Anglican Mainstream

A public notice of a demonstration against the Bishop of Rochester has been circulated (see below).

The Bishop of Rochester has responded.

An IDAHO Day demo will be held outside Rochester Cathedral, Medway, Kent from 1200-1300 hrs. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, has fairly regularly spoken out against LGBT rights. Late last year he spoke against civil partnerships and child adoption by gay couples. He has since apparently decided not to attend the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, due to be held in Canterbury (University site) in July/August 2008. Mainly it appears due to the gay issue and the position of Bishop Gene Robinson. Bishop Robinson is coming to the conference anyway and we will be challenging the Bishop of Rochester to stay in the UK an go and meet with and talk to Gene in Canterbury.

Further, the Bishop of Rochester has himself suffered and complained about abuse and even death threats because he converted from Islam to Christianity.  Since he now knows exactly what such hatred is like, we will be asking why he still feels unable to make common cause with groups such as LGBT people who have are still suffering the same merely because of our sexuality including regularly from religionists.  The Bishop can change his religion but, just as he cannot change his skin colour, we cannot change our sexuality. Neither he nor us, nor indeed anyone; should have to uffer abuse, threats or attacks because of such things. All will be welcome to join us whether LGBT or straight friends on the day. The gay run pub The Ship in Rochester High St- a few hundred yards away should be open for refreshments also. PLEASE NOTE THE EMAIL ADDRESS IS FOR USE WITH THIS DEMO ONLY.

Statement regarding the demonstration on 17 May 2008

I acknowledge and respect the equal dignity of all - regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.  There is no place for the harassment or persecution of anyone for whatever reason.

We are thankful that in this country there is freedom of meeting and expression for all.

The Bible and the Church teach that the proper expression of our sexuality is in the context of marriage. This has to do with God’s purposes in creating us, respect for persons and the importance of the family as a basic unit of society.

+Michael Roffen:
 

By David Virtue, Virtueonline

There are now two very distinct understandings of the Christian Faith at work both in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, especially in the US and Canada, as well as in New Zealand, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. They can best be summed up as orthodox, faithful, biblical, evangelical, Anglo-Catholic on the one hand, and liberal, revisionist and/or progressive (a relatively new word) on the other.

The progressive view was echoed this week by George Pitcher, the new Religion Editor of London’s "Daily Telegraph", in an opinion piece where he argues that the Church of England isn’t dying…it just needs to evolve."This is not a charter for trendy, relevant vicars. But at the risk of summoning discredited spirits, there must be a third way. It’s part of the Church’s genius that it evolves contextually in our society while maintaining eternal constants. It needs to meet its new-millennial people where they are, rather than where they used to be. It needs to redevelop the pluralistic and tolerant voice that has been at the heart of Anglicanism at its best," he writes.

He describes as "knee jerk" those who call for disestablishment. "These people will see an apparently dying Church of England and renew calls for its disestablishment. What is the point, they ask, of having a national Church, with the Queen at its head, with Bishops Spiritual sitting in the legislature, when the institution is shrinking to little more than a minority cult, a weekend pastime for those too dysfunctional to take up Pilates?"

He goes on to explain that fewer than one million attend church on Sunday; that figure has fallen, but it’s still twice as many as attend all football matches on Saturday. About 1.7 million worshippers attend a church in any given month, an actual headcount (not an estimation) that has been unaltered since 2001.

Mr. Pitcher’s solution to a dying church is to redevelop a "pluralistic and tolerant voice".

Such writing is the stuff of fiction and ignores the elephant in the sanctuary, which is that if you don’t have a message of deep and profound change that is significantly different from what is found in the Times, The Telegraph or the Independent. Why then would one possibly want to get out of bed on Sunday morning and listen to some trendy vicar dish up the kind of wishy-washy sermons from the likes of the Rev. Nickie Henderson of the Modern *Church* People’s *Union* (MCU) and wannabee African bishop, who gives sleep-walking a good name!

Mr. Pitcher, in his Op-Ed piece, failed to mention the significant work of ALPHA and Christianity Explored, over the past few years, that is bringing people back to the basics of the "faith once delivered" and restoring some life to a dying institution. The kind of liberal "pluralist and tolerant" pabulum offered by Pitcher is precisely why the Church of England is dying, not growing.

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From LifeSite News

LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today the California Supreme Court imposed, through judicial fiat, so-called same-sex marriage on Californians, thus totally disregarding the sanctity of marriage and the will of the people. In 2000, Californians adopted Proposition 22 to protect marriage and maintain its definition as a union between one man and one woman, and expressly prohibiting the state from recognizing same sex marriages.

To ensure that marriage is protected and the voice of the people is heard, a constitutional marriage amendment must be placed on the November ballot and national efforts need to be made to generate a federal constitutional marriage amendment. The decision must be removed from the hands of judicial activists and returned to the rightful hands of the people.

This seemingly undemocratic ruling has gravely concerned many prominent members of several family groups across the country. Karen England, executive director for Capitol Resource Institute, stated "The people of California decided eight years ago that marriage in our state will be defined as between one man and one woman. Four arrogant, elitist, activist judges decided that they know better than the people how marriage should be defined."

Ron Prentice, the executive director of California Family Council, warns of the contempt this ruling shows towards democracy, "This shocking decision is a wake-up call for the majority of California’s citizens, whose votes have been rendered worthless by the Supreme Court’s disregard for the democratic system."

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From LifeSite News

BOSTON, May 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) The now annual Massachusetts Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Youth Parade was highlighted this year by fully sanctioned participation by a variety of school groups. Children encouraged to display homosexual acts on camera to be posted to the group’s website, a gay prom at Boston City Hall and the distribution a variety of information pamphlets homosexualizing Christianity.

Titles of the various pamphlets included the following:

"Reading the Bible with New Eyes" which claims that Jesus had a homosexual affair with Lazarus and that Mary was a lesbian among other grotesque distortions; "Queer Spirituality" which claims that homosexuality can be a means of opening oneself to God; "History of Saints Servius and Bacchus" which claims that the two saints were involved in a homosexual relationship. Several of these pamphlets were handed out by a man dressed as a Catholic priest.

At one point during the event, a guest speaker incited the crowd to violently harass photographers from "Mass Resistance", the pro-family action group. The photographers were surrounded, barred from taking pictures and then assaulted as a Boston police officer in uniform stood by and watched.

The event was fully sanctioned and funded by the State of Massachusetts through the Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick provided an official proclamation endorsing the event.

Some of the pictures in which children were encouraged to engage in homosexual acts in 2007 can be found on the "Mass Resistance" website, http://www.massresistance.org/docs/events07/youthpride07/com… . (Warning: disturbing content).

Mass Resistance leader Brian Camenker told LifeSiteNews.com that the 2008 event was even worse. "I’ve never seen anything like it," he said. Camenker said his group would be issuing a full report on the event with video and photographic evidence in the coming days.

ByMelanie Phillips, The Spectator

The public apology and libel damages awarded to Channel Four’s Dispatches programme over Undercover Mosque, its investigation showing Islamic preachers in UK mosques preaching jihad and calling for the murder of non-believers, amount to much more than merely a victory for the programme and a complete vindication of its integrity. For the people who are having to pay the six-figure damages and costs are the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. This was a programme which uncovered disturbing evidence of incitement to murder of homosexuals, the killing of British soldiers and hatred of ‘unbelievers’ going on below the official radar in ostensibly respectable British mosques. But instead of prosecuting such fanatics, the WM police and the CPS turned on the Dispatches producers, accusing them of selective editing and distortion and undermining community cohesion. The police then referred the programme to the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, who threw out the complaint. Today, as the Times reported, the West Midlands Police and CPS were due to

apologise unreservedly for comments that they accept were incorrect and unjustified. They said that there was ‘no evidence that the broadcaster or programme-makers had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity’.

This matter should not end here. The reason the police and CPS failed to investigate people accused of inciting murder and mayhem and turned instead on the broadcasters who exposed them was almost certainly due to the official police and establishment policy of turning a blind eye to Islamic extremism — as long as there is no evidence of an actual plot to kill people. This disastrous strategy arises from the refusal of the British authorities to acknowledge that Islamist terrorism is a religious war being waged against this country. The outcome is that, while the police are intercepting or monitoring actual terrorist plots and terrorist suspects, they refuse to take action against the radicalisation that creates the poisoned sea in which those suspects and plots can swim.

Worse than that, there is evidence of collusion with the Islamists within the police. As a recent report by the Centre for Social Cohesion on honour violence revealed:

Several women’s groups, particularly in the Midlands and northern England, say they are often reluctant to go to the police with women who have ran away to escape violence because they cannot trust Asian police officers. Zalikha Ahmed, director of the Apna Haq refuge, says: “We have to be careful with them especially the Asian ones. We don’t visit the station when certain Asian officers are on because some of them are perpetrators, and one of them on record said that he would not arrest someone who used force on his wife. Some of them would just expose us for what we do.” Another worker in a women’s group in the North, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said: “We had instances when a [Asian] chief inspector offered his help to a family by tracking a girl down – we were appalled.” According to some women’s groups such problems appear to be practically common in the West Midlands police force…

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By Albert Mohler

Archbishop Rowan Williams, Primate of the Church of England and leader of the Anglican Communion was once a human embryo. So was I. So were you. So also were those who would now reduce human embryos to the status of a commodity to be used and destroyed in the name of medical progress.

This archbishop is known for taking tepid and confusing positions on any number of issues. But in response to a proposal to create human-animal hybrid embryos in Great Britain, Rowan Williams has staked out a position that at least protests the subversion of human dignity.

Writing in The Daily Mail [London], Archbishop Williams set out his case:

So where is the big question for consciences? In most people’s understanding of what counts as moral behaviour, it’s taken for granted that you don’t use anyone else just for your own purposes – or even for other people’s purposes.

A human person, an individual body with feelings and thoughts, needs to be treated, as we sometimes say, as an end in itself, not a tool for someone else’s agenda.

So we condemn rape, torture and blackmail. We don’t allow experiments on people’s bodies or minds without their consent. And we don’t breed human individuals to create a pool of organs that could be transplanted to save the lives of others.

Here is where the problems begin. If a human embryo is produced by non-reproductive cloning, created as a research tool as proposed in the Bill, and then destroyed, is this in the same category as using someone’s body as an instrument for your purposes?

Williams answers this question with a qualified "no." I think he is wrong in this answer, and he never really defends that position. Nevertheless, after conceding too much at that question, he recovers to make an argument that disrespect for any human embryo (whether defined as reproductive or non-reproductive) will lead to a disrespect for all embryos — and eventually disrespect for all human beings.

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From BBC News

West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have apologised for accusing the makers of a Channel 4 documentary of distortion.

The apology and the promise of £100,000 were made at the High Court on Thursday.

It follows comments made about a Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque, which tackled claims of Islamic extremism in the West Midlands.

The police statement said the force was wrong to make the allegations.

A press release issued by the police and the CPS in August 2007 claimed the Dispatches programme, broadcast in January of that year, misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

One preacher was shown saying a homosexual should be thrown off a mountain, another that women were born deficient.

Police also reported Channel 4 to television watchdog Ofcom for "heavily editing" the words of Islamic imams.

But in November, Ofcom rejected the police and CPS claims, and Channel 4 said it was going to sue the CPS and police for libel.

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From BBC News

READ ALSO:  British faith-hate crime under-reported

Clergymen in east London have been given police protection after a second attack on a vicar in the area.

Police patrols have been stepped up around Bethnal Green and surrounding areas after the two assaults.

Rev Kevin Scully, of St Matthew’s Church in Bethnal Green, was attacked last week when he asked a group of youths to move off the church steps.

The vicar of St-George-in-the-East Church in Shadwell less than a mile away was attacked by a gang in March.

The Church of England said it wanted to keep its land open to the community but protection was needed.

Police are keeping an open mind as to whether the two attacks are linked.

"Our Safer Neighbourhood Patrol has been stepped up in the area," said a Metropolitan Police spokesman. "We are liaising with multi-community and inter-faith groups."

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From Stand Firm

This letter from Archbishop Orombi is in response to the Presiding Bishop’s ‘Open Letter’ Presiding Bishop tells Primate of Uganda: Don’t come to Georgia

14th May 2008

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The Episcopal Church USA
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY

Dear Bishop Katharine,

I received word of your letter through a colleague who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.

Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed about key matters, which I hope to clear up in this letter.

1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.

2. The reason this congregation separated from TEC and is now part of the Church of Uganda is that the actions of TEC’s General Convention and statements of duly elected TEC leaders and representatives indicate that TEC has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, as predicted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003, TEC’s actions have, in fact, torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.

3. May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by TEC in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion. The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the Primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me. Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion. Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.

4. You and your House of Bishops rejected outright the Pastoral Scheme painstakingly devised in Dar es Salaam, and to which you agreed. You have, therefore, left us no choice but to continue to respond to the cries of God’s faithful people in America for episcopal oversight that upholds and promotes historic, biblical Anglicanism.

5. An important element of the Dar es Salaam agreement was the plea by the Primates that "the representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes with it to suspend all actions in law arising in this situation." This was something to which you gave verbal assent and yet you have initiated more legal actions against congregations and clergy in your short tenure as Presiding Bishop than all of your predecessors combined. I urge you to rethink, suspend litigation and follow a more Christ-like approach to settling your differences.

Finally, I appeal to you to heed the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.38ff, "Leave these [churches] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

Yours, in Christ,

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
 

Convicted Pedophile Episcopal Priest to Host Spiritual Retreats with Presiding Bishop’s Blessing
News Analysis By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
5/14/2008

A convicted and defrocked pedophile Episcopal priest is being allowed to conduct spiritual retreats - two of them in an Episcopal facility with the blessing of Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori, TEC’s Presiding Bishop.

In an exchange of correspondence with David Clohessy, National Director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Mrs. Jefferts Schori, through her Pastoral Development Officer Bishop F. Clayton Matthews, said that Mr. Lynn C. Baumann could function as a spiritual retreat master on the understanding that "Mr. Baumann’s contact (is) to adults only".

Baumann is scheduled to lead spiritual retreats at The House of Prayer in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, later this month.

"There are big problems with that," Clohessy told VOL. "If I start telling people, from today forward, that I am a sex offender, it does nothing to ameliorate the betrayal of all those people who have already been mislead by my secrecy, nor does it reach out to anyone already molested.

"If I own a toxic waste dump and, under public pressure, post a sign saying ‘DANGER STAY OUT’, it fails to address the issue of how many children have already been contaminated!"

Clohessy said Bauman molested one youngster and several others at a retreat center ironically titled "The Way of the Wolf Retreat Center" in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Read here:  http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8238