Bishop Duncan Shares Concerns on Windsor Continuation Group

Good leadership hinges on moral tenets – Anglican Fathers

From the Anglican Church in Nigeria

Leadership at all levels in the Country, including the Church, has been challenged to stand out in condemnation of the quest for materialism and ill-gotten wealth prevalent in the society. Delegates to the 11th Annual Men’s Conference, Diocese of Egbu, Christian Fathers’ Association, (CFA) made the call in a 11point communiqué at the end of the conference held recently at Holy Trinity Church, Nekede in Owerri West Local Government Council. It urged the leaders not only to express disapproval of such vices but also to strive and toe the line of moral rectitude and proper Christian living.

Conference delegates who also expressed dismay over the problem of homosexuality in Christendom, contrary to biblical teachings and practices, associated itself with the philosophy of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) held recently in Jerusalem. It commended the vision of the Primates Council of GAFCON and called on all Christians, irrespective of their denominations, to uphold the teachings of the Bible.

It noted with regret that such unbiblical and false gospel has paralyzed the Anglican Communion world-wide and called on all GAFCON Bishops and Churches to remain resolute in ensuring that the Communion was reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into the world and present Christ to the nations.

Conference delegates were satisfied with the Conference theme “Take off your Sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground”, describing it as apt in every Christian life and advised Fathers to identify their sandals of cultism, immorality, adultery and other mundane tendencies in their lives, so as to take them off in order to embrace a new creation in Christ. Some Christian Fathers, the Conference delegates noted seemed to be losing faith in God because of some afflictions upon them and urged such persons to continue to build their trust absolutely in God who would always see them through in all their depressed situations.

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Sir, The Bishop of Durham in his articulate letter (Aug 9) regarding the leaking of the Williams letters makes some useful clarifications and I am grateful for his statements regarding Dr Williams’s closing address at the Lambeth Conference.

As for why I decided to offer his letters to the public arena, I have written to Dr Wright at length, but suffice it to say that as events moved from GAFCon to Lambeth I became almost sure for various reasons that the liberals knew far more about Dr Williams’s personal views than the traditionalists did and, if so, the balance should be redressed.

Over the years I have shared the letters with only a few; I had no desire to embarrass Dr Williams over his statements, and I hoped that his personal views would change. Now that the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion has become such a big issue I judged it was time to override my misgivings about making his views known. Anglicans can make up their own minds what to do with the information.

Deborah Pitt
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan

LAMBETH: Psychiatrist Pinpoints Sexuality Struggles in Church & Family

By Lisa Guinness

Thank you for your attention; because this afternoon is not fringe at all but a vital part of the listening and dialogue said to be the essence of the Lambeth Conference.

A Revolution Ecclesiastes 4 v 1 Again I saw all the oppressions that are practised under the sun: And behold the tears of the oppressed, And they had no one to comfort them On the side of their oppressors there was power, And there was no one to comfort them.

So a revolution is always to cast off a restraint – real or perceived. The purpose is to bring down an institution and create a new freedom in its place.

But in the fall out, there are always casualties and prisoners and the infrastructure, necessary for ordinary life, often gets damaged or destroyed.

The full cost and the supposed benefits only become apparent later.

The institutions in question here were the family and the church.

The Family Sadly in the western world this had been reduced to the nuclear variety without the ancient possibilities of community, rites of passage, a host of relationships and mentoring that were present in a tribal or extended family model. As the social fragmentation started to bite and the walls closed in on the 2.4 children at home alone; so the new possibilities of sexual freedom due to contraception and social freedom of new job opportunities kicked in. A generation of confident independent under 30s did not need God and were proud of their ability to cast off restraint.

Ephesians 3 speaks of all the families on earth emanating from God the Father so what are some of the key elements of family that we have lost in the revolution. They may have seemed confining then, but were in fact the necessary order from which real freedom could flow.

God’s original intention is that two adults should have been mature enough to leave their father and mother and cleave to each other in a covenant relationship.

