Sunday, May 01, 2005

Anglican Mainstream and the politics of untruth

Two issues that I know of:

Their FAQ claims

87% of the Bishops present at the 1998 Lambeth Conference and the vast majority of the Church of England General Synod are opposed to the blessing of same-sex sexual relationships.
.
That 87% figure is untrue and they know it - and also I've informed them of that a number of times - the 87% figure relates to those bishops who voted for the 1998 sexuality resolution and comparing that figure with those who voted no. When you take into account those bishops who abstained and those who weren't present for the debate the true figure is about 70%.


Just for comparison

  • the number of times homosexuality appears to be mentioned in uncomplimentary terms in the Bible - seven
  • the number of times lying appears to be mentioned in uncomplimentary terms in the Bible - well I managed 50 without breaking into too much of a sweat!

Back in July 2004 Anglican Mainstream went to 10 Downing Street:

Anglican Mainstream believed that to characterize the groupings in the church today as lying on a spectrum between anglo-catholic and conservative evangelical was inaccurate. Therefore the whole breadth of the church is not covered in the present pattern of appointments. To illustrate they pointed to the concern at the fact that in the appointments announced in the 12 months to April 2004 no graduate of Ridley Hall, Trinity College Bristol or Oak Hill Theological College, had been preferred to the office of suffragan bishop, dean or archdeacon in the Church of England.

The implication being that conservative evangelicals are not fairly represented in the current pattern of appointments (at least in the 12 months to April 2004). However there are a number of other evangelical colleges within the Church of England - Wycliffe Hall, Cranmer Hall and St John's Nottingham. Various of those colleges did have people in the suffragan bishops, dean and archdeacon classes appointed in that period (Paul Butler (+Southampton) was Wycliffe trained. James Langstaff (+Lynn) was at St John's Nottingham. Richard Inwood (+Bedford) and David Hawkins (+Barking) are Durham). There were also episcopal appointments in that period of folk from AM's group of 3 colleges - but that doesn't go via that committee. Clearly a meeting designed to pull wool over the eyes their choice of evangelical theological colleges being curiously selective - though it would seem that Oakhill were under-represented in that period.

And then there's the Anglican Mainstream Comedy Petition

1 comment:

rajm said...

Well they seem to have done a minimum to address one of these, having redone their FAQ and added voting to the 89% of bishops. I rather think though that to abstain is to vote. I'd have gone for the Kattomeat - Bishops who expressed a preference - but that makes it clearer and the current wording allows people to be misled.