Anglicanism: the split has begun
Murphy's 2nd Law of Journalism: Whatever the story, there's an Irishman involved somewhere. So we shouldn't have been surprised to find that one of the churches in Virginia to have the American Epicopal Church this month has a Northern Irishman as rector.
The Reverend was ordained by Archbishop Robin Eames and is minister of the Church of the Word in Gainsville, Va. I spoke to him on today's Sunday Sequence and he said his church would be marking Christmas in Nigerian style this year, since they are now a mission church of Archbishop Peter Akinola's Nigerian province. Mr Adams said the American Episcopal Church is now, in his judgement, an "apostate" church, and the actions of this year's General Convention fell short of what was asked of the denomination in the Windsor Report.
Robin Adams was unconcerned about the obvious cultural differences between the state of Virginia and Nigeria. Earlier this year, Archbishop Peter Akinola's Nigerian church gave its support to a draconian proposed by the Nigerian government outlawing (with punishment of up to five years in jail), banning same-sex marriages, and criminalising "any person involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organisations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private."
This law would make it a criminal offence for a gay couple to sleep in the same bed or hold hands in the street. Although there has been some debate on this blog about what constitutes "homophobia", if that term means anything at all it surely applies to legislation of this kind and those who give support to it.
Comments
As a TEC member, this is a sad development. You guys should keep your Irish rectors at home! Just kidding, this is a much more serious crisis than that. Sad, tragic and appalling. I can't understand how any church would want to be associated with Akinola's homophobia. Jesus wept . . .
Daniel, dont take scripture out of context.
Jesus never wept over "homophobia", in fact he underlined the historical accuracy of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Having said that, he is the friend of sinners, and I need him in that regard no less than anyone.
Joel Edwards said that two church groupings in the US that had previously accepted homosexuality had seen their attendance nosedive after that.
I think I understand why. Acceptance of homosexuality is not just disagreeing with a few verses in the bible. Those who do it, in my experience, have very little interest in the bible at all and certainly dont regard it as the divinely inspired final authority for church conduct.
IN free countries that is a choice everyone can make, but with a viewpoint like that it is hard to see the relevance of going to a church at all. Thats why the declining membership of such churches seems very logical to me.
And by the way, would it not be possible to get a more etymologically correct term than homophobia; it just seems to cloud the issues. While some people have an irrational fear of homosexuality there are many who have other objections aside from that eg theological.
It is sort of like arachnaphobia; some people may be scared witless of spiders and want them out of their house; others just want to keep their house clean and tidy. To define them both as phobics seems like deliberately emotive stereotyping which wants to avoid a cool analysis of all the facts.
PB
I have just had a visit from a English friend in the Anglican church.
He says there is alot of concern among bible believers in Anglicanism that only their sector of the church is growing, while the liberal wings declines. So the bible believers end up subsidising the liberals.
Liberals really have nothing to offer the world, they are just reflecting the worlds values.
That is why according to Joel Edwards the two US churches which accepted homosexuality went into serious decline afterwards, perhaps.
PB
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