I think Stephen Kuhrt's assertion that this was all done rather secretly is false.

Those proposing AMIE have been speaking with Lambeth for 4 years about the need for such a society.

They submitted a 50 page document to Lambeth about this.

It is only that WE have heard of it of late. I think that is what Mr Kuhrt is unhappy about.

It is not new news for Lambeth and other bishops. 

I did ask whether it was possible to see the 50 page document.

I was told that there was too much embarrassing personal stuff in it. 

However I have asked if summary of it could be published, or perhaps an edited introduction of it. 

So I am trying !

I have not seen the document, no.

I do not know the names of those ordained - well I perhaps know one, but cannot be sure.

I am not sure the names are particularly relevant.  I am sure the names have not been publicized to save those who have been ordained coming under personal fire.

Don't forget that all this was done with the express knowledge and permission of the Archbishop of Kenya:

he knows what he is doing.  It is because he so fears for the liberal slide of the CofE.

Response to David R:

By 'we' i mean all of us on this website.

By 'they' , I mean those within AMIE [I am not]

For myself, for the moment, it helps me to be franker under my current handle,

and help Fulcrum engage with another point of view

But if you do not want that, I will push off.........

Thanks Tony.

I think we must be careful not to caricature evangelical churches that would welcome the ministry of AMIE.

Some are co-mission and of a certain type and style.

But many are not, including my own.

(I was very gratified when a visiting curate recently said that when he walked in, we didn't FEEL to him like a conservative evangelical church. And I said : 'You mean, we felt friendly, not angular?!" )
 

I think also you must not presume that we have given up on Diocesan structures.

AMIE is a safety net.

No-one wants to set up alternative structures. It is that they fear the Gospel being lost in the liberal slide. 

Lambeth have had four years to get their house in order [I would say far longer]. 

There has been v little definite leadership.

The Africans [and others] have tired of the endless listening process [which is just an excuse to batter the orthodox down] and want to help those in the UK who are also equally  tired of it.

I very much hope that Lambeth looks across the water, sees the huge growth of ACNA, and learns the lesson.

But it has not yet.

response to DavidR:

I have just defined WE as those of us who are on this discussion, and THEY as those who have a position within AMIE.  That is all.

LondonVicar, I rejoice in your ministry and wish it nothing but blessing in the gospel. - not least as a one-time London vicar myself ....

Thanks, David. You make a number of points so I will weave my responses into yours, if I may. 

You do write as if you assume that the points you make are common ground among evangelicals. They are not. You also communicate a deep suspicion and mistrust of your own church.  I find that disturbing. That is not to say I do not have concerns about for the church. I do. But I would love to think evangelical presence in the church would be characterised by a more hopeful, generous and hospitable spirit.

You are right. They are not common ground amongst evangelicals. I am being provocative to spur others to think. 

I think when many things have happened in the CofE to try to overturn Lambeth 1.10, I and others  are right ot be wary. Our own articles remind us that the visible church does err.  (Article 19).  I am putting one side of the argument in this forum. Generally I do seek to be hopeful, generous and hospitable, in my dealings and talking with others.  

Some brief specific responses if I may:

You write 'you must not presume that we have given up on Diocesan structures. AMIE is a safety net.' (I notice you are now part of 'we' in this statement).

A safety net is there for accidents. Well that is a novel way of describing what little we know of AMIE. So the three ordinands ordained in secret in African are there in case we have an accident over here? - I think not. AMIE is a threat to override existing structures of authority and leadership in the CofE. The threat is - if you (bishops) do not behave or believe as we think you should we will go elsewhere.

You make a good point here about the safety net. 

I am not naive about the Kenyan ordinations.

But we have had accidents over here over many years. 

The accident is the pro gay agenda which is like the many headed hydra. It keeps coming and coming and coming. 

I would say: what other alternatives are there to AMIE that actually are working?

That are preventing those who are pushing a gay agenda from gaining more and more ground.

A gay bishop is not that far away. (It recently came v close, were it not for the Archbishop of Canterbury's intervention).  Civil partnerships are now permitted for clergy.  There are those in the CofE who are pushing for gay marriage in church (as are Quakers and Methodists).  What other mechanism do you have for preventing this or making a stand, if things do come to pass?  The evangelical left has yet to propose another solution: I await with interest to hear it. 

I need you to define 'liberal' more carefully please. It is too easily used by evangelicals as a label for all that is wrong in the CofE. I agree there is an important theological and biblical debate to be had. But I am just as concerned about some of the narrow strident conservatism actually.

