By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent (Filed: 01/03/2004) Anglicanism's most senior critic of homosexuality is to embarrass the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, by boycotting a top-level meeting in Canterbury today in protest over its first openly gay bishop. The Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, is refusing to attend the meeting of Church leaders, hosted by Dr Williams, because he objects to the presence of the leader of the liberal American Church. The Archbishop, who heads 17 million Anglicans, is a leading opponent of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Frank Griswold, who defied colleagues by leading the consecration, last November, of Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. Dr Akinola, has told friends that to attend the week-long gathering of primates and senior Church members would be a betrayal of his views and those of a majority of Anglicans worldwide. He has described the consecration as "a Satanic attack on the Church". The snub is the most dramatic indication yet of the splits at the heart of the worldwide Church, and it will fuel speculation that Archbishop Akinola is prepared to break away and lead a rival Anglican Church. Another critic of Bishop Griswold, the Primate of Central Africa, Archbishop Bernard Malango, is expected to attend the meeting, but only after issuing a scathing attack on the American Church. The Archbishop accused the liberal leadership of the Episcopal Church of inflicting "a desperately grave wound to the Church", warning that, if it failed to repent, separation would be permanent for the "spiritual safety of our people". His comments contrasted with those of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and a leading liberal, who said at an Ash Wednesday service in London last week that Anglicanism must include everyone, regardless of their sexuality. The latest hostilities have undermined the efforts of Dr Williams to encourage talks between the warring parties and of the Lambeth Commission set up in October to try to avert schism. The commission, which is chaired by the Primate of All Ireland, Dr Robin Eames, urged both sides last month to end their use of "strident language" which is threatening to tear the Church apart. Insiders say that efforts by the commission to broker a deal between the conservatives and liberals, which could allow them to co-exist, has reached a "stalemate". The meeting in Canterbury of the joint committee of the Primates' standing committee and the standing committee of the Anglican Consultative council is not directly related to the commission, but is regarded as crucial.

Church of Apostles no longer funds diocese, national church By Frank E. Lockwood HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER PRESTONSBURG - Leaders of a Lexington Episcopal congregation, objecting to the consecration of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson, are no longer sharing communion with Lexington Bishop Stacy Sauls. Church of the Apostles, a 7-year-old evangelical parish, has stopped giving money to the Lexington diocese and the Episcopal Church USA. The congregation, with an average attendance of about 110 people, has contemporary worship services -- no pews, prayer books or pipe organs. But it adheres to traditional scriptural interpretations, and is in "impaired communion" with the diocese, said its minister, the Rev. Martin Gornik. The Lexington parish is the second parish to publicly challenge Sauls. Saint John's Church in Versailles split in January after diocesan leaders dismissed that church's governing board. Earlier this month, the church's governing board voted unanimously to join the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes -- a national group which claims the Episcopal Church has abandoned "the historic faith of the Bible." Yesterday, at the diocese's annual convention, Gornik and four members of his congregation declined to take bread and wine which Sauls had consecrated. They sat in silence while others went forward. "Clearly, this is an unusual thing," Sauls said afterward. The impaired communion capped a day that featured diocesan elections, a worship service and a brief debate about marriage for gays. Asked whether he thinks Apostles will leave the Episcopal Church, Sauls said he doubts that will happen, but added, "It certainly is a possibility that can't be ruled out." Gornik said the congregation is committed to the Anglican tradition. But locally, Apostles will continue to dissent "until there is a change in direction by the leadership of the diocese." Relations have been strained since Sauls voted to approve the election of Robinson, a Lexington native, as bishop of New Hampshire. "It is serious and grievous that our diocese cannot affirm what we understand to be basic and central teachings of the faith," Gornik said. Sauls said he respects Gornik and hopes the relationship will be restored. "I do not consider myself in impaired communion with them in any way," he said. "But I respect the fact that they see the relationship as impaired from their perspective." In recent weeks, Episcopal leaders have downplayed the importance of correctly interpreting scripture. The Episcopal bishop of Virginia, Peter James Lee, recently told his diocese's annual convention: "If you must make a choice between heresy and schism, always choose heresy." Sauls put it differently. Saying that "Scripture is full of logical inconsistencies," he told his annual convention Friday that "when it comes to family, how I love matters more than how I think." Loving each other, Sauls told the convention, "matters more than how many other commandments, laws or rules I can quote or how many specks I can see in the eyes of others while ignoring the log in my own." Gornik said he can't support efforts "to revise and change what has been understood as traditional and historic teachings of the church, based on scripture." Since founding Church of the Apostles in 1996, "We have taught, preached, discipled and formed people in the orthodox traditions of the church. That's who we are." In other convention business: A resolution opposing marriages for gay couples in the church, tabled by the convention's resolutions committee, remained off the agenda -- despite protests from some deputies. Lay deputies voted 54-46 not to debate the issue now, siding with a resolutions committee which Sauls had appointed. Clergy voted 19-7 to delay the discussion. The convention voted to oppose the death penalty for juvenile offenders and to increase assistance to Haiti. Deputies approved a resolution praising Sauls' "perseverance, wisdom and visionary leadership."

Rowan Williams is interview by Martha Linden of the Press Association 2/27/2004 [ACNS Source: Press Association] The Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated his first anniversary today and spoke of the pressures of his job and the pain of the furore over the nomination of a gay bishop. The Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams, 53, said the level of expectation about his post as archbishop was "very, very high" and had been intensified by the long lead-up to his appointment. He said the row over the nomination as Bishop of Reading - and later withdrawal of acceptance - of the Rt Revd Jeffrey John, the gay but celibate Chancellor and Canon Theologian of Southwark Cathedral, had been at a "very high" personal cost to many people. In an exclusive interview with the Press Association to mark the first anniversary of his enthronement, Dr Williams said he missed Wales, where he was formerly Archbishop, and still thought of it as home. He added that in spite of the pressures of his job and a number of pastoral visits abroad this year, he has managed to publish two books and a collection of essays and still keeps up when he can with his favourite cartoon series The Simpsons. Asked how he had found his first year in post, Dr Williams said there had "certainly" been pressures on him. He said, "I think that the level of expectation on any archbishop is very, very high. "The expectation within Britain, both in the church and in the wider culture - because, as somebody put it, you have got to try to be a sort of vicar for the whole country - and then the expectation in the Anglican Communion, holding a global family of churches together, in some way giving leadership there... so there are huge expectations. I think because of the long lead-up to the appointment, the very high public interest means even more expectation and projection going on." He said it was impossible to live all the time "with other people's images". The only thing that kept him "sane" was "doing the next thing" that has to be done as carefully and prayerfully as possible, he said. Commenting on Dr John, the Archbishop said he believed a number of people were "taken aback" by the powerful strength of feeling against the nomination. He said, "What it focused for me, most painfully, in a way, is what it means to try and hold and articulate what the church overall is thinking and wanting." He added, "It was a very difficult period trying to listen to what I thought the church overall, worldwide as well as in England, was wanting on this. Of course, the personal cost to lots of people is very high." Dr Williams said he did not believe change was inevitable in the Church of England's policy on homosexuality following a debate at General Synod this month in which the majority of speakers backed a more liberal stance on gays. "I do not think that change is ever inevitable," he said. "I think that the Church of England's position, whatever was said after the Synod, remains pretty much where it was. What changed, I think this is important, is the tone of the debate. I sensed less anger and anxiety in the debate and wherever the church finds itself, I think that has to be a good thing." He added that endorsing Some Issues In Human Sexuality, the House of Bishops report, did not "at all" open the door to services of blessings for gay couples. "What it did simply was to recognise the range of theological thinking there is in the discussion at the moment and try to put it over in an accessible form." Dr Williams said his audience with the Pope in October had been a moving movement for him and his wife Jane. Asked about whether he believed the Pope had given up on hopes of unity between Anglicans and Catholics in the light of the appointment of openly gay Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US, Dr Williams said, "I don't think the Pope has given up. I don't think anyone in Rome has given up in that sense. Of course, what you are faced with is the honest acknowledgement of serious problems - there is no denying that. But no sense of the door closing, not at all." Speaking of meeting the Pope, he said it was a moving experience to meet someone with such a depth of Christian experience who has lived through Nazism and Communism. "Of course, as an Anglican I do not automatically believe everything that the Papacy says, that is a theological point, but the sheer Christian and human greatness of the man is just undeniable," he said. Dr Williams said he did not have any theological objections to women bishops at any level of the Church of England. Asked about a report that women could be barred from becoming archbishops under a series of options put forward by a Church of England working party, he said the document put forward "all sorts of options". "While I don't see any theological objection to women bishops, how it is introduced, at what price, is not something for which I have short and glib answers I am afraid," he said. "Of course, it happens in other provinces. It would seem to me a little odd if we ended up with an option which allowed women to become bishops but only so far. In the long run, I do not think there is a theological defence for that." In his interview, Dr Williams renewed his attack on the Government over plans to create a single tier of appeal for asylum seekers whose cases are rejected by immigration officers. "I think in British society generally there is quite a lot of nervousness about incomers which has been intensified by security anxieties over recent years and I think it is quite easy sometimes to collude with that anxiety," he said. "Let me come at it another way - there is a solid traditional Christian moral principle which says that there may be something worth defending, but if you defend it wrongly, then its worthwhileness is diminished. So the way in which you defend something you care about actually affects what you are defending and that is my worry about some of the present suggestions about short cuts in the law and the reduction of the appeal structure for asylum seekers particularly." He added, "We are proud of British society, we want to defend it. If we defend it by means that victimise or exclude people unjustly, then the very thing we are defending is affected by that." Asked about a BBC survey showing Britain is one of the least religious countries in the world with belief and churchgoing among the lowest on the planet, Dr Williams said he was not greatly surprised but was "slightly puzzled" by the findings. He said there had been other surveys suggesting that 75% of people in the country still identified as Christians. "This is not so much a nation of unbelievers as a nation of rather confused thinkers about this," he said. "But yes, let's not beat about the bush, there is a problem. Very large numbers of people, especially younger age groups, have very little of what we would call lively contact with the church, with any sense of what religious language is about." He said it was often said that we were a society interested in spiritual matters rather than organised religion. "I think as has been said recently, we are quite an emotionally volatile society. The British are not a stiff upper lip people any longer and the great displays of public emotion about public events, the Diana phenomenon, is also a feature of it." Dr Williams, who was previously based with his wife and two children in Bishopstow, Newport, south Wales, said he missed the country. He said, "It is my home, quite simply, and it is how I still feel about Wales. I miss the particular strength of being a small church in a small country, where whatever the frustrations, everyone knew each other pretty well, and sometimes therefore holding out a sense of common purpose and collegiality is easier than in larger churches." He added, "I miss friends and I miss contacts in the politics and cultural life of Wales and sometimes I miss the language too." He added that London was "never dull" and was a fascinating and absorbing place to live in. He said for himself and his family, the availability of concerts and theatre in the capital had been a "tremendous plus", as well as the chance to make new friendships. Asked about The Simpson cartoons, he said he did not watch it "quite so" much as before. But he joked, "I try to keep it up, I was going to say religiously, but I'd better not." Dr Williams has published a book called Silence And Honey Cakes, on the contribution of the desert fathers in 4th century Egypt, and a book of meditations called The Dwelling Of The Light Praying With The Icons Of Christ, as well as a collection of essays since his enthronement.

