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“I am not a Nazi!”   By Mary Ann Mueller VOL Special Correspondent www.virtueonline.org February 5, 2025   Like St. Peter before him, the Rev. Calvin Robinson has a case of Hoof & Mouth disease.   Both Simon Peter and Calvin Robinson have the tendency to open mouth, insert foot and twist. And then act impetuously which has gotten them both in a lot of trouble.   Peter challenges Jesus over His upcoming Passion and Death. (Matt. 16:21-23)   Peter won't let Jesus wash his feet at the Last Supper. (John 13:6-10) Peter cuts off Malchus’ ear. (John 18:3-11)   Peter denies knowing Jesus three times. (Matt. 26:69-75; Mark 14:66-72; Luke 22:54-62; and John 18:15-27)   Peter argues with Paul over the place of the Gentiles in the Church. (Galatians 2:11-21) Such is the case now in the United States when Robinson conflates politics with religion.   Long story short Fr. Calvin Robinson crossed the rubicon of priestly etiquette and his Archbishop Mark Haverland stepped in and removed his faculties – license (permission) – to exercise his priesthood within the Anglican Catholic Church.   Now to the rest of the story …   First of all, Robinson is a British citizen. He was born in Mansfield, England 39 years ago. He immigrated to the United States in September 2024 to become the priest-in-charge at St. Paul's Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) a small congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.   VISA ISSUES   Robinson is a British immigrant, not an illegal border crossing migrant. Basically, he followed immigration law.   He did not fly to Canada – a British Commonwealth nation – and sneak across the Canadian southern border into the United States. He came to the United States with passport, documents and paperwork in hand.   However, the question has been raised whether Robinson followed American immigration law to the letter when it comes to the status of immigrating clergy. US Immigration law outlines the qualifications needed to apply for a US Religious Work Visa: “To qualify as an immigrant religious worker, for at least two years before a petition may be filed on your behalf, you must: (1) Have been a member of the religious denomination having a bona fide nonprofit, religious organization in the United States for which you are coming to work; and (2) Have been continuously carrying out the religious vocation or occupation that you intend to carry out in the United States.”   The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) also states that to qualify for an immigrant visa as a “Minister of Religion” the cleric “must be entering the United States to work solely as a minister of your religious denomination.”   CHURCH HOPPING   Therein lies the problem. Robinson is a church-hopper. He has belonged to four different denominations in a space of three years. Not all of the churches are Anglican. He was initially a member of the Church of England (CofE) until he left for the Free Church of England (FCE) in early summer 2022. He then united with the Old Catholic – nonAnglican – Nordic Catholic Church (NCC) in late 2023. Less than a year later he gravitated to the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC).   It is not totally clear if he is still a priest in the AAC – albeit an inhibited priest – or is he a priest without a denomination.   VirtueOnline has reached out to Metropolitan Archbishop Mark Haverland (VIII ACC) for a clarification concerning Robinson's status with the Anglican Catholic Church. At the time of posting Archbishop Haverland has not responded to VOL’s query.   Like a man without a country Calvin Robinson is a priest without a parish. Former Church of England priest Gavin Ashenden feels that Robinson is indeed without a denomination.   However, as a result of Robinson's priestly ordination in the Nordic Catholic Church, which is not a part of the Anglican Continuum, he is “a priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek.” (Psalms 110:4)   Ashenden, himself, left the CofE after the Koran was read in Arabic at a 2017 Epiphany service at St. Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow, Scotland. The passage denied that Jesus is the Son of God.   This infuriated Ashenden. Giving up his royal chaplaincy to the Queen he eventually swam the Tiber in 2019 and is now a Roman Catholic layman.   “You (an ordained priest) belong to a denomination,” the former Queen's Chaplain explained on his recent YouTube program Catholic Unscripted. “The ACC message saying that Calvin had been released by removal of his license said in fact he's not part of the ACC. So they are not just deparishing him, they are dechurching him.”   For all practical purposes Calvin Robinson is a “Catholic” priest, albeit not a Roman Catholic priest but an Old Catholic priest, for he was ordained into the priesthood through the Nordic Catholic Church. He is not an ordained Anglican priest. Although he was ordained as an Anglican deacon in the Free Church of England he sought his priesthood elsewhere.   The Old Catholic tradition separated from the Roman Catholic Church during Vatican I (circa 1870) over certain doctrines such as papal authority and papal infallibility. Old Catholics are not in communion with Rome however the Nordic Catholic Church (NCC) is in ecumenical dialogue – not intercommunion – with the Free Church of England (FCE) and the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC).   The NCC was the bridge Robinson used to go from the FCE to the ACC picking up Old Catholic priestly ordination along the way.   Robinson initially started out seeking ordination in the Church of England (CofE). That failed.   The young Robinson got a degree in computer games design and programming from the University of Westminster. He then went on to teach computer science at St. Mary's & St. John's Church of England School in Hendon where he became head of the school's IT department before pursuing a path in religion.   He undertook seminary studies at St. Stephen's House, an Anglo-Catholic theological college at the University of Oxford.   But Robinson was at cross swords with the Bishopette of London — Sarah Mullally, who couldn't find a "suitable curacy" for him due, in part, to his strong political views.   He is a noted and popular conservative British political commentator with a large social media following who rails against homosexuality, same-sex marriage, the LGBTQ ideology, critical race theory, the ordination of women, the cancel culture, and abortion. Finding the CofE path to ordination blocked, Robinson turned to the Free Church of England as a gateway to ordination. The FCE accommodated him and ordained him a transitional deacon on June 25, 2022 and appointed him Minister-in-Charge at Christ Church in Harlesden. A position he held for nearly three years even though he became an Old Catholic priest midway through his tenure. His final service at Christ Church was celebrated on Trinity Sunday (May 26, 2024).   But, alas, Robinson didn't stay long in the FCE. He was seeking the priesthood on his own terms and found through the Nordic Catholic Church (NCC), an Old Catholic denomination of Scandinavian Lutheran patrimony. He was priested on Nov. 4, 2023 as an Old Catholic priest.   Next the new British priest set his sights on moving to the United States as a clergyman. But he had to find a continuing Anglican denomination which would accept his hopscotch patchwork of ordinations, provide him a High Church altar and pulpit, and grease the skids to a US religious minister's work visa. He found that in the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC).   The ACC is an outgrowth of the 1977 Congress of St. Louis which met following the 1976 Episcopal General Convention that approved women's ordination; set the stage for the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer; and provided equal rights to the LGBT movement including the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Episcopal Church and equal protection under the law.   Robinson's honeymoon with his Michigan parish lasted a mere four months. His religious denomination has booted him out and he is barred from seeking another ACC pulpit.   However, a foreign clergyman is to “work solely as a minister of your religious denomination” to keep the US green card.   With the drop in priestly vocations, particularly in the Church of Rome, many bishops turn to foreign dioceses to find priests to fill their pulpits. Many Catholic priests now serving in the United States hail from Africa, India and Asia. Calvin Robinson is considered a “foreign priest” in the American Anglican world.   