My thanks to Bishop Ely of Vermont for making this available—earlier I tried for a while to find this somewhere on the diocese of New Westminster website and failed.

Any blog readers who have other written testimony from Bishops who spoke at this hearing we would be grateful to have it emailed to us,

Bihop Ingham seems confused.  God says homosexual acts are an abomination and that is good enough for me.  This person acting as a Bishop denies the authority of the Holy Bible and as such should be deposed immediately.  People like this are what the problem is, God didn’t get it wrong, they just wish he had.

I just can’t understand the logic of this argument that Bishop Ingham seems to make. As far as I can see it adds nothing to the substantive case being made since it is clearly fallacious and, for me, undermines the confidence I might have in the one making it:

1. Some things are agreed to be adiaphora
2. Therefore anything can be agreed to be an adiaphoron

3.  Except border-crossing.

It is stunning how can in one sentence call for living in diversity and in the next argue that border crossing is illegal.

Thunderation! Look at the class he puts homosexuals in, the class containing women, Jews and blacks! What IS the matter with these people. T his is so manifestly an example of faulty classification. The women, Jews and blacks are all normal and so the application of civil and criminal law is uniformly applicable. Homosexuality is a radical abnormality - t hat is, on the bell shaped curve, homosexuals and lesbians are way over on one end, and those who with sexual drive whatever are way over on the other. We do not hesitate, and with good reason, to treat radical abnormalities under law in a different fashion and use the law to enforce that treat ment. I wear glasses, and my driver’s license sense I MUST wear them. This is a matter of law because I have an serious abnormality, I am very nearsighted, and would be dangerous driving a car without them. Should I complain that my civil rights are being violated? This man’s argument is so thoroughly false, so utterly dishonest, his remarks need some kind of formal response by someone he MUST listen to. Talk about listening. Do you think this false alarm would “listen” to such correction?  I read piffle and mouthwash like this, and I get furious, even though I know how futile it all is. People, why do we continue to put up with this dishonest nonsense?  Larry

Thank you, Kendall, and Bp. Ely of Vermont, for making this important statement quickly available.  I think it’s very helpful, precisely because it’s so clear and unambiguous, unlike so much of the “diplomatic” language we often hear these days in the AC.

Here is how I would respond to +Michael Ingham’s four major points.

1. I AGREE to a significant degree that the WCG is making an unwarranted assumption about the normative status of the Windsor Report.  Now it’s true, as one of its drafters, +Tom Wright has said, that the WR represents the “gold standard” of proposals in this long, vexed debate from a theological perspective and it’s clear that it represents the position of the majority of the international leaders of the AC, who are desperate to preserve the union, i.e., the outward, institutional unity of the AC.  But there are some of us on both ends of the spectrum, who have NEVER bought into it, including an extreme liberal like +Ingham on the one hand, and a New Reformation Advocate like me on the other.  In particular, the called for moratoria on boundary crossing has obviously not been accepted by some of the major GS provinces, including Nigeria and Uganda, the two biggest ones by far.  And the Primates Meeting in Tanzania last year, implicitly recognized this and validated it to some extent.  So returning to the call for a moratorium on foreign “incursions” into other provinces represents a backtracking that is as unacceptable to me (and the CCP) as the moratoria on SSB’s is in New Westminster.

2.  I DISAGREE that the WCG plan actually “entrenches” such foreign interventions and “institutionalizes” them through creating the proposed Pastoral Forum.  Clearly, the WCG sees the interventions as negative and as a temporary measure.  Now on the latter point, we all hope that the growing intervention of the GS in western industrialized provinces will prove to be an “emergency measure,” and a temporary fix.  The intervening primates and HoBs have explicitly said so repeatedly.

My chief objection to this preliminary report and proposal by the WCG is precisely the opposite of +Ingham’s.  It would be DEADLY in the long run to the protection of the orthodox minority in TEC and elsewhere in the West.  And that is simply unacceptable.  Period.

3.  I DISAGREE with +Ingham that the WCG plan “seeks to impose a singular uniformity upon the complex diversity of our Communion,” at least from a theological and ethical viewpoint.  And once again, I take a diametrically opposite viewpoint from the heretical bishop in Vancouver.  The WR and the WCG implicitly treats the different viewpoints in the AC as a matter for “reception” (like WO, Women’s Ordination).  That is, it implicitly treats the so-called progressive or reappraiser side as tolerable, in the spirit of Romans 14 (and issues like the propriety of eating meat offered to idols or observing the Sabbath and other holy days), when I firmly believe that this is NOT the case.  This is indeed a communion-breaking issue on which compromise is not possible, or even desirable.  As I’ve often said on both SF and T19, the basic principle is this:  “Doctrine trumps polity, not vice versa.”  So my problem is that the WCG plan implicitly accepts the “gay is OK” side, and the relativism that underlies it, as permissible at least in the present, until some new consensus is reached.  I totally disagree.  This is a Galatians 1 issue (i.e., Gal. 1:6-9), where compromise is ruled out.

Furthermore, I most emphatically disagree with the notorious innovator in Vancouver that to regard homosexual behavior as sinful is a matter of showing discrimination and validating bigotry.  Nonsense.  That’s totally false.  Of course, there is such a thing as homophobia and such discrimination does exist, but that is NOT what this fight is about.  Not by a long shot.  It’s about biblical authority, plain and simple.

But I especially appreciate and welcome the line at the end of +Ingham’s third point, because it brings so much into clear focus.  He wrote, that if the WCG plan is accepted, “it will put the Anglican Church of Canada in the position of having to support and defend irrational prejudice and bigotry in the eyese of our nation.”