27 February, 2004 GABORONE - Episcopal synod of the Anglican province of central Africa comprising bishops from Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe feels separation with Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) is inevitable. The separation would become permanent if there is no repentance by the Anglican Church in America. This follows last year's ordination in the New Hemisphere, United States, of an active homosexual as a bishop. Archbishop Bernard Malango of Malawi said after the meeting held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Gaborone on Wednesday that the ordination "has inflicted a desperately grave wound to the church and the communion". He said ECUSA has ignored the clear voice of God contained in the Bible. Malango said the 62 bishops who consecrated the gay bishop have disregarded the anguished cries of the primates of the Anglican communion, Christians as well as that of the Anglican Consultative Council not to go ahead with the election of the gay priest. He said ECUSA's arrogance has irreparably shattered trust and fellowship amongst fellow church members across the globe. "Sincere repentance is the only thing that could rescue those involved in the election of the gay priest" Malango said. He added that the presiding bishop of ECUSA and other bishops who have acted with him could not have been clearer. Despite pleas from elsewhere, the ECUSA bishops have declared independence from the Anglican communion. The separation created by ECUSA, according to Malango, cannot be ignored. "The province of Central Africa declares that relationship is fractured and communion is impaired and it is not possible to share what they have fractured," he said. Malango also said the separation is therefore necessary for the "maintenance of Gospel integrity and spiritual safety of our people". He said the way forward would be not to ignore the authority of the Bible, which does not allow sin. Malango said some countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda have already cut ties with ECUSA. BOPA

By JoAnn Samson February 28, 2004 To All Episcopalians and Anglicans, I am still a member of St. Paul's Church in Concord, New Hampshire, and have attended there since around 1984. I was not a delegate to the convention which elected Gene Robinson, but know some committed Christians who were and who took the election of someone else seriously. These people met all the candidates, as did I and many non-delegates, and we prayed and inquired of God about their choice and vote. I know of others who apparently did not bother meeting the candidates, including one who told me, wouldn't it be great for Gene to be bishop, as she knows him. Had I realized ahead of the vote that this election was orchestrated, I would have spoken up against it. I (and others) thought that Gene's name was included as he was a local, just to not cut him off too early. How wrong I was. I have previously written a piece about this, which was posted on TitusOneNine on January 28, 2004. I know more now, and am trying to write this as a more complete version, so that more will come to know what really happened. I have come to know that the election of Gene Robinson was "rigged", i.e., carefully planned, for at least a year, and perhaps for several years (with the case against Bishop Righter for ordaining a gay priest, for which our Bishop Theuner was a "judge" some years ago, apparently setting up the framework for thinking upon which the argument and support could be given). Bishop Theuner had employed Gene Robinson as Canon for many, many years and I have come to find out that he campaigned, cajoled, pushed and twisted arms to secure votes among the clergy. Delegates were carefully selected, when possible, to be amenable to Gene's election. Although my priest, David Jones (who has been here since about 1990) told the papers that the Holy Spirit did this, the Holy Spirit clearly led some "not in the pocket" delegates to vote for other candidates. Within a relatively short time, during which I was devastated and shocked with the outcome, the Lord brought the reading in 1 Kings 22 to me in the One Year Bible, and I was led to understand that this election was done by a lying spirit. Other readings over this period were directed at the latter days and what would happen before the return of Jesus Christ. That the Holy Spirit could have led the majority to vote for Gene Robinson and left the others to specifically not vote for him makes no sense. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Many left the Church and key persons resigned positions on vestry and church and diocesan offices within 24 hours of the election. Some stayed and prayed and watched what would happen at the General Convention, hoping it would be repudiated. Before the vote there, some were saying (a) if the people of New Hampshire, who know him, voted for him, who are we to change their choice, and (b) as the Holy Spirit did this, we must go along. As the voting was set up for Gene before the election in New Hampshire and much control was exerted, and the Holy Spirit did not do this, both arguments were erroneous. Since realizing this sham, I am concerned that nearly $180,000 was spent on bringing people here and making it appear to be an open election. I see why it was done, for it provided an additional argument that Gene was picked out of a field of wonderful candidates, and must be the very best. The other candidates actually had no chance, it being predetermined. After the disappointing General Convention vote, I was beginning to wonder if I had gotten it wrong, but God, again in the One Year Bible, brought up the same reading about the lying spirit and King Ahab, this time in Chronicles. Confirmation. Others here know what happened. I was fortunate to meet a few of them at the recent New England Convocation of the AAC. I also met Hugo Blankenship, the attorney who argued the Righter case and who is now counsel for the AAC. I made the connection there about the Bishop Righter case and its effect, and have looked into that decision. I have heard Gene Robinson give sermons before the election and over a period of some years. His sermons are full of confusion of Scripture. While he talks about supposed good things, they are twisted. He preached that he didn't know why Abraham would have thought he was to sacrifice Isaac, maybe because that was what all the pagans at the time were doing. That God spoke to Abraham? He also preached about the weeds and the wheat once, saying he was weeds and wheat. Consider what Jesus told His disciples about that parable. Listening to Gene and reading what he has preached, one has to ask whether he is even a Christian, if he has ever heard God's voice or whether he is just pursuing something for which he has directed himself (to be a bishop) for a long time. A view of his life, including the "ceremony" for dissolving his marriage in the church and for using the church to put an approval stamp on homosexuality shows me that he uses the church to justify his own behavior and choices. He spent a number of years here working on redefining the family, now paying off. Without children obtained by some means, there is no carrying on homosexuality to a next generation (if that works). He said he did not want to be "a gay bishop", but rather New Hampshire's bishop, but since his election he has been on a world fame tour and he has engaged in gay marriage advocacy and other causes for homosexuality. His arrogance and pride are observable, as is his lack of concern for those who do not agree. Furthermore, I heard from one of his cheerleaders after the election that Gene was so busy he did not have time to pray or read the Bible. I have come to believe that Bishop Theuner is somehow the source and fuel for some of what has happened. His other Canon made it clear that she does not believe in evil and does not believe in many other basics. Those at the church she was sent to in Rochester (when Bishop Theuner fired the rector who was against this election and sticking to more orthodox teaching) told me last Saturday that she said that Jesus was not coming back, and get used to it. The homosexuality [issue] is on the surface, but beneath it runs (a) disbelief in the authority of the Bible, not stopping just on this issue, (b) belief that Christianity does not have a message that is unique, for all religions are equal and should be respected, and (c) that everyone is saved anyway, i.e., that Jesus died for everyone's sins, that all are saved, that sin is not relevant at all, and everybody, regardless of what they believe (or do), is going to heaven. These are serious heresies. People coming in to the church are more at risk than those outside, because those coming in are lulled into believing the church is a fellowship organization to do good things and never hear the real Good News message. We still have the liturgy, of course, that at this point still says those things, but do people really think about what it says when they recite it. That Bishop Spong is still a bishop with what he has stated he believes makes me very concerned. Gene Robinson is from New Jersey too. Somewhere this all ties together. Another observation I make is this: In the beginning of trying to convince the rest of us that homosexuality was okay with God, the arguments were (a) the Old Testament includes a lot of irrelevant things, like mixing cloth and not eating lobsters, (b) the prohibition against homosexuality was not about long-term committed