The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), too, has close ties to Anglican churches in the Global South such as in various African Anglican provinces – Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria – through GAFCON.   MERE ANGLICANISM KERFUFFLE   Robinson has danced with ACNA before and ACNA was stung. He was invited to be a presenter to a sellout crowd at the January 2024 Mere Anglicanism Conference hosted by St. Philip’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina.   The conservative high church Anglo-Catholic priest hit the hot button issue of Women's Ordination in a gathering that was being held in an ACNA diocese which allows females in the priesthood and women clergy were in the audience.   Fr. Robinson’s presence at the conference was a mismatch from the beginning. The young priest is a passionate Anglo-Catholic with a strong commitment to traditional biblical values concerning the priesthood, marriage and the family, along with same-sex and transgender issues. However, the Mere Anglicanism Conference is a low church evangelical event based in the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina which supports ideology that Robinson strongly opposes, particularly that of women in the priesthood.   The match up was disastrous. As a result, Robinson’s wings were clipped and he was asked to stand down from the concluding panel discussion.   However, the young-not-yet-40 priest failed to humbly accept his chastisement silently, turning to prayer and keeping mum. He immediately started posting on social media and hit the YouTube circuit defending himself while being critical of his Mere Anglicanism hosts.   Robinson is passionate. He is controversial. He is committed. He is provocative. He is outspoken. He is conservative. He is opinionated. He is polemical. He is basically a High Church Anglo-Catholic with an Old Catholic priesthood.   ACC SACKS ROBINSON   Robinson started dancing with ACC in October of 2023 when he first visited the ACC’s Provincial Synod in Orlando, Florida and subsequently expressed an interest in serving a parish in the US.   “After undergoing the necessary procedures, he was received in orders and licensed to serve at the parish of St. Paul’s, Grand Rapids, Michigan,” the ACC fleshed out on its website Monday (February 3). “As of January 29th, 2025, he had served in the ACC a little over four months.”   Taking all things into consideration apparently the ACC attempted to rein in their newly-immigrated priest Calvin Robinson.   Last week (January 29) the ACC initially posted: “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.” Then the AAC referred to their priest as “Mr. Robinson” rather than “Fr. Robinson,” or even “Rev. Robinson.”   This week even the “Mr.” designation has been dropped. The ACC is clearly fed up with Calvin Robinson.   “He (Robinson) was not hired by the ACC to be an official spokesman, social media influencer, or to provoke the ‘hysterical liberals’ (his words) in online culture wars,” the ACC explained. “He was licensed by an ACC bishop to serve as a parish priest.”   It seems that the ACC's strong admonition fell on deaf ears. As a result, Robinson was canned … fired, or as the British say, “sacked.”   “Clearly, he has not (listened), and as such, his license in this Church has been revoked,” posted the ACC in a statement about Robinson's situation. “He is no longer serving as a priest in the ACC.”   Monday the ACC fleshed out: “He was repeatedly warned not to engage in the sort of behavior that he displayed at the National Right to Life Conference, and he did not comply. As such, his license to serve in the ACC was revoked. In doing so, the bishops acted in accordance with ACC canons.” “I have not been defrocked. My licence was revoked. This means I cannot minister in ~250 ACC churches,” Robinson explains in an email missive defending himself which he sent on Monday (Feb. 3). “I am still a priest.”   ROBINSON’S MANY CANCELLATIONS   The ACC priest seems to be taking the cancellation of his priestly license to minister in stride.   “Not wanting to labour the point. I made a silly joke, I will accept the consequences for it. I have been cancelled before,” he emailed. “I am a man; I can take it.”   Yes, Robinson has been cancelled before. Several times before.   Wikipedia says that until 2021 Robinson was a frequent contributor to The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and Sp!ked with no explanation why he no longer writes for those British publications.   In October 2023 GB News axed him, as well as TALK RADIO.   Then in March 2023 he was also booted from the Royal Academy of Dance’s subcommittee on education for opposing a children's “Drag Queen Story Hour” at a London library.   Mere Anglicanism clipped his wings in January 2024 and he was cancelled from the concluding roundtable panel. Finally last week Robinson was cancelled by his own video game and news website staff.   PCGamer, a British website that monitors the gaming world, reports that the editorial staff of “God is a Geek” website walked out last week following Robinson's behavior at the pro-life summit event.   “Calvin Robinson is a far-right political commentator and former games journalist who founded and still owns the gaming website God is a Geek,” PC Gamer posted. “On Thursday (January 30) the entire editorial staff of God is a Geek resigned.”   However, the British priest is clearly upset that Archbishop Haverland has not been in direct contact with him.   “Bishop Chandler Jones broke the news, but he is not my bishop, and he is not responsible,” Robinson wrote in his email. “Archbishop Mark Haverland revoked my licence. He is yet to have a conversation with me about any of this …” PRIESTLY DISOBEDIENCE   “As a direct response to the cancel culture bandwagon, the Archbishop of the Anglican Catholic Church, where I serve, removed my licence without so much as a conversation,” he emailed. “I will not go into that further, as I believe in being obedient to one’s bishop and would like to give him the benefit of the doubt.”   But as an ACC priest Father Robinson has not been obedient to his bishop as he proclaims.   Repeatedly he has been admonished by his ecclesial authorities about his political leanings, engagement and rhetoric. He was asked to be a simple parish priest – to attend the Altar, celebrate the Sacraments, preach the Word and be a pastor to his flock.   “When Robinson was received into the ACC, he was told that there was a distinction of offices between political activist and parish priest. His bishops made it clear to him that he had been received into the Church to minister to a parish, and as such, he would have to eschew the provocative political behavior that characterized his prior career as a TV presenter, blogger, and social media influencer,” the ACC posted. “He has not done so, and what happened at the National Right to Life Summit was not an isolated incident.”   The ACC is a part of the G3 Synod which is a grouping of Continuing Anglican bodies which are a full Communion ecumenical partnership with each other. The current membership of the G3 consists of the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC); the Anglican Church in America (ACA); and the Anglican Province of America (APA). These three Anglican bodies are working towards full unification in much the same way that the member organizations of the Common Cause Partnership joined forces in 2009 to form the Anglican Church in North America.   Bishop Chandler Jones is the II Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Province of America. He is in full communion with Archbishop Haverland.   The Episcopal Visitor for Robinson's ACC Diocese of the Midwest – which encompasses Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana – is Bishop Patrick Fodor who is the III Bishop of the ACA Diocese of the Missouri River Valley. He, too, is in full communion with Archbishop Haverland. Robinson's ACC diocese has been sede vacante since August 21, 2023 when the VI Bishop of the Midwest Rommie Starks died.   The British priest first approached the ACC in early October 2023, six weeks after Bishop Starks died.   THE PRO-LIFE SUMMIT SALUTE   The event which pushed the Anglican Catholic Church over the edge came as the result of a very questionable and ill-advised hand motion at the close of Robinson's address at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, DC, on January 25, the day after the 52nd Annual March for Life.   