WHAT IS AMIE UP TO?

Note: Unless you're an Anglican/Episcopal wonk, this post is probably not for you.

In Sheffield, South Yorkshire, statistics show that only 3% of the population regularly attend church. Back in 2002 the leadership team at Christ Church Fulwood were invited by senior diocesan staff to investigate the possibility of church planting, with the aim of sharing the Gospel with people who had moved into the new residential developments in the city centre. Despite extensive discussions, diocesan support for this initiative was withdrawn, but with mission our priority Christ Church Central was “born” in October 2003 as “a church for people who don’t go to church” outside the formal structures of the Church of England.

So.  Without the approval of the diocesan leadership, a Church of England parish planted a church outside the jurisdiction of the diocese.  Then the communities of the two churches, one Church of England, the other not, discerned that another church plant was in order, thus a second church outside the diocesan jurisdiction was established.  Did the leaders of the Diocese of Sheffield note the odd arrangement?

Nearly 10 years later both parent and daughter churches have continued to grow numerically and partnered one another in mission to the city. An expression of this partnership was the planting of Christ Church Walkley last year, with the initial members drawn from both congregations living in the area. Pete Jackson, who has been one of the associate ministers at Christ Church Central, is the founding minister.  

But wait.  Pete Jackson is not ordained.

Concern that his ministry and that of the new church should be appropriately recognised led us to consult the leadership of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), who subsequently wrote to the GAFCON Primates’ Council with a request that they should facilitate Pete’s ordination.

Appropriately recognized by whom?  Anyway, Pete went to Kenya and was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church of Kenya by Bishop Josephat Mule of Kitui.  Are you still with me?  Apparently, the ordination in Kenya caught the attention of the officials in the Diocese of Sheffield, as is shown by the following statement from the diocese.

ORDINATION IN KENYA

Reports are now circulating in the public domain of an ordination in Kenya in recent days. The Communications Office was inundated with calls wanting clarification and comment.

+Peter (Bishop of Doncaster)has issued the following statement today:

“The Diocese of Sheffield was made aware last week that Pete Jackson from Christ Church Walkley had been ordained in Kenya on Saturday 9 February 2013. This came as a total surprise as we had no prior knowledge or communication regarding this. We continue to seek further clarification and dialogue with those involved in the ordination at various levels and are taking advice so that we have a comprehensive picture of what took place. This will enable us to reflect further on the developments and their implications.”

AMiE (Anglican Mission in England) and AMiA (Anglican Mission in the Americas) see England and the Americas as mission territory in dire need of evangelization by the right sort of Anglicans, but the groups wish to remain part of the Anglican Communion.  I suspect their secret (or not so secret) wish is to take control of the communion and disseminate what they consider proper Anglicanism.

H/T to Simon Sarmiento at Thinking Anglicans for the links.

Adrian Worsfold, in his post titled "Entryism in the Church of England" says:

So, here we go, and outside London: entryism inside the Church of England.

Entryism is where a small body that keeps a tight control of itself invades and uses a host of a more mdoerate (sic) body because that body has a wider outreach than the small group could ever hope to acquire, despite the fact that the small body can attract to a limited extent larger numbers of its own fanatical types and some newer marginal people under its wing. The small group also takes opportunities to go out into the larger body and take over, bit by bit, as the opportunities present, units of the larger body's operation. The usual channels of decision making become subverted under the entryists' often informal and preplanned means of control. The model is trotskyite, and was shown with the actions of the Militant Tendency inside the Labour Party.

The larger body is usually undergoing weaknesses and transition, and is ripe for actions taken against it: and the small body seeks to weaken the host further as it takes to itself the hosts' shell institutions and acquire them to itself.

Adrian's take is interesting.  He sees the entryism "located at Christ Church Fulwood, which is C of E and the centre of the franchise."

AMIE DECLARES ITS INDEPENDENCE FROM THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

At the website of Anglican Mission in England, Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden write as follows:

The ordinations of three young Englishmen by the Archbishop of Kenya in June and the launch of the Anglican Mission in England was a "game-changer". It marked a turning point after four and a half years of discussions with and proposals to Lambeth Palace. These discussions were to seek a way of providing effective Episcopal oversight to those for whom this had become problematic in the Church of England.

The launch of AMIE and the establishment of its panel of bishops indicated that we would no longer play the game of Church of England politics as defined by the Church of England Establishment.
....

It has a different view of women in ministry that does not seek to compete as though it is a matter of power and status. It has a different view of marriage and sexuality which is not based on the interchangeability of the genders. AMIE resists the disaggregation of the issues as though they are all separate. It analyses the current malaise as a gradual process of destabilizing biblically faithful Anglican witness and ministry.

The writers use the analogy of the Arab Spring for the launch of their "game-changer" plan. The members of the AMIE group appear to see themselves as akin to the oppressed people in the Middle East.

And all along I thought it was women and LGTB persons who were the oppressed in the Church of England and that Archbishop Rowan Williams leaned over backwards to appease the anti-gay and anti-women folks. How mistaken I was!

H/T to Nicholas Knisely at The Lead, who says:

Much of this is familiar to people who remember the first moves of the AMIA movement here in the US back in 2000 and the subsequent irregular ordinations of Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers to the episcopate. This latest essay makes clear that the new organization in England is also planning to ignore the rules of the Anglican Communion when they get in the way of their goals.

Yes, I believe I've seen this movie already.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND GAINS UNE AMIE

Yes, the full name is The Anglican Mission in England.

AMIE has been established as a society within the Church of England dedicated to the conversion of England and biblical church planting. There is a steering committee and a panel of bishops. The bishops aim to provide effective oversight in collaboration with senior clergy.

The AMIE has been encouraged in this development by the Primates’ Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) who said in a communiqué from Nairobi in May 2011: “We remain convinced that from within the Provinces which we represent there are creative ways by which we can support those who have been alienated so that they can remain within the Anglican family.”

Thinking Anglicans brings us the news. It seems the group was once called the St Augustine Society. The acronym of the new name spells out to the French word for a feminine friend. Smart move.

The group is dedicated to the conversion of England. Hmmm. One wonders if another intention is at play (or at work) here - the conversion of the Church of England.

UPDATE: From Lay Anglicana in the comments...

With 'Amies' like that, who needs enemies?

This is more and more like Alice in Wonderland...

Yes, indeed!