relationships, but about idolatry, (c) men did not do with men what they do with women (not lie with a man as a man lies with a woman), being a "technical" argument, (d) the "old men" who wrote it were not enlightened by what we know now, (e) Jesus said nothing about it, but did love everyone, and (f) Paul was wrong, or maybe just a frustrated homosexual, but anyway talking about promiscuous homosexual sex. They spent several weeks trying to convince us. Arguments were also made that homosexuality is genetically determined, and there is no choice. If you consider the arguments now, you may find they are different. Having gained "world opinion" (you know who that comes from) that homosexuality is good, just a different choice of lifestyle, this is to be celebrated as diversity, and we now don't need to make the old arguments. They are only maybe used against us, many of whom have bought into the "inevitability" and "just as good as male/female relationships", saying that we are obviously unloving and not like Jesus, who would have welcomed this. In my church I have noted now that everyone is invited to communion "whether you believe in anything or not, no matter what your religion or lack of belief", taking away the sanctity and importance of the remembrance and repentance for sins. No speaking of "sins" anymore, just "Sin", in which we all don't live up to our best. A talk by our rector a few weeks ago for Alpha about "Why Jesus Died" did not mention sin at all, but talked about "Claudia's dream" in which she saw a dark place being brought to a light place by the death of Jesus. People in my church are being requested to see The Passion of the Christ preferably with a group from the church and to discuss it at church. We would not want anyone to start thinking about the sins of the world that Christ died for and what we might have to face. (Who was that figure in there opposing Jesus anyway? Satan? An antiquated notion, along with "demons".) People who were once committed Christians and teaching others about prayer and meditation on Scripture are now talking about yoga, transcendental meditation and other non-Christian activities. The group at my church planning activities for the year had groups for grief, groups for parents of teens, singles groups, etc. and did not even have "Bible study" on the list, until I asked that it be placed there. But who will teach it? I would, but will I be given the opportunity? The church is in great need of pledges to make its budget and we do have a very committed Christian new choir and music director. There are those who are committed to Christ, but many have left for other churches. Many cannot put their finger on what is wrong. I have tried to find another church, but feel God wants me to stay here for now as a witness. The stakes are far higher than just homosexuality or marriage. They are the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, which will be made obsolete by these folk. I feel that they are being led on by Satan and by a lying spirit, but God has also showed me that this is part of what He said would happen. After all, there had to be a Judas, did there not? There also has to be an AntiChrist. God knows what is happening. There are people coming in to the church who might not have heard God's true message before, but are they hearing it? Read Jonah. God sent Jonah to the Ninevites (not Jews) long before Jesus Christ. They repented and believed in God, as did the sailors on the boat. God is moving. We are to be sheep among the wolves and wise and watching. We will know who are God's servants by the love they show for one another. The proponents of the homosexuality acceptance are often harsh, angry, judgmental and unloving of those who express the Truth. Are we loving of our enemies and praying for them, so that some of these in the church can be brought to a knowledge and love of Jesus Christ and be saved? Are we being diverted by Satan into arguments among ourselves? Can we speak the Truth in love and witness to the Truth? Be sure to look below the surface of this issue and see if "sin" is now a dirty word in your church and whether your church is being taken over by false teaching. Satan's AntiChrist is not called the antichrist for nothing. This will be coming from within the church, including the False prophet. Do not be fooled into believing that what is going on is harmless. It is not. It is the power to kill and destroy. It is the power of the world that we have been warned about. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus knew everything, yet He did not preach that sin was unimportant and that homosexuality was okay. It was still a sin punishable by death. Think of the woman caught in adultery. The same is true for Paul. Could or would Jesus, his disciples or Paul or any of the Way say homosexuality was fine? Some have made teaching that their itching ears want to hear. On the other hand, we have all sinned and we all continue to sin. The constancy of repentance and following of Jesus Christ and turning away from choosing sin if important for all of us. We must stand firm on the basics of the faith. We will be persecuted for doing so, but then it says that, doesn't it? As for Gene Robinson: He has more than once compared himself to Christ. He adopted Christ's reading on the first Sabbath in the Synagogue of Isaiah "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me. I have come to preach…." for his talk recently comparing racial discrimination with homosexual discrimination. He answered, when asked if Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Life, that he would be the last person to put God in a box. I am sure others can come up with other examples. God has said to me that Gene's rise to international involvement and recognition is not unlike what will happen with the AntiChrist. This is enough. I am sorry that this can have arisen in the Episcopal Church, but we are marching on to the end. I am grateful to be where I am at this point in time and I pray to be a faithful witness for Jesus Christ. I pray that those who have been misled into thinking that this election was by the Holy Spirit will take heart, keep praying and reading their Bibles. Hopefully with shared enlightenment we will be wiser and stronger. If you have not seen it, don't let anyone discourage you from immediately seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The Bible says that in the latter days God will pour out His Spirit on all people. When the Church becomes wrong, God will go around that. It is happening. Keep the faith that has been entrusted to you and speak the Truth in love. Your sister in Christ, JoAnn Samson St. Paul's Concord, New Hampshire

CAMBRIDGE, USA, February 27 (CNA) - A Catholic Harvard University law professor says all U.S. citizens should welcome President George W. Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, based on the implications of same-sex marriage. In an article on same-sex marriage released Feb. 25, Mary Ann Glendon argues that same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue, but a movement for special preference. She states that it will impair children's rights and jeopardize religious freedom. Furthermore, the decision to legalize same-sex marriage belongs to the people, not to the courts, and should be made according to the democratic process, she says. Such an important decision should only be made after full public debate, she says. "What same-sex marriage advocates have tried to present as a civil rights issue is really a bid for special preferences of the type our society gives to married couples for the very good reason that most of them are raising or have raised children," says Glendon. "There is a real problem of distributive justice," said the former Vatican representative to the Summit on Women at Beijing. "How can one justify treating same-sex households like married couples when such benefits are denied to all the people in our society who are caring for elderly or disabled relatives whom they cannot claim as family members for tax or insurance purposes? Shouldn't citizens have a chance to vote on whether they want to give homosexual unions, most of which are childless, the same benefits that society gives to married couples, most of whom have raised or are raising children?" The financial implications of same-sex marriage must also be given consideration, she says, adding that the media has not reported the financial costs to American citizens for this "new special preference" in terms of taxes and insurance premiums. Children's rights Same-sex marriage will also impair children's rights, since it will endorse the view that marriage is for the benefit of adults and that children do not need both a mother and a father, argues the law professor. It will suggest that "alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife raising kids together," she says. School programs will also be affected. Children will be taught about homosexual sex in marriage-preparation and sex-education classes. "Parents who complain will be branded as homophobes and their children will suffer," she warns. Religious freedom at stake Glendon predicts that same-sex marriage will also jeopardize religious freedom and "usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before. "Every person and every religion that disagrees [with same-sex marriage] will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against," warns Glendon. "The axe will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles."

