Archives

Sexuality and gender are two completely different things. So credit to Donald Trump for this return to common sense Michael Deacon , Columnist THE TELEGRAPH 04 February 2025 No one under the age of 30 will believe me. But when I was a student, all the way back in the late 1990s, my university had an LGB Society.   No, there wasn’t a letter missing. That, in full, was the society’s name. Because in those days, everyone used to say “LGB”. There was no such thing as “LGBT”.   So, if you’d knocked on the society’s door and asked, “Where’s the T?”, its members would probably have pointed you down the corridor to the cafe.   And if you’d said, “No, T as in ‘transgender’. Why does your sign only say ‘LGB’?”, they’d probably have replied: “Because LGB stands for ‘lesbian, gay and bisexual’ – which are all forms of sexuality. Transgenderism, by contrast, has nothing to do with sexuality. It’s to do with gender identity, which is something completely different and unrelated. Having a society for ‘lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans people’, therefore, makes no more sense than having a society for ‘lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trainspotters’. Obviously we’ve got nothing against trainspotters. We’re just saying that there’s no logical reason for them to be added to the name of our society.”   Still, as I say, this was all a terribly long time ago. At some point, in the years since, things changed. Suddenly it was no longer acceptable, anywhere in the English-speaking world, to say “LGB”. A “T” had to be added, at all times, to make “LGBT”.   Why? The reason is simple. Radical activists forcibly combined the two in a cynical attempt to manufacture public support for gender ideology. Most people already supported gay rights. Now they felt obliged to support both. After all, “LGBT” meant that you couldn’t support one and not the other, didn’t it?   Activists reinforced this impression by using the mantra “No LGB without the T”, which falsely implied that gay rights were only secured in the first place thanks to the efforts of trans people. In gratitude, gay people were supposed to repay trans people by supporting all of the latter’s demands, from the right to undress in women’s changing rooms to the right to compete in the women’s Olympic weightlifting.   At long last, though, it looks as if “LGBT” is on its way out. Under  Donald Trump , the US federal government has formally ceased using the term. The Department of State’s website, for example, now provides gay Americans with travel advice under the heading “LGB travellers”. Not “LGBT”, or “LGBTQIA+”. Just “LGB”. Since the advice refers specifically to countries where homosexuality is illegal, saying “LGB” is only common sense.   We may have to wait, however, for Britain’s elites to move with the times. In our schools, pupils are currently being made to celebrate an event known as “LGBT History Month”. A film about the alleged benefits of cross-sex hormones and chest binders (to help female teenagers look male by strapping down their breasts) will be shown to children as young as 11.   Meanwhile, I suspect it will be quite some time yet before our national broadcaster accepts defeat, and reverts to “LGB”. Last month, in a news story on its website about the jailing of a rapist who identifies as “non-binary”, the BBC thoughtfully respected the rapist’s preferred pronouns, which are “they/them”. Apparently, “they” threatened “their” victim, a girl aged 14, with a knife.   The day the BBC stops worrying about hurting the feelings of violent men who rape underage girls, we’ll know that sanity has finally been restored. END

Gerald McDermott for Ecumenical Zionism: Jews, Christians, and  the Land of Israel conference JTS in NYC 5 Feb 2025   For 1700 years Christian preachers and scholars have been saying that the Hebrew Bible is Zionist but the NT is not. It cannot be, they reasoned without looking too closely, because everyone knows that according to the NT God put to an end his covenant with the Jewish people after Jesus came to the world.    The Holocaust was a wake-up call that started Christians rethinking what they had been repeating for 1700 years.  The Roman Catholic Church was the first major Christian church to repent of this false teaching in its Vatican 2 document Nostra Aetate in 1965.  The bishops quoted the apostle Paul saying of his Jewish brothers who did not accept Jesus that they are (present tense) beloved of God because of the patriarchs and that God’s calling them to be His Chosen People is “irrevocable.”   Since the mid-19th century Protestant dispensationalists had agreed that God’s eternal covenant with the Jewish people is still in place.  But there were three big problems: 1) they did not capture any major Christian church body, 2) they invented a bizarre teaching called the Rapture that would have the Jewish people left behind after Christians are zapped off the planet, and 3) they held to date-setting and an elaborate eschatology that seems more fanciful than biblical.   But in recent decades there has arisen a scholarly movement called the New Christian Zionism that is comprised of both catholic and Protestant scholars.  It is new because it has nothing to do with dispensationalism and because it is recognizing things on the surface of the NT text that have gone unnoticed for centuries.   How could that be?  On the surface of the text but unnoticed for centuries?   In his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1961) Thomas Kuhn showed that at the beginning of every scientific revolution (think of Galileo, Newton, Einstein) elite scientists had evidence for the new theory right in front of their eyes.  But they could not see the evidence because the existing scientific paradigm had cast a veil over their eyes.  The evidence was right in front of them but they could not see it.   I remember the day when I realized this might have happened to biblical scholars and theologians for centuries.  They were not able to see the land promise in the NT because they had been trained not to see it.   They had been told, as I was in my NT studies at the U of Chicago Div School and in my PhD program in religious studies at the U of Iowa, that the Heb Bible is all about the particular and the NT is all about the universal, so it only makes sense that the God of the NT would no longer be interested in one particular land instead of all the lands of the world.   But funny thing is, when your eyes are open to the actual text instead of what you have been told about the text, you start seeing remarkable things.   Such as, for example, that five times in the NT Jerusalem is called the holy city.  The devil took Jesus to the holy city to tempt him to jump off the top of the temple (Matt 4:5).  After the death of Jesus many bodies of the saints were raised and walked around the holy city and appeared to many (Matt 27:53).  John says in revelation that the gentiles will trample the holy city for 42 months (Rev 11: 2), and God will bring down from heaven the holy city Jerusalem (both in Rev 21:2 and10).     Many times the NT refers to the land promise, and at least five times explicitly.  The author of Hebrews says God led Abraham to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance (11.8), and that by faith he went to live in the land of promise (11.9a), and that Isaac and Jacob were heirs with him of the same promise (Heb 11:9b).  Before his martyrdom deacon Stephen said God promised to give Abraham this land as a possession and to his offspring after him (Acts 7:4-5). Paul told the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia that the God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance (Acts 13.17-19).   Now there are many other implicit references to the land promise.  But we might ask why there are only these five explicit mentions of the land promise.  Two answers are likely.  First, the land promise was assumed because for the NT authors their Bible (the Tanach, which was Jesus’ Bible) already repeated the land promise one thousand times (I have counted them and tabulate these references in two books, the New Christian Zionism and Israel Matters ).  Second, the NT authors lived in the land. It was acknowledged over and over in the NT as Judea --the land of the Jews--and so there seemed no need to repeat or defend the promise.   