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ENGLAND: Gay Pride, Sex Discrimination and Anglo-Catholic Incoherence
By Balaam’s Ass
http://anglicanmainstream.org/gay-pride-sex-discrimination-and-anglo-catholic-incoherence/
July 9, 2014
Photographs posted on Facebook by Fr. Andrew Newcombe, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Hoxton, showing his family enjoying London’s Gay Pride Festival, have me bemused. Fr. Andrew’s wife, Dr. Lindsay Newcombe – shown sporting a gay pride sticker – is Vice Chairman (no pun intended) of Forward in Faith – a supposedly ‘catholic’ group in the Church of England formed in opposition to the ordination of women.
The Newcombes’ family outing is not an isolated example of the selective traditionalism of Forward in Faith’s leadership since the reception of many of the old guard, in 2011, into the newly-formed Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham – an entity within the Roman Catholic Church which allows former Anglicans to retain elements of the Anglican tradition. Last November Bishop Jonathan Baker, Chairman of Forward in Faith, was a signatory of the controversial Pilling Report which advocates a revision of the Church of England’s stance on same-sex relationships. This issue has already fragmented world-wide Anglicanism, and it is likely that the outworking of Pilling will inflict even more serious damage on the Church of England than the long-running war over the ordination of women.
In response to the Pilling Report Forward in Faith’s sister organisation in North America issued a statement in December reiterating ‘under the authority of holy scripture and tradition of the church’ that ‘sexual activity can only properly take place within the context of holy matrimony between a man and a woman’ and that ‘the church cannot bless any type of sexual relationship outside of holy matrimony between a man and a woman’. Forward in Faith’s English bishops (known as the Council of Bishops of the Society under the patronage of St. Wilfrid and St. Hilda) put out their own, exquisitely ambiguous, statement on Pilling in March, expressing a commitment to the ongoing process of discussion and consultation taking place in the Church of England at large. An article by Fr. Stephen Keeble, ‘Stewards of mysteries’, in the May issue of Forward in Faith’s journal New Directions, asking for a clarification of the Council of Bishops’ position in relation to that of Forward in Faith, North America and the wider catholic tradition, was met in the June edition by an incoherent rambling personal attack in Canon Nicholas Turner’s piece ‘Pro-gay and pro-matrimony’. I am reliably informed that Fr. Keeble’s reply, the text of which was agreed for the July edition with New Directions Editor Fr. Philip Corbett, was withheld from publication on the basis of ‘advice’ to the Editor.
In the approach to the fateful meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod, beginning 11 July, all the signs indicate that, unlike the more numerous evangelical opponents to women bishops, ‘catholics’ will now only be offering a token resistance. Their hope appears to be a lasting, honoured place in the bosom of the liberal Establishment. But toleration will not be extended to them for long – not because of their glaring theological incoherence – today’s Church of England does not have a serious concern for theology – but because no amount of ‘gay pride’ will be able to absolve them of the unforgivable sin of ‘sex discrimination’. With no allies at home or abroad and with nowhere else to go, the forward march already begun can lead to only one destination: complete absorption.
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ANGLO-CATHOLICS IN DANGER OF DOING A BRAZIL
By Julian Mann
Cranmer's Curate
http://cranmercurate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/anglo-catholics-in-danger-of-doing.html
July 9, 2014
Sometimes it can be right to alienate one's own supporters if an important issue of Christ's truth is at stake, but Forward in Faith appears to be increasingly alienating its supporters for the wrong reason.
Cranmer's Curate had noticed some rather disturbing equivocations on the received biblical teaching of the Church on human sexuality in the FiF magazine New Directions in recent months, but a very incisive piece by a blogger with the priceless name of Balaam's Ass, posted by Anglican Mainstream - Gay Pride, Sex Discrimination and Anglo-Catholic Incoherence - has crystallised the issue.
Since losing some of its best and brightest leaders to the Ordinariate, the FiF high command has started openly flirting with the LGBT agenda, and this is causing consternation among Anglo-Catholic Christians in local churches.
The implications of this spiritual and moral drift in the FiF leadership are serious for conservative evangelical co-belligerency with Anglo-Catholics against the revisionist agenda in the Church of England. There has certainly been evidence of late that the Anglo-Catholics are proving unreliable allies.
At one diocesan synod motion on women bishops earlier this year, the Anglo-Catholics refused to vote, thus detaching themselves from their erstwhile conservative evangelical allies. The majority for would have been considerably smaller if the Anglo's had not chosen to do an ecclesiastical equivalent of last night's footballing performance by Brazil.
The Balaam's Ass piece concludes with this powerful analysis of the futility of Anglo-Catholic attempts to cosy up to the politically-correct neo-liberals now firmly in charge of the Church of England:
In the approach to the fateful meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod, beginning 11 July, all the signs indicate that, unlike the more numerous evangelical opponents to women bishops, ‘catholics’ will now only be offering a token resistance. Their hope appears to be a lasting, honoured place in the bosom of the liberal Establishment. But toleration will not be extended to them for long – not because of their glaring theological incoherence – today’s Church of England does not have a serious concern for theology – but because no amount of ‘gay pride’ will be able to absolve them of the unforgivable sin of ‘sex discrimination’. With no allies at home or abroad and with nowhere else to go, the forward march already begun can lead to only one destination: complete absorption.
END
