Anglican Mainstream

By David Virtue, VOL

Synod – Day One

In an update on the progress of women bishops in the Church of England, exasperated Synod members groaned when it was revealed that there would be no discussion of a paper delivered by the Bishop of Manchester, The Rt. Rev. Nigel McCulloch on the subject of women bishops.

The announcement was greeted by public "no's" from some 400 Synod members. The bishop proceeded with his speech emphasizing that the Revisions Committee had met thirteen times, had received nearly 300 submissions, including 114 from Synod members.

McCulloch opined that while women bishops is likely a done deal those who had "conscientious difficulties" about women's ordination will be afforded another bishop, but such a bishop will be chosen by a delegation from the diocesan bishops including women bishops, thus leaving the situation still untenable to orthodox Anglicans.

The Rev. Canon Simon Bessant (Sheffield) rose to say that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the view that the gender balance in Church of England congregations is getting seriously out of line.

In his report he said there are significant missiological issues emerging when a church experiences a testosterone deficit. He asked for "hard evidence" on the matter and said there were profound theological issues which characterize a church with a gender imbalance.

In a reply to Bessant, the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt. Rev. Michael Hill said the Revision Committee was moving beyond anecdotal evidence and building mission policies on something more substantial.

"The social analysis here is complex and there are no quick fixes in terms of mission practice. I believe every bishop is concerned to build a well-balanced church, and mission amongst men and younger people is on everyone's agenda."

Read here

By Kim Trobee, editor CitizenLink

Humorous Super Bowl commercial shines light on pro-abortion groups that objected to its airing.

The much-anticipated and maligned Focus on the Family ad featuring Tim and Pam Tebow aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday.

From Anglican TV (Hat Tip: Titusonenine)

by Jackie Bruchi of StandFirminFaith

This newspaper article brings about a lot of emotions. Sympathy for the victims, regret that someone in trust would do this are just a few.

"A former rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Owego has been arrested by Pennsylvania State Police after he was accused of having oral sex with a boy.

Ralph E. Johnson, 82, was arraigned in Clifford, Pa., on 15 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a felony; 15 counts of indecent assault, a misdemeanor; and 15 counts of corruption of minors, a misdemeanor, according to a police report."

Then you get to this part. Whole new set of emotions for me. How about you?

"Diocesan officials in Syracuse could not be reached Friday night. The Rev. David G. Bollinger, rector of the church from 1985 to 2005, said he alerted diocesan officials in Syracuse after receiving complaints of Johnson's alleged misconduct, but Bishop Gladstone B. Adams rebuffed him. He basically told me this would no longer be discussed," Bollinger said Friday.

Bollinger, who retired in 2006 after a year-long sabbatical, said he was punished by the church for being a whistleblower."

Read the whole article

by Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media

Ugandan Christian minister Martin Ssempa has issued a strong rebuttal to President Obama's criticism of his country for considering passage of a law to discourage and punish certain homosexual practices. "Sodomy is neither the change we want nor can believe in," says Ssempa, who runs the Family Policy and Human Rights Center in Uganda.

Ssempa, a major player in the country's successful anti-AIDS program, says that Obama has an "obsession with the spread of sodomy in Africa," in contrast to the efforts of the George W. Bush Administration to help Uganda resist the dangerous sexual practices which facilitate the spread of the deadly disease. The Ugandan anti-AIDS program has emphasized abstinence and monogamy.

Ssempa's website declares, "HIV/AIDS is not an allergy. It is not a gay disease. It is not a badge of honor. It is a cold-blooded, indiscriminating killer that can only be stopped by a proven solution–abstinence until marriage and faithfulness within marriage."

Read more

From ELCA News (Hat Tip: ACL Sydney)

LONDON (ELCA) — The Rev. Mark S. Hanson met with Dr. Rowan D. Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a private hour-long meeting Feb. 4 at Lambeth Palace here. After the meeting Hanson said the two discussed strengthening Anglican-Lutheran relationships, challenges each leader faces within his own communions, the proposed "Anglican Covenant" to deepen internal church relationships, global environmental issues, Christian-Muslim relationships, and mutual concern for conflicts in places such as Sudan and the Middle East.

Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop and president of the Lutheran World Federation, is leading an official delegation of 12 ELCA leaders on a two-week ecumenical journey to visit world church leaders. The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition.

The meeting with Williams, leader of the world Anglican Communion, was the first major meeting for the ELCA delegation.
Williams greeted the ELCA delegation briefly after meeting with Hanson.

Hanson told the ELCA News Service that the discussion of strengthening Anglican Communion relationships focused on existing full communion agreements — in Canada, Europe and the United States. "We talked not only about how this time of 'reception' can strengthen the ministries and mission we share, but provide new opportunities for us to be engaged in ways we haven't even imagined," Hanson said.

The two world church leaders discussed how both communions can focus on "the pressing issues of the world in which God has placed us," said Hanson. He said the two agreed there is an urgent need for the United Nations and the U.S. and British governments to find a solution to the conflict in Sudan. The two also discussed commitment and concern for Palestinian Christians, and support for the Council for Religious Institutions in the Holy Land, for Lutheran and Anglican churches in the region and for dialogue with religious leaders in Israel.

Read here

by Meghan Duke for First Things

Tim Tebow, the year’s best college football player, is starring in a mildly pro-life advertisement—“Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life,” it concludes—scheduled to air during the Super Bowl this Sunday. And the ruckus over that fact has been one of the strangest things to watch in years.

Even the New York Times has agreed—in an unsigned editorial no less—that the objections to the ad are unwarranted: "The would-be censors are on the wrong track. Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about: protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices."

Curiously, perhaps the most thoughtful treatment of the topic appeared in the sports pages of the Washington Post, where sports columnist Sally Jenkins takes a baseball bat and whacks around the old-line feminist organizations who’ve attacked the ad. 

Read here

by Barbara Gauthier

Mary Eberstadt has written a very important piece for First Things describing the demise of Christianity Lite, which has jettisoned as an anachronism the "antiquated sexual notions" of traditional Christianity for the sake of a kinder, gentler Christianity.  The problem is that those with such noble intentions did not realize that "one thread could not be teased out of the moral garment without pulling others out too."  Eberstadt traces the creation of modern Christianity Lite to the relaxing of Christianity's strict code of sexual morality, beginning with the Lambeth 1930 decision to tolerate contraception as undesirable but sometimes necessary.  

Why are sexual matters always at the epicenter of the moral earthquake?  Because those codes are the most difficult to follow: even Jesus' own disciples criticized his prohibition on divorce as being too strict.  Why does the dismantling of sexual prohibitions inevitably lead to the relaxing of other doctrines?  Because, "people who cannot be expected to obey in difficult matters cannot be expected to obey in easier ones either."  To require them to do so would also make Christianity a less kind, less gentle religion.  In the end, Eberstadt says, "If enough people over enough time turn their backs on the injunction to be fruitful and multiply, eventually their churches will cease being fruitful and multiplying, too."  The early Church, which was unashamedly strict on matters of doctrine and sexual morality grew rapidly, not because it was a "kinder, gentler" religion than the others, but because it was soradically exclusive in its doctrine, so radically strict in its moral code and so radically inclusive in its mission to reach everyone, even to the ends of the earth, with the saving news of Jesus Christ.

I think Eberstadt has contributed a very valuable perspective on why Christianity Lite is failing so dramatically.  With the death of liberal theologian Mary Daly, Hans Kung now represents the end of Catholicism Lite theology, as he and his colleagues have failed to raise up another generation of liberal theologians to take their places.  Like the new sexual morality they proposed, they themselves have also failed to be fruitful and multiply.  

Christianity Lite is a sterile religion because it places a premium on sterility.  This "kinder, gentler Christianity" is espoused primarily by those who have divorce sexual practice  from procreation or who would dismiss procreation as a matter of principle.  As PB Jefferts Schori put it, "Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates…We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.”  The Episcopal Church and the other mainline Christianity Light denominations are also now reproducing "at lower rates" as well.  Their churches, like their members, will eventually die from old age, because they have failed to reproduce and they have failed to pass their religion on to the next generation.  I think there was Someone once who said something along the lines of "as you sow, so shall you reap."   Words true enough indeed.

Here for the First Things article