Jesus referred to the future of the land of Israel many times.  I will provide five.  In Acts the disciples asked him if he would restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6).  He did not dismiss this as a silly or unspiritual question (as scholars with their blinders on have often claimed) but said the Father has set times and seasons for that, and they were not to know them yet.  Isaac Oliver, a Jewish NT scholar, argues in his new Luke’s Jewish Eschatology (Oxford University Press) that Jesus had an earthly—if eschatological—kingdom in mind. So yes, the kingdom would be restored in the future to Israel.   In Luke 13, Jesus said that one day the residents of Jerusalem will welcome him (v. 35), and in chapter 21 prophesies that Jerusalem will be trampled upon by gentiles until the times of the gentiles are completed (v 24).       The cessation of gentile trampling on Jerusalem means the beginning of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem.  This means that Jesus predicted a time when Jews would have political control over their capital.  It would not be too much of a stretch to say that the beginning of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem—in 1967, two thousand years after Jews lost it in 63 BC to Pompey--could be seen as a fulfillment of prophecy by the NT Jesus.     This is not the same as saying that the Jewish state is a direct fulfillment of prophecy (but of course the massive return of Jews from all over the world to the land since the 18th century is clearly a fulfillment of biblical prophecy).  It is also not the same as saying that the current Jewish state is beyond criticism.  Or that this is the last Jewish state before the eschaton.   But it is not beyond imagining that on the basis of this remarkable prophecy by the NT Jesus that we can say that the rise of Jewish sovereignty over its capital after two millennia could be a “sign of the times,” the sort that Jesus rebuked some religious leaders for not recognizing (Matt 16:3).   Matthew has Jesus saying that in the paliggenesia or renewal of all things (19.28) his apostles would rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, suggesting not only a distinct future for the land of Israel but also the restoration of the ten northern tribes.     The Jesus of the NT also refers to the land in a verse that it almost universally mistranslated: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land [usually translated “earth” following the universalist presupposition of supersessionists] (Matt 5:5).  More and more scholars are recognizing that Jesus is quoting word-for-word Ps 37:11. Five times this psalm uses the phrase inherit the land , and each time the Hebrew word eretz refers unmistakably to the land of Israel, not the whole earth.   Jesus might have been referring to Isaiah’s prophecy that when the earth is renewed all the gentiles shall flow to the mountain of the house of the LORD . . . that he might teach [them] his ways (Is 2:2-3).   Many supersessionists object that John’s gospel overrules these expectations of a future for the land because John’s Jesus says his body is the new temple, and true worship would no longer be restricted to Jerusalem but would be wherever there is worship in spirit and in truth (John 2:21; 4:21).     The eminent NT scholar Richard Hays does not think John is supersessionist on the land promise, but that we should think of the gospels as speaking on different levels.  For, he points out, Mark’s Jesus declares of the temple, My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations (Mark 11:17), affirming Isaiah’s vision of an eschatologically restored Jerusalem and temple.  In Matthew Jesus surprises Christians (most have never seen this) by saying that God still dwells in the temple of his day (Matt 23:21).  So the NT composite picture of Jesus on the temple is that it is both God’s house and the symbol of Jesus’ body as God’s house.  True worship, for Jesus, will be everywhere in spirit and in truth and centered in Jerusalem in the eschaton.   If Jesus clearly referred to the future of the land of Israel, so did Peter.  In his second speech in Jerusalem, delivered after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter says there is still to come a future apokatastasis , using the Greek word in the Septuagint for the return of Jews to the land from the four corners of the earth (Acts 3:21).  So for Peter, the return from exile in Babylon did not fulfill the Tanach’s prophecies of return.  Nor did Jesus’ resurrection.  There was a future return to come.  And we know this did not happen for another eighteen hundred years.   We have already seen from Acts that Paul made clear that he held to the land promise.  In Romans there is further evidence.  Paul says the gifts of God are irrevocable (Rom 11:29). There is little doubt that for Paul the land was one of these gifts, for in the writings of prominent first-century Jews—Philo, Josephus, and Ezekiel the Tragedian—the land was God’s principal gift to the Jewish people.   The early church saw it this way.  According to Robert Wilken in his The Land Called Holy, early Christians interpreted the angel’s promise to Mary that her baby would be given the throne of David and that he would reign over the house of Jacob forever (Luke 1:32-33) as indications of “the restoration and establishment of the kingdom in Jerusalem.”    The book of Revelation is replete with references to the future of the land of Israel.  The two witnesses will be killed in Jerusalem (11:8), the battle of Armageddon will take place in a valley in northern Israel (16:16), the gates of the New Jerusalem (which, notably, is not the New Rome or New Constantinople) are inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel (21:12), the 144,000 with the names of the Lamb and the Father on their foreheads stand on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem (14:1), Gog and Magog will march over the broad plain of the land of Israel and surround the saints and the beloved city of Jerusalem before they are consumed by heavenly fire (20:9).  The renewed earth will be centered in Jerusalem (11:2; 21:10).   For the author of Revelation, then, the land of Israel was holy not simply because the people of Israel and Jesus lived there but also because it would be the scene of crucial future events in the history of redemption.   In sum, there is an abundance of evidence in the gospels, Acts, the epistles, and Revelation for the 1) land promise, 2) the holiness of Jerusalem, and 3) the theological significance of the land of Israel in the future and in the eschaton.     Does this matter?  Yes, it does, for three reasons.   First, if the land promise was ended with the coming of Jesus, then God is not trustworthy.  For he promised to Abraham and his seed that the land would be theirs for an everlasting possession (Gen 17:8) and that as long as the sun, moon, and stars are in the sky, the Jewish people would be God’s people and he would do them good (Jer 31 & 32).    Second, if the land promise to Israel is broken, then so might be God’s promise to renew and restore the heavens and the earth.  The land promise’s partial fulfillment—by bringing Jews from the four corners of the earth back to the land starting in the eighteenth century--is downpayment on the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.   Third, it is a deep theological reason why we should support Israel in this war against the new Nazism.  Jews have more title to the land than any other people.  God called them to share the land in justice, and they have shown time and again that they are willing.  Today two million Arabs are full citizens in Israel enjoying political freedoms and world-class education and health care— far more than Arabs enjoy anywhere else in the Arab world.    Like Hitler’s Nazis, Iran and its proxies are conducting genocide, the attempted elimination of a whole people, the Jews.  If we Christians thought it was right to destroy Nazism in Word War 2, then we should support Israel’s efforts to destroy this new Nazism.      Gerald McDermott is an Anglican theologian who teaches at Reformed Episcopal Seminary and Jerusalem Seminary.  He is the author of Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land (Brazos).

