "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." I believe we are close to having the conservative view on human sexuality proscribed in TEC. <br />In fairness to progressives, once a justice argument is raised, it is hard to see how they can compromise on it.<br />Of the three categories in this discussion "Conservative," "progressive," and let's agree to disagree" I believe the third is shrinking on the west island. Peter's valiant campaign in the eastern archipelago to maintain room for both views will be fascinating to watch. I am no prophet - on this or actually anything else. <br /><br />John NeuhausJohn Sandemanhttp://www.theothercheek.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-37045821498178914412022-08-20T13:22:40.233+12:002022-08-20T13:22:40.233+12:00I guess, Dear Bishop Peter, that this was what you...I guess, Dear Bishop Peter, that this was what you experienced at Lambeth: -<br /><br />SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2022<br /><br />“To pray together, to help one another, to share life stories, common joys and struggles: this is what opens the door to the reconciling work of God.”<br />Pope Francis<br /><br />This is why a determined resistance to communing together can be so destructive - and on what grounds? our own righteousness? Dear Lord have mercy on us all. <br /> Father Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.com