Hi

To answer Absp Jensen article, lets move to the 'homophobia' thread.

love Jody

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/sunday/sundayauto.ram

Tim Wambunya's article, published by Fulcrum this week,'The Chelmsford - Mt Kenya Link must not be allowed to die', may be seen on:

www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=106

Once again the root question is 'Is homosexuality a matter of Primary Importance?' If it is, then it makes sense for one Bishop to declare himself out of communion with another, as has happened. If not, then the need to 'make every effort to maintain the unity of the body' takes precedence.

What we need is to address this root question thoroughly and Biblically. Anglican Mainstream have simply declared, without detailed argument as far as I know, that homosexuality is a matter of Primary Importance. I would disagree, on Biblical grounds as well as Church History. (The ECUSA hierachy also, on the whole, see inclusion of practising homosexuals as of Primary Importance, for opposite reasons to Mainstream.)

Until we address and try to come to a common mind about the ranking of this issue there will continue to be rifts as between +Chelmsford and Kenya. When we will do this? When will Fulcrum address this? There could be an articulate 'centre' refuting the tendency of both extremes to exaggerate the importance of their point of view. But there isn't. Couldn't Fulcrum explore this 'centre?'

Roger Harper

On Richard's question, on the 'Patron's Page' for Changing Attitude, it says at the top, "The patrons of Changing Attitude support our aims and objectives and are committed to a church which is fully inclusive." As we all know "fully inclusive" in this context means "fully inclusive of the practising" (if you read CA's objectives this is made explicitly clear). It is therefore fair to regard CA as a pressure group, not a discussion forum.

Some thoughts arising out of this situation....

1) Is Changing Attitudes set up as a 'forum' for gay-straight dialogue or is it a 'pressure' group with a clear agenda?

2) If the latter, are the 'patrons/trustees' (which seems to include many Bishops) linked with it thinking that it's the former (i.e. a forum for dialogue) or are they united with the agenda to change Christian teaching on homosexual practice?

3) If the latter of the above, what 'right' does a bishop have using their position and status to challenge agreed church teaching outside of the agreed forum to do so?  Especially when such a forum (Lambeth 1998) re-asserted the churches position on this issue?

4) If a bishop uses their position within the church to support a movement which goes against agreed teaching, then should they be so 'surprised' if it 'backfires' on them?

To my mind, a bishop is a representative of the church 'catholic' and is not at liberty to champion 'personal' causes within that role.  Sure the bishop is also a representative of the 'local church' and must look to the 'needs' and 'issues' within their diocese (and bring these concerns to the appropriate forum).  For +Chelmsford to link himself to CA and then expect the wider catholic church to receive him 'openly' shows (to my mind) great naivety and a failure to understand how the role of bishop functions within the wider church (or what CA stands for...)

If he felt strongly about the cause of CA then he would have but 2 choices:

a) Resign his role as bishop to be able to support the cause without compromising his duty (but then he would loose his influential voice....)

b) Work within his duties as bishop (to uphold church teaching) to bring CA (which represents one side of the argument) into a 'neutral' forum where dialogue could occur (the explicit teaching of lambeth 1998 as well...) without compromising his own role.

I fear that many bishops are all to in love with the influence and power that their position gives them to champion personal causes and that this flies in the face of the historical, apostolic and eschatological function of 'bishop'.

For myself, as I've said in other posts, I have no truck with 'homophobia' and fully accept those who are faithful to Christ as my brothers and sisters (whatever their sexual orientation), but I also wish to uphold catholic and orthodox teaching wrt appropriate 'sexual expression', and since we are taking about church polity and governance (through the role of bishops) I feel that we need to move the debate away from 'personal thoughts' to canonical roles.

What do others think?

Richard

Hi. The reason for the rather ponderous 'time line' posting was because Simon Saramiento who maintains the Thinking Anglicans website e-mailed me saying, "You have been expressly named to me as the source of the stories to the African newspapers by several of my informants earlier today [Monday]." This wasn't the case, as I said in my initial post, but the following morning it occured to me that there might have been some suggestion of 'earlier knowledge' given the sequence of postings on the Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream website. I hoped the 'time line' might defuse this, but I don't know if it has.

I have absolutely no idea how the Kenyan press did get hold of the story, apart from saying it wasn't through me. I would be very surprised indeed if it was anyone in Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream. I honestly don't think we're smart enough! Incidentally, I know this is a rare thought, but the Kenyan press may just have been bright enough to have got hold of the information themselves. The "List of Patrons" page on the Changing Attitude website says it was last updated on the 26th April 2006, so it seems John Gladwin's name may have been on it for a few weeks. Maybe someone should ask the Kenyans!

Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream has been running for over two years, initially as just a mailing list, but we've also held a couple of consultations, including one addressed by Bp Michael Nazir Ali. The website has only been up since January this year. I suppose the best way to describe it is as a 'franchise' in relation to Anglican Mainstream itself. The website is at http://www.chelmsford-anglican-mainstream.org.uk/

Hi John,

can you help me a bit to make some connections and tell what the connection between Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream and Anglican Mainstream is?  Thanks.  I noticed on TA that you gave a time account of your publications regarding Bsp John's patronage, I wondered why, as it didn't seem that anyone was questioning you directly?

thanks for helping to clarify things.

love Jody

Hi all

This all makes me very sad.  It is very hard not to be despondent about this.  What on earth is going on?

It's hard not to be a conspiracy theorist when there's so much conspiracy about :- (or is there......)

love Jody

While it is important to apportion blame, I'm sure, we might also reflect -- in the light of the current evangelical demarche -- on the forms that the "listening process" is likely to take. No wonder the Bishop of Bristol is feeling that he has difficulties in extending hospitality or compassion to gay Christians, if even supporting people who think differently gets you abandoned in the middle of a desert. The jocular way in which this sorry story was reported by Radio 4 this morning made it clear what normal people think about 'how these Christians love one another'. Words fail me!

Tony