Even before Robinson moved to the USA, he had endeared himself to the religious and political right. He has hobnobbed with then Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, former Catholic Bishop of Tyler Joseph Strickland, and laicized Priests for Life national director Frank Pavone.   Last week (Jan. 25) he was with some pro-life heavy weights at the National Pro-Life Summit including: Matt Walsh from the Daily Wire, Dr. Ben Carson former Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Shane Winnings of Promise Keepers, and Abby Johnson formerly with Planned Parenthood.   This was the political backdrop that Robinson was stepping into. He appeared in a floor length black Roman cassock topped with a mozzetta sartorial cape. He is always stylishly dressed.   Through the years his diaconal/priestly demeanor has changed. As a man of color – his mother is a British gentlewoman and his father’s folks come from Jamaica making him a light-skinned mixed-race child – he initially wore a full Afro hairdo. Then following his ordination as a Old Catholic priest his hair became closely cropped. Then after coming to the United States, he has started wearing a beard with a few tell tail grey hairs beginning to show.   At the pro-life summit the then-ACC priest encouraged his American audience to stay the course in defending preborn life. A fight he feels has already been lost in England.   “Every country in Europe is embracing death. America, as I can see, is the only country fighting for life,” he said. “God bless all of you for what you are doing.”   Then, using very poor judgement, he added a controversial hand motion. “Please keep doing it. I hope I can encourage you …” he continued. “and my heart goes out to you …” he said as he placed his hand on his heart and then reached out to the crowd. “God bless.”   As he left the podium he was met with laughter, applause and cheers.   What the crowd was responding to was the questionable hand motion. The stiff-armed 45⁰ salute was seen only days before when Elon Musk forcibly gave a similar stiff-armed salute during Trump's Inauguration Day festivities. It was his way of thanking American voters for returning Trump to the Oval Office.   Robinson was apparently trying to imitate Musk. Whereas Musk’s salute was forcefully done three times while grimacing. Robinson's hand-to-heart one time salute was more natural in an attempt to convey heartfelt emotion rather than political rhetoric.   “At the end of an encouraging pro-life speech, I gave a cheeky nod to Elon Musk, mocking the ludicrous response he received to sending his heart out to the crowd in his excitement at the inauguration,” Robinson explained in Monday's email missive. “I sent my heart out to the wonderful audience at the pro-life summit. It was well received at the time and immediately afterwards. That is, until the hard-Left caught hold of it and decided to label me a nazi.”   Yet the similarity between Musk's and Robinson's salutes and the WWII Nazi salute are striking and can easily be misconstrued, landing the priest in hot water making him lose his parish and possibly jeopardizing his American immigration status as well.   19th CENTURY FLAG SALUTE   Historically the Nazi Salute is a corruption of what is called the “Bellamy Salute” that American school children initially used when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.   The Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist pastor, penned the first publicly recited version of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ sailing the ocean blue and landing on San Salvador in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492.   A Presidential Proclamation called for the special national holiday honoring Christopher Columbus to take place on Friday, October 21 rather than October 12. This is when Bellamy's Pledge was first recited as a part of an initiative to bolster the Schoolhouse Flag Movement to get Old Glory into all American schools. Bellamy's Pledge of Allegiance was coupled with Bellamy's straight – not 45⁰ – stiff-armed flag salute.   The change in date was to account for the switch between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.   Bellamy's original words were: ‘I pledge Allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”   Wikipedia explains: “The recital was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Bellamy salute.”   This flag salute was created by James B. Upham as the gesture that was to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America, but the salute was named after Francis Bellamy who wrote the text.   The Bellamy flag salute was inherently used by school children until late 1942 the year after the United States entered World War II.   The straight stiff-armed flag salute was officially replaced by the now familiar hand-over-heart gesture of respect when the 77th Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22,1942 when Public Law 77-829 was enacted.   The joint Flag Code resolution was passed to codify and emphasize existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the United States flag. It was enacted because the familiar Bellamy flag salute was usurped by the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s in the run up to World War II.   The Nazi salute shows allegiance to a single person – Adolph Hitler – not a country, nor a flag. And it has remained associated with him ever since.   ROBINSON'S MISSTEP   Musk's 45⁰ stiff-armed gesture is not as furious as portrayed. But for Robinson, an “Anglican” priest, it was very bad optics. Such as in 2020 when President Trump went to St. John Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square for a photo op holding up a Bible during the height of the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests.   Robinson's bishops saw the gesture as a “pro-Nazi salute” which was the straw that broke the camel's back in dealing with their new politicized priest.   “At approximately 3:00 pm today (1/29) members of the College of Bishops of the ACC were made aware of a post made on X showing the end of a speech made by Calvin Robinson at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, DC,” the ACC posted last week. “In it, he closed his comments with a gesture that many have interpreted as a pro-Nazi salute.”   Robinson is young, not yet 40, and he is an inexperienced priest. The oils of ordination haven't fully dried from his palms and the Character of the Priesthood hasn't fully formed him. He has yet to learn prudence, humility, charity and obedience to his superiors. He has an ego perhaps from his strong Internet presence as a religious and political influencer.   Nor did the Anglican Catholic Church fully understand Robinson when it took him under its wings. And apparently it wasn't understood that the British priest would be that political, provocative and problematic coupled with polemical rhetoric as well as hard to leash and tether to his parish.   In today's hyper politicized world any stiff-armed salute naturally draws references to the Nazi regime especially since the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz would occur in two days (January 27).   The ACC initial statement had strong words to say about the optics Robinson presented.   “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.” the ACC posted. “Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity.”   Robinson went on Facebook to defend himself chalking it up to British dry wit. “For the record, in case it needs saying: I am not a Nazi,” he posted. “My attempt at dry wit, in that typical British way, was not a joke at the expense of WWII, nor an admission of my membership in the Nationalist Socialist Party.”   The English priest has his detractors, but he also has his passionate supporters. But the optics he created has reflected negatively on his denomination, the wider Church and Christianity. The Gospel failed to be faithfully represented.   LIMITED OPTIONS The ACC is emphatic about Robinson's future with them. He has burned his bridges behind him. His options are very limited.   “He may seek a new Church to affiliate with, or continue an independent online ministry,” the ACC explains. “What he may not do is serve in the ACC or with its ecumenical partners.”   This means he cannot approach the Anglican Church in America; or the Anglican Province of America seeking an altar, pulpit and rectory.   Calvin Robinson is a priest and not a politician. His place is behind a pulpit and not a podium. On Candlemas Sunday (Feb. 2) he did not have a parish family to celebrate the Eucharist with and his stay in America may be precarious due to the dictates of his religious work visa.   Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.

