Bishop Gregory Cameron (left), and Archbishop Derxel (sic) Gomez brief the press on a draft text of the Anglican Covenant, in May this year
Pictured above are two completely non-partisan bishops, well one bishop and one archbishop, who played major roles in drafting the Anglican Covenant, Bishop Gregory Cameron of the Diocese of St Asaph in the Church in Wales and Lord Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of the West Indies & Bishop of the Diocese Of Nassau & The Bahamas (Including the Turks & Caicos Islands).
A BISHOP has compared two groups opposing the Anglican Covenant to “an ecclesiastical BNP”. They are “latter-day Little Englanders”, he says.Bishop Cameron compares IC and MCU to the British National Party, the facist political party in England, even as he accuses them of scaremongering.
The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, formerly secretary to the Anglican Communion Covenant Design Group, was responding to the full-page advertise ment placed in the Church Times last week by Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly the Modern Churchpeople’s Union).
In a letter to this paper, he accuses them of using tactics of “misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences”.
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Sorry, I suffered a momentary brain disconnection. I'm all right now.
The Anglican Covenant was prompted in 2004 by the election of a gay bishop in the United States, the Rt Revd Gene Robinson. It attempts to define the relationship between the provinces of the Anglican Com munion, holding them to mutual accountability and consensus.Yes!!! The Church Times gets it right. No matter what folderol you hear about how the Anglican Daft Covenant came to be, it was originally conceived to exclude member churches which approve the ordination of lesbian and gay bishops and allow same-sex blessings or marriages. And which member church(es) would that be? Well, there was only one church with a partnered gay bishop at the beginning of the process to draft the covenant, namely the Episcopal Church in the US. And the Episcopal Church has been naughty again and ordained a partnered lesbian bishop and now permits same-sex blessings.
The Revd Jonathan Clatworthy, general secretary of Modern Church, said this week that the Covenant had come out of the debate in the Communion over gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, but this had been “played down by the Covenant’s proponents”.See? What did I say?
He denied the charge of scare mongering. Conservative bishops “have made it quite clear the whole point of the Covenant is to exclude the United States”, he said.
The former Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, told The Church of Ireland Gazette that the Covenant was the only means of keeping the Anglican Communion together, and provided “a framework within which you can have the discussion in a way which tries to keep all parties at the table”.And I have this bridge....
Is it possible for former colonists to be Little Englanders? I suppose not.
I wonder how I, an artist in Brooklyn who has spent a grand total of 3 days on English soil in the entire course of my life, qualified to be a "Little Englander."
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, it's a mystery.
ReplyDeleteI first misread the caption under the picture as, "Bishop Gregory Cameron (left), and Archbishop Derxel Gomez press the brief...", and it made perfect sense.
And how did you, dear Grandmere, a resident of Thibodaux, qualify to be designated a "Little Englander?"
ReplyDeleteThis is a puzzlement.
"press the brief," you wicked wicked woman ;)
It´s all about me...and I´m living under a active volcano and feel far safer than getting in shouting range of Bishop Cameron (Church of Wales/Welchman)...not nice! My Dad was from Yorkshire (Hull), I guess Cameron can take a shot at me and be half right!
ReplyDeleteMe a Little Englander? I'm French. I did have one English grandmother, though.
ReplyDeleteLeonardo, you are a guilty party, more so than me.
Bp. Cameron appeared in my comments last year. If he returns, I am a dead woman.
"Sorry, I suffered a momentary brain disconnection. I'm all right now."
ReplyDeleteOh, Mimi, 'twas Cameron who is suffering from a "momentary brain disconnection".
"Little Englander" is really code for "lesbian" and everyone knows that lesbians are always at fault. For Everything - the destruction of the very fabric of family life, economic catastrophe, wars and rumors of war, crime, pestilence, disease, debauchery, anarchy and chaos - oh, and a very bad sense of fashion.
"Little Englander" is really code for "lesbian" and everyone knows that lesbians are always at fault.
ReplyDeleteAnd I never knew!
Little Englander! Qui? Moi? My Québecois and Acadian ancestors who fought the British in "La guerre de la Conquête" (French and Indian War to the rest of you yanks)must be rolling around in their graves.
ReplyDeleteComparing progressive, liberal Christians to a fascist, neo-Nazi white supremacist political movement is about as offensive as it gets.
ReplyDeleteUeber-G, I am a descendant of the Acadians who were expelled by the Brits and settled in Louisiana and of the original French settlers in New Orleans.