AMIE is not just about conservative conservatives. I would not class Michael Nazir-Ali as a conservative evangelical, not in the traditional sense. There are others on the Committee who belong to New Wine and are more charismatic. Time will tell whether any High Churchmen join them. 

Finally your total dismissal of the listening process and sweeping claim that English and African bishops have seen though it needs evidence. How do you know? I have followed the listening process closely. I have read many quotes from evangelical English and international bishops who found it transforming at the last Lambeth and admitted it lead to quite new underdstanding of each other and their contexts.  The evangelical tradition  - which has always tended to prefer directive, didactive ways of teaching/learning could learn from it. Which bishops are you talking about? How do you know they are typical? Can you give me your sources?

You are right. I need to cite chapter and verse. But any cursory look through the Primates communiques and GAFCON communications over the last few years will show this.  Again I stress GAFCON is not a British thing. It is a movement subscribed to by a vast number of Primates who probably represent some 80% of Anglicans worldwide. 

Hope this helps: let's keep talking.

And I will try to be more moderate in my tone !

Thanks

The appointments in Southwark were not made en bloc.

They were made one after another, with concerned representations from evangelicals after each one.

Thus people are speaking of a revisionist trajectory.

The Bishop in the DEU meeting distinguished between the perception and the reality of being heard.

Yet his resposne in the DEU meeting and the succession of revisionist appointments  indicates, does it not,

a reality of evangelicals not being heard.  not a perception.

On the matter of the Trust:  my understanding that just as GAFCON is a renewal movement, so the Trust is. 

It is not about separating off into another denomination.

But I guess we should wait to hear more details, before passing judgement ? 

Looks like details have now been released:

http://www.evangelicals.org/news.asp?id=1471

Any thoughts on this folks?  Another Southwark story here: 

LONDON: Southwark Lay Reader Sacked for upholding Traditonal Marriage
Rev. Paul Perkin, Vicar of St. Mark's made the announcement at FCA celebration

By Julian Mann
Special to virtueonline.org
www.virtueonline.org
April 29, 2012

One of the big stories at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans' (FCA) gathering in London last week was a local one. At an evening event celebrating orthdox Anglicanism in Westminister on Thursday, the chairman of the FCA (UK and Ireland), the Rev. Paul Perkin, announced that a volunteer lay reader in Southwark Diocese had had his permission to officiate withdrawn by an Archdeacon for defending traditional marriage.

Mr Perkin, whose church, St Mark's Battersea Rise in Southwark diocese, hosted the five-day international FCA conference, said the reader's licence had been withdrawn after the Archdeacon received complaints.

One major UK national Sunday newspaper sniffed at the story last week but so far nothing has appeared.

If true, it is hugely significant. With clergy becoming more thinly spread due to dwindling finances, the Church of England is becoming increasingly reliant on volunteer lay ministers.

Being volunteers, they are easier to sack than paid licensed clergy. But for a reader to lose his licence for upholding traditional marriage against the currently politically-correct drive to redefine it would be astonishing, even by the standards of disorder that liberal revisionists are capable of plumbing.

The training a reader undergoes is time-consuming and many of them are hugely committed servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their vocation is to teach God's Word in local churches and lead services.

The story needs verifying. If the national press are not going to follow it up, the UK church press certainly have a moral responsibility to do so.

All Saints Church in Sanderstead is part of the Diocese of Southwark. The parish says of itself: ‘We rejoice in our diversity as churches - but rejoice even more in our unity, as we seek to serve God and our neighbour together.’ But it seems that their rejoicing in diversity does not extend to differences over the Coalition for Marriage petition, for a Lay Reader of 50 years standing and loyal service has been suspended over the issue.

Peter Gowlland, 78, was due to meet with Barry Goodwin, acting Archdeacon of Croydon, on St George’s Day for his Reader’s licence to be renewed for a further year. To his surprise, he was presented with some nebulous charges (with no prior warning) which concerned an incident eight days earlier, when he dared to suggest that the congregation at All Saints might like to sign the Coalition for Marriage petition. He had been preaching about the boldness of the Apostles, and told the congregation that the C4M issue called for a contemporary manifestation of like boldness.

As a result of this, there were one or two mumblings from members of said congregation who favour same-sex marriage, and so they complained to a higher level. Sadly, the Venerable (acting) Barry Goodwin didn’t exhort these believers to follow Scripture and take their complaint first to Mr Gowlland: he decided instead to suspend him for two months.