1. Leaving : father and mother being mature enough both sides
2. Cleaving: covenant commitment that gives the security for dynamic evolving personhood c.f. moving on when the going gets tough
3. Procreation: with even more possibilities for evolving personhood with the opportunities to mature into motherhood and fatherhood
4. The family circle bringing more and more possibilities of relationship and becoming.
5. Undergirding this is the presence of the creator, redeemer God so in casting off the restraint of the family, we secured our absolute independence, becoming as god, but without His wisdom

Then the fall out starts to happen as we inflict primal wounds on our children and relationships become uncommitted and therefore indulgent with less and less possibility of being intimate or stable.

This Revolution and The Church One effect of this independence, felt by the church, was a desire also to be allowed to do what was right in one’s own eyes.

Another was, as the church presumed that because it felt powerless and contaminated by the sexual revolution that God was too. Best to pretend that nothing is happening. The challenge is too great and too messy. Another strand was a crisis of confidence in power of the Cross and a sense of shame at needing a Saviour.

Which is odd when I am not ashamed to call in a plumber for a dodgy ball cock or take my car to the garage for a service. I have never yet been told by the mechanic that I should have been able to fix the brake pads myself – rather I have been commended for dealing with such a potentially dangerous defect. What havoc am I reeking in my relationships from all my unhealed places! Owning issues of sexuality became very difficult to do in some areas of the church – especially if the church felt it had nothing meaningful to offer.

So what of The Cross Does it have any power? Does it effect any real salvation for the personal and domestic issues in our lives? the hurts and losses, the shame, the confusion, any freedom from the people we need to forgive? Is there any justice or restoration of our full personhood this side of heaven?

Or is the Cross just a symbol or impotent theological concept and there is no hope of change or peace or honour in this the mortal phase of our eternal life?

Because if the Cross has no power then there is no hope of effective pastoral care or salvation, in its true sense of healing, and we are of all people to be pitied. **

And in our hopelessness we will be very tempted to reinterpret Scripture or leave it behind completely and become those with the appearance of godliness but denying its power. (2 Tim 3 v 5)

Hebrews 12: describes a key progression See to it that: who knows where this is happening in a fragmented and values personal privacy above true fellowship and accountability. no one misses out on the grace of God -> no root of bitterness grows up in you and causes you trouble ( and we know how much of our behaviours are to assuage the pressure and frustration of disappointment and bitterness) – > no one is sexually immoral -> no one goes for instant gratification like Esau who sold the blessing of his sonship for a bowl of soup.

How many of us have anyone close enough to know if this is happening? Especially where we value of privacy above true fellowship.

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‘Rwanda is coming under the fire of the Spirit’
The Archbishop of Rwanda talks about the genocide and his optimism for the future

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

The Archbishop of Rwanda

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (ANS) – Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, the head of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, has one of the most difficult jobs in the world.

For he has pledged himself to bringing healing to a country that in 1994 experienced the Rwandan Genocide, which saw the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s minority Tutsis and the moderates of its Hutu majority.

The genocide was primarily perpetrated by two Hutu militias, the Interahamwe, the militant wing of the MRND, and the Impuzamugambi, the militant wing of the CDR. It was an eruption of the ethnic and economic pressures ultimately consequential after Rwanda’s colonial era and the fractious culture of Hutu power.

The Rwandan Civil War, fought between the Hutu regime with support from Francophone nations of Africa, as well as France itself, and rebel Tutsi exiles with support from Uganda, after their invasion in 1990, was its catalyst. With outside assistance, in 1993, the Hutu regime and Tutsi rebels were able to agree to a cease-fire, and the preliminary implementation of the Arusha Accords.

The diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were at first thought to be successful, yet even with the RPF, the political wing of the RPA, and the government in talks, elites among the Akazu were against any agreement for cooperation between the regime and the rebels to solve the ethnic and economic problems of Rwanda and progress towards a stable nationhood.

Now, thankfully, a relative piece has settled into the country and who better to talk about the situation but the Archbishop of Rwanda.

I caught up with him at the recent 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, where he was a speaker at an event put during the conference by Rick and Kay Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, who moderated a panel of Rwandan government and church leaders; business and medical experts; and Saddleback HIV/AIDS Initiative directors, to address the issue of global partnership ventures to help people living with HIV/AIDS.

I began by asking Archbishop Kolini to talk about the Rwandan genocide that so shocked the world.