ReplyDeleteCathy, you see that the idea caused my brain to shut down. In truth, it's difficult for me to accept that the letter is not a parody.
I added a link to the full text of Bp. Cameron's letter to my post, which I should have done from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteWell, Grandmere Mimi, I consult your oracle from time to time, so I have returned, and I jolly well hope that you're not a dead woman, and I promise not to shout at Leonardo either. Remember I was reacting to an advert - it was their scare tactics that reminded me of the far right in British politics ... Gregory Cameron
ReplyDeleteOh my God! . . the guy on the left . . When did Karl Rove take Holy Orders? ewwwwwww!
ReplyDeleteCanon G! I must ask you to tame your intemperate language.
ReplyDeleteLook, this is the same thing as comparing Obama to Hitler, or claiming that liberal judges will impose sharia law. The conservatives whether in ecclesiastical or secular politics are making the most OUTRAGEOUS statements when it is they themselves who qualify for the adjectives they fling at us!
ReplyDeleteI believe Karl Rove is in Wales these days. Having engineered a successful Tea Party revolution, he's coaching churchmen in how to label your opponents with smears and lies.
ReplyDeleteBishop Cameron, if you are indeed the bishop, since in the long run, we are all dead, to speak of my death without a designated time is a fairly safe statement. I'm alive, as of now. :-)
ReplyDeleteMCU and IC are not alone in predicting that much turmoil will follow for the Anglican Communion if the covenant is adopted, even more turmoil than we presently experience. Whether the information is in advert format or another format does not make it less true or more true. I prefer to judge the information on its own merits.
One reason the covenant disturbs me so is because it seems to me so very un-Anglican as it moves us toward a Roman Catholic style centralization of governance, which was the very thing from which the Church of England broke free in the 16th century.
In the face of my criticism, you have been unfailingly courteous, and I thank you for that. I don't know that I could have done so well.
"it was their scare tactics that reminded me of the far right in British politics" ... Gregory Cameron
ReplyDeleteAnd so His Grace responds with a little scare-mongering of his own.
I'm still puzzled, Your Grace, how I, an American living in Brooklyn, qualified to be a "Little Englander."
I have forwarded a brief missive to the newspapers covering this...
ReplyDeleteSir,
The Bishop of St. Asaph in comparing opposition to the covenant to an ecclesiastical BNP, can only indicate just how abstracted episcopal thought is from reality, it's clergy and parishioners. As one of the designers of this expensive, punitive, bureaucratic and prejucicial piece of legislation, it is incredible that he can make such a suggstion about those among us who promote inclusivity. Opposition is not solely rooted here in England but is a growing multi-national body of opinion which is determined to showcase this nonsense for what it is.
Whilst the covenant is touted as a document which will prevent splits in the communion, it is in fact a document which legitimises splitting on the terms of the powerful, centralising authority in the few, increasing costs to the whole church not least through boosting the episcopal Airmiles tally. If the bishop believes that name-calling is a positive premise upon which to conduct debate, then he was probably a good choice for the design of such a document.
NT.(Non-ecclesiastical caucus.)
TheMe, I'm bumping your letter up to a post, m'dear. It's in my comments, and now it's mine, mine, mine. However, I won't claim that I wrote the missive. I'll give you full credit.
ReplyDeleteI have said before: The Anglican Covenant is a naive document. I believes that it is a mere benign document to the Brits, but to the rest of the Communion it will, in the hands of the legalistas and fundamentalists become a place of endless litigation and perpetual "thumping." We don't need a Covenant. We need bishops who will LISTEN to the people.
ReplyDeleteWe need bishops who will LISTEN to the people.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that, Muthah.
re the pic: Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dumberer!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous-who-is-probably-NOT-Bishop-Cameron: drinking from the BabyBlue Kool-Aid, have we? "If you criticize an African (and/or Carribean) Prelate, therefore you must be a racist?" {Please to ignore the African (and/or Jamaican) LGBT person being lynched over yonder, at the Prelate's encouragement}
"it was their scare tactics..."
Lynching IS scary. You'd know that, if the rope had ever been dangled in YOUR direction! >:-(
JCF, don't be too sure that it is not Bishop Cameron who visited.
ReplyDeleteYes, under the covenant, TEC will be subject to judgment by authorities in other churches who approve, at best, of jailing gay persons and, at worst, of the death sentence for them.