African Bishops Embrace Ignorance and Threaten Schism

The one place in the world where conservative Christianity is growing is in Africa, since the continent has the conditions most needed for growth: a poorly educated and ignorant population.  But the ignorance isn't confined to the members in the pews.  In Africa, the bishops of the Anglican Communion - and I would argue the same applies to the Catholic Church - are so stupid they fail to realize that homophobia, not homosexuality, is a European import and they ignore modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation.  And that doesn't even begin to address the issue that the human genome project has shown that Adam and Eve never existed and that "The Fall" never occurred, thus eliminating the need for a messiah.  As they threaten a schism in the Anglican Communion, the question is are they really as ignorant as they seem or is this some sick power play for control over their ignorant followers.  Religion Dispatches looks at the looming show down between knowlege and modernity and ignorance and bigotry.  Here are excerpts:

“The issue of gay marriage is threatening to split apart the Anglican Communion ahead of an important summit in Canterbury in England next week,” according to the Christian Post, “with African and Asian leaders threatening to walk out on Archbishop Justin Welby.

Welby has been hoping to preserve the communion in the face of conservative outcry over the backing given same-sex marriage by liberal bishops, including leaders of the American Episcopal Church.

The Daily Mail’s Jonathan Petre reports:

The row has torn the Church apart for a decade – with conservatives accusing liberals of abandoning the word of God by backing openly gay bishops and marriages for gay couples – and the Archbishop wants to broker a deal to allow both sides to co-exist peacefully.

But insiders said a hardcore of eight to 12 conservative archbishops from Africa and Asia are preparing to quit the meeting on the first morning unless the liberal Americans ‘repent’ or the Archbishop throws them out.

In what would be a massive challenge to Archbishop Welby’s authority, the conservatives, who represent some of the biggest of the 38 individual Churches in the worldwide ‘Communion’, are then likely move to their own headquarters nearby for the rest of the meeting.

While they are unlikely immediately to break their historic ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury – the nominal head of the Communion – they would boycott future official meetings and set up a parallel church, drawing away traditionalists from the Church of England.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that feelings are running so high that the three most powerful leaders, the Archbishops of Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, were last week on the brink of snubbing the meeting altogether, but were persuaded to attend by colleagues still hoping to force concessions from Welby.

Sources said they have lost patience with the Archbishop’s refusal to discipline the liberals for ignoring official policy urging them to refrain from creating gay bishops or approving gay marriage without widespread agreement.

Personally, my inclination if I were Archbishop Welby would be to let them walk and immediately cut off 100% of funding from the modern elements in the Anglican Communion.  Indeed, I would go further and have all western aid to reactionary religious institutions cut off as well.  The embrace of ignorance and demagoguery needs to carry a very heavy price.

Archbishop of Canterbury: The Church Has Supported Homophobia

While conservative religious denominations continue an increasingly hysterical war against gays in general and the recognition of same sex relations and marriage in particular the irony is that by doing so they are committing a slow moving form of suicide as those under 30 increasingly are simply walking away from such faith traditions.  Justin Webly, the Archbishop of Canterbury(pictured above) seems to be belatedly waking up to this reality, not that his changing views will be welcome among the vitriolically anti-gay African churches that belong to the Anglican communion.  A piece in The Guardian looks at some of Webly's recent remarks.  Most interestingly, he describes homophobia and its perpetuation to be a sin.  Here are highlights:

Justin Welby thinks that it is a huge problem for the church in this country that it is defined by what it's against. "Young people say 'I don't want to hear about a faith that is homophobic'," he told a gathering of leaders from the Evangelical Alliance on Wednesday, many of whom have campaigned hard against gay marriage.

Second, he used the term "homophobia" in an honest way. There are still some evangelicals who claim it is a made-up term that refers to nothing in particular. Not so Welby. Gay marriage was, he said, an attempt to deal with issues of homophobia. "The church has not been good at dealing with it. We have implicitly and even explicitly supported [homophobia] and that demands repentance."

This is, I think, something that he sees as a command from God, rather than an adjustment to the world.
More to the point, he now understands just how dreadful conservative Christian attitudes seem to anyone under 35. "The vast majority of people under 35 think [the church's resistance to gay marriage] is not just incomprehensible but plain wrong and wicked, and they assimilate it to racism and other horrors."