By Chuck Collins www.virtueonline.org February 4, 2025   Erasmus caused the 16th century Reformation. Desiderius Erasmus, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1553), was almost as important as Luther, Calvin and Cranmer for laying the groundwork for the biggest shakeup the church has ever seen. Virtually every character who played a political or religious part in the English Reformation was profoundly influenced by the New Learning of Humanism. But unlike the others who became well known Protestant reformers, Erasmus was a Humanist academic and an ordained Catholic priest who never embraced the evangelical faith. So how is it that someone causes a reformation that he doesn't come to believe?   The "ad fontes" (back to the original sources) cry of the Renaissance and 16th century Humanism drove Erasmus like a wild obsession to write and publish the first edition of the Greek New Testament from ancient sources, Novum Testamentum. He wisely dedicated this to the pope February 1, 1516, and in the following two decades it was celebrated around the world with five additional published editions. This was the text used by the 16th century Reformers (including Tyndale and Luther) to translate the Holy Bible into the languages of their people. A shock wave went throughout Europe when the Bible was released from ecclesiastical captivity! "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched" was the motto of his Franciscan detractors.   When Erasmus studied the New Testament and traveled to various libraries to take notes from the best Greek manuscripts, he quickly found that Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, the only Bible available for one thousand years, was replete with mistakes in translation. For example, Matthew 3:2 and 4:17 quotes John the Baptist and Jesus as saying, “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is close to hand.” The Catholic Church latched on to this and used it to say: “find a priest, confess your sins, and carry out any acts of penance the priest requires of you.”   But the original Greek suggests nothing that would support the Medieval system of penance or an ex opere operato understanding of absolution in auricular confession. Erasmus translated this: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” thus taking repentance off the shelf of actions we willfully do for God, to a change of heart and will that positions us once again towards God. Another glaring error of the Latin Vulgate is in Luke 1:28 that was translated: “Hail, O one that is full of grace! The Lord is with you!” The clear implication, and the one that fueled the mariolatry of the Middle Ages (and today!), is that Mary is a reservoir full of God’s grace ready to dispense it to anyone in need. But the actual Greek text doesn’t say that! The clear reading says that Mary had found God’s favor, not that she could bestow that favor on others: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Erasmus corrected more than 600 such errors in Jerome’s Vulgate Bible. Erasmus was as much admired as he was despised: a true provocateur. Lutherans turned against him because he wouldn't join them. Catholics threatened his life and banned his books because they blamed him for starting the Reformation and for satirically poking fun of the blatant abuses of monasticism and the church of his day (In Praise of Folly). But as lines began to be drawn in the sand, Erasmus chose to be a spectator rather than an actor. "Let others court martyrdom," he said, "I don't consider myself worthy of this distinction.” Parallel to his Greek New Testament, Erasmus also wrote his own Latin version. He also wrote paraphrases of every book in the New Testament (pictured below). Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII who was a devout evangelical, arranged for Erasmus's Paraphrases to be translated into English. In 1547 King Edward VI issued a royal proclamation requiring the Pharaphrases, along with a copy of the English Bible, to be publicly available in every parish in the Church of England for all to read. Ashley Null postulates that one of the three books depicted in Gerlach Flicke’s famous portrait of Thomas Cranmer was likely Erasmus’s New Testament because of the Archbishop’s admiration for the “Dutch reformer.” Erasmus, like Cranmer and the other Protestant reformers, wanted people to know the Bible, not an interpretation of the Bible that was covered with 1,500 years of dust and spin. Erasmus famously wrote, “Would that the farmer might sing snatches of Scripture at his plough and that the weaver might hum phrases of Scripture to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler might lighten with stories from Scripture the weariness of his journey.”   He had confidence that God's word that goes out will not return empty, but it will accomplish all that God purposes. When people begin to read the Bible for themselves they recognize the importance of the primacy of Holy Scripture over all other authorities, they discover the freedom and hope of a righteousness that is more than their failed attempts at self-righteousness, and they experience a relationship with Christ who is the only true and sufficient mediator between God and his people.   END

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org February 3, 2025   The Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, TEC’s new Presiding Bishop knocked three times on the door of Washington National Cathedral and was ceremonially seated as the church’s 28th Presiding Bishop.   In his sermon he uttered a lot of high-sounding words like “what our lives would be like if we realized that Christ is among us.” Well, if Christ is not among us then the question is moot, and where is He?   “What if we saw Christ in each other? What if we understood what it meant — for real — that Christ is among us? In one of us, all of us, in this kingdom, inverted, turned upside down, and made for the healing, and wholeness of the world,” said Rowe.   Seeing Christ in each other is an old Episcopal saw. It is part and parcel of the Antiracism Training Manual of the Episcopal Church and is trotted out at every anti-racism event TEC puts on. Just 4 percent of Episcopalians are black. The vast majority of parishes have never seen a black person.   Did TEC’s bishops “see Christ” in all the orthodox priests and bishops they tossed out of the church because they refused to embrace homosexual marriage, because they believed God did not approve of it, and that He had not changed his mind about marriage being solely between a man and a woman?   “We need to find the face of Christ in the faces of the marginalized,” Rowe said, adding that in Christ’s kingdom, “the people at the edge are in the center.”   Well, I have news for you, faithful orthodox priests were “marginalized”, people who actually saw the face of Christ in Scripture and who suffered for their faith losing their churches and pensions rather than go to Hell believing the latest piece of heresy they were forced to embrace.   And what of the unborn, Mr. Presiding Bishop? There is an inherent contradiction in your statement about seeing the face of Christ if the unborn never get to be born and see the face of Christ for themselves. The dignity of every human being suddenly disappears. You will forgive me saying this but there is an inherent contradiction when you believe in abortion on demand up to birth. That is an astonishingly evil and anti-Christ position to take. What about mercy for the most vulnerable human beings – those still in their mothers' wombs?   You said the nation (and by definition the churches) are deeply divided. True enough, but who divided it? those who uphold the sanctity of life? Being orthodox in faith and morals? Those who oppose homosexual marriage and transgender surgeries? The dozens who went to jail because they stood outside abortion clinics protesting abortions and who had to obtain a presidential pardon to get out of jail!   The Book of Common Prayer provides us with bedrock Christian morality. The Prayer Book does not hedge on the moral absolutes of the Judeo-Christian tradition. They are chiseled in stone. Their uncompromising standards remain a clearly-defined alternative to the morality-is-what-you-make-it-out-to-be of many modern churches.   You said; “We live in a world in which the enemy is bound and determined to sow division among us. God did not come to us as a strong man. God came first as a child.” Well, many of us believe that the enemy got his nose in under the TEC tent and sowed so much division that thousands were forced to leave and start over.   “We need to greet with peace those who voted for the candidate we can’t stand; to be in the Communion line alongside people who don’t look like us, live like us, or even love like us,” you said.   Well, the prophet Jeremiah had something to say about that. He cried, “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.”   The Episcopal Church is on a downward trajectory; it has lost the majority of its members. Over 55% of Episcopal parishes are now in a state of long-term decline, with churches losing more with each passing week with the average age of an Episcopalian approaching 70 they will soon be closing. Dioceses are merging faster than big-box stores in your local mall.   You cite Simeon and Anna as your models for the church. They waited with steadfast hope for the fulfillment of God’s promises. Based on what has been going on for the last 40 years the “fulfillment” will see the end of TEC and with the birth of the ACNA, God’s promises will be fulfilled in them, not you and The Episcopal Church.   You said; “In this world order, falling comes before rising,” drawing on a prophecy pronounced by Simeon. “In God’s kingdom, the immigrants and refugees, transgender people, the poor and the marginalized, are at the edges, fearful and alone. They are at the center of the gospel story.”   Perhaps, but immigrants and refugees are not filling the pews of Episcopal parishes because TEC has no message, only the phony talk of inclusion and diversity. Homosexuals also never filled church pews even though TEC and many other Anglican provinces affirmed this behavior. Immigrants and refugees are more likely to fill Pentecostal churches where an unalloyed gospel can be heard because you sure won’t hear it coming from an Episcopal pulpit.   END