By Rev. Dr. Chris Sugden https://anglicanmainstream.org/ Feb 5, 2025   With the resignation of Archbishop Welby and the Archbishop of York being under a cloud due to a failure in safeguarding, the Church of England appears to have lost moral authority. It is also riven with doctrinal differences, chiefly over the desire of many bishops to bless same-sex unions. All is not lost, however. Here Rev Canon Dr Chris Sugden explains how 2025 might pan out and notes developments that could encourage evangelicals   Archbishop Welby’s legacy is a mixture.   He introduced a centralised management process into the Church of England (C of E), with the House of Bishops taking a dominant role in shaping policies and proposals. Parishes have been amalgamated, and more diocesan officials appointed.  In response, a ‘Save the Parish’ movement has started to preserve a parish church and vicar in each community.   Preserving unity   Archbishop Welby also sought to preserve what he called ‘unity’ by making concessions to a small but powerful elite lobby, including some bishops, senior clergy and lay church officials. This lobby has been loudly pressing for over 20 years for concessions to a liberal lifestyle.   They wanted same sex relationships to be blessed and recognised in church services, and for clergy to enter same-sex marriage. However, their wishes do not match those of their parishioners; most parish congregations are by and large orthodox in belief and practice.   Red line   Under Welby, a ‘fudge’ was introduced in an attempt to keep everyone happy. It had the opposite effect and opened up divisions within the Anglican Communion. For most orthodox Anglicans, a red line was crossed in December 2023, when prayers for same sex couples within a regular service of worship were first permitted.   Welby’s reputation on the global stage has plummeted. He forfeited the allegiance of many Anglican Primates (the senior Archbishops in their countries), who represent the majority of Anglicans around the world. These international Archbishops have refused to acknowledge the Archbishop of Canterbury as the senior bishop in the Anglican Communion.   As a result, an international Anglican body has formally recommended that Welby’s successor as leader of the world’s Anglican Archbishops should not be the Archbishop of Canterbury but be chosen from the Primates.   Celibate lives   Meanwhile in England, orthodox clergy and lay leaders came together to form The Alliance, a network that represents the majority of Anglican churchgoers. It comprises the Holy Trinity Brompton (Alpha Course) network, the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), Church Society, ReNew, New Wine, Forward in Faith (an Anglo-Catholic High Church network) and Living Out (people with same sex attraction who live celibate lives).   The objective of The Alliance is to achieve a parallel province in which orthodox congregations and clergy can be ‘overseen’ by orthodox bishops who stand for the traditional Anglican and biblical teaching on sex and marriage.   Despite the managerial moves in recent years, the Church of England is not a centralised organisation. Each parish is ‘independent’ and receives oversight and fellowship from its diocese.   Separate congregations   Some orthodox C of E clergy and lay people have left the national Church to form separate congregations, but remain Anglicans. They belong to the Anglican Network in Europe (ANIE), formed in 2013, which is part of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). ANIE has its own bishops, who are recognised by many Anglican Primates around the world.   But the ANIE alternative arrangement cannot be a complete solution for all orthodox Anglicans. ANIE’s departure does indicate significant disagreement with the same-sex blessings that have been allowed to take place, but it is far from certain that the General Synod and House of Bishops would actually agree to recognise them.   Furthermore, many parish congregations are central to their local community life; they are in general orthodox and they would be unhappy about receiving a new ANIE bishop rather than their area or diocesan bishop. So while there may be internal disagreements over same-sex blessings, these parishes will not vote to leave the Church of England.   Bishops’ moves   At the time of writing, the House of Bishops has been working on a series of proposals to allow for same-sex blessings to take place in a separate church service, for same-sex marriages to take place in church and for clergy to be allowed to enter same-sex marriages. The bishops’ plan has been to get the General Synod to vote to accept all their proposals by a simple majority.   The orthodox objection to the House of Bishops’ current proposals is that such changes represent a change in the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage. A change of doctrine requires a two-thirds majority in all three ‘houses’ of the Synod: bishops, clergy and lay people.  The bishops know they will not be able to secure this because more than a third of laity and probably of the clergy members of Synod are against such a change.   Just this last month a press release from the House of Bishops indicated a delay in their process, noting that any proposals will not be ready for presentation in July. It is quite possible that the orthodox bishops in the ‘house’ have stood firm in their objections at the first meeting which will not have been chaired by Archbishop Welby.   Meanwhile speculation has developed about who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The elite gay lobby is understood to be pushing the candidature of Bishop Guli Francis-Deqani, the Iranian-born British Bishop of Chelmsford since 2021, who would be the first woman Archbishop. She is known to be in favour of same-sex marriages.   What matters now is that the members of the Alliance, the orthodox bishops and clergy should remain firm in their stand for biblical teaching and practice.   Some parishes have gone so far as to send to the dioceses only the money they will then receive back from the diocese to cover the cost of their clergy. Normally all parishes contribute a ‘parish share’ to cover the expenses of the diocese as well.   Refusal to pay   The refusal to pay this is causing some dioceses significant financial pressure.  Some parishes have taken advantage of the overseers commissioned by the Alliance to provide oversight in place of their own ‘heterodox’ diocesan bishops.   But some evangelical clergy have been hesitant to take a stand as they want to be ‘nice’ to everyone and remain united. However, as Canon John Dunnett, the Executive Officer of the CEEC has written: “The question still remains as to ‘unity in or around what’. The unity that Jesus prayed for was not institutional…[or] based on the status quo.   “And unity in Scripture always goes hand-in-hand with truth. CEEC is absolutely committed to unity across cultures, continents and centuries with all those who hold to the apostolic faith as we have received it.”   Canon Dr Chris Sugden is chair of Anglican Mainstream, an orthodox network and website www.anglicanmainstream.org founded in 2003 to uphold biblical teaching, especially on sex and marriage. He is a Canon in the Anglican churches of both Nigeria and Ghana. He was part of the organising team of the first Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008

Demoralised clergy speak of church in freefall and crisis of trust in run-up to governing body meeting   By Harriet Sherwood THE GUARDIAN 8 Feb 2025   Mutiny may be in the air when the Church of England’s normally staid ruling body, the General Synod, meets for a five-day session next week.   The gathering of the 500-member church parliament follows a series of tumultuous events that have resulted in the unprecedented resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury, repeated calls for the archbishop of York to stand down, and the sudden departure of the bishop of Liverpool. Behind all are cases of abuse, alleged abuse and the church’s failure to deal with abuse.   In recent days, demoralised clergy have spoken of a church in freefall, a crisis of trust between grassroots members and the national leadership, serious reputational damage and a fear of more to come.   As a poll this week shows that only one in four members of the public have a favourable view of the C of E, some are asking if the church can ever again provide moral leadership. Even Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York and now de facto leader of the C of E, has acknowledged that people are “disgusted” by the country’s established church.   Amid rumours of a no-confidence motion in Cottrell, some female members of synod have written to the archbishop to say it is inappropriate for him to give the opening address on Monday in the circumstances. In response, Cottrell has promised to “make space for silence and prayer as well as offering reflections on how we can be a church which is more transparent and accountable”.   Behind the scenes, efforts are under way to secure fundamental change. Some church members are calling for parliamentary intervention or a royal commission to examine the C of E’s governance. Supporters of such a move say bishops and archbishops are unaccountable and inherently resistant to reform. “What’s needed is a higher authority to step in, and I don’t mean God,” said one.   