And here, I FULLY AGREE.  The operative, key words are that final phrase “IN THE EYES OF OUR NATION.”  Ah, yes, there’s the rub.  Now we hit paydirt.  You see, for +Ingham, it’s simply unthinkable that the Church of Jesus Christ could directly do something that seemed irrational to the secular society in which it lives.  To me, it’s very, very thinkable. 

This is why I keep on harping on the need for what I so often call a “post-Christendom, unashamedly sectarian, Christ-against-culture” form of Anglicanism, however radical and revolutionary that seems for a former state church that is still thoroughly Constantinian in its assumptions.  Our great challenge is to rediscover how to be “in the world, but not of the world,” and how to be “the salt of the earth” in a rapidly decaying, morally putrid society.  It’s high time to adopt an adversarial, in-your-face, confrontational approach to the culture that says, “You think opposition to homosexual behavior is an irrational prejudice, but you are totally wrong.  Take it up with God our Creator.  He is the one who set up the universe this way.”

4.  Finally, I AGREE with +Ingham that the WCG plan simply ignores reality and is unworkable.  It is plain that he and his diocese, and the other dioceses in Canada that have approved SSBs in principle, won’t go along with the moratoria being called for.  And I think it’s fair to say that neither will those of us in the CCP.  That is simply harsh reality.  And it’s time it was clearly faced.

Bottom line:  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

David Handy+
Passionate advocate of high commitment, post-colonial, post-Christendom style Anglicanism of a radically sectarian, Christ-against-culture sort.

Finally, I AGREE with +Ingham that the WCG plan simply ignores reality and is unworkable.  It is plain that he and his diocese, and the other dioceses in Canada that have approved SSBs in principle, won’t go along with the moratoria being called for.  And I think it’s fair to say that neither will those of us in the CCP.  That is simply harsh reality.  And it’s time it was clearly faced.

Could someone tell me the difference between the “Panel of Reference” and our new “Forum of Reference”? One was led by a leftward leaning ditherer* and the new is led by a leftward leaning ditherer.

* Dromantine recommended the urgent formation of the the Panel of Reference in Feb 2005. Their first meeting was in July 2005. The first document came out in October of 2006 which told the orthodox of New Westminster to shut up and accept Ingham.

Gay folks should be welcomed to participate without fear of recrimination or discrimination in all parts of Church life except one.
As clerical leaders signifying the unity of the Church, gay folks are problematic.  There is a tension in biblical interpretation that won’t go away. There is a tension in science that won’t go away. For those reasons holy orders should be retricted to those who practice celibacy in singleness and fidelity in heterosexual marriage.
BTW: I will be personally glad when we widen the topics of WHAT is abominable in the eyes of the Lord. We have firmly established that gayness is a problem, and because of such there should be certain restrictions. Done.  Now, let’s move on to the other abominations: liars, thieves (full tithers here on this blog?) etc. etc. I believe that the Lord had a lot to say about a lot of lifestyle patterns. Let’s begin the voracity about the other abominations with all speed. I will personally find it hard to exclude faithful gay laity in the Church and not demand bank statements from the remaining members to see who is robbing the Lord.

9, I disagree to the extent that they also should not be in positions of leadership.  For the the reason that others living unrepentant sinful lives are also not allowed to hold leadership roles.  For example a person living with his or her boy/girl friend should not be a youth leader, be on the Vestry or other lay ministries.

It’s becoming clear that Michael Ingham sees himself as the culture’s ambassador to the Church rather than as the Church’s ambassador to the culture.

To discriminate against homosexual people, as this document suggests, is no more acceptable in Canada than to discriminate against women, black people or Jews. If this becomes the position of the Communion, it will put the Anglican Church of Canada in the position of having to support and defend irrational prejudice and bigotry in the eyes of our nation.

This is quite a radical and interesting statement. His basic position is that the ACoC rules should be shaped and reflect those of Canada itself. It would certainly be irrational prejudice, according to the Canada, for someone to be deny employment to an individual who stated Jesus was a fraud and a joke. Should the ACoC then be forced to accept the same individual for ordination or bless his marriage?

What about the polity of the church too? Isn’t his position in effect giving the entire voting population of Canada a say in church governance? Why should the non-Anglican citizens of Canada have more influence than it parishioners, or other Anglicans in the communion for that matter?

Because it ignores reality.

Hear him and hear him well.  This the position of the Global North and it will brook no opposition.  Accept it Anglican Communion!  O, and by the way, grow up if you don’t agree with us, or else, come and join our new communion, the All-In-ADIAPHORA Grouping.

Yeah.  This is the diversity you must accept to be.

It used to be that heretics were logical, but whose logic was not ruled by sound Christian doctrine. Thus, Arians, Nestorians, Unitarians, etc. Ah..the good old days. Now, they won’t be ruled by logic either.

And, Br. Michael, there is another reason, and the RC Church has made it very clear: Put homosexuals priests in a position to misuse their power and many, many will do so. How can anyone avoid learning this lesson? It has cost the RC’s endless millions and caused endless cycles of pain and sorrow. You do not put homosexuals in the priesthood for the same reason that you do not hire arsonists as nightwatchmen. LM

It would be good if fewer bishops ‘thought’ in slogans, and broadcast their sloganeering worldwide into the bargain.

Ingham conveniently does not mention the ways in which woolly-minded compromise on the part of the ACoC has led to bad and foolish federal legislation on marriage.