By Peter Aitken NEWSWEEK January 30, 2025   The Anglican Catholic Church has punished the Michigan priest who mimicked Elon Musk's controversial gesture by revoking his license, meaning he can no longer serve in any of the church's dioceses.   The Context   British conservative Calvin Robinson, who briefly held the role of priest-in-charge at St. Paul's Anglican Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, attended the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C., on January 25.   Following his speech, he made the same straight-armed gesture used by Musk during his Inauguration Day speech, even repeating, "my heart goes out to you." He pinned a video of the moment to his profile on X, formerly Twitter.   Musk smacked his chest and forcefully extended his right arm during a speech on January 20 during a rally after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term. Musk then turned and repeated the gesture, saying, "My heart goes out to you."   Many had accused Musk of making a Nazi salute, citing his support of far-right political leaders in Europe—particularly the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party—as reasons to suspect the gesture was not innocent. But supporters have insisted that Musk has no Nazi link, and that the motion was an innocent gesture to send his "heart" to the crowd.   The Tesla and SpaceX CEO tapped to lead Trump's Department of Government Efficiency has Asperger's syndrome, a developmental disorder falling under the autism spectrum that could hinder social interactions and the ability to decipher body language.   What To Know   While Robinson made the gesture on Saturday, it was not until Wednesday when video of it showed up on social media. The College of Bishops of Anglican Catholic Church in the United States issued a statement on Thursday condemning the action and announcing that Robinson had been defrocked, hinting that the act was possibly the latest in a series of actions he had taken.   "While we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson's heart when he did this, his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition," the statement posted on the church's website said.   "Mr. Robinson had been warned that online trolling and other such actions (whether in service of the left or right) are incompatible with a priestly vocation and was told to desist," the statement continued. "Clearly, he has not, and as such, his license in this Church has been revoked. He is no longer serving as a priest in the ACC."   What Did the Anglican Catholic Church Say? In an email response to a Newsweek request for comment, the Right Reverend Dr. Damien Mead, bishop ordinary of the Diocese of the United Kingdom, said that the decision to revoke Robinson's license was taken as "a local diocesan decision for the Archbishop and bishops involved in the United States."   “Similarly, the decision to relicense him in the future rests with them, although the revocation is unlikely to be reversed,” Mead wrote. “It was not taken lightly nor simply in response to the alleged connotation of the hand gesture he made.”   “Mr Robinson was briefly the Priest in Charge of the ACC Church of St Paul’s, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA,” Mead explained. “He moved to the USA in 2024 to take up this position, in doing so he resigned from the Nordic Catholic Church which had only recently priested him.”   “As Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church’s Diocese of the United Kingdom I fully endorse the decision taken by the American ACC in this matter and agree fully with the statement issued by the ACC in the USA,” he added.   What People Are Saying   Calvin Robinson on Wednesday wrote on X: "Today I received hundreds of nasty calls, texts, voicemails and emails today from very bitter, angry, vile leftists. They are often the very thing they accuse you of. I am not a Nazi. But I forgive you of your ignorance. My heart goes out to you!"   The College of Bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church said in their statement: "We understand that this is not just an administrative matter. The Holocaust was an episode of unspeakable horror, enacted by a regime of evil men. We condemn Nazi ideology and anti-Semitism in all its forms. And we believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and diminish the sacrifice of those who fought against its perpetrators. Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity."   What Happens Next   Mead said that as Robinson is no longer a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church, "any further action that may be taken will be a decision within or outside the Church for those in the USA."   Robinson became lead spokesman for the right-wing U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) in summer 2024, where he will likely return and resume his political activities. He had run as a member of the Conservative Party in a by-election in 2016 and in a council election 2018, both times defeated by Labour Party candidates.   END

By Christianity Daily January 24, 2025 Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Ben Mater   A recent survey reveals that nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. has overstepped in permitting male, trans-identified athletes to compete in women's sports, alongside substantial opposition to medical interventions for children facing gender dysphoria.   Conducted by The New York Times/Ipsos, the poll gathered responses from 2,128 American adults between January 2 and January 10.   When respondents were asked if they felt that “Society has gone too far in accommodating transgender people,” 49% responded positively. In contrast, 21% agreed with the statement that “Society has not gone far enough in accommodating transgender people,” while 28% thought that “Society has achieved a reasonable balance in accommodating transgender people.”   Seventy-seven percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans believe that efforts to accommodate trans-identified individuals have gone too far, compared to 31% of independents and minor party affiliates. Thirty percent of independents and minor party affiliates feel that accommodations for the trans-identified community are adequate, along with 16% of Republicans.   A much smaller percentage of independents (14%) and Republicans (5%) believe that the U.S. should take additional steps to accommodate trans-identified individuals. A plurality of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Americans (39%) considered the current accommodations for trans-identified individuals to be appropriate, while 37% felt that more should be done and 23% believed such efforts have gone too far.   The survey also asked if trans-identified male athletes should compete in women's sports, with 79% responding negatively. This opposition was pronounced across political affiliations, where a staggering 94% of Republicans opposed the participation of trans-identified male athletes in women's sports, compared to 67% of Democrats and 64% of independents.   Less than a third of Democrats (31%) supported the idea of trans-identified male athletes competing on women's teams, with only 10% of independents and 5% of Republicans in favor.   When asked about physicians prescribing puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to minors, 71% of respondents agreed that children should not have access to drugs that might halt their natural growth and alter their bodies. Among this group, the strongest opposition came from Republicans (90%), followed by independents (61%) and Democrats (54%).   Support for allowing youth aged 15 to 18 access to these treatments was minimal, with only 7% of Republicans, 10% of independents, and 24% of Democrats in favor. Similarly, support for providing these drugs to children as young as 10 was low, at 2% among Republicans and independents and 19% among Democrats.   Recent legislation in the U.S. has imposed restrictions on the participation of trans-identified athletes in sports and on access to medical treatments for youth suffering from gender dysphoria.   Twenty-seven states have enacted laws requiring trans-identified athletes to compete on teams that match their biological sex rather than their self-declared gender identity. These states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.   Meanwhile, Twenty-four states have enacted regulations banning trans-identified youth from accessing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. This group includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

