Posted on 05/05/2005 8:30:37 AM PDT by sionnsar
Another western liberal Anglican learns that the Third World is serious:
A bishop today spoke of his sorrow after being forced to cancel a trip to the Caribbean because of his views on homosexual clerics.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev John Gladwin was due to visit Trinidad and Tobago later this month to preach at a celebratory service.
But the Right Rev Calvin Bess, a bishop based in Port of Spain, has withdrawn the invitation after Dr Gladwin declared his support for liberal Anglicans in North America.
“I was very sorry to hear that the invitation ... to visit Trinidad and Tobago in May this year has been withdrawn by Bishop Calvin Bess,” said Bishop Gladwin.
Sucks for Gladwin since he won't be able to tell Bess what an ignorant bigot he is,
“The links which exist between dioceses across the Communion are a marvellous way in which we can learn from each other the necessary lesson of how to live with diversity and difference of culture and practice whilst sharing a common faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gladwin's got problems at home.
Six priests in Essex have “broken sacramental ties” with Dr Gladwin because of his views.
Their protest was triggered by a letter to a national newspaper in which Dr Gladwin, and five other bishops, declared support for liberal Anglicans in the US and Canada – where the first openly homosexual bishop has been consecrated and blessings for same-sex unions authorised.
The rebel clergymen said they would not participate in services of confirmation, baptism or communion with Dr Gladwin.
If you're playing that Anglican drinking game where you drink a shot every time an Anglican bishop says something similar to "living with our differences" or "unity in diversity" or "dialogue," you will pass out momentarily.
The bishop maintains that he and his five colleagues, headed by the Bishop of Salisbury, were merely maintaining an “open door” dialogue and he said he would be willing to discuss his views with the rebels.
“I firmly believe that we must seek to stay fully connected with all provinces in the Anglican Communion,” he said. “The strength of the Anglican Church is in its unity in diversity. I and my fellow bishops are always willing to meet with any of our clergy and parishes who are finding this difficult at the present time.”
Blah, blah, blah. John Gladwin puts a "Dr." in front of his name so he has presumably been to a British university. How he can be so amazingly dense does not speak well of Britain's whole educational system. I'll type this as slowly as I possibly can, Doctor. You can have Robbie or you can have the rest of the Anglican world. But you cannot have both.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "“The strength of the Anglican Church is in its unity in diversity."
You know, Orthodoxy is very diverse in the sense that the culture of, say, Egypt or Syria, is very different from that of Russia and that cultural diversity has had some manifestation in Liturgical practices, though very limited, and in Orthodox folkways, but never, ever in theology or ecclesiology. This diversity of which so many Anglicans speak is clearly quite different from that found in Orthodoxy and I assume have to do with the compromises the Anglican Church has made through the centuries in the interests of the English crown. Yes? No?
Oh, YES, have they (the Episcopals) ever compromised. Their diversity is not Orthodox.
Well... yes and no. (You did ask a "yes or no" question of an Anglican! *\;-)
There was the original Elizabethan Compromise which joined two groups, Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic, who really wanted to have nothing to do with each other. (Somebody described the two by "what's more important": to the Evangelical it's the preaching, to the Anglo-Catholic it's the worship.) As has been noted, this has been the source of continual tension within Anglicanism and in at least one sense not a strength, given the departures of such as the REC when the Anglo-Catholic wing ascended.
The phrase you quote is one I never heard in the Episcopal church, from Sunday school to age 31. I only started hearing it when a new kind of "diversity" gained the ascendancy in the Episcopal church -- and it's really funny how that "diversity" mirrors the liberals' use of the word in the secular world.
Well, it seems to me to be an odd thing for a Church to say. One would think that a Church might say that its strength was Christ, or its orthodoxy or its monasticism, but diversity? Odd.
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