My understanding that the plant into Clapham came at the initiative of the current Rector, David Isherwood, not the DIocese.

But others may know more. 

You also assume that the SGST is 'working against the Bishop'. It is not.

It is saying that it wants to fund orthodox Gospel work through parishes in the Diocese. Rather than fund revisionism. 

I would have thought that what Jago and what SGST are doing are but two sides of the same coin. 

Jago Wynne has recently led a new plan from HTB to Clapham, with the approval of the Bishop of Southwark.  Doesn't this perhaps illustrate that it is possible work with the Bishop rather than against him?

I promised to give an update re the Trust.

I hear that some 4-5 PCCs have already voted to join the Trust.

So all is not dead, it seems.

But wheels grind exceedingly slow in Anglican circles, even in alternative ones, ha ha .

Davidr,

The scripture says test all things. As Christians we are to correct, and encourage other believers (ie 1 Tim 3:16)

But the key point is when you write "what you believe scripture says" We know what scripture says, we can read. Context and interpretation give us the meaning. It is when people try and claim scripture doesn’t mean what it consistently says and claim it means the opposite of what it says that we know we are dealing with unbelief.

Your statement implied Jesus teaching meant the ‘enemy occupying power’ There is no mention of this and that is almost certainly what His audience might have thought. The distinction Jesus makes is rendering back what is of Caesar to Caesar and what is of God to God. Therefore you have a choice with income tax, is it to God or the state?

Would you like to answer?

DavidW  You write 'The benchmark I am using is what scripture says, not differences of people’s opinions'. I agree with you. I respect your total concern that scripture be central in your beliefs. I seek to do the same.

I presume you do not mean that you never listen to sermons, or take part in bible studies, or seek the wisdom of more mature Christians, or read Christian books and use commentaries to guide your understanding of scripture. Having done that I think you are saying you then seek to come to your own conviction about what you believe scripture says. Is that correct? If so then it is an approach I entirely respect - and it is my approach too.

I thought Pluralist would be happy with the Southwark Good Stewards Company as an enhanced expression of CofE pluralism.

Bowman,

The company was incorporated on 24 April 2012 see http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/4a65fc3dcc31049ef58e286e6d0ec519/compdetails

and registered as a charity on 21 June 2012 see http://opencharities.org/charities/1147774 and http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityFramework.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1147774&SubsidiaryNumber=0

The trustees are Paul Perkin, Christopher Davis, Brian Wilson and Richard Paice.  

Apart from news reports, the Southwark Good Stewards Company Ltd is still invisible online. However, villagers will recall that LondonVicar was expecting it to launch on July 2. Has there been any comment from the Bishop of Southwark? Meanwhile, Andrew Brown in The Guardian. We shall see what we shall see.

DavidR,

The benchmark I am using is what scripture says, not differences of people’s opinions.

No I do not think you have honestly reflected what you wrote. You wrote "in the teaching of Jesus meant submitting to the tax demands of an enemy occupying power" That is specifically implying the enemy occupying power is what Jesus teaching meant.

The simplest explanation for the dichotomising that Pluralist mentions is that it is more important to several villagers to distinguish friends from foes than to seek or renew alliances. When is that a reasonable behaviour? When one is under serious threat, it helps to avoid danger. Or, when one is finding a new identity for oneself, it helps to ascertain its centres and boundaries. It seems that both sides of our discussions have these motivations, not only with respect to Southwark, but also with respect to That Topic and women's ordination.

On a collective level, we may be seeing among Anglicans what we have already seen in nearly every other sort of Christianity-- a division (e.g. the Raskol) between those who want to adhere to a crystalised ideal that is still powerful to them (e.g.  Avvakum Petrov, the Zealots of Piety, and the Old Believers in 17th C Russia), and others who feel that it is urgent to develop further into a church that they see as more mature (e.g. the Patriarch Nikon and the Moscow Sobor of 1666-1667). Before our own time, few could imagine the division we see today, and many probably thought that both the ideal of Anglican comprehensiveness and a traditional respect for the individual conscience would make any such division very unlikely. Not so long ago, the Church of England and the Anglican Communion were seen as living models of the reunited Church that might someday be. But here we are.

In retrospect, it seems that the idea of comprehensiveness did more to rationalise the institutionalisation of centrifugal schools of piety and practise than to encourage deep centripetal influences that might have drawn all of the root systems into common ground. Readers of these threads may be able to judge for themselves whether respect for the individual conscience is strong enough on either side to forfend further division.

On the level of the individual--

At some points, this debate has seemed to be a collision more of temperaments than of principles-- between those who are communitarians willing to take modest risks for the common good, and those who are individualists wary of the moral dangers of association.

It is fruitless to try to prove to someone that he is obliged to adopt one's own temperament instead of the one that God gave him. And, unsurprisingly, there are, for each temperament, verses in the scriptures that resonate powerfuly, whilst leaving others of different temperaments rather less excited. Since it seems possible that God has intended the actual diversity of human constitutions, it may be best to respect them.

So what should we expect from discussions in a forum like this? Shouting over the rising wall doesn't seem helpful. Several things might be better, especially these two--

(a) It would be better to see each side take the identified weaknesses in its position seriously, rather just talking past them rather more loudly than before. This is always prudent, of course, but it is more so when each side of a controversy has had telling criticisms of the other's point of view, and when both sides presume much that is not actually known. Indeed, someone respected by many Christians, even today, once suggested that they all remove the planks from their own eyes before picking out the motes from those of their brothers. Doing this is, not an admission of error to others, but evidence that one is wise enough to be circumspect.

(b) If Anglicans cannot yet be a model of reconciliation, then perhaps they might still be a valuable model of magnanimous division? For an example of how not to do this, one need only look at the busy lawyers of TEC, ever in court to throw another dissenting congregation out of the church that their fathers built so that a relative handful can occupy it instead. To what good purpose? For the Church of England to do better than TEC has done, each side will need to take the integrity of the other side seriously rather than seeking to discredit or undermine it.

As for the Raskol mentioned above, scholars have found that the Old Believers were in fact correct on the points disputed with the Patriarch Nikon, and in 1971 his successor begged their forgiveness for the persecutions suffered by their ancestors in the 17th C. Officially, the two bodies are reconciled, but not united.

Bowman, I have no opinion on the subject you introduce, restorationism verses flexibility, but on the question of a blueprint you might be barking up a fruitless colour-tree because most folk here think in terms of black and white. 'Either it's true or it is not', 'read it in the book and don't subsidise false teachers' and so on. No assumptions get challenged, no one unpacks anything, for whom all is black and white. Crowds may follow but crowds can be seen saluting in unison.