“Well, let me say first of all I was not there at that time,” he began. “I was a bishop in the Congo, where I was born, but I was following the terrible events because I was a part of what was called the Francophone province which was comprised of three countries — Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. We had several meetings and I knew what was going on in Rwanda. It was terrible to me; it was a spiritual challenge.”

He then made the shocking admission that much of the killing was done by “nominal Christians.”

“Yes, they were nominal Christians,” he said. “When the war broke out, the church in Rwanda was at its infancy level. So they were busy baptizing, but discipleship was a challenge, which we are now doing.

“Much of the killings took place within families. Uncles killed a nephew, nephew killed an uncle. The aunties and even parents killed their own children and even children killed their parents.”

So it wasn’t just the Tutsis and Hutu who were fighting?

“Of course, there was much killing between the two groups, but there was also many mixed marriages and mixed blood, for a number of years,” he said. “To me, we all blame each other, but we forget that it was the devil behind it. So unless the devil is blamed and is challenged, genocide can take place in another form anywhere.”

I then asked the Archbishop how big the population was before the killings began.

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Gafcon a movement of the Holy Spirit says South African bishop

The Bishop of Port Elizabeth, the Rt Rev Bethlehem Nopece writes about Gafcon to his people. Its is good to read this coming from a largely liberal Province.

All praise to him who reigns above in majesty supreme; blessed be the name of the Lord! Greetings to you all in the name of Christ, our Lord and Saviour!

It has been a great privilege to attend the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008. A statement has been produced by the conference. The Archdeacons are to share it with you for study and comment. Gafcon is a spiritual movement which seeks to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and Tradition of the Anglican Church. It affirms that we have received a transforming gospel which changes character and behaviour of human beings, and brings them into conformity with the demands of the gospel, in obedience to God through repentance and faith in Jesus who died our death (Gal 2:20-21). Reason and Experience are only to be verified and tested in the light of the God’s Word written for whatever is to be ordained or decreed (Article XX). This is the cherished Anglican heritage of the Anglican Communion and the Gafcon participants have no intention of departing from its principles.

There were 1 148 lay and clergy participants – including 291 bishops – from among many faithful Anglican Christians who still look at the Bible as the Word of God, not just a ‘primary source’, as some are led to believe by liberal revisionist theology. Gafcon believes that Anglicanism has a bright future for as long as we are obedient to the Lord’s Great Commission “to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching and training them to observe what the Lord commands.”(Matt 28:16-20; Eph.2:20). Gafcon is a movement in the Spirit and a fellowship of confessing Anglicans. Please read the statement on the Global Anglican Future. There is nothing divisive about it. The Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa are affiliated to it. Pray that the unity of the church be preserved. “Can the two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3).

WILLIAMS STEALTH ENDORSEMENT OF GAY AGENDA REVEALED IN S.P.R.E.A.D. DOCUMENT

NOTE: VOL believes that in light of recent revelations of Dr. Williams on homosexuality with letters between himself and a lady psychiatrist in Wales, that this SPREAD article with links to the original S.P.R.E.A.D. document are important enough to run again.

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
2/19/2007

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams has been exposed in a 140-page document as a theologian-leader who has long supported non-celibate gay and lesbian sexual relationships, contrary to Holy Scripture.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/content/Williamsandscripture.pdf

Williams, who authored The Body’s Grace and Open to Judgement has a long history of supporting pansexual behavior going back to the early 1980s when he was a spiritual director to persons engaged in homosexual activity.

A team of theologians headed by the Rt. Rev. John Rodgers produced the document believing that the Anglican Communion has not been made fully aware of the archbishop’s views that are at variance with the vast majority of 78-million Anglicans most of whom reside in the Global South and who eschew homosexuality.

The findings of the report are devastating and conclude that the defenders of the Anglican Faith cannot rely on Rowan Williams to use the powers of the Archbishop of Canterbury to preserve, much less propagate, the Anglican Faith which adheres to the sovereign authority of Scripture and requires obedience to the moral commandments given from God by Moses.

The evidence shows that Williams worked for many years before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury to replace the Anglican Faith with a different kind of faith which adheres to the sovereign authority of man’s reason, intelligence, and experience, and promotes a new moral code. The evidence also allows little room to believe that since becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury Williams has changed his teachings.