Equating racial discrimination with Biblical rejection of homosexuality insults blacks, says black priest and activist layman News Analysis By David W. Virtue The new bishop of New Hampshire V. Gene Robinson said in a sermon in Chicago honoring the 200-year old ordination of Absalom Jones the first African-American priest ordained in the Episcopal Church, that his own oppression as a gay man is equal to that of "people of color." "The real sin, of course, of any oppression is making an object out of another human being. Treating people as if they were a commodity, an it. Slavery, of course, being the ultimate," said Robinson. "People of color. Women. Gay and lesbian folk. The physically disabled. The aged. All oppressed and all [are] offered liberation by this great God of ours, declaring the humanity and not the objectification of those people." Robinson pointed to the Prophet Isaiah and the 61st chapter. "It talks about the kinds of oppressions that we are all dealing with, and what you and I are called to do, along with saints like Absalom Jones, in our own ministries." "We're having a bit of a controversy in the Episcopal Church right now. I think you probably noticed. It seems to have something to do with an election in New Hampshire, and a consent given by the General Assembly," said a cynical Robinson. "Could it be, could it be that God is inviting us to go deeper? Could it be that God is asking us to pull our boat out into deeper waters so that we might get to know God better?" "As surely as Jesus was inviting Peter to stretch his notion of God's will, as surely as Absalom Jones was stretched to believe in his own humanity in a culture poisoned by the sin of slavery, so you and I are called to stretch our notion of God's love to all people, especially and always to those on the margins. Robinson's invitation to go to a "deeper place" is much favored by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. But Robinson's mixing of race and sexuality issues outraged several leading Black leaders including Philadelphia Black Anglican priest the Rev. James Johnson. "I was saddened to read V. Gene Robinson's "sermon" on Isaiah 61:1-3ff. This passage is one of the great "Jubilee" passages of Scripture. It declares that now is the season of reprieve and rest, of pardon and deliverance for penitent sinners and yet it also warns of a final coming day of God's vengeance upon those who let this season of Jubilee pass by." "What is tragically ironic is that this very passage which Mr. Robinson uses to argue explicitly for gay liberation and implicitly for the "wholesomeness" of at least some homosexual relations, in actuality calls upon him and us all, to repent of our sinful ways while God has let open the floodgates of His mercy. Far from being a rallying cry for homosexual rights, this passage calls for the homosexual to repent of his homosexuality." Johnson said he found Robinson's contrast of Absolom Jone's being black with his [Robinson's] being gay outrageous. "This offensive ploy used by Robinson to sway the biblically illiterate, is the equation of being Black (or white) with being gay (or straight); that homosexuality is as non-morally relevant as skin pigmentation in the consideration of justice for all human beings. This is pure sophistry! Skin pigmentation is a small part of the beautiful diversity of the good created order and is to be celebrated as such. Racial prejudice and oppression demean God's created order and as such are part of the effects of the Fall. The error of Mr. Robinson is to consider homosexuality as part of the beautiful diversity of creation and not of the effects of Fall. The false parallel is between the struggle for racial justice and homosexual liberation. The true parallel is between racial oppression and homosexual practice and desires, as both are effects of the Fall which demeans the crowning glory of God's created order - man and woman." Johnson said that St. Paul in Ephesians 5:31-32 records that from the beginning, manhood and womanhood were created to represent or dramatize God's relation with his people and to Christ's relation to his bride, the Church. "In this drama, the man represents God or Christ and is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. The woman represents God's people or the Church. And sexual union in the covenant of marriage represents pure, undefiled, intense heart-worship. That is, God means for the beauty of worship to be dramatized in the right ordering of our sexual lives." Johnson said that as a result of The Fall, "we have exchanged the glory of God for images, especially of ourselves. The beauty of heart-worship has been destroyed. Therefore, in judgment, God decrees that this disordering of our relation to him be dramatized in the disordering of our sexual relations with each other. And since the right ordering of our relationship to God in heart-worship was dramatized by heterosexual union in the covenant of marriage, the disordering of our relationship to God is dramatized by the breakdown of that heterosexual union." Johnson said that homosexuality was the most vivid form of that breakdown. "God and man in covenant worship are represented by male and female in covenant sexual union. Therefore, when man turns from God to images of himself, God hands us over to what we have chosen and dramatizes it by male and female turning to images of themselves for sexual union, namely their own sex. Homosexuality is the judgment of God dramatizing the exchange of the glory of God for images of ourselves." Isaiah 61 is calling upon us all to repent while there is still time, he said. Dr. Michael Howell a cradle Episcopalian who says he is proud of his black Caribbean heritage, blasted Robinson's sermon saying, "as a black Christian and as a sinner who understands his dire need for redemption through the cross of Jesus, I am deeply appalled over Robinson's attempt to draw parallels between homosexuality and racial justice. It represents a very dangerous combination of ignorance and deceit. I am gravely concerned that sincere people who are struggling to understand why homosexual behavior is never compatible with the Christian faith, will only be drawn further away from the truth by this type of false teaching." While acts of violence or hatred against any human being can never be condoned, the circumstances that precipitate these acts have different underlying causes and therefore, require different courses of corrective action, said Howell an activist Episcopal layman and professor of marine geology who is active in a wide variety of ministries in the Episcopal Church. "Race is a characteristic of all human beings which is based on genetic factors which cannot be chosen by individuals. The current preponderance of peer-reviewed scientific research has demonstrated that homosexuality can only be classified as a pattern of behavior. No current evidence supports the hypothesis that people are born "homosexual", in the manner that someone is born with physical attributes that are common to a particular racial group." Howell said behavior is the result of many complex factors, including interaction with one's environment, and unlike race, behavior can be (consciously or subconsciously) chosen, modified or eradicated. "The large number of former homosexual practitioners who have successfully undergone reparative therapy to address same-sex attraction clearly supports this." "We cannot get around the clear fact that scripture always condemns homosexual behavior, both in terms of what is written and what can be inferred from careful and rigorous biblical scholarship. Scripture also presents a clear case against racism in its various forms (e.g., slavery, miscegenation). As Dr. Robert Gagnon points out in "The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Theory, Analogy and Genes", scripture never condones slavery and eventually advocates its curtailment and eradication. Moreover, there are many specific passages and themes that argue against racial discrimination (e.g., Numbers 12), as well as the clear message that people of all races and cultures should be redeemed and reconciled to him through his son, Jesus the one and true Christ. The voice of scripture does not consider race as a condition that requires transformation, while homosexual behavior is clearly against God's created order." END

2/24/2004 Canon Edward Norman has written a scathing attack on the Church of England and is converting to Catholicism. Damian Thompson meets him "My new book is not actually a criticism of the Church of England," says Canon Edward Norman, chancellor of York Minster, choosing his words with donnish precision. Edward Norman: 'men are interested in truth, ideas, sin, wickedness and virtue'. Is he serious? Two minutes later, he declares: "There is a big hole at the centre of Anglicanism - its authority. I don't think it's a Church; it's more of a religious society." This is the most hurtful criticism that one can make of any Church: to say that it is not a Church. In fact, his book, Anglican Difficulties: A New Syllabus of Errors, is one of the most ferocious assaults ever launched on the Church of England. It is all the more deadly because its author is not a traditionalist quote-merchant, but a leading Church intellectual. A former Reith lecturer and Dean of Peterhouse, Canon Norman is an ecclesiastical historian with the long face and high cheekbones of a Tudor churchman. He speaks fast and quietly, polishing his dry words as he speaks, so that his prose and conversation are almost indistinguishable. He commits thoughts to paper that colleagues might let slip only in the senior common room after dinner. In Anglican Difficulties, Norman blazes away impartially at all the Church's factions. About the General Synod, he writes: "Every disagreement, in seemingly every board or committee, proceeds by avoidance of principled debate. Ordinary moral cowardice is represented as wise judgment; equivocation in the construction of compromise formulae is second nature to leaders." Evangelical bishops who trumpet their adherence to Biblical orthodoxy are accused of selling their principles in return for preferment. "Discreetly, behind the twitching curtains of the evangelical bishops' houses, the playing pieces are being set out on the board," writes Norman. So how can someone who believes that the Church of England is collapsing belong to it? The answer is that Edward Norman will leave the Church of England when he retires as a member of York Minster's chapter in May. Later this year, he will be received into the Roman Catholic Church by a Cambridge contemporary, Fr Dermot Fenlon, at the Birmingham Oratory. He has started attending Mass in Catholic churches, unobserved in collar and tie. But there is no mention of conversion to Rome in Anglican Difficulties. Norman stresses that leaving the C of E and becoming a Catholic are "quite independent developments". Like his insistence that his new book is not a criticism of Anglicanism, this point is not easy to grasp, but Norman is insistent. "Just because the Anglican tub is leaking is not in itself an argument for jumping into another one," he explains. His conversation drips with these aquatic metaphors. Over lunch in an Italian restaurant near the Minster, he announces: "Anglicanism is going to tip into the sea." He reaches for the bread with a thin smile. "But it will all come out in the wash." Norman eats a plate of pasta here every lunchtime. "It is my only meal of the day," he says, which is not hard to believe: he is rake-thin and ascetic, a convert in the mould of John Henry Newman rather than GK Chesterton. This is not an obvious candidate for "Poping". Like Newman, Norman has always been Low Church; when he arrived at York Minister, he had to be helped through the rituals. And didn't he once support women priests? "I was originally in favour, on rationalist liberal grounds," he says, apologetically. "Now, I'm against it - on the evidence. We were told that a whole dimension to humanity was missing from the ministry, but that enrichment hasn't happened." What follows is a typical Edward Norman argument, either perverse or original, depending on your point of view. "Women emphasise caring, relationships, suffering, healing and love. Men are interested in truth, ideas, conflict, sin, wickedness and virtue. Those are caricatures, but there was wisdom in Our Lord entrusting the office of the priesthood to men. "The priesthood is about teaching, not just conveyance of the sacraments. If you think Christianity is all about love and relationships, then it will disappear in the flood." He catches my surprised look and shrugs. "I can't think of a way of putting this into words that is acceptable to contemporary culture," he says. Not that he tries. There is something in Norman's world view to offend everyone: liberals, who imagine that "caring" is an adequate substitute for the rigours of the Gospel; lovers of art and music, who mistake aesthetic sensations for spirituality; Tory-voting country types who enjoy a jolly good sing-song at Matins. "The number of people who respond to the teaching of the truth is extremely small," he says. "I have friends who come to York Minster who are very good people, even godly, but it's a very conventional, class-based observance." Class runs through Norman's writings, a legacy of his youthful Marxism. His reputation now is that of a maverick Right-winger, but he says that is wrong: "I have no politics. My only ideology is classical Christianity, without reservation." In the late 1970s, Norman's broadsides against the trendy Left earned him the label of Margaret Thatcher's favourite clergyman; she even invited him to Chequers. "But there wasn't any meeting of minds," he says firmly. "Mrs T wasn't - isn't - a very deep thinker. She was the daughter of an alderman who was a Gladstonian liberal, and that was what she was, too. She was looking for an intellectual to give a pedigree to those liberal values. I have admiration for her, and found her personally kind. But I have been appalled by the results of naked capitalism." His own sympathies are unpredictable. One wonders if Lady Thatcher would still admire him if she had heard his final lecture at York Minster - an appreciation of the oeuvre of gay atheist filmmaker Derek Jarman. The lecture was extraordinary, not least for the Jarman quotes that Norman included. Jarman on Dr George Carey: "Moon-faced and pudgy, a clerical Bunter, the school bully in a lurex mitre." And on Carey's enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury: "This is where crap takes you." The canon chancellor of York Minster quoted these lines as if he approved of them. Perhaps his failure to reach high office in the established Church is not that mysterious. Norman spent 17 years at Peterhouse, where one of his students was Michael Portillo. "A very hard-working pupil," he recalls. "I never noticed any sexual irregularity in his life." Most of Norman's time as a Cambridge don was given over to writing studies of (among others) the Victorian Christian socialists and modern Ireland. He was also a participant in one of the most vigorous High Table feuds in recent history, which began when he fell out with the Master of Peterhouse, the late Lord Dacre, over a memorial service for a don who had been caught shoplifting. Norman thought the man deserved a Cambridge memorial service. Dacre disagreed. As Norman recounts it, Dacre's views do indeed sound unreasonable. (Years ago, when working on a newspaper diary column, I sought Dacre's side of the story. He would only say: "Dr Norman is a s--t.") After lunch, Norman shows me around the cathedral. "This is a very poor example of the late-Gothic style," he says, his thin arm sweeping dismissively across the widest medieval nave in England. "It was put up on the cheap - the decorative devices are straight out of a stonemason's catalogue." But doesn't the miraculous, vaulted ceiling help worshippers concentrate their thoughts? "Cathedrals can be a hindrance as well as an aid to faith," says Norman. "They can lead people to luxuriate in emotion. I'd rather they were convicted of their sins." We pass a statue of the Minster's patron saint, St Peter, holding a key. It's an appropriate image. Soon, Canon Norman will be free of "the ideological chaos of Anglicanism" and in full communion with (as he believes) the successor of Peter. Then will come retirement in Brighton - "And I shall be properly retired," he says. The reaction of his critics is not hard to predict: "Well, there's one Anglican difficulty out of the way," they will smirk. But others will regret the loss of one of the most profound and unsettling thinkers that the Church of England has produced in decades. "Catholicism is what I have always believed, though I did not have the wit to realise it," says Canon Norman, gathering his coat around him. "You might call it a shaft of light before the sun sets." © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.

