Not a Jot Or a Tittle

Members of the Wakefield Diocesan Synod are not, it seems, to be regarded as loyal Anglicans (so-called) after all. Despite the tearful pleas of Wakefielders to be allowed to remain the General Synod is determined to cast them out, where there will be wailing and gnashing of t’ teeth. Any who don’t like it are welcome to become Roman Catholics (Diocese of Leeds).

Always the Bridesmaid, Never the Bride of Christ

Followers of the odder doings of the Church of England have to run to keep up at the moment. Yesterday, while we were considering restructuring for mission, the House of Bishops was getting on with the core business of the Church: tinkering with her own internal workings. 

Affirming Catholicism

It is now traditional, after a close poll, to start with a conspiracy theory. At Plumstead Rectory we are deeply suspicious of the electronic voting system used at the so-called General Synod. We suspect that having allowed today’s reactions to play themselves out, Dr Sentamu will announce a completely different set of numbers at some later date.

We admit that we expected the vote to go the other way. However, let us look for the silver lining.  At Plumstead Rectory we have always been of the opinion that a House of Laity should never have been joined to the Convocations, and we are pleased that miraculously so many seem to have come round to our point of view.

Please Strike Out Anglicans of Whom You Disapprove

To the Editor of the Church Times:

The Anglican Covenant: Not Making it Worse

Bishop James Jones - Presidential Address - Diocesan Synod March 2012 from Diocese of Liverpool on Vimeo.

Half of all English dioceses have voted against the Anglican Covenant, and it will now be technically impossible, as it was probably already practically impossible, for the Church of England to be part of this experiment. Whether this will be fatal to the existence of the Covenant we cannot say, although there is a delicious irony to its rejection by what used to be the heart of the Communion.

The proposers of this scheme should have known, if only from their history books, that to be a Covenanter is by definition to be an opponent of the Church of England. Indeed, the victorious anti-Covenanters have been a curious alliance of those who see nothing wrong with the new liberal Anglicanism and those, more traditionally-minded on the whole, who could see that the whole idea was simply not very Church of England.