The 140-page document reveals that Williams began to reject Scripture’s prohibition of same gender sexual relations some time in the 1980s and in a newspaper interview in 2002 he stated that his “developing sense over the last twenty years” that the Church should approve of same gender sexual relations “has come in part from being the spiritual director to people of the homosexual orientation.”

In an interview Williams said; “I did come to a point where I could no longer say the Biblical account answers all of the questions we have or want to ask.”

Williams acted on his conclusion that scripture did not have all the answers concerning same gender sexual relations with such diligence that he became a leader in the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. This movement was founded in 1976 in England by Richard Kirker who is currently its Executive Director. The LGCM sponsored an annual “Michael Harding Memorial Address” and Rowan Williams addressed the group a decade later in his now famous lecture “The Body’s Grace”.

Williams founded the Institute of Christianity and Sexuality and in 1996 changed its name to the Center for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality expressly holding as a matter of “conviction ” that “it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex, but also express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship.”

Williams critique of Scripture can best be summarized in his own words: “I suspect that a fuller exploration of the sexual metaphors of the Bible will have more to teach us about a theology and ethics of sexual desire than will the flat citation of isolated texts; and I hope other theologians will find this worth following up more fully than I can do here.”

Williams was also a member of the board of editors of the journal Theology and Sexuality when its first edition was published in 1994 and remained on its board till 2002 after he was selected to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.

David Holloway, an evangelical leader exposed an issue of this journal which had such articles as, ‘men, Muscles and Zombies,” “The Place for Porn in a Gay Spiritual Economy,” and “Finding God in the Heart-Genital Connection.”

In 1990, Williams worked with the Rev. Canon Jeffrey John, Bishop Richard Holloway, and others to found another organization which promotes the Church’s approval of same gender sexual relations, “Affirming Catholicism”. In the words of its executive director, “Affirming Catholicism has consistently called for the full inclusion of lesbian and gay members of the Church.”

Affirming Catholicism sets forth in its website many of the concepts used by the proponents of the Church’s approval of same gender sexual relations. Among them is the major concept that Scripture’s commandments concerning moral behavior are not conclusive, but are subject to change inspired by the Holy Spirit and measured by human reason, intelligence and experience.” This concept becomes clear when various Affirming Catholicism web publications are pieced together.

Williams gave papers at the Affirming Catholicism conferences in 1991, 1993, 1995, and 2000. Williams traveled to the USA and Canada addressing Affirming Catholicism members in those countries.

In 1992 when Williams was enthroned as Bishop of Monmouth in the Province of Wales he ordained a priest he knew to be unrepentantly homosexual. Williams later explained that he takes the “minority” position that priests do not have to give up a homosexual lifestyle, and he is “not convinced that a homosexual has to be celibate in every imaginable circumstance.” However, if priests engage in same gender sexual relations, Williams would “want to be sure that their attitude to their sexual habits is a reasonable, prayerful, and theologically informed one.”

Not surprisingly Frank Griswold’s teachings reflect Affirming Catholicism’s themes of the Holy Spirit speaking in new ways and the measuring of sexual conduct by human experience.

But it is not only homosexuality that Williams has affirmed. In March 1996 Williams reviewed a book, “Just Good Friends: Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Relationships. Williams states among other things, “Liz Stuart is able to point meaningly and effectively to the image of Sophia as the connection-making, time-taking energy of God in the world, the divine “Spiderwoman” whose life is found in but not extinguished by the event of Jesus – Jesus in the community of those he loves and who love him.”

Williams wrote that “contemporary debates suggest that we are getting worse all the time, with out obsessive searches for purity, whether radical or conservative.”

Later he wrote, “The apparently clear line between eros and friendship is illusory; we are looking at different forms of one passion – the passion for life-giving interconnection.”

In 1997, Williams demonstrated his commitment to his teaching that the Church should approve of same gender sexual relations by giving up the opportunity to be the Bishop of Southwark in the C of E rather than abandon it. Carey objected to the appointment, and asked Williams to distance himself from his teaching. Williams refused the condition and was not nominated for the post.

Williams later helped the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality’s “sister organization,” Changing Attitude, (a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual members of the Church of England) lobby for the approval of same gender sexual relations at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Williams wrote the forward for the book “The Other Way? Anglican Gay and Lesbian Journeys” published by Changing Attitude in June 1998.