From: Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy An Anglican cleric who led the protest against the blessing of same-sex unions is to address Church of Ireland clergy in the coming week. The Rev. David Short, rector of St John's, Shaughnessy, Vancouver, made his protest after his Bishop in the Canadian diocese of New Westminster permitted rites for so-called 'gay marriages'. His parish, along with ten others, formed a coalition, the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW), which has been recognised by the past and present Archbishops of Canterbury. Currently, the ACiNW represents 25% of the worshipping community in New Westminster. Chief among their concerns is the departure from traditional Biblical Christian faith and morals within the Church and the threat to those who practice orthodox Anglican Christian faith. Mr. Short will be addressing Church of Ireland clergy and lay readers at a lunchtime meeting in Portadown on Wednesday, organised by the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy. Its chairman, Canon Clive West, explained the purpose for this meeting, "David will be sharing his experiences of living in a church structure which is hostile towards Biblical faith and informing us of developments internationally." The meeting, entitled "Thinking for the Future" takes place in the Fergus Hall (St Mark's Church Hall), Portadown from 11.30am - 2pm on Wednesday 3rd March, 2004. An Australian by birth, David Short is married to Bron and they have two sons, Ben and Josh. He says of the current situation in New Westminster, "I believe that we are in a Diocese that has unilaterally severed its connection with the global Anglican Communion by being the first to officially bless same-sex unions." The Anglican Communion, of which the Church of Ireland is a part, is presently facing great controversy over homosexuality. In the past year the Diocese of New Hampshire, USA has elected a practising homosexual as its bishop, and New Westminster was the first Anglican diocese to permit the blessing of same-sex unions. Archbishop of Armagh, Robin Eames, is heading a commission to look at ways the Communion might be able to stay together at this time. The Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW) has received unprecedented support from around the world. 358 Anglican clergy, Bishops, and Archbishops from across Canada and around the world have issued public statements rejecting the New Westminster decision and supporting the ACiNW. See www.acinw.org The Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy exists to provide its members with encouragement, refreshment and teaching from the Bible. Their purpose is to see the clergy of the Church of Ireland equipped in biblical ministry, that Jesus Christ may be better known.

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org November 21, 2025   The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell—an archbishop who should have resigned over failed safeguarding issues—now feels it his duty to lecture Israel on "genocidal acts" while the nation fights for its survival against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran.   Cottrell, the second-most senior bishop in the Church of England, has become the first senior CofE prelate to deploy such inflammatory language since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023. His timing is as remarkable as his judgment is questionable.   The archbishop recently visited Israel and made his way to the West Bank—more accurately known as Judea and Samaria—ostensibly to see for himself what is happening on the ground.   In an interview with the Church Times, he declared the situation in the occupied West Bank amounts to "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing," while admitting "it gives me no joy whatsoever to use those words."   If it gave him no joy, then why use them? This is precisely like admitting the Church of England has catastrophic safeguarding failures but doing nothing substantive because the complainants supposedly don't understand what happened to them and are perhaps overstating the problem. The parallel is striking.   Here's what Cottrell conveniently overlooks: the reason for restricted movement in the West Bank is that terrorists have a documented habit of murdering settlers, soldiers, and anyone else they deem enemies of the yet-to-exist state of Palestine. Roadblocks exist to prevent attacks, not to respond to them after bodies are counted.   The Israelis learned this lesson the hard way on October 7, 2023, when hundreds of Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel by land, air, and sea to slaughter 1,200 Israelis and abduct more than 150 hostages. Israel is still reeling from that trauma. It is entirely rational—indeed, morally imperative—for Israel to prevent a repeat of Gaza on the West Bank.   During the Gaza war, Israeli forces conducted multiple ground incursions into several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarm. These operations had clear justification: preventing terrorist attacks. The Israeli incursions led to clashes with Palestinian militants. Regrettably, at least 806 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the conflict began, including 143 children. The United Nations recorded more than 800 Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians between October 2023 and May 2024. Israel arrested an estimated 10,000 West Bank Palestinians between October 7, 2023, and August 2024.   And the archbishop wonders why he was repeatedly stopped by security forces and asked to move on? The naiveté is breathtaking.   What Cottrell fails to acknowledge is that tensions and violence between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank were escalating long before the 2023 war began. This is not a new phenomenon sparked by Israeli aggression—it is a chronic condition rooted in decades of conflict and genuine security threats.   Israel has committed "genocidal acts," Cottrell claims—a softer formulation than outright genocide, but damning nonetheless. Archbishops and bishops have mastered the art of parsing language to avoid appearing too committed to any stated position, lest they be accused of dogmatism or fundamentalism. After all, moral clarity is apparently the hobgoblin of small minds.   The Archbishop of York described the situation in Gaza as "a deliberate and unacceptable denial of human dignity."   Predictably, he received immediate pushback.   Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the UK's Chief Rabbi, described the archbishop's comments as an "irresponsible approach," adding that "reaching for the incendiary and morally inverted accusation of 'genocidal acts' will serve only to foster yet more enmity and division."   The Board of Deputies of British Jews also expressed concern about the archbishop's comments and indicated it would contact his office seeking clarification. Cottrell's remarks followed a four-day pilgrimage to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, during which armed Israeli soldiers, police, and local security forces repeatedly required him to leave areas he was visiting.   "It was for me, who hadn't experienced anything like this before, a bit real," he said in a speech about his visit. Apparently, it never occurred to the archbishop that these security personnel might have been concerned for his safety—that they might know something about the danger he was blithely walking into that he, in his comfortable English naiveté, did not.   "What we experienced that afternoon, frightening and intimidating though it was, however, is just a tiny, tiny example of what Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank are experiencing every day," he said. "They are being forced out of their homes and off their land."   Cottrell added: "It is truly horrific. It is a deliberate and unacceptable denial of human dignity and human rights."   "If you are a Palestinian living in the West Bank…you live in a deeply discriminatory political regime that intentionally and clearly prioritises the political, legal and social rights of Israeli settlers over Palestinians living in the same territory."   What about the fact that Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza in 2005, dismantling settlements and relocating thousands of its own citizens, creating the possibility of a prosperous, peaceful Palestinian state? The Palestinians and Hamas chose tunnels, rockets, and perpetual war instead. That inconvenient truth receives no mention from Cottrell.   And what about the dignity and human rights of the 1,200 women, children, and unarmed civilians slaughtered, burned, beheaded, and abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023? Why has Cottrell remained conspicuously silent about them? Do their lives not merit the archbishop's moral outrage?   "What else can you call that but something like apartheid," Cottrell asks rhetorically.   The archbishop made clear that "it is the Israeli Government that is to blame, and not Judaism or the Jewish people and this distinction is really important – these are political decisions, political matters, and we have to choose different paths."   And what path would that be? Compromise with those who openly call for Israel's destruction? Capitulation to terrorists? Allowing Palestinians who harbor pathological hatred of Israel to establish a state on its border in permanent hostility? Cottrell offers no serious answers, only pious platitudes.   Cottrell's remarks represent a dangerous escalation in rhetoric, demanding accountability while ignoring context.   He declared: "For too long, the international community has been complicit in the neglect of international law and the protection of basic human rights in the region. If we tolerate this here then where will we tolerate it next?   "So, where international law has been broken and rights denied, those responsible must be held accountable, even after the war's end. Despite some sort of ceasefire in Gaza, it is still a very long way from the peace that is needed, one that can only be made when there is justice for all people in Israel and Palestine."   Does Cottrell seriously believe Hamas wants peace? What fictional universe is he inhabiting? Hamas could end the war today by laying down their arms and releasing the remaining hostages. But martyrdom and the promise of paradise hold greater appeal than coexistence with Jews.   Hamas has zero interest in ending the war or pursuing "justice for all." They cannot even maintain peace with rival Palestinian factions. The moment a ceasefire was declared, they turned on other groups competing for power. The ceasefire has merely given Hamas time to rearm, with reports indicating that Iran has already funneled $1 billion to assist Hamas in rebuilding its military capabilities. Apparently, Cottrell missed that memo.   In the final analysis, who deserves credibility? Israel, a democratic nation fighting for its existence against enemies sworn to its annihilation? Or Cottrell and the chorus of nations that would celebrate Israel's destruction in favor of a single Palestinian state?   The answer should be obvious to anyone committed to moral clarity rather than fashionable condemnation.   END