He made clear later that this attitude was found among young evangelicals as well as ordinary people, and that it was reflected in his experience as well as in public opinion polls.

Of course, this isn't really news. It is a recognition of reality much clearer and more forceful than Rowan Williams could have allowed himself, but the only possible audience for his remarks was sitting in front of him. No one outside the church cares in the slightest what its leaders say about sex. Very few people inside care either: according to the YouGov Westminster Faith Debate polls, only 2% of Anglicans take into account the views of religious leaders when making moral decisions.

Some of his evangelical audience will have heard only what he said about voting against the bill. Others will have understood what he also said about how catastrophic this attitude has become for the credibility of Christianity as a moral force in this country.

The perverse side of me hopes the anti-gay zealots continue their homophobic screeds - it is perhaps the quickest way to ensure that over time their denominations will die and lose all credible influence.  All of which would be a very good thing and an improvement for society.

Anglican Church Seeking Catholics Fleeing Predator Priests

While I have already posted today about the ongoing debacle in the Roman Catholic Church which may yet take down the current Pope, this Sunday op-ed in the Times of London was just too good to pass up. Talk about a case of tit for tat. Not long ago, the Roman Catholic Church indicated that it would happily welcome homophobic members of the Church of England who just could not handle allowing openly gay clergy and bishops. Well, now, with claims of sexual abuse by priests sweeping across Europe, the suggestion has been made that Anglicans need to extend a welcoming hand to Catholics who are worried about their children being subjected to sexual abuse by Catholic priests. That's not to say that the Anglican church is perfect, but at least there has not been a documented cover up of abuse mandated by the Pope on down. I have long thought that the Episcopal Church (Christ and St. Likes Episcopal in Norfolk is pictured at left) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America needed to actively recruit disillusioned Catholics who would enjoy the basically the same liturgy and beliefs without financially underwriting the nasty, morally deficient Catholic Church hierarchy. Here are some highlights from the Times of London column:
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Has the time come for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to open the door to the many millions of British Roman Catholic worshippers who may be worried that their children are likely to be interfered with by priests? I think it’s correct that young children are slightly less at risk from the Anglican clergy, although it would be unwise of Rowan to offer any cast-iron promises, just in case.
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Last year Pope Benedict XVI invited disillusioned Anglicans to join the Church of Rome if they were disapproving of, or merely bored by, women priests and homosexuals but fancied instead a few Latin incantations, rosary beads and the whiff of incense; this took the Church of England by surprise.
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Now is Beardo’s chance to get his own back. He should strike while the iron is hot. Give the émigré left-footers free passage, one of those Christingle oranges and a DVD collection of The Vicar of Dibley — they can even cling on to transubstantiation, if they keep quiet about it.
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[Irish] Cardinal Sean Brady, has admitted that he was present at meetings in the 1970's when children who were abused by a paedophile priest were forced, there and then, to sign a vow of silence. . . . Brady now accepts that the church’s response to this scandal has been “hopelessly inadequate” (although he hasn’t yet used the words “criminal” and “totalitarian”) but he will not resign over the business. This weekend Ireland’s “faithful”, as Benny the 16th puts it, have received a letter from him personally, which presumably included an apology somewhere along the way. Meanwhile, there have been similar scandals in Holland, Spain, Switzerland and Austria
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But the church still gives the impression that while its legions of kiddie-fiddling priests are probably, on the whole, a bad thing, they are not half as Satanic as stuff like condoms, socialism and gender equality. You suspect that it is the church’s entrenched position within much of Europe that has enabled it to sidestep public abhorrence for so long, and thus to react with apparent insouciance whenever these scandals arise and remain immune to proper investigation.
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However, the public across Europe is becoming more secular and more questioning of those in authority. It is disinclined to believe in the infallibility of anyone, be it a politician, a pop star or a pope. And those new watchwords — transparency and openness — are not qualities that one associates with the Holy See.
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Admittedly, the op-ed is written somewhat tongue in cheek, but the basic point is on the mark. Why are Catholics remaining with a Church that has a leadership that makes Mafia dons look forth right and honorable? For Catholic readers, I sincerely encourage you to check out the Episcopal and Lutheran alternatives: same basic faith without the moral bankruptcy through out the Church leadership.

Archbishop of Canterbury About to Throw Gays Under the Bus?