By Jeffrey Walton JUICY ECUMENISM January 24, 2025   Jesus’ humanness confirms and restores the dignity of all persons, according to an Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) bishop preaching at a prayer service preceding the annual National March for Life.   Missionary Diocese of All Saints Bishop Darryl Fitzwater spoke at the event sponsored by Anglicans for Life and the ACNA Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic held at The Falls Church Anglican outside of Washington, D.C.   Participants at the January 24 prayer service heard testimony from Deacon Georgette Forney as part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.   “Abortion aftercare programs helped me to grieve for the child that I had aborted,” Forney shared, highlighting the importance of local church ministry among post-abortive women and their families.   “All I did was make myself available and give my sin back to God,” Forney recounted, describing God as taking human brokenness, healing it, and using it to build his Kingdom.   Pro-Life ministry, Forney explained, has expanded to address euthanasia and assisted suicide.   “Everything in God’s Word upholds the sanctity of life,” Forney insisted. “Once life is regarded as a burden or inconvenience, that life begins being treated differently.”   Forney shared her own story of admitting her elderly father to a hospital, with a doctor strongly and repeatedly pressuring him to sign a “Do Not Resuscitate” order in the early hours of the morning. Her father declined to sign the order, but Forney saw it as a sign of how the medical community is changing and that churches need to prepare their congregants for such external pressures.   “If we are going to be change agents for our culture and communities, it will require us to say ‘yes’ to God,” the Anglicans for Life Director charged.   In his sermon, Fitzwater sought to emphasize the unchanging nature of God and his Word.   “If it was ever a sin, it still is. If it was ever his character, it still is,” Fitzwater preached. The West Virginia bishop shared about the spiritual nature of Christ and about his humanity.   “Spiritual does not mean to be ghostly: to be a spiritual people does not mean we are fixed on disembodied things,” Fitzwater noted. “Jesus is so spiritual, he goes around healing physical bodies. Spiritual means the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.”   The Anglican bishop insisted that “Christ is sanctifying the entire family structure.”   “In the cases of life, there are times when the circumstances and scenarios by which a woman becomes pregnant are not ideal, but that life is always sacred. It is always blessed. It is always given dignity,” Fitzwater stated. “The response of the Church must always be: how do we step in to not snuff out a smoldering wick? To not break a bruised reed, but to rightly and truly set bones so that they heal and grow into the fullness of the grace that God has already amply poured out through Jesus Christ.”   Following the service, participants loaded onto buses that took them to the National March for Life beginning at the National Mall in Washington and concluding on Capitol Hill.   “When we go out into this march today, we aren’t just walking with the people next to us, we are enveloped, immersed by a cloud of witnesses whose lives and legacies are pleading to God,” Fitzwater exhorted. “Let us not forget that the chief responsibility, the chief end in those moments, is to join with the prayers of all of God’s people.”   END

By Chuck Collins www.virtueonline.org January 27, 2025   Pelagius is the only heretic specifically mentioned in Anglican’s Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (Article 9). This is for good reason! Everyone is born with “the Pelagian default,” and it takes an act of God to change us. In hundreds of different ways, we reduce Christianity to our own will-power such that we see ourselves as active participants in our redemption - “I have decided to follow Jesus,” working the spiritual disciplines, trying harder and doing more to become better at this Christian life, and maybe even get God’s approval. On January 27, 417 Pelagius was excommunicated, and I am again confronted with the cruelty of my heresy: thinking that righteousness is within my grasp if I just try hard enough. Frankly, it doesn’t help one bit for my recovery that most of the folks sitting next to me are flaming heretics too! In a famous fifth century fight, Pelagius and Augustine argued about what the Bible says about human nature. Pelagius was convinced that individuals have the innate capacity for achievement, even to achieve their own salvation. He felt that men and women are born morally neutral with an equal capacity for good or evil - that Adam's disobedience adversely affected humankind, but only by setting a bad example. Everyone has the responsibility and potential to be righteous; this is God’s command and he would not command the impossible. Augustine, on the other hand, was sure that our human wills are governed by what we love, and that, apart from the Holy Spirit, we choose to love sin. He believed that our love for sin is a consequence of Adam and Eve's original disobedience (the Fall) and that the end result is that all people are spiritually infected: dead in their trespasses and sins and "by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2). Saint Augustine saw that we sin because we are sinners (original sin). Much later Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk and priest, would talk about this in a similar way: as people being turned/curved in on ourselves rather than towards God and others (incurvatus in se). It takes the Spirit to work in us to give us a new object worthy of love, and so to free our wills to love God and others. “In Pelagius’s view it was possible (though very unlikely) that a new-born baby would never sin. Perhaps it would gasp once and die, before it had a chance to look upon forbidden fruit. But for Augustine it was already too late for such hopes. The new-born child belonged to a race that lives under the effects of Adam’s sin” (Oliver O’Donovan). Semi-pelagianism, a term coined in the 17th century, was invented to be a compromise between Pelagianism and the teaching of the church fathers (Saint Augustine). Semi-pelagians teach that salvation is won by a cooperative (synergistic) effort between God and his people (God, with a little help from my friends!). Semi-pelagianists distinguish between the beginning of faith and the increase of faith - the beginning of faith is an act of free will (we seek God/truth and find him) and this then ignites grace in us for Christian living and growth. Augustinians, conversely, credit God completely for resurrecting the spiritually dead: people unable in themselves to choose God apart from the prior work of God's grace moving us in the right direction. How is it that Reformation Anglicans remembered pelagianism in their confession a thousand years after Pelagius? In the context of their protest against Medieval Catholicism? How is it that this heresy is the only one specifically named the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion? It is because works-righteousness is the default heresy Medieval Christianity and of all humans in every generation. Only God in his power can turn our wills and affections aright towards God. Anglicans are clearly Augustinian in our anthropology. We believe that men and women, apart from grace, are incapable of doing anything but continue to sin. Article 9 speaks of “the fault and corruption of the nature with which all descendants of Adam are born. It is due to original sin that we are departed very far from the original righteousness in which we were created, and are naturally inclined to evil. . . accordingly, in every person born into this world, original sin is deserving of God’s wrath and condemnation” (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes paraphrase). And the article continues to drill this in, that “this infection of our nature remains even in those who in Christ are reborn.” Article 10 says this even more directly: “Since the fall of Adam man’s state is such that he is unable, by his own natural strength to believe and call upon God.” The second Anglican homily, “The Misery of All Mankind,” is completely devoted to this theme: “For of ourselves we are crabtrees that can bring forth no apples. We are of ourselves of such earth as can bring forth only weeds, nettles, brambles, briers, corncockle, and darnel” (Lee Gatiss edition). Christians love semi-pelagianism because we don't want to admit that the corpse on the couch is actually dead. We insist that we are just faint and need some fresh air. We don't want a Savior who died to destroy death, but instead we prefer a coach that shouts commands and encouragements from the sidelines. We desperately want to believe that in some small way we can contribute to our salvation by "do more" and "try harder" religion, even if it's doing more prayer, Bible reading, and serving to get God's approval. Our default slogan is so good that it almost sounds biblical: God helps those who help themselves. But as Steven Paulson states, “Lazarus did not come out of the grave because he got his free will in motion to choose resurrection; it was because he received an external command from God’s word, which does what it says.”   Dean Chuck Collins is a Reformed Theologian. He is based in Texas.