Fr Robert Thompson, a London priest and synod member who was among those calling for Justin Welby to quit in November, said next week’s meeting would be very tense. “Synod is usually highly managed and controlled, but a lot of people feel this is part of the problem,” he said.   Some felt Cottrell was not the right person to steer the church through the crisis because there were many questions over his own failure to act against alleged abusers. “But because he has massive support among the bishops, he feels he can ride this out,” Thompson said.   Rev Alex Frost, a vicar in Burnley and another synod member, said there were “two parallel universes” in the C of E. “The hierarchy of the C of E that is in disarray, and the local churches that are going about their day-to-day ministry, doing their best against the backdrop of a church that seems to be in freefall,” he said. There had been a “huge breakdown in trust and honesty and integrity, and unless we regain that, we will lose more and more people”.   The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, the archdeacon of Liverpool, said there was a “real crisis of trust and a real sense of needing to look at how hierarchies are structured and how accountability and transparency works”.   According to Rev Dr Charlie Bell, another synod member, local parishes were “frustrated and irritated” at waves of bad news coming from the C of E hierarchy. People were fed up that good work at grassroots level, such as running food banks or hosting meals for elderly people, were being “endlessly swamped” by bad news from the top of the church.   Bell said he was not confident of there being honest debate about the way forward at next week’s synod. “The issues are being weaponised in a distasteful and unpleasant way.”   Other synod members claimed the issues of abuse and safeguarding were being used by some people as proxies to attack Cottrell and others who were seen as liberal on issues such as same-sex marriage.   Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.   Bishops were closeted at an away day last week as their colleague John Perumbalath, the bishop of Liverpool, became engulfed in allegations of sexual misconduct. “We were very, very deeply shaken,” Philip North, the bishop of Blackburn, told a briefing hosted by the Religion Media Centre.   “I can’t deny there is huge reputational damage done to the church at a national level, to the standing of bishops and to the perception of the church, and we feel very much on the back foot, very much on the defensive … I think we do now need to get on to the front foot, demonstrate that we can put in place the necessary safeguarding reforms, and start to change the language.”   Synod members will take two important decisions next week. One is about transferring safeguarding staff to an external body free from church influence or control – a recommendation made a year ago by Prof Alexis Jay, the former chair of the national child abuse inquiry, but not yet adopted.   The other concerns long overdue changes to how clergy are disciplined. Under a new measure, the 12-month time limit for claims of serious misconduct will be abolished, bishops will be almost entirely removed from disciplinary processes, and a central team will investigate the most serious cases.   Both measures will be seen as steps towards putting the C of E’s house in order.

By Chuck Collins www.virtueonline.org February 9, 2025   John Hooper was burned at the stake February 9, 1555, one of 282 Protestants ordered killed by Bloody Mary in her five-year reign as Queen. Hooper is remembered as the "Father of Puritanism."   Puritanism is a nasty thing almost always when it is mentioned. C.S. Lewis’s demon Screwtape declared to his apprentice Woodworm that  “the value we have given to that word [Puritanism] is one of the really solid triumphs of the last hundred years.” The Puritans were profoundly committed Anglicans whom historian Patrick Collinson calls  the “hotter sort of protestants.” Nigel Atkinson points out that their tendency was to out-reform the reformers, and he noted how John Hooper changed from the usual Reformation principle (that anything can be used, provided that it is not contrary to Scripture), to his insistence that anything used in worship must “have the express Word of God to support it.” This came to be called the Regulative Principle (as opposed to the Normative Principle). J. I. Packer loved the Puritans and viewed them as the conscience of the English Reformation: “The great Puritans were men of outstanding intellectual power and spiritual insight, in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for God and a minute acquaintance with the human heart. All their work betrays this unique fusion of gifts and graces. They had a radically God-centered outlook. Their appreciation of God’s sovereign majesty was profound; their reverence in handling His word was deep and sustained. . .they understood the ways of God with men, the glory of Christ the mediator, and the work of the Spirit in the believer and in the church, more richly, fully, and accurately, perhaps, than any since their day.”   John Hooper spent the early 1540s in exile in Zurich with other Protestant exiles, and when he returned home, he was appointed the bishop of Gloucester. But he refused the appointment and chose instead to spend a month in Fleet Prison rather than be vested with the “popish rags redolent of superstition” (Alec Ryrie). He came to believe that the vestments of the clergy were not matters of indifference (adiaphora) when they crudely display the church’s wealth and power, and mislead people into believing that the minister is a mediator who offers propitiatory sacrifices for their salvation. For Hooper, the gaudy Medieval robes communicated a theology that is not consistent with a Protestant understanding of ministers and Holy Communion that mean only to point people to Christ. He was finally persuaded that “vestments” are not a mountain to die on, especially if they kept him from opportunities to minister the gospel. Until his death he served faithfully as bishop in the Church of England.   There is a generosity in historic Anglicanism that distinguishes gospel issues from adiaphora (matters indifferent): essentials from nonessentials. This is the original "via media" of the Church of England. This generosity distinguishes the English Reformation from some other Reformation traditions. Nonconformist Puritans sometimes violated this generosity, prohibiting what was not specifically prohibited in Holy Scripture for fear that Anglicanism would spin into lawlessness. The generosity in Anglicanism is no less needed today than in the 16th century: Oliver O’Donovan stated that “There was nothing particularly ‘middle’ about most of the English Reformers’ theological positions - even if one could decide between what poles the middle way was supposed to lie. Their moderation consisted rather in a determined policy of separating the essentials of faith and order from adiaphora . . . Anglican moderation is the policy of reserving strong statement and conviction for the few things which really deserve them . . . But it is precisely that, and not some supposed ‘middleness’ between Catholic and Protestant, which gives it a critically important role in twentieth century ecumenism.” Anglicanism at its best is thoroughly biblical, theologically orthodox, pastorally generous, and liturgically beautiful. Considering Hooper on the anniversary of his death is a reminder of the “pastorally generous” part, and the unwavering English commitment to the gospel essentials, and generosity in matters for which biblical Christians can and will disagree.   Dean Chuck Collins is a reformed Anglican theologian and historian

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org January 21, 2025   It is time to boldly state the truth.   The Anglican Communion, as it is presently constructed is finished. What we have now is unsustainable.   Attempts to reconfigure, revive, restate, reconstruct and reconstitute the Anglican Communion have simply failed.   The departure of Archbishops Justin Welby, John Sentamu, George Carey, and one hopes Stephen Cottrell, were signposts of failure along the way. The problems were coming on long before John Smyth’s sadistic behavior was uncovered throwing the church into complete turmoil. The Makin Review merely highlighted not just a failed safeguarding system, but a church both morally and theologically bankrupt.   The rot set in with the passage of Lambeth Resolution 1:10 passed at Lambeth ‘98, a withering indictment on western pansexual hopes to engineer a new sexuality into church. It failed. For 27 years 1:10 has hung like a Damoclean sword over the communion defying all attempts to parse it, spin it or ignore it. The resolution and its demands refused to go away. Justin Welby tried to deflect it at the last Lambeth conference by focusing on climate change, but the Global South led by South Sudan Archbishop Justin Badi refused to let the issue die, and Welby found himself blindsided, and when called upon to repent he refused.   The appalling arrogance of Welby in believing he is the center of the Anglican universe was painful to watch. I have observed the decline over four Lambeth conferences. An effort by Rowan Williams to produce the Windsor Report to right the ecclesial deficit, was simply a blip in the road. Nothing changed. Williams was politely told to leave and went. His replacement was the worst appointment ever in the history of Anglicanism.   