Anglican Bishop David Parsons chats with just-confirmed Ricky Nayoumealuk (center) and his fiancé, Alacie Niviaxie, at St. Thomas Anglican Church in Inukjuak, Quebec.   By Julia Duin www.virtueonline.org November 16, 2025   He was the bishop who disappeared.     In the world’s largest Anglican diocese — at least in terms of land area — retiring bishops have typically been present when their successor is chosen. Sometimes they pass on their crozier to the next man in line. Other times they pray, advise and bless the next shepherd of the massive 1.5-million-square-mile diocese.   But David Parsons, the larger-than-life personality who had shepherded the 34,171-member Diocese of the Arctic since 2012, was missing when the electoral synod met in Edmonton last May.      I was told that Parsons had already retired, so he should not expect to be invited. And so, there was not a word said in acknowledgement to a man who had labored 36 years on the diocese’s behalf, not only in icy Nunavut but in the theologically frozen precincts of the Canadian House of Bishops.   Which amazed me, as I’d spent a week with the man the previous fall, tromping about Nunavik, Quebec’s remote northern half, researching my profile on Parsons that  ran last April  in Religion News Service. His Quebec trip was his last pastoral journey before retirement. Considering how revered Parsons was among Anglicans worldwide for standing up to liberal Canadian bishops and even his own presiding bishop regarding biblical matters, I assumed the man would get a better sendoff.   I assumed wrong.   I had never met David Parsons — although I’d interviewed him during my time at Newsweek — until I met him for steak and fries the night before we flew out of Montreal. Our route was taking us along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay to villages like Inukjuak (near some of the oldest rocks on Earth), Puvirnituq and Ivujivic, a beauty of a spot on a fjord where polar bears wandered.      He had just turned 70, the mandatory retirement age in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC). This was his farewell tour after 12 years at the helm of the Diocese of the Arctic , plus another 24 years as missionary, then priest.  The diocese takes up the northern third of the country and requires four bishops (one main, three assisting) to oversee. Nunavik, at the far eastern end, has 14 communities; nearly one-third of the diocese’s 49 congregations.   “Sometimes a person gets tired of talking the church into being the church,” he was telling me over dinner. He was fretting about what he saw as a fixation on social issues such as same-sex unions or trans rights in dioceses in “the South” (major metros like Toronto and Vancouver) while his parishioners were either drinking themselves to death, committing high rates of domestic abuse or racking up some of the world’s highest suicide rates.   At the same time, these Inuit were believers in miracles and prophecies; their churches were filled with youth and the only ones in Canada that seemed to be growing.   “The South doesn’t want to support us because we’re too biblical,” he mused. “We believe Jesus is Lord, we’re not interfaith and we don't have the intelligence to run things on our own without the Holy Spirit.”   Parsons, an imposing 6-foot-1-inch man with a thatch of white hair and full beard, attracted a crowd wherever he was. The next day, while I was sitting exhausted in the Kuujjuaraapik airport lounge on a layover, Parsons was chatting it up with waiting passengers who spotted his purple clerical shirt and pectoral cross.   As we stayed at the local hostels and puddle-jumped on Inuit Air, one thing kept on leaping out at me: How after 36 years of ministry in the Arctic as a priest and bishop, Parsons was an institution that would not be easily replaced. He was famous around the Anglican Communion In as a modern-day Ireneus fighting against heresies.   “ Bishop David has a prophetic bent and has brought biblical encouragement and at points admonition to southern leaders,” wrote one of my Canadian clergy sources. “The southern Canadian Anglican Church has seen a strong drift away from biblical orthodoxy (which) has resulted in a rift where Bishop Parsons has been asked not to attend the Canadian Anglican House of Bishops… at least for now! He’s my kind of guy!!”   Surely, I thought, this man will have a major farewell send-off next May when his successor is elected.   Instead, the opposite happened.   His last day on the job was Dec. 31. Starting Jan. 1 , 2025, there appeared to be total amnesia in the diocese as to his existence. There was no mention of him on diocesan social media. When my 1,400-word profile on Parsons was published April 2, it was ignored. Alexander Pryor, the archdeacon who was basically running the diocese, didn’t acknowledge my emails informing him of the piece.   On the eve of the election synod five weeks later in Edmonton, I texted one of the diocesan Facebook administrators asking what was up.   Bishop David was very faithful and zealous in his ministry in this diocese, but was also divisive in some areas and made some people react quite defensively, the anonymous writer wrote . He was very faithful, and many people love him dearly, but there are many others across the diocese who had a different experience altogether.   This was odd, as everyone I’d encountered in my short week in Quebec had all but mobbed Bishop Parsons, asking for prayer and counsel.   It is not accidental that the Executive Committee decided to let the bishop seat go vacant for a time so that there could be some space for listening and the healing of relationships, my source continued . He’s also absent from this election.     The message went on to say that my article hadn’t gone over well with diocesan leaders. They felt that some of the challenges I laid out in my RNS piece (recruiting, training and retaining clergy and managing aging parish buildings) were more the fault of the bishop than the harsh climate.   Not saying that’s always a fair assessment, but fair enough that he won’t be present to pass the pastoral staff to his successor.   So much for years of nearly non-stop travel as bishop in one of the toughest ecclesiastical climates in the world. There was no farewell dinner, no toast to his health, no gift for the wife, nothing other than a three-sentence paragraph posted May 15 on the diocesan Facebook page and a half-sentence in the diocesan newspaper.   Meanwhile, Parsons, his wife, Rita, and longtime friends Geoffrey and Rosalind Dixon were 2,800 miles away watching the live feed in New Brunswick. Although the bishop had told me beforehand that he had chosen to enjoy his retirement at home instead of going to the election. I quickly texted him and demanded to know the truth.   He said he did not wish to discuss it.   I emailed the provincial, the Most Rev. Greg Kerr-Wilson of the Province of the Northern Lights , asking why he hadn’t insisted that Parsons be present. The archbishop replied that retired bishops typically don’t attend these gatherings and f ormer bishops presenting their crozier to their successor was not part of the authorized consecration service.   I emailed other contacts, most of whom refused to talk or said very little. His suffragan, Bishop Annie Ittoshat, refused to answer multiple emails. A former suffragan, Joey Royal, answered a few questions, then went silent.   A prophet, they say, has no honor in his own country.   The youngest bishops   On May 9, Pryor, 37, was elected the seventh bishop of the Arctic. This made the archdeacon and Jared Osborn, 39, a priest out of Rankin Inlet who was elected one of two new suffragans, the two youngest bishops in the ACoC.  Pryor had been recruited by Parsons in 2019, leaving a comfortable seminary staff position at Nashotah House to be a priest in Fort Smith, a small town near the Alberta border. In 2022, Parsons promoted Pryor to archdeacon, which meant a move north to diocesan offices in Yellowknife.   Pryor’s election was hardly a slam-dunk; it took six ballots before he was elected, with Ittoshat as runner-up.   Pryor was handed his crozier by Kerr-Wilson and for the first time in anyone’s memory, the incoming Arctic bishops wore miters and copes during their installations. Previously, such garb had been eschewed in the evangelical diocese. T he founding bishops of the Arctic who established the Gospel in the High North and built it on theologically solid grounds were ‘low church;” that is, not into costly clerical robes and ritual. They included John Sperry, third bishop of the Arctic who translated parts of the Bible into Innuinaqtun, and Andrew Atagotaaluk, who rose from herding caribou as a boy to becoming the first Inuk bishop.   Born the same day as Atagotaaluk , yet four years his junior, Parsons was keenly aware of being the carrier of a sacred trust.   “The bishops before me were men of God and I didn’t want to mess up their great work during my tenure and I hope that others after me don’t do so either,” he told me. “Ours is not the time to blow out the torch. Ours is to carry the torch and pass it to those after us.”   One of his chief tasks as a bishop was guarding his sheep against the theological wolves prowling the church. He started making waves to that end from the day he showed up at the House of Bishops in 2013.   “If you do not teach the words of Jesus properly, their blood will be on your hands,” he remembers lecturing the other prelates. This did not go over well. But he says Michael Ingham, the ultra-liberal bishop of New Westminster and Parsons’ theological opposite, told him, “David you got to do what you got to do.” The primate comes to Yellowknife     By 2019, the ACoC was assembling in Vancouver for a second vote on a controversial marriage canon amendment allowing same-sex marriage that seemed all but certain to pass.   But four months before the vote, the Arctic diocese had added three new suffragan bishops which the Province of the Northern Lights permitted them to do because of the vast distances required to get to far-flung churches. Although one would replace an outgoing suffragan, Darren McCartney, that still meant a gain of two bishops.   There was much speculation as to whether those extra bishops would provide the extra “no” votes to kill the amendment. Sure enough, the amendment passed in clergy and lay orders but failed in the House of Bishops by an estimated two votes .   The hunt was on for a scapegoat and blame was laid at the door of the Arctic bishops, especially Parsons who had gotten into a public argument with then-Primate Fred Hiltz.   “There was a debate on the marriage canon, and they called for the question,” Parsons told me later. “I said some of us still need to speak. The primate told me to sit down. Well, I didn't.”  Gay marriage, he added, was a precipice into destruction, and “the rest of the Anglican Communion was saying not to go there. I am a bishop and I am called to warn people .”   Parsons later apologized for the tense exchange. After multiple bishops said they’d perform gay marriages anyway despite the vote, many indigenous and conversative bishops — including those in the Arctic — released a letter threatening to leave the ACoC. Parsons said he got called on the carpet for that letter at a subsequent HoB meeting.   Then the new primate, Linda Nicholls, said she wanted to meet with him. Flying up to Yellowknife, her message was stark: Some bishops found Parsons offensive and he would be barred from future bishops’ meetings until he got a psychological examination. Parsons had had enough.   “ I told her I’ve had psychological evaluations,” he said. “In the Arctic, we go through so many struggles because of all the suicides, we know that we need help.” He had seen renowned Toronto therapist Dr. Stan Skarsten before entering the mission field in his Church Army days.   “I can’t help peoples’ feelings,” he told Nicholls. “Most of us want to be loved. It’s not easy to be hated because you believe the Bible.”    That was in February 2020, a few weeks before Covid-19 shut down everything for many months. As for the House of Bishops, Parsons never went back.   Disaster after disaster   Parsons was not bishop when the diocesan cathedral in Iqaluit burned down in 2005 due to arson, but he had to deal with its aftermath.   “It was like the enemy threw a fireball against us” he said. Then in 2007, the Arthur Turner Training School (the diocesan seminary and Bible school) in Pangnirtung on Baffin Island closed because of dangerously aging buildings. This left the diocese with no clergy school venue for nine years, worsening an already dire clergy shortage. The Arctic is notorious for its low pay scales and clergy burnout due to the isolation of the Arctic and better-paying career opportunities elsewhere . Of the diocese’s 49 parishes and communities, only a third have full-time clergy; the rest get by with a pastiche of laity, deacons or retired ministers.   Several months after Pryor was elected bishop, I requested and got a lengthy interview.   When he became diocesan bishop, he faced disaster after disaster,” Pryor said of his predecessor. “The construction company that had held the loan for the (new) cathedral went bankrupt, so the diocese had come up with however many million it was to pay off the cathedral… So, the first few years of his episcopacy was dealing with the cathedral debt.” Parsons did get the clergy training school back up and running in 2016. Realizing that unless the diocese staffed up in a meaningful way, it would never produce its own priests, he recruited Joey Royal to run the school.   Just before that, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released a final report in 2015 that focused on residential schools. Until 1959, the Arctic diocese had operated one in the village of Aklavik near the Alaskan border.   “The bishop at the time of course is the figurehead of the diocese,” Pryor told me. “So, if there’s blame to be had, if there’s hard feelings, if there are old wounds that are ripped open, by default he was the one who had to bear that.”   More crises followed inside and outside the church that Parsons was called upon to address and once his executive officer retired, “for five or six years he had no consistent help,” Pryor said.   What Parsons saw as eternally important – fighting for theological orthodoxy on the national level – didn’t get sold on the local front. The natives got restless.   “I know there are some in the diocese who wished we had enough staff so that the same level of attention could have been given to some of the vacant communities; the communities without clergy,” said Pryor, referring to some 10 communities around the Arctic that have a church building but no priest, deacon or even layperson to lead services. “Then there was the Covid pandemic, and it was one thing after another throughout his time.”   And the diocese was a sieve. Parsons no sooner brought in new blood than the old ones retired, died or just quit. One of the bishop’s more expensive — and fruitless — trips had been to ultra-remote Queen Victoria Island to train a lay leader, he told me, just to give believers there someone to lead worship. The man died a few months later of cancer.   When Pryor became archdeacon in 2022, he learned the diocese had an operating deficit of more than $700,000. One burgeoning expense was fire insurance, for which Parsons told me they were already shelling out $100,000 a year. Then starting in 2021, unproven claims of graves near the Kamloops Indian Residential School touched off a nationwide surge in church arsons.   “Our insurance went up to $450,000 and where was that money going to come from? People were torching churches all over the country, ” Parsons had told me. Not wanting to lose their cathedral (again) or any other of their churches, they had to pay up. (And in 2023, two more of their churches: St. John’s in Cape Dorset/Kinngait and Good Shepherd in Taloyoak on the Boothia Peninsula were set on fire.)   Pryor also learned that at least four parishes were withholding some $500,000 in diocesan contributions.   “They had substantial means but were not supporting the diocese or the work of the bishop’s office financially,” he said.   Clearly there were hard feelings at work, but why?   “I do think it comes down to residential schools, it comes down to indigenous relations, it comes down to the longstanding difficulties in communication and understanding across different people groups in the north,” Pryor said. “David is a part of that, but I would not say that was David Parsons fault.”   “In fact, Parsons was out there doing tasks that suffragans or regional deans typically take charge of. “ I was training people to be treasurers and do finance,” he told me. “In Puvirnituq (one of the wealthiest Quebec parishes), they had a lot of money coming in but no concept of being part of a diocese.”    “ Adding to the problem was the constant personnel shortage. “If you don’t have clergy in every parish, they don’t realize they need to send money to Yellowknife,” he said. “Lots of parishes weren’t paying.   Still, “There are people who found his way of doing things who found his way of doing things a little more direct and harder than they would have liked,” Pryor said. I remembered the bishop talking about this during some of the evenings we spent at the local co-op hotels after church services.   “Sometimes I am too much like a wolverine,” he mused, “but I need to be more gentle.”   Most people would have reacted worse than a wolverine had they to put up with the inconveniences I saw him deal with in just one week. From the cheap airport hotel he stayed in to save money before catching an early-morning milk run along the coast of Hudson Bay to the sky-high airfare and constant delayed and canceled flights, it was always something. There was the never-ending suicides; the depressed clergy — with unsolvable problems; the weeks away from his wife and constant annoyances like no cell reception.   “It is a hard place,” Royal told me. “You’re traveling so much and it’s at great cost to you and your family. David was faithful there for years, for a decade and a half.”         The bishop had a plan for property maintenance; the issue was finding the resources and people to do it. I recalled him talking about the stunning amount of maintenance required for church property in such climates and how the necessary carpenters and plumbers didn’t exist. Or if there was a church from the South with a work crew including such people, they wanted to come up in the summer when the locals were off to fish camps or out on the land hunting everything from geese to whales and not in the winter when pipes froze and sheetrock cracked.   At one point he, at the age of 64, was requisitioned to help fix broken plumbing underneath a rectory in the middle of nowhere. The result: A pinched nerve in his neck.   Too many bishops    The deficit, which by the end of 2023 still stood at (Canadian) $765,368, would prove to be Parsons’ undoing.    In early 2024, the Arctic diocese informed the Northern Lights province that it planned to have its election synod of a diocesan bishop in October 2024. Parsons was turning 70 that same month and he had up to nine months from his birthday to train his coadjutor before retiring. He had trained for six months under Andrew Atagotaaluk and Atagotaaluk had trained likewise under his predecessor.    But the province said no.   On the surface, the reason was money; the diocese was in too much debt to afford paying the salaries of a coadjutor along with four other bishops. Until the diocese had more financial stability, the province wasn’t going to allow a synod.   “I was very thankful for it,” Pryor said. “We were broke and budgeting to go bankrupt – We needed to be told no.”   On the other hand, “ It was claimed by many people the Diocese of the Arctic only elected those three suffragans in the spring of 2019 so that they could go and vote against the marriage canon and block it – which was total foolishness,” he added. “But – and this is only subjective stuff – David’s absolute end date that he would have to retire … he’s allowed nine months after his 70 th birthday. He could have gone until July.   “My gut reaction is that some were concerned if permission was given to us for a coadjutor, that perhaps David would push back his retirement date, and we’d get an extra vote in the House of Bishops for General Synod . But that is just speculation.”   The Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod was from June 23-29, 2025, in London, Ontario. At the time the Arctic diocese applied for a coadjutor election, the agenda had not been set, so no one knew what sensitive matters might be up for vote. The possibility of five bishops from the Arctic being present and casting conservative votes was unthinkable for some.   The province’s decision cut Parsons off at the knees. What was his due: A closing synod at which he got to see his successor elected a coadjutor and say his farewells to the diocese, wasn’t going to happen in the fall of 2024. Whether the province would allow a spring 2025 electoral synod wasn’t at all certain. Either way, Parsons would not get any time to train a coadjutor before his deadline in July.   Parsons asked his executive committee if they wanted him to hang on until mid-2025 or retire, as planned, at the end of 2024.   “They said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take it from here.’ And I was just fried. I was traveling constantly.”   Which didn’t seem unreasonable, in that Royal, the bishop’s right-hand man, was waiting in the wings. Royal had headed up the diocesan theological school until he was elected suffragan in 2019 and was the logical successor to Parsons, He had gone on sabbatical earlier in 2024 so, it was thought, he’d be back in the fall and ready to take over when Parsons retired. Royal did return, only to announce he was taking a position in Ottawa as international relations and operations manager with the Christian Embassy of Canada.   Royal told me his dyslexic son was not flourishing in local schools and “I needed to prioritize my family.” When I asked him if he also left to avoid being named diocesan, he hedged, then said the travel and hours that came with the job weren’t workable for him.   The move caused quite a stir among Anglicans, who wondered why Royal was stepping away so late in the game. And it blindsided Parsons, who barely got word of it before Royal announced it publicly in early October. With Parsons, Royal and a third suffragan — Lucy Netser — also leaving (Netser was turning 70), that freed up three salaries.   At the end of October, Parsons would officially announce his retirement.   “We had hoped that prior to my retirement, the diocese would have an episcopal synod to elect a coadjutor bishop, and I would spend three months with the bishop elect,” he wrote somewhat plaintively. “Unfortunately, circumstances prevented this.”   The circumstances being those outside the diocese who put the stall on the election and those inside the diocese whose stinginess led to a deficit. Starting in January, finances were looking much better (actually an operating surplus of $172,549 ) thanks to donor appeals across North America by both Pryor and Parsons the year before. Eventually, the province gave the go-ahead.    But Parsons was relegated to the dustbin and almost a year since his leave taking, there has yet to be any tribute to him. Geoffrey and Rosalind Dixon drove from Vancouver Island clear across the country to support their friends during the weekend of the synod. Geoffrey sees his friend as part of a long line of evangelical bishops whose orthodox theology has kept the Arctic diocese alive while the rest of ACoC slides into oblivion .   “David in his 12 years left a legacy in that diocese,” he said, “that Alexander and the other bishops will come to realize someday meant something.”   The watchman     Since the dawn of the church, it has been the job of the bishop to teach; a task that Parsons took to heart. While traveling around Nunavik, the bishop would show me file after file of basic Gospel presentations he’d passed onto his clergy in the hopes they’d use them as catechism for their flocks.   During the last month as he saw his microphone disappearing, he filled his DavidArctic Facebook page with page after page of teachings.   “Twelve years ago after being elected Bishop of The Arctic I cried, ‘What have they done!’ I felt unprepared, incompetent for the task ahead,” he wrote Nov. 30. As Canadian Anglicanism was continuing its long descent into some of the most liberal sexual ethics in Christendom, “God called me and trained me to be a watchman to sound the alarm that an enemy has invaded the land,” he said. “While families fragmented, churches emptied and authorities embraced confusion creating a deep freeze, The Arctic has continued to warm spiritually.”   Ever wanting to recruit more laborers to one of the church’s most extreme outposts, on Dec. 31, he posted one last appeal: “Today is my last official day to sit in the chair to protect, teach and guide a diocese,” he wrote. He then posted a montage of s ketches showing a sheep behind a gate, a tearful child cowering from an accusing finger and Jesus reaching down to rescue Peter from the Sea of Galilee.   “The lying thief keeps many in prison,” the bishop wrote. “And our silence of Jesus’ victory doesn’t help. Who will go?”   Julia Duin, who’s worked for several newspapers over a 45-year period ending with a stint at Newsweek from 2021-2023, now edits investigations about religion for julieroys.com . She has master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Memphis and religion (Trinity Anglican Seminary) and has written 6 books. She lives near Seattle.

WORLD Radio - Truth and renewal November 19, 2025 Apologist Os Guinness outlines the crisis he believes is reshaping the country and why he still sees hope A person wearing glasses and a suit AI-generated content may be incorrect. Os Guinness in a scene from Truth RisingColdwater Media Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above. LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast. NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: What happens when a culture loses touch with the truth? That question is one that author, apologist, and theologian Os Guinness says is the greatest challenge of our age. And yet, he has great hope for renewal. I spoke with Os recently and I started by asking him to diagnose the problem. I asked where does he see the crisis of truth most clearly today, and how does he see it shaping how people think about power and authority? Let’s pick up our conversation there. OS GUINNESS: Well, the crisis of truth has two huge consequences. One, if you don’t have truth, you’re open to deception and lies. But two, if you don’t have truth, you will move by power. Now, of course, that’s the whole point that Nietzsche made in the 1880s. “Do you want a name for my world?” he said. “This world is the will to power, and nothing else besides.” Now, contrast that with the biblical position, say, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous remark, “One word of truth outweighs the entire world.” If we don’t have truth, we’re open to deception. Think of the growth of AA, AI I mean, and if we don’t have truth, everything will be a matter of power. EICHER: Now, you’ve often warned that America is at risk of losing the very principles that made America great. If you were to identify one or two or even three signs of that loss here in the year 2025, what would they be and what kind of renewal do you think it would take to recover those things? GUINNESS: Well, I find today that very few Christians can actually say what the roots of the American experiment were. In other words, most of Europe followed the Greek and Roman ways—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and so on. But the American experiment grew out of the Reformation and its rediscovery of what they called in the 17th century the Hebrew Republic. In other words, Exodus and Deuteronomy and the whole notion of covenantalism, the consent of the governed, and things like that. And they are distinctively different from the Greek and Roman way and we’ve got to get back to knowing what happened back then—not just as a matter of history, because if this is God’s founding His nation, there are lessons for a high view of freedom today. And I find very, very few Christians can defend that. And to me, it’s tragic. EICHER: Now, you’ve contrasted this idea of decline and fall—we’re talking about civilizations—but you’ve contrasted decline and fall with the notion of exile and return. And I’d like for you to talk a little bit about that and what gives you confidence that renewal through an exile and return is still possible. Do you see places where you see it starting? GUINNESS: Well, if you think of the ancient world, it was ruled by fate. You think of Oedipus Rex—the Delphic Oracle speaks. He and his parents do everything they can to beat the Oracle, but everything they do makes sure the Oracle is all the more certain. Fate. There’s no escape. Now, you think, as modern people, we don’t believe that, but actually, atheists and secularists have the modern equivalent, which is determinism. If you can figure out scientifically all that influences us, we can never do otherwise than we do, whether it’s economic for Marx, psychological for Freud, genetic for others, and so on. Now, I think our biblical view is freedom—even the freedom to repent. So the secular view that decline always leads to fall is not the biblical pairing. The biblical pairing is exile. Yes, there are certainly huge consequences if you leave the way of the Lord. Adam and Eve are East of Eden. Cain is a wanderer on the earth. Israel in captivity to Babylon and so on. And the church—corruption, decline again and again and again. If we leave the way of the Lord, we’ll be in trouble, and we’ll be effectively in exile. But the wonderful biblical promise, which you get from the first great prophet Moses right through to the last in the Old Testament, Malachi and Habakkuk and so on: “If you return to me,” says the Lord, “I will return to you and restore your fortunes.” And of course, that happened with Ezra and Nehemiah saving Judaism. And that, of course, is the story of Christian revival, awakening. Think of the First and Second Great Awakenings. Or think of G. K. Chesterton’s magnificent line. Looking over the story of the church—“Six times,” he said, “the church has gone to the dogs. But in each case, it was the dog that died.” In other words, we really do know that through repentance, you can return, and the Lord will return and reawaken us. So we have strong hopes in revival. Now, can it happen? Of course. Will it happen? That’s up to the Lord, and there are powerful things against it today. So I’m not just saying because it can happen it will happen. No, no. It’s only in the Lord’s mercy that His word breaks out and His Spirit comes down in conviction and power. EICHER: Os, before we go, if you could speak directly to Christians who may say, you know, I feel exhausted by politics. I’m exhausted by cultural battles. What charge would you give to them right now? GUINNESS: Well, on the one hand, we’ve got to put politics in its place, as it were, because politicization is the making of politics more than it should be. So there’s a lot of politics in the Bible, but it is not the first thing. And I love the old saying, “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.” So we’ve got to put it back in its place. And the first thing is much more in the area of our daily lives—in terms of churches, families and schools and things like that. And if those are flourishing, freedom will flourish, and they’re much more important than politics. But above all, we’ve just got to live the gospel today. The challenge of our world is faith against modernity, rather like a David against Goliath, and we’ve got to know that just to let God be God and live the way of the Lord is the most powerful thing we can do, and we trust in Him without any fear. So the idea that it’s all up to us, and we’ve got to do it through politics, is a huge temptation that’s leading people astray and also tiring people out. EICHER: What wonderful wisdom that is. Os Guinness, it’s great to talk with you. Thanks again so much for taking time for us. GUINNESS: My pleasure. WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.