THE CHURCHILLIAN BISHOP BENN

The Right Rev Wallace Benn, the Bishop of Lewes, compared the ordination of women bishops to the Nazi invasion

From The Telegraph:

The Right Rev Wallace Benn, the Bishop of Lewes, told the Reform conference of conservative Anglicans: “I feel very much increasingly that we’re in January of 1939. We need to be aware that there is real serious warfare just round the corner.”

His analogy angered Jewish groups as it was in that month that Hitler outlined his intent to kill Europe’s Jews.

And Bishop Benn was shocked, because he did not at all mean to suggest an analogy with Hitler.

Bishop Benn later attempted to clarify his remarks and said: “I was thinking in terms of the storm clouds being on the horizon.”

He said he intended his remarks to be Churchillian rather than thinking of Hitler.

Storm clouds, indeed. I expect Bishop Benn's had a little storm cloud over his head ever since he made his remarks.

It's times like this when I wish for the talent to draw a cartoon.

ELDERLY BATS

I don't know about y'all, but I needed a couple of laughs.

Thanks to my brother-in-law.

JESUS AND MO

Click on the strip for the larger view.

From Jesus and Mo.

WOT THEMETHATISME WROTE TO THE NEWSPAPERS

From the comments:

themethatisme said...
I have forwarded a brief missive to the newspapers covering this...

Sir,
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 prejudicial 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.)

Excellent, TheMe. I could not have said it so well myself. Isn't it about time to post again on your blog?

I remind you once again of No Anglican Covenant, where you can sign up to join the group in its opposition to to the covenant. Your comments are welcome at the web site.

UPDATE: Themethatisme heeded my advice and posted on his blog the fine sermon on the Anglican Covenant, which he preached today.

Still, as I am preaching in the morning, I have thought to include my sermon here as I would usually do, but it will be noted that my sermon this morning although taking an askance look at the mornings gospel, is principally in order to announce to my parish church my thoughts and feelings on this here covenant thingy. I am delighted to see the launch earlier this week of NO ANGLICAN COVENANT, and am pleased to add what I may to the argument against its adoption. The following reworks some bits and pieces that I previously have shared with trying to awaken a local consciousness to a global matter.

2 Thess. 2:1-5,13-end; Luke 20:27-38

St. Mary Magdalene, 7th November 2010.

TheMe's sermon is well worth a read.

FR JAKE ANSWERS BISHOP CAMERON

You must read Fr Jake's riposte to Bishop Cameron's letter. Fr Jake doesn't write often on his blog these days, but when he writes, his words are always worth reading.

Jake takes apart the worst of Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, the objectionable, punitive section, piece by piece, and demonstrates why adopting the covenant will not be a good thing, despite Bishop Cameron's advice to all of us to please calm down and stop the scaremongering.

Says Jake:

Use whatever snarky names you can imagine, Bishop Cameron, but, regarding the signing of any current or future Anglican Covenant, this is one Anglican whose response must echo that of Bartleby the Scrivener; "I would prefer not to."

And they all said, "Amen"!

And while I have your attention, why not go vote on the Church Times Question Of the Week,: "Should the Church of England reject the Anglican Covenant?" Look for the link to the question in the upper left hand corner.

LAND OF THE FREE

From Elizabeth Wurtzel, who is American, but the article is in the Guardian, which, last I heard, was a newspaper in England:

Hard to say precisely what it is that people – "folks", as President Obama likes to call them – are so darn exercised about, but they say things that show that their command of any words with more than two syllables is completely questionable, like: "The president is a socialist", or "healthcare reform is unconstitutional". Of course, what they want to say, and what they should say, is something to the effect that they hate this man that those people elected president and they want to kill him – but only people like me, elitists with Ivy League degrees – people who actually have read Das Kapital and who have studied constitutional law – talk trash like that.
....

Look, America is a very sad place right now, which is what the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections are about. I could analyse the particulars, but then I would be no better than the whole 24-hour media machine – which, given that unemployment is at 9.6%, is lucky that no one has noticed that they don't exactly do their job. If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next.

And truthfully, it would not be so bad, if we could only come to terms with who we are: we are an amazing country still, but not in the way we believe. We are, in fact, kind of nerdy. We decry elitism, and yet it is precisely the high-falutin' stuff that we are good at. We still have the best research universities on the planet – every world survey puts Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford at the top – and we still have companies like Apple and Google that no one else on earth can come up with. And, of course, our creative industries – movies and music – are still our biggest import, even if piracy is deflating their value.
....