By Harriet Sherwood, THE GUARDIAN January 26, 2025   The former archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addressing the House of Lords in 2023. Photograph: House of Lords 2023/Roger Harris/PA Church of England bishops who sit in the House of Lords by right should be removed as part of the government’s changes to the second chamber, according to the veteran legislator Harriet Harman.   Harman, who was a Labour MP for more than 40 years until 2024, has put forward an amendment to the government’s hereditary peers bill, aimed at ending the automatic right of 26 bishops to sit in the Lords.   Their presence was an anachronism that “undermines the legitimacy” of the second chamber, Harman told the Guardian. “It is outdated that we have legislative scrutiny carried out by representatives of one Christian denomination. The only other legislature that has religious theocrats as members by right is Iran,” she said.   The government was seeking to increase the legitimacy of the Lords by removing the remaining hereditary peers, but that was undermined by the automatic seats for bishops, she said.   Harman’s amendment says the Lords Spiritual, as the 26 bishops are known, must be removed from membership of the Lords, but there should be no bar on individual bishops and archbishops being appointed as life peers.   “If we were starting afresh, I don’t think anyone would give bishops an automatic right to sit in parliament,” she said.   The argument that the bishops provided a moral element in the Lords was spurious, she added. “I don’t think anyone in 2025 believes that morality is the exclusive preserve of the Church of England. This is not about individual bishops or whether they make a good contribution [to the Lords], and it does not arise out of the C of E’s abuse scandals.”   She and other peers backing the amendment had “no intrinsic hostility to religion”, she said. Some would like to see other faiths and denominations represented in the Lords.   Harman said: “Aside from the bishops, I’ve not come across a single peer who thinks that the presence of bishops by right is a good thing. People speak well of individual bishops, but that’s not the point. The point is the legitimacy of the institution.”   Lord Birt, a cross-bench peer and former director general of the BBC, who intends to co-sponsor Harman’s amendment, said: “We are now an incredibly diverse society, comprised of people embracing many religions and beliefs. Embedding the C of E in our legislature is an indefensible, undemocratic anomaly.   “I have the greatest possible respect for the individual qualities and the inherent goodness of leaders I have met in my time from many faiths. I would hope and expect to see faith leaders of every kind represented in a reformed house. But they should be appointed on individual merit, not as exercising a right existing in one form or another for half a millennium.”   Lord Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer, said the presence of bishops by right was “a medieval tradition not serving any effective purpose in the 21st century … We should stop granting special power and privilege to a church that no longer represents the vast majority of citizens that parliament serves”.   According to a recent poll carried out by YouGov for Humanists UK , which is backing Harman’s amendment, 22% of Britons want to keep bishops in the Lords and 52% want them removed.   Harman said she had tabled the amendment to “put down a strong marker” that the Lords Spiritual needed to be included in the government’s overhaul of the House of Lords.   She would also like to see the abolition of titles for life peers, such as baroness and lord. “We are not appointed to have airs and graces, but to do a job of scrutinising legislation. These outdated titles should be done away with.”   END

Two decisions from the Government means those in charge of keeping these Christian icons open are facing an almost insurmountable struggle By Peter Stanford THE TELEGRAPH 26 January 2025 Peterborough’s cathedral has launched an emergency appeal to allow it to pay its bills Credit: Dave Porter The prospect of Peterborough Cathedral running out of money and being forced to close its doors to visitors at the end of March, just as Easter beckons, has made national headlines. This 12th-century Norman masterpiece, burial place of Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, has launched an emergency appeal to raise £300,000 in just two months to stave off financial ruin as rising costs and depleted reserves mean it faces being unable to pay its bills. But is it a one-off failure, or are England’s other 42 Anglican cathedrals also facing a similar crisis?    Official Church of England statistics suggest the latter: three-quarters anticipate running a deficit when their 2024 accounts are completed, with just eight predicting a surplus. “All cathedrals are facing considerable financial challenges at the moment,” confirms the Very Revd Dr Simon Jones, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral.   Like Peterborough, he says, Lincoln, for all its size and splendour (its earliest parts dating back to the 11th century) is not on the usual tourist routes. It therefore cannot generate the same income as the other nine cathedrals that, like it, have decided they have to charge visitors an entrance fee (though not worshippers).   “It currently costs us around £25,000 a day to keep the cathedral open,” Jones reports. “At the end of our current financial year in March we will have a deficit of £500,000, and are projecting that there will be deficits in the next three years of £1.5 million, £1.4 million and £1.2 million”.   And all that is before they have factored in the impact of two recent decisions by the new Labour government. “With around 100 staff – not all full-time – the increase in employers’ National Insurance Contributions [NICs] is going to have a significant impact, especially on our efforts to build up our works department. It shrank during the pandemic and we don’t want to be overwhelmed by the task of maintaining one of the greatest buildings in Europe”.   The challenge of finding the money for the uplift in employers’ NIC was also highlighted by Peterborough’s Dean, the Very Revd Chris Dalliston, when he made his appeal for funds. Even with a smaller workforce than Lincoln – the equivalent of 25 equivalent full-time workers – he warned, “we’re facing increases in the living wage and national insurance contributions. We want to be a responsible employer but these things impact our bottom line”.   While Chancellor Rachel Reeves may not have considered the future of England’s cathedrals when she introduced the controversial changes in her budget in October, in their case she might just have imposed the straw that broke the camel’s back.   The second potentially fatal decision came this week when the Heritage Minister, Sir Chris Bryant, a former CofE vicar, announced in the Commons that the Listed Places of Worship scheme, which has allowed cathedrals and historic churches to claim back the VAT of every repair bill over £1,000, was being cut from £29 million last year to £23 million, with a new cap of £25,000 per place of worship.   Chris Bryant spent five years working as an ordained minister.   “It is good news that it will continue for another year because there had been a threat to end it altogether,” reflects Lincoln’s Dean, “but when you spend as much on repairs and restoration as we are doing, the cap will just add to the pressure on our budget, while the continuing uncertainty about whether the scheme will last more than one year makes any sort of planning much harder.”   It is deans who are responsible for the running of cathedrals, the ecclesiastical equivalent of chief executive officers in the secular world. And at the moment they are the ones daily shouldering the burden of keeping open these remarkable buildings – the vast majority Grade I-listed and several UNESCO World Heritage sites.   It is made harder because the number of those attending Anglican services in England remains below the figure pre-Covid in 2019. Fewer worshippers means less money in the plate. While visitor numbers to our cathedrals are climbing, again they have yet to match the 2017 annual figure of 9.38 million.   “As I look out of the window of my study,” says the Very Revd Dr Edward Dowler, Dean of Chichester Cathedral, which celebrates its 950th anniversary this year, “I can see a building that is not going anywhere. But at present we have £3 million going out and only £2.3 million coming in, and with the blow of new NIC charges we are going to have to find that money somewhere.”   Chichester Cathedral was consecrated in 1108. Like Peterborough, his cathedral has little by way of reserves. To keep afloat it has been dipping in each year to legacies that are held in a separate fund, but that, he accepts, is not a reliable long-term solution.    “What you get into is something that I don’t want to do, which is charge for entry. At the end of the day, this is a church and I hate the idea that people will have to pay to come in, but I know that other cathedrals already see it as a necessity if they are to keep open.”   Chichester, he accepts, has some advantages over Peterborough in terms of location. “Tourists have the perception that there aren’t many other reasons to go to Peterborough [than seeing the cathedral]. At the other end of the spectrum are places like Winchester and Salisbury where the cathedral can be taken in as part of a bigger tour of their surrounding areas. We are somewhere in the middle. There are other attractions in Chichester.”   Very Revd Dr Edward Dowler says Chichester Cathedral has a shortfall of £700,000   As well as National Insurance, the cost of utilities shooting up alarmingly is still crippling the books. “Our gas-fired heating may not make the place very warm but it is expensive to keep on. The Church of England has an aspiration to get to net zero by 2030 and there are various plans like air-source heat pumps, but I can’t see how we are going to get there with all the different priorities we are balancing in our day-to-day mission as a cathedral. But everything has a financial angle.”   Over in Somerset, at Wells Cathedral, is Nerys Watts, who has the title Chief Operating Officer and works under the dean, the Very Revd Toby Wright. Each year she has to find £2.7 million to run the building, famous for its 13th-century West Front, the Gothic “scissor arches” in its nave and the splendid stained glass of its Jesse Window.  “Being part of the national heritage,” explains Watts, “costs a lot of money”.   That is why it has recently started charging tourists £14 each to come in, which along with the shop and café, raises around £1 million a year. Add to that around £100,000 in offerings from those attending services, and it still leaves a hole of £1.6 million. “We have to be creative,” she says, so as well as the usual choral and classical concerts, Wells has recently allowed the building to be used for a silent disco (where attendees hear the music through headphones). Wells Cathedral costs £2.7 million a year to run The Church Commissioners manage the £10.4 billion investments held by the Church of England. Some of that, though, was earmarked last spring for a £100m financial downpayment on what the Church hopes will grow into a £1 billion fund to address its legacy of benefitting from the slave trade.   At present the contribution by the Commissioners to the running costs of the nation’s Anglican cathedrals in modest by comparison. They pay the clerical stipends (or salaries) for the Dean and two Canons. “It is quite a small amount in the bigger picture,” acknowledges Lincoln’s Rev Jones.   There are, he points out, specific small pots of money also available from the Commissioners on application to cover individual areas of a cathedral’s life, but he would like to see the national Church adopt “a different funding model that shows it understands the reality that we are facing”.   To that end there is an ongoing review by the Church Commissioners on cathedral funding about which he pronounces himself “hopeful”. But regardless of its outcome, he also wants the government to play a bigger role in the future in the maintenance of these national landmarks.   At present it provides no regular funding to cathedrals. “How things stand now is unsustainable. In France, for instance, the government stepped in and paid for the rebuilding of Notre Dame.”   Lincoln is the only one of the 42 English cathedrals currently on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register. Grants are available through the Heritage Lottery, but competition is fierce. The recent repair of its West Front, which can be seen from miles outside the city, received £12.4 million from the fund towards the final cost of £16.2 million, and included a new visitor centre. Yet current conservation projects include £1.5 million on the Chapter House and £500,000 on the Wren Library.   You don’t need to be an accountant to realise the sums don’t add up and that the problems in Peterborough are a siren warning of trouble ahead. “We are but custodians of these spiritual and historic power houses,” says Jo Kelly-Moore, Dean of St Albans Cathedral and chair of the umbrella body the Association of English Cathedrals. “If our cathedrals fall, this will have a huge impact on our nation’s heritage.”   END

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org December 21, 2024 It should be apparent, even to the feeblest minded, that the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops is hiding a modern day ‘brood of vipers” increasingly being exposed as corrupt, as they fail to do their sworn duty to teach and uphold wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions. Their egregious behavior in upholding sexual positions especially and including homosexual marriage is contrary to scripture is just part of the problem. What is emerging now, courtesy of the feisty blogger Anglican Watch, are bishops who have deliberately turned a deaf ear and the cries of those abused by clergy and their own behavior, all the while these same bishops sanctimoniously uphold diversity raising holy hands of inclusion in the name of their revisionist god. But their days might be numbered. The new incoming Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe is showing some cojones when it comes to bad boy and bad girl bishops. A case in point is his clamp down on the former Bishop of Rochester Prince Singh, of whom it might be said showed nothing princely about his person or diocesan reign. He might have gotten away with the abuse of his wife and two sons under former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, but Rowe has confronted his behavior head on and has suspended him for three years from ministry, holding him personally responsible and accountable for his appalling behavior. Singh, an Indian, got his head handed to him when his two sons wrote a letter to then presiding bishop Michael Curry about their father’s abuse of their mother, a woman he later divorced only to return to India to find an old flame and beat it back to America for his pension and other episcopal goodies. Curry cowardly recused himself thinking perhaps it would all go away, all the while preaching emotional love sermons, making a mockery of the very love that demands accountability. Todd Ousley, the worst intake officer in the church’s history, and recently dumped by Rowe, buried it all hoping that it would all go away. But the sons persisted and went public with knowledge of their father’s abusive behavior. Rowe took up the case and Singh was raked over the coals and told to repent, something bishops are exceedingly bad at doing, largely because they think they are closer to God because their miters point in a heavenly direction. But Rowe nailed him. Here is what he has done. He has  suspended Bishop Singh  for three years in settlement of two of the Title IV clergy disciplinary cases against him. Per the terms of the disciplinary agreement, reinstatement is neither automatic nor guaranteed but rather predicated on the successful completion of mental health and substance abuse treatment and counseling about the appropriate use of power and authority.  Specific provisions under the accord per a letter from  Rowe : ·  Be suspended from ministry for at least three more years. The suspension will conclude only when I am satisfied he is fit for ministry. ·  Undergo a thorough psychiatric and psychological assessment conducted by a professional in the United States designated by me. ·  Participate in truth-telling work related to both sets of allegations. ·  Participate in psychological work, education, and training in domestic abuse as required by me in consultation with a psychological professional. ·  Participate in psychological work, education, and training in anger management, as required by me in consultation with a psychological professional. ·  Participate in psychological work, education, and training in proper exercise of authority, as required by me in consultation with a psychological professional. ·  Undertake work addressing his relationship with alcohol and its behavioral consequences in a program approved by me. ·  Undertake work to address reputational harm suffered by people in the Diocese of Rochester as appropriate. ·  Make visits and apologies to people, congregations, and other groups whom I identify and who are willing. ·  Participate in education and training in Title IV values, process, and procedures. Some of the specific Title IV allegations against Singh are now online and can be found  here . https://www.anglicanwatch.com/bishop-singh-suspended-for-three-years-as-the-episcopal-church-shows-a-glimmer-of-integrity/ To my knowledge No presiding bishop in living memory has been this aggressive. Score one for the youngest presiding bishop in episcopal history socking it to one of the oldest bishops in the church. No love sermons here. But Singh is not the only offender. There are a number of bishops who should be brought up on Title IV charges reported by Anglican Watch . They include: Todd Ousley, Michael Curry, Glenda Curry, and Alan Gates, along with many other Episcopal bishops who are equally guilty of Title IV shenanigans, including knowingly mishandling complaints. Among these bishops are: ·  Clay Mathews , whose behavior during his tenure in the Office of Pastoral Development was every bit as feckless as that of piece-o’-snot Todd Ousley. ·  Alan Gates , who has knowingly brushed off allegations of criminal conduct by clergy in his diocese and gravely mishandled the Anderson case at Church of the Advent. ·  Shannon Johnston , who repeatedly ignored the requirements of Title IV, ranging from the need for a pastoral response to simply saying, “I don’t want to get involved,” even in the face of allegations of criminal conduct by clergy. He also covered up allegations of sexual harassment of an adult woman by Episcopal priest Stephen McWhorter, then canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. ·  George Sumner , whose retaliation against Episcopal priest Rich Daly, support for the sexual harassment of an adult woman, and his deliberate mishandling of an ensuing Title IV complaint warrant immediate suspension. Meanwhile, the Title IV case against Sumner, which was filed with the appropriate intake officer more than a year ago, still has not even cleared the intake phase. ·  Susan Goff , who has refused to forward allegations of criminal conduct by clergy under her supervision to the diocesan intake officer. ·  Jennifer Brooke-Davidson , who also has refused to forward allegations of criminal conduct by clergy under her supervision to the diocesan intake officer. ·  Chilton Knudsen , who has held as acting bishop diocesan, that allegations of criminal conduct by a priest are not “of weighty and material importance to the ministry of the church.” She also has refused to report child sexual abuse to law enforcement on two known occasions. ·  Gayle Harris , who has refused to forward allegations of criminal conduct by clergy to her diocesan intake officer. ·  Paula Clark , who continues to sandbag allegations of perjury by Episcopal priest  Will Bouvel . Additionally, myriad canons to the ordinary, intake officers, and disciplinary board members, including  Bill Parnell ,  Rob Morpeth ,  Melissa Hollerith , and others, need to make themselves scarce or be defrocked. The days of episcopal wine and roses is clearly over. A new dawn has dawned under a new presiding bishop. And he is not prepared to sweep the sins of episcopal bishops under the rug. We will watch with interest to see where it is all going. END

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org January 25, 2025   We should respond to Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde's desperate rantings at Donald Trump with one big collective yawn, wrote one blogger.   He has a point. Her rant at the newly elected president was predictable. Those of us who have been writing about The Episcopal Church over recent decades knew this would happen in the name of “speaking truth to power.”   Marianne Edgar Budde was consistent as she stood in the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral, the nation’s pulpit mike in hand.   This was her moment and she was not going to waste it with nice congratulatory words for the 47th president of the U.S.   Her sanctimonious outrage rang with all the inflection of a woke bishop who has imbibed post-modernity, hectoring the president who has been in office less than 24 hours.   There are multiple themes she could have inveighed about. The need for unity in a nation deeply divided; or righteousness that exalts a nation. In a nation of nearly 346 million people there is always someone whose ox is being gored.   Listening to her speech, it wasn’t a sermon, I was made aware of how light it was on the Bible and how heavy on righteous condemnation. Bishop Budde went peak episcopalian.   The gospel hasn’t been heard in her diocese in generations. One is more likely to hear a whiny sermon from Gene Robinson about conservative homophobia or Islamophobia from an outraged Iman.   As one observer noted; “The Episcopal Church is probably the most liberal, not to say progressive, denomination in the USA. It is fully committed to promoting LGBTQ+ rights and treats DEI initiatives as though they had come down from the mountain top written in stone.”   Bishop Budde certainly fulfills that mandate.   She painted a picture of a dystopian America where people live in dread of the coming administration.   Well not everybody feels that way. In fact, Trump garnered considerable Hispanic and Black votes from people who don’t want to see our borders crossed by illegals. The situation is not as black and white as she painted it. Yes, some injustices will occur, they always do. Some people with green cards will be deported. The citizenship of children born in the US to those here illegally is already being challenged in the courts.   On Truth Social, Trump called Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde a “Radical Left hardline Trump-hater” who is “not very good at her job.” He said she “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.”  Well tell me something I don’t know. Trump demanded an apology. I can tell you he will wait a very long time before that happens. She has already signaled she won’t be apologizing to the Don. She made it clear she loathes Donald Trump and was certainly very ungracious.   It is hardly a truism when Trump said she is “not very good at her job.” Most of us have known that for a long time. Nothing new here. With some of America and the world’s leading influencers listening in she had a golden moment to preach that Christ stands over the nations of the world, including the U.S. in judgment; that He is watching and calling people to repentance and faith. She could have brought God’s word to bear on the people. She didn’t. It is doubtful she really believes in any of that. What mattered was preaching her personal political views in the hope of changing the president’s mind and humiliating him in public. Judging by the responses on social media she singularly failed.   Michael Curry the former Presiding Bishop would probably have delivered himself of a love bomb, which might have brought a few smiles to some faces, but it is doubtful he would have gone after the president as she did; neither I think would Sean Rowe the new PB who is singularly silent on Budde’s rant. If he is cringing at 815 2nd Avenue, in New York, the church’s headquarters, someone might want to take him out for a drink to help him recover. It’s the very least they could do.   END