Bizarrely, the (acting) Archdeacon acknowledged that Mr Gowlland was ‘experienced and committed to preaching and teaching the Gospel’, but it appears that (retired) Bishop David Atkinson (and others) found him a little too committed to the cause of upholding the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage (which happens also to be the law of the land). And so he has been suspended because ‘there is a potential for division in All Saints’.

Well, there’s a bright Archdeacon. You suspend a voluntary and highly-experienced Lay Reader at a time the church has no vicar in order to sustain an illusory unity. Mr Gowlland is not merely a Reader of 50 years’ standing; he has a Diploma in Theology; taught A-level RS for 20 years; and was a headmaster for 24 years. He has been informed that the issue is not with his support for the biblical view of marriage, but with the way he introduced the subject and petition which were ‘bounced’ on his colleagues ‘without prior discussion’. For this reason, the Venerable (acting) Barry Goodwin has ‘withdrawn’ Mr Gowlland from preaching and leading worship for two months. This is not, however, a suspension.

Right.

The (acting) Archdeacon has listened to the complaints of a vociferous few who support same-sex marriage and without giving Mr Gowlland the chance to respond to the allegations has summarily ‘withdrawn’ Mr Gowlland’s licence to preach and lead worship for two months, but this doesn’t amount to suspension. And, moreover, the (acting) Archdeacon has done this during a interregnum, when the church needs all the lay expertise it can muster.

Incredible.

Mr Gowlland has appealed to the Bishop of Southwark, pointing out that the Chairman of the District Church Council was not only aware that Mr Gowlland intended to mention the Coalition for Marriage; he even offered to find a table for promotional literature. He told the Bishop that during the notices he read out the petition and encouraged people to sign it. The person leading the service was Mary Duncan, another Lay Reader, who made no comment to Mr Gowlland personally. It transpires that Ms Duncan didn’t approve of Mr Gowlland’s stance, and so made her feelings known to another Lay Reader, Penny Bird. And together, without warning or discussion, they came to the lectern and exhorted the congregation not to sign the petition. “There are other views,” they said. “Do not sign it without giving it very careful thought.” Ms Duncan turned to Mr Gowlland and said, “Just in the interests of balance, Peter.”

The Worldwide President of the Mothers Union, Rosemary Kempsell, then said that the Government was having a consultation and had asked people to respond. Bishop David Atkinson, who was leading the service, said that this was neither the time nor place to discuss this, but suggested a meeting in the near future to do so. It is quite incredible that neither Bishop David nor any of the Lay Readers expressed their concerns to Mr Gowlland privately. And neither has the Rev’d Andrew Watson (curate) nor the Rev’d Susan Atkinson-Jones (vicar-in-charge during the interregnum). This is a great shame, for the situation could easily have been defused with a quiet word in the vestry.

And now Mr Gowlland is suspended, but the (acting) Archdeacon isn’t calling it so, and neither is the Bishop of Southwark. What is significant here is that the Lay Reader whose licence has been temporarily ‘withdrawn’ for two months supports the Coalition for Marriage, while the Lay Readers who oppose it - and who stood up in front of the congregation to dispute publicly with Mr Gowlland – are not subject to any disciplinary action. Of course, Lay Readers are not employees, and so the (acting) Archdeacon is not bound by employment legislation. But, as a courtesy, one might expect the Church of England to uphold certain procedures and principles which accord with natural justice: viz. i) oral warning; ii) written warning; iii) final written warning; iv) suspension/dismissal. This would accord with the teachings of Jesus (Mt 18:15) and of St Paul (Gal 6:1ff).

Peter Gowlland has been charged, convicted and summarily sentenced without the right to present his case (cf Prov 18:17). The suspension (which it certainly is) is a manifest punitive action and a public humiliation. Mr Gowlland is elderly, fragile and very hurt: he and his wife now attend another church. He is not exercising his ministry. posted byArchbishop Cranmer

I find it extraordinarily cynical that someone thinks this was somehow contrived.

That a lay reader would seek to get barred.

No, it is just providential, if one wants to use such a word.

The word I would use though is more 'typical' - it is typical of response in the Diocese of Southwark,

that favours order over doctrine.

The lay reader  is asked to stand aside, however temporarily. 

Yet the Dean who gave an flagwaving revisionist sermon at the consecration of the two Area Bishops

described by Stephen Kuhrt as 'the most appalling use of a consecration sermon ever' is still in post.