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THE FUTURE OF ANGLICANISM: FISKING WELBY

THE FUTURE OF ANGLICANISM: FISKING WELBY
"There are none so blind as those who will not see" (John Heywood)

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
January 17, 2020

The Archbishop of Canterbury wants to end longstanding divisions over human sexuality ahead of the Lambeth Conference later this year. He recently met with 37 of his 40 primates in Jordan (three abstained from coming) to put his imprimatur of healing on what he hopes will come out of a deeply conflicted Anglican Communion.

Justin Welby said he believes that the forthcoming Lambeth Conference will "draw a line under some of the inward-looking approaches of the past" so that the Anglican Communion can move on from a crippling dispute over human sexuality.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a three-day Primates' meeting in Jordan, Welby said he wanted to see the Anglican Communion begin to focus instead "on those things that affect the world, be that climate change, conflict, the need for the Church to be confident in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, carrying it out into the world ... [and] safeguarding".

So Welby thinks he can ignore or parse Lambeth 1:10! It is an albatross hanging around his neck, where it will stay, till he leaves office and the next ABC is forced to pick it up. Welby cannot whisk it away like some latter-day Houdini.

The archbishop should take a course in reading Isaac Asimov, known for his works of science fiction and popular science. He might want to add a reading course in the Marquis de Sade and Wilhelm Reich. He has no idea what he is up against in the Sexual Revolution! ' None.

Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian doctor of medicine and psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. Reich "invented" free love.

Welby lives in a delusional world where he thinks his secular management skills can bring about peace and unity in the communion. But this 'kind' will not come forth by communiques.

He believes that sexuality issues, specifically homosexuality, can be swept under the table for "bigger" issues brought into focus like climate change.

Climate change, CLIMATE CHANGE! Do we really need Welby or the primates of the Anglican Communion to tell us about climate change? A person could join any one of the top 50 non-profit organizations working to stop climate change, including GreenPeace, Climate Change Action 350.org; Citizens Climate Lobby; Climate Reality Project; Climate Solutions; Moms Clean Air Force; Mothers Out Front; NextGen Climate; Union of Concerned Scientists; Conservation International; Conservation Land Foundation; Environmental Defense Fund (EDF); National Wildlife Federation (NWF). And this is just the short list.

Some Anglican communion provinces are facing serious persecution like the Anglican province of Nigeria where persecution of Christians is directly related to Islamic fundamentalists hatred of Western homosexual practices!

Do the primates need to hear from Welby or Josiah Idowu-Fearon (ACC) that the oceans are polluted with plastic and our water and air is just as polluted? That information is freely available without travelling to Canterbury later this year, to hear it piously presented to the communion as some new revelation.

"We had really good, grown-up conversations about [these issues]," he said, adding that there was a need "to be honest about where we are, to come before God in Jesus Christ, in humility and repentance, for where we've failed to turn outwards".

So "grown up" means something like "generous orthodoxy", or just get over it!

It should be noted that three primates, Henry Ndukuba of Nigeria, Stephen Kaziimba of Uganda, and Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, declined the invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury to join the meeting. They have an ongoing disagreement within the Communion over how different views around human sexuality should be handled. Clearly the issue will not go away.

The drive for full pansexual acceptance reached its apogee in the consecration of Gene Robinson to the episcopacy in 2003. Since then, TEC has been going steadily downhill, accelerating more with each passing year as dioceses talk of merging; all the while the ACNA gains momentum.

Welby refuses to face the fact that Anglican Communion's unofficial gaystapo will not stop at mere acknowledgement of their sexual orientation. They are demanding acceptance and legitimization of their behavior leading to full marriage rites and access to all ecclesiastical levels of the church, up to and including the possibility of leading the Communion itself!

Welby's foolishness, stupidity and blindness is his failure to not see how the sin of homosexuality brought down The Episcopal Church. That sin resulted in the formation of the ACNA. In time it will bring down the Church of England. It has already divided the Anglican Communion between the Lambeth conference and GAFCON.

Welby can be as "very sad" as he wants about the three primates who had chosen not to attend this week's meeting in Jordan, but he already knew they would not be attending based on previous encounters with the primates in Canterbury!

Welby's attempt to "walk together" is a fiction, railing against looking "inwards" (presumably not to keep talking about homosexuality), and needing to look "outwards" to the bigger issues of climate change, is wholly fictitious.

Michael Lewis, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, agreed with the Archbishop, saying that there had been "grown-up" conversations during the meeting. Presumably this means that these Primates were prepared to roll over and buy into false "reconciliation" talk.

The primates went on to talk about their "acute concern" