Anglican Mainstream

Released 19.00 hrs, Tuesday 23 May 2006

As leaders within Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream, from several different wings of the church, we are deeply saddened at the decision of our Diocesan Bishop, the Rt Revd John Gladwin, to become a patron of the campaign group ‘Changing Attitude’.

It is clear that this is a matter of grave concern both here and abroad.
We are particularly distressed at the controversy and embarrassment that has occurred during the visit to our link dioceses in Kenya of a group led by the Bishop.

Bishop John has given repeated assurances that he is committed to the orthodox teaching of the Anglican Church and that there is no plan to change the position of the Church of England on human sexuality. Several of us have met with him, listened to his views and expressed our own concerns. We have been grateful to him for his candour on these occasions and know that he has understood our anxieties. In the light of this, however, we find his decision incomprehensible.

Furthermore, we note that Bishop John is not alone in his patronage of ‘Changing Attitude’, and that the bishops of Wolverhampton, St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Ripon and Leeds, Lincoln and Worcester are also listed as patrons. All of them seem thereby committed to taking the Church of England in a direction that would estrange it from the majority of the Anglican Communion and the worldwide Church.

We therefore ask for an immediate moratorium on any similar actions by Bishop John, which are clearly likely to provoke further difficulty. We also call, once again, for our bishops not only to approve the recognised position of the Church of England but actively to teach it and protect it against alternative, erroneous, views.

Signed

Rt Revd John Ball, Revd David Banting, Revd Mark Burkill, Fr Edmund Cargill-Thompson, Revd Paul Harcourt (Chair, Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream Core Group), Revd Mike Reith, Revd John P Richardson, Revd Anthony Rose, Revd Ray Samme, Revd Simon Smallwood, Fr Bob White

Statement from Diocese of Chelmsford [Read here->http://www.changingattitude.org.uk/news/newsitem.asp?id=233]

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