The 1998 Lambeth Conference voted overwhelmingly against homosexual relationships affirming that the only place for sexual expression was in life long union between a man and a woman in marriage. When Roman Catholic Cardinal Cassidy gave the homily at Lambeth, he said that there could be no unity between the Catholic Church and the Communion as long as the Communion permitted sexual behavior contrary to the Gospel. Williams took an opposite position to Cassidy saying that opposing views on the sexuality question should not be a bar to unity. Williams said that unity in the Anglican Communion despite the difference over the sexuality question was not “unity at all costs.” Williams obliquely dismissed Scripture as the basis for Christians to discern moral truth.

When Lambeth 1:10 was overwhelmingly passed by a vast majority of bishops that said same gender sexual relations are “incompatible with Scripture” and therefore should not be engaged in, Rowan Williams countered that God doe does not communicate to us authoritatively through the Holy Scriptures, because the writers thereof “misapprehended(ed)” and “misread” “the mind of God” and therefore Holy Scriptures are not the rule and ultimate standard of faith and practice.

Williams joined with other bishops in announcing to the world their refusal to comply with the 1998 Lambeth Conference’s teachings concerning the authority of Scripture and same gender sexual relations.

On the last day of Lambeth Williams and a group of other Anglican bishops announced to the world their opposition to Resolution 1.10′s prohibition of the approval of same gender sexual relations. They did this by signing and issuing to the public the 1998 Pastoral Statement to Lesbian and Gay Anglicans.

In 2000, after Williams was enthroned as the Archbishop and Primate of Wales, he provided the Foreword to the book “Seeking the Truth in Love, The Church and Homosexuality, by the Bishop of Bristol-Swindon, Michael Doe. Williams argued, as he did at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, that the members of the Anglican Communion should remain united despite their differences over the teaching that the Church should approve of same gender sexual relations.

With the publication of “The Body’s Grace” as a pamphlet and as a chapter in the book “Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings”, and the reprinting of Open to Judgement in 2002, Williams put forth afresh, which he was under consideration to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, his teachings that the church should approve of same gender sexual relations and any opposition to based on Scripture relies on “an abstract fundamentalist deployment of very ambiguous biblical texts.”

In 2002, on the eve of his becoming the next Archbishop of Canterbury, a group of evangelical clergy and laity who sought the return of the C of E to its Biblical roots expressed its objection to Williams becoming the next ABC. They wrote a book “A Line in the sand, Reform and Rowan Williams” which pointed out Williams’s anti-Scriptural teaching concerning same gender sexual relations and called on Williams to expressly state his position concerning such teaching and suggested Williams decline the appointment to be the next ABC if he could not repent.

Williams responded saying he would separate out his personal views from “the majority teaching of the church, and I will exercise the discipline of the Church as I am bound to do. But I can’t go beyond this and say that I believe what I do not believe.”

As a result Church Society an orthodox group of theologians, clergy and laity me with Williams and after talking with him made the following charges against Williams.

On salvation: Williams claimed to uphold the 39 Articles believing a person can only be saved through Christ, however this does not mean that a person of another religion can be saved even though they do not personally know Christ.

On Sexual Practice: Williams is the first ABC who is prepared to condone sexual immorality, including homosexual practice in defiance of I Cor. 6: 9-10. Williams believes that there may be circumstances in which homosexual practice is acceptable. Within a committed ‘covenantal’ relationship it may be permissible for homosexual practice to take place, says Williams.

We conclude that Dr. Rowan Williams teaching on sexuality are sub-Biblical, indeed heretical; that he does not accept Scripture as God’s Word concerning the nature of God, man’s relation to God, or the manner in which man should behave. Williams does not provide answers, he only poses questions and offers a methodology for answering them by looking to “our experience of Christian humanity and reality and how our thinking fits with it.”

By dismissing Scripture as the supreme source of knowledge and treating it as merely a methodological guide for finding God’s will in the experience of Christian humanity, Williams replaces the Anglican faith with a totally new religion wrapped in Christian trappings and terminology.

The entire 148 page report can be read in PDF format here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/content/Williamsandscripture.pdf

END