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai. The Tea Party people should enjoy their rallies, because the rest of it is, indeed, quite bleak.

For the first time in American history, then, social mobility has been replaced with class struggle. Europeans have always been mystified that poor people in this country don't rise up and throw potatoes at Donald Trump – instead, they make him a reality TV star. But that's because everyone here us sure they are going to be rich like him someday, too. Maybe tomorrow.

And yes, you should read Wurtzel's piece in its entirety, despite the fact that it's published in a foreign newspaper. She's mostly right. I wonder if she could be published in a major newspaper here in the US. Her truth-telling may paint far too bleak a picture for consumers of the "news" over here. In truth, not a few of Wurtzel's fellow citizens might label her as downright un-American.

Disclosure: I say "folks", too.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

WHAT GOD WANTS

Tobias Haller had his own lovely post exclusively for three days, but today I had to have it.

"LITTLE ENGLANDERS"

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.

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”.

Bishop Cameron compares IC and MCU to the British National Party, the facist political party in England, even as he accuses them of scaremongering.
...............................

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”.

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.

See? What did I say?

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.

BRAVO BISHOP BUCHANAN!

Nice alliteration.

Lesley Fellows gives us the text of Bishop Colin Buchanan's letter from last week in the Church Times.

Sir, — I have read your account of the Bishop of Fulham’s statement about his future (News, 22 October), and have heard him interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday programme. Am I right in my understanding of his position as follows?

He believes himself to be a true apostolic bishop ministering in the Church of England, and giving absolute assurance about the validity and efficacy of the sacramental ministrations he offers, which assurance, being of top priority for the life of the people of God, is guaranteed by the historic succession from the apostles, the preservation of that succession in the Anglican passage through the Reformation period, and in latter days the ensuring that the succession is sustained by male bishops only.

This assurance has not only been the key to all eucharistic celebrations by the Forward in Faith (FiF) constituency: it has also been visibly expressed in ordination by the Bishop of Fulham, in that in September he ordained a deacon (announced on another page) and, presumably, assured him that he was being truly ordained. All that is how I have read his present position.

At the end of the year, however, he will resign, and, in joining the Church of Rome, will acknowledge he has never been ordained, that his sacramental ministrations have been open to the highest level of doubt, and that the orders he has conferred (mostly, presumably, within the FiF constituency) have been fictitious. Does he in fact say this now, or is it simply that he will say it in two months’ time?

If I have got it wrong, I would be the first to acknowledge it and apologise for misrepresenting the position that I think I read. But I still have the dilemma that, if Rome is right, we have to go today; where as, if it is wrong, nothing that happens in the Church of England can make Rome right. Surely logic has some part to play in relation to integrity?

COLIN BUCHANAN

Splendid! I couldn't leave out a word. Thank you, Lesley!

The bishops and clergy in the Church of England who cross over to join the Roman Catholic ordinariates will be no more than mere seminarians, once they've made their swim across the Tiber. Fast-track seminarians, perhaps, but their Holy Orders once held by them to be precious, pristine, and unbesmirched by contamination from the likes of a woman bishop, will, in an instant, be declared, not only null and void, but never to have existed at all. What about the poor deacon? What about all the other deacons and priests the bishop ordained? What about the Eucharistic celebrations in which he presided?

What say you, Bishop Broadhurst?

Here's the link to the story of Bishop John Broadhurst's resignation in the Catholic Herald.

UPDATE: Earlier I pondered in the comments:

I wonder if (shall I call him Bishop?) Broadhurst presides at the Eucharist at the present time under his here-today-gone-tomorrow orders.

Bishop Broadhurst answered my wonderings in his pastoral letter:

My final act as a Bishop will be to celebrate the Mass at Gordon Square on the eve of Christ the King, Saturday 20th November at 12 noon. I hope to see many of you there.

Where is the logic here? How can Bishop(?) Broadhurst believe in the validity of his orders one day and believe them to be null and void the next day?

THANK HEAVEN FOR SMALL FAVORS

Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell were not elected.

Bye-bye, ladies. Perhaps you'll find seats on the Tea Party bus. Or, with Sarah Palin, you may consider grouping into the Republican Women Ex-Candidates Party. The name is only a suggestion. I'm sure you'll want to name yourselves.