Stories out of the UK suggest that before it's all over, gays will be "thrown under the bus" in order to maintain "unity" within the Anglican Communion. As is all too typical in my opinion, the good Christians such as Archbishop Rowan Williams lack the guts to stand up against what is wrong so as to maintain false unity with bigots and false Christians. If anyone has come out looking good throughout the Lambeth Conference, I think it is Gene Robinson, the only bishop who has consistently preached a message of love and acceptance of all. I find it repugnant that Roland Williams would rather kiss the hypocritical asses of the likes of Peter Akinola (who is suggested to have had a hand in the massacre of women and children) rather than denounce them and support gay Christians. I predict that time will show that by appeasing the intolerant bigots within the Anglican Communion, Williams will be only encouraging them to make further demands. Are women priests and bishops the next targets of the homophobic male chauvinists that predominate the ranks of the "conservative" bishops. Williams is the religious equivalent of Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler. Here are some highlights from the BBC:

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The announcement came on the last day of the Lambeth Conference, which has been overshadowed by the issue of gay clergy and same-sex unions. About 200 bishops boycotted the once-a-decade forum over the row. Dr Rowan Williams said there was a recognition, "though still with many questions", that a Covenant was needed. The BBC's Robert Pigott says this would be "some sort of statement of shared beliefs and a more-or-less binding agreement to stick to them".

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"It seems that a number of groups of clergy have voted for a ban on gay bishops and church blessings for homosexual couples, as part of a long-term plan to preserve at least the core of the Communion," he said. One suggestion from the group working on a potential Covenant has been for churches departing from tradition to have "diminished status" within the Communion. Such an arrangement would result in a two-tier Communion but no church would be expelled.

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Gene Robinson - told Radio 4's Sunday programme that some traditionalists were actively working towards schism. "Bullies always come back for more. And the one thing that I think the archbishop is blind to is the fact that nothing short of total victory will satisfy these guys."

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to Target Pro-Gay Bishops

To say that I am disappointed with Rowan Williams' spineless leadership of the Anglican Communion is an understatement. His pitiful leadership and fear of standing up to anti-gay bishops is one factor that has kept me from possibly returning to the Episcopal Church. I have never been one to sacrifice doing what is right for what is convenient or that which will engender a false sense of unity. Better to stand alone than go over the cliff with the rest of the lemmings.

In my view, if Williams needs to target anyone, it should be anti-gay bigots like Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria who has been actively interfering with the workings of other national churches within the Communion. Sadly, I suspect he will act as a modern day Neville Chamberlain in the face of modern day fascists like Akinola who I view as anything but a man of God or true follower of Christ. Here are highlights from the Daily Telegraph's coverage (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/19/nclergy119.xml):

The Archbishop of Canterbury is preparing to target individual bishops whose pro-gay policies threaten to derail his efforts to avert schism, The Daily Telegraph has learnt. In a high-risk strategy, Dr Rowan Williams may even snub them by withdrawing their invitations to next year's Lambeth Conference. He has told friends he will challenge any bishop he believes is coming to the conference with an agenda "very much at odds" with his attempts to maintain unity in the worldwide Church.

Dr Williams sent invitations in May to most of the Anglican Church's 880 bishops around the world for the once-a-decade showcase gathering in Canterbury. He withheld invitations from only a handful of particularly divisive figures, including Bishop Gene Robinson, who became Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop in 2003. But he has now indicated that he is prepared to scrutinise controversial bishops he had already invited if there is evidence that they are unwilling to compromise their views.

The 2004 report, which he commissioned after Bishop Robinson's consecration, called on the American Episcopal Church to impose moratoriums on future consecrations of gay bishops and on same-sex blessings. The American bishops said after their critical meeting in New Orleans last month that they would not consent to another gay bishop, at least for the time being. But they acknowledged that some were still allowing clergy to carry out the public blessing of gay couples.

Dr Williams has been under great pressure from conservatives to punish the entire American Episcopal Church for bringing the worldwide Church to the brink of schism. Insiders point out, however, that Dr Williams could also target hardliners if he believes they are breaching guidelines against bishops intervening in foreign dioceses, as some Africans have done. If he decides to take the drastic step of withdrawing the invitation to bishops on either the liberal or conservative wing, he will risk a barrage of criticism and could provoke further damaging boycotts.