One very knowledgeable CofE insider said this about Welby; “He is a nasty piece of work. Ruthlessly ambitious and arrogant, always conscious of his upper-class status. But a second-class history graduate and a fourth-rate thinker.”   I doubt one could be more definitive than that. Certainly, his choices and compromises got him the press he deserved. Most British newspaper columnists and commentators over time, both sacred and secular skewered him.   From his knee weakening over homosexuality, to reparations, to immigration, to euthanasia (the only thing I agreed with him about) to climate change and an ebbing of the gospel mandate, Welby kept playing losing hands in a communion poker game. He never once had a full house.   His departure raises serious questions about who should follow in his footsteps. The temporary arrangement sees York Archbishop Stephen Cottrell taking the reins, with many believing he too should have stepped down over his failed safeguarding issues.   Justin Welby’s departure begs the question as to who will fill his shoes.   The plethora of English bishops are all progressive including the most likely successor, Iranian born Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt. Rev. Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani who is on board with the blessing of same-sex couples. Five Anglican Communion representatives will play a part in selecting his successor. This opens the possibility of a Global South bishop or archbishop being selected. They would, of course all be orthodox in faith and morals, a sticking point for the majority of the House of Bishops.   A GAFCON or GSFA bishop would be a cat among the pigeons in the CofE House of Bishops and give York Archbishop Cottrell heartburn. As GAFCON bishops have already detached themselves from the CofE it is unlikely one would be selected.   It should not come as a surprise that there are proposals afoot by a working body in the communion to decrease the centrality of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This would be a huge nail in the coffin of colonialism that has been the hallmark of the CofE’s power.   By any reckoning the Church of England is finished as a global player. With fewer than 700,000 practicing Anglicans in England, the communion’s largest province (note the colonial ring to that term) now is Nigeria and they continue to grow with new dioceses and bishops added almost annually.   Nigerian Archbishop Henry Ndukuba has made it abundantly clear he wants nothing to do with the Church of England. “We cannot walk with you unless you repent,” he and his fellow African bishops once told Welby. The leader of the Church of England never did, and now he has gone. He will not be missed. Furthermore, there is nothing to suggest his successor will repent.   A new day is dawning. If the Church of England goes ahead with a woman archbishop who is progressive on sexuality issues it will be an easy call to separate completely from the CofE.   Women bishops, while few in number in the Global South are not recognized by the Anglican Church in North America and many other jurisdictions. It remains a sticking point for any talk of unity.   As things now stand, the Global South owns the Anglican Communion just with the sheer weight of numbers. Despite efforts to buy their support by western pansexualists it has not worked. While they have not felt the full weight of post-modernism in their cultures, there is still no evidence that they can be bought or are ready to roll over. They have watched the devastating consequences of compromise with cultural Marxism in the West resulting in empty churches, to know that is a non-starter.   You know it speaks volumes when the head of the Anglican Church of South Sudan whose country is being destroyed by tribalism, poverty, war and genocide cannot be bought and is utterly committed to a Biblical view of sexuality, then it is curtains for Western pansexualists.   Whatever the future holds, Western pan-Anglicanism is dying and the Global South will continue to rise with no signs of it abating now or in the foreseeable future.   As the writer to the Hebrews put it; “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful,” a lesson the West never truly learned.   END

By Jesse Masai THE LIVING CHURCH February 7, 2025   Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit addresses reporters February 6. | St. Paul’s University, Limuru The Archbishop of Kenya sees some hope in President Donald Trump’s move to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).   “I partially thank Trump for the disruption,” Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit said at an event at St. Paul’s University in Limuru on February 6.   “Let us be disrupted so that we think properly and manage our resources properly. Every other economy grew not in easy times but when you are faced by a crisis. They think deeper, and I hope we can think deeper now.”   Ole Sapit declared that it is time African leaders sought home-grown solutions to the continent’s woes, and claimed that foreign aid has often been misappropriated in the East African nation.   “USAID projects have been shut down,” he said. “People have lost jobs. But deficiency in leadership is our main problem. Let that money go so that we know how to save the little we have. Because most of it is stolen before it reaches where it is supposed to go.”   Kenya scored 31 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) on Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. It tied with El Salvador and Mexico for 126th place.   Ole Sapit said that Africa has all the resources it needs for its people to thrive, but these resources have become drivers of conflicts in parts of the region because of greed.   “We are witnessing what is essentially a struggle over resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he said, referring to recent fallouts between the government in the capital, Kinshasa, and M23 rebels in Goma, on Congo’s eastern border.   Conflicts also continue in the Horn of Africa, including parts of South Sudan, where an estimated 57 percent of food security is dependent on USAID.   The archbishop warned that Africans might no longer be in a position to blame colonialism for underdevelopment.   “We have no excuses, 50 or 70 years after independence,” he said. “Disruption is always an opportunity to grow.”   Still, Ole Sapit called on President Trump to stagger the transition to avoid immediate shocks.   “It should have been done gradually, especially for critical areas like health, until we have the capacity to support ourselves,” he said.   In an exclusive interview with The Living Church, Adieri Bwibo, executive director of Kenya’s Anglican Development Services (ADS), revealed that USAID’s abrupt exit has seriously affected his organization.   “KShs. 200 million per annum [$1.550,387 USD] is gone suddenly. Our income is at its lowest, including that which caters for anti-retroviral drugs for communities ravaged by HIV/AIDS,” he said. “We don’t know how to continue; 150 of our staff members have been affected. We have put them on unpaid leave as we figure a way out.”   Bwibo said health, economic empowerment, HIV prevention, referrals to HIV facilities, smart farming for food security, climate change, orphans, and vulnerable children are some of the development agency’s programs that have been affected.   “We had until January 24 to clear all USAID-related payments.  We are now talking about offices rented, human, and other contractual obligations — human and statutory — that we must meet. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and think all will be well. We are forced to go back and strategize,” he said.   Time, he warned, has come for Kenyans to look at their programs as a nation.   “While churches and charitable institutions will complement the work of the government, revenue from citizens needs to be used well,” he said. “That is something we need to focus on. We have over-relied on the generosity of our brothers and sisters from the West.”   Kenya’s local governments provide a model for the future, he said.   “Devolution has transformed this country. Everywhere you go, there is development, with emerging towns and businesses,” he said.   Writing on Meta, however, literature professor Wandia Njoya warned that “the problem the Trump administration has with USAID is one of style, not substance.”   “The USAID suppressed organic economic growth in Kenya and mopped up generations of graduates and mobilizers through funding, so as to delay social change. Every new generation that would have potentially marshaled change in Kenya was co-opted into international trips, donor funding, workshops, and fellowships,” said Njoya, an associate professor at the evangelical Daystar University in Nairobi.   “I think the lesson here isn’t Trump or insane U.S. liberals. It’s that we must learn,” she said. “Please, Kenyans. We must learn about the world. Only we can develop our own countries. The commitment of the American empire is that we don’t. We have to understand this fundamental truth to understand why the U.S. needed this monster called development aid.”   Jesse Masai is TLC’s East Africa correspondent, a longtime journalist and communications professional who has worked in South East Asia and the U.S., as well as in his native Kenya.

York Archbishop Fails Safeguarding Test * Calvin Robinson Tossed out of Continuing Anglican Church * US Episcopal Priest Elected Bp of Nth. Africa   "In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?" – John Stott "Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer." – J.C. Ryle There is a deadly and irreconcilable opposition between Western civilisation and Christianity, and one of them must destroy the other. If that’s true, then wielding the Christian faith as a weapon to defend this thing called ‘Western civilisation’ is a lost battle from the start. Our culture may have been nominally Christian five hundred years ago, but for a long time now it has been the culture of the Enlightenment, of modernity, of the Machine, of Mammon. It valorises not God but the world -- John L. McKenzie Christ is not established anywhere; He becomes a stranger, a beggar, and a ‘vagabond,’ to teach us that no ‘institution’ of the present is eternal, that His kingdom is neither of this world nor imposed on this world with worldly weapons. -- John Chrysostom God’s power is not human power. Our petty little attempts to impose our will by dominance, force and violence mean nothing to the Father, who scorns them. Power is wielded through love; power is wielded through sacrifice. There is something vast and oceanic about it. It is what greatness actually looks like. – Paul Kingsnorth   Dear Brothers and Sisters www.virtueonline.org February 7, 2025   In her riff against President Donald Trump in the Washington National Cathedral about his ungodly treatment of immigrants last week, Episcopal Bishop Marianne Budde failed to mention that Episcopal Migrant Ministries received $53 million taxpayer dollars in 2023 to aid its migrant resettlement program. The Trump administration has temporarily paused these programs for evaluation.   Budde lit into the president and went peak Episcopalian. She painted a picture of a dystopian America where people live in dread of the coming administration. ‘In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.’ These people included ‘gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families’ all across the country ‘who fear for their lives’. Illegal immigrants were not left out: ‘I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.’   Trump fired back calling 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’ and demanded an apology. The description is accurate: she clearly loathes Donald Trump and was certainly very ungracious.   If you think the task of the preacher is to bring God’s Word to bear on the people, not to express personal thoughts and preferences, she failed.   As one blogger noted; “The pronouncements of liberal Christians like Bishop Budde make that task more difficult. She makes it easier for unbelievers to dismiss Christian intervention in social affairs as ill-thought-out regurgitation of progressive talking points garnished with a few Christian terms. If Christians are to speak out, we must do the serious and hard work of examining our world from a biblical perspective. Only then will we deserve to be heard.   Nonetheless the bishop felt compelled to lecture the president in what was euphemistically called a sermon, but was in fact a lecture about his desire to throw millions out of the country who are here illegally and without papers.   Budde did get some support for her views. Shane Clairborne of Red Letter fame and David Mills of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote puff pieces praising Budde for speaking truth to power.   David Robertson, a Presbyterian minister said this; “On immigration. The situation is not as simplistic as you [Budde] put it. Although it has to be admitted that simple political (progressive) fundamentalism does allow you to engage in fine sentimental rhetoric, immigration is a much more complex issue than your 1-minute soundbite portrayed. Donald Trump and JD Vance both married immigrants – it is clear that they are not opposed to all immigration. The question is what should be done about illegal immigration? If you have any ideas, then engage constructively – don't virtue signal from a pulpit 12 feet above contradiction.”   Here are two stories that you can read on the subject here:   https://www.virtueonline.org/post/speaking-the-truth-to-power-a-letter-to-bishop-budde SURPRISE…NOT. The Predictable Theology of Bishop Marianne Budde   ***   IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN CRISIS? Yes. With the resignation of Archbishop Welby and the Archbishop of York being under a cloud due to a failure in safeguarding, the Church of England appears to have lost moral authority. It is also riven with doctrinal differences, chiefly over the desire of many bishops to bless same-sex unions.   The Rev. Canon Dr Chris Sugden explains how 2025 might pan out and notes developments that could encourage evangelicals. He says that Archbishop Welby’s legacy is a mixture.   “He introduced a centralised management process into the Church of England (C of E), with the House of Bishops taking a dominant role in shaping policies and proposals. Parishes have been amalgamated, and more diocesan officials appointed.  In response, a ‘Save the Parish’ movement has started to preserve a parish church and vicar in each community.”   “Preserving unity has not worked out so well. Welby sought to preserve what he called ‘unity’ by making concessions to a small but powerful elite lobby, including some bishops, senior clergy and lay church officials. This lobby has been loudly pressing for over 20 years for concessions to a liberal lifestyle.”   “They wanted same sex relationships to be blessed and recognised in church services, and for clergy to enter same-sex marriage. However, their wishes do not match those of their parishioners; most parish congregations are by and large orthodox in belief and practice.”   “Welby’s reputation on the global stage has plummeted. He forfeited the allegiance of many Anglican Primates (the senior Archbishops in their countries), who represent the majority of Anglicans around the world. These international Archbishops have refused to acknowledge the Archbishop of Canterbury as the senior bishop in the Anglican Communion.”   “As a result, an international Anglican body has formally recommended that Welby’s successor as leader of the world’s Anglican Archbishops should not be the Archbishop of Canterbury but be chosen from the Primates.”   “Meanwhile in England, orthodox clergy and lay leaders came together to form The Alliance, a network that represents the majority of Anglican churchgoers. It comprises the Holy Trinity Brompton (Alpha Course) network, the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), Church Society, ReNew, New Wine, Forward in Faith (an Anglo-Catholic High Church network) and Living Out (people with same sex attraction who live celibate lives).”   The objective of The Alliance is to achieve a parallel province in which orthodox congregations and clergy can be ‘overseen’ by orthodox bishops who stand for the traditional Anglican and biblical teaching on sex and marriage. Whether this succeeds is still to be determined. There are road blocks with the state and much more.   You can read more here: IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN CRISIS?   Outside the Church of England there are churches people can join and still remain Anglican even if not in the Church of England. They belong to the Anglican Network in Europe (ANIE), formed in 2013, which is part of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). ANIE has its own bishops, who are recognized by many Anglican Primates around the world including the ACNA.   At the time of writing, the House of Bishops has been working on a series of proposals to allow for same-sex blessings to take place in a separate church service, for same-sex marriages to take place in church and for clergy to be allowed to enter same-sex marriages. The bishops’ plan has been to get the General Synod to vote to accept all their proposals by a simple majority.   The orthodox objection to the House of Bishops’ current proposals is that such changes represent a change in the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage. A change of doctrine requires a two-thirds majority in all three ‘houses’ of the Synod: bishops, clergy and lay people.  The bishops know they will not be able to secure this because more than a third of laity and probably of the clergy members of Synod are against such a change. As of now there is a delay in the process.   Meanwhile speculation has developed about who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The elite gay lobby is understood to be pushing the candidature of Bishop Guli Francis-Deqani, the Iranian-born British Bishop of Chelmsford since 2021, who would be the first woman Archbishop. She is known to be in favor of same-sex marriages.   What matters now is that the members of the Alliance, the orthodox bishops and clergy should remain firm in their stand for biblical teaching and practice.   Some evangelical clergy have been hesitant to take a stand as they want to be ‘nice’ to everyone and remain united. However, as Canon John Dunnett, the Executive Officer of the CEEC has written: “The question still remains as to ‘unity in or around what’. The unity that Jesus prayed for was not institutional…[or] based on the status quo.   ***   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.   He seemed desperately concerned about the marginalized in our society which, coming from the wealthiest church in America, is a bit rich.   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?   There is some question about whether Christ has had much to do with the Episcopal Church since Gene Robinson made his debut as an out-of-the-closet homosexual causing the biggest single departure of Episcopalians in its history. The Anglican Church in North America is now firmly planted and growing.   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?   The truth is 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?   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 can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/sean-rowe-seated-as-tec-s-28th-presiding-bishop-but-his-sermon-failed-the-smell-test   **   The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell is in hot water over his own safeguarding failures. He has temporarily replaced Welby who, he believes, took one for the team thus allowing him to step in as de facto leader of the CofE..   When you look at this record it is far worse than the not-so-dearly-departed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. He has been accused of looking the other way over several priests who were caught with underage boys and girls and has steadfastly refused to resign though several bishops say he should.   He has faced questions over his role leading up to the appointment in 2022 and resignation last week of the Rt. Rev. John Perumbalath, Bishop of Liverpool. Perumbalath announced his early retirement over allegations of sexual assault and harassment that were made in 2023. Cottrell once called another priest, a pedophile, David Tudor a “Rolls Royce priest”.   Cottrell also demonstrated his ignorance over the war in Gaza. In a statement Cottrell made veiled accusations that the blame for the war lay at Israel’s feet. There was no mention of the terrorist organization called Hamas, no mention of who started this war, no mention of “from the river to the sea” a not-so-veiled reference to the obliteration of Israel. No mention of Hamas as a proxy of Iran to continue the war once the ceasefire deal is signed off on. No mention that the “destruction, deprivation and displacement” was caused by Hamas who could have surrendered the hostages and themselves to prevent all the blood shed that followed.   You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/archbishop-of-york-i-won-t-quit-over-abuse-crisis-i-ll-bring-change https://www.virtueonline.org/post/the-archbishop-of-york-s-vacuous-statement-on-the-ceasefire-deal-between-israel-and-hamas   Gavin Drake, a “muckraker” who blogs at Church Street Bureau, has called out Cottrell for his inability to see the damage he is doing by staying on. You can read his pieces here:   https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/09/an-open-letter-to-te-most-revd-and-right-hon-stephen-cottrell-archbishop-of-york/   https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/17/shhh-silence-from-the-archbishop-of-york-stephen-cottrell/   https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/17/safeguarding-second-church-estates-commissioner-holds-church-of-england-feet-to-the-fire/   ***   “I am not a Nazi!” cried the Rev. Calvin Robinson after being unceremoniously tossed out of the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) where he functioned as a priest for just a few short months, over jokingly mimicking a Nazi salute to a crowd at a pro-life event. He should not have done that. Robinson has gotten himself into a whole heap of trouble in the U.S. when he conflated politics with religion.   Like St. Peter before him, Robinson has a case of Hoof & Mouth disease, writes Mary Ann Mueller, special correspondent for VOL.  “Both Simon Peter and Calvin Robinson have the tendency to open mouth, insert foot and twist. And then act impetuously which has gotten them both in a lot of trouble.”   Long story short Fr. Calvin Robinson crossed the Rubicon of priestly etiquette and his Archbishop Mark Haverland stepped in and removed his faculties – license (permission) – to exercise his priesthood within the Anglican Catholic Church. Robinson is a church-hopper. He has belonged to four different denominations in a space of three years. Not all of the churches are Anglican. He was initially a member of the Church of England (CofE) until he left for the Free Church of England (FCE) in early summer 2022. He then united with the Old Catholic – nonAnglican – Nordic Catholic Church (NCC) in late 2023. Less than a year later he gravitated to the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC).   It is not totally clear if he is still a priest in the AAC – albeit an inhibited priest – or is he a priest without a denomination.  He has burned most of his bridges. You can read the full story here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/fr-calvin-robinson-has-hoof-mouth-disease   *** The Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of North Africa has a new bishop. The Rev. Canon Dr Ashley Null has been elected by the Electoral Synod meeting in N'Djamena, Chad, in the context of a Diocesan Synod. Dr. Null will become the second, and first elected, bishop of the Diocese of North Africa, covering five countries (Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia) and including the territory of the see of St Augustine of Hippo.   He is a world authority on Thomas Cranmer, editing his private theological notebooks. He holds research degrees from Yale and the University of Cambridge. As a pastor and theologian, he is Chair of the Board of The Alexandria School of Theology he is already familiar with the Diocese.  He will now have the chance to broaden and enhance the work he has done for many years to promote and encourage Christian witness in this cradle of Christianity. I count him as a close personal friend and spiritual advisor to me.   ***   The Anglican Communion has two new archbishops. The Most Rev. Enrique Lago Zugadi is the new Primate of Chile, and the Most Rev. Vicente Msosa is the new Primate of Mozambique and Angola. Both are cradled in the bosom of GAFCON.   The Lord is raising up leaders who long to see the Bible at the heart of the Anglican Communion, and who seek to lead their provinces in faithful obedience to God’s word, said The Rt Rev. Paul Donison, GAFCON General Secretary. Archbishops Enrique and Vicente are both graduates of GAFCON Bishop’s Training Institute.  Their appointment will undoubtedly cause pain and anguish to Bishop Anthony Poggo, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Office, the liberal branch of the Anglican Communion. With Welby gone he has lost the title of adviser on Anglican Communion affairs to the ABC.   WHAT IS SEX FOR? A Pastoral Theology of Our Sexed Bodies, By Ian Paul, an orthodox English theologian is an excellent booklet for clergy and laity alike. Here is a sample paragraph: “The debates about sex in church and culture are often framed in doctrinal or ideological terms. But in this booklet I want to address the pastoral issues. This demands not mere care or therapy (important as these are) but clear pastoral teaching. When Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them, his first response was to teach (Mark 6.34), since good teaching creates the context for effective pastoral care.” Ian Paul is Associate Minister, St Nic’s, Nottingham, Managing Editor, Grove Books and writer and host at psephizo.com   ***   VOL has a new website. There are still some issues, but we now have all the sections open for your reading. We not only commend the news but the commentary as well and the sound theological pieces we post for deepening your faith. Life is more than a soundbite, and the news, while mostly bad is not all bad. There are glimmers of hope in the Anglican Communion coming from the Global South.   Please consider a tax-deductible donation to keep these news and commentary pieces coming into your email. A PayPal donation link can be found here: http://www.virtueonline.org/support.html   If you are more inclined with old fashioned checks, (as I am), you can send your donation to: VIRTUEONLINE P.O. Box 111 Shohola, PA 18458   I have started a substack on the Middle East, some of which reflects on our Anglican presence in Jerusalem and other ME countries. You can access it here:   https://davidvirtue2.substack.com/publish/posts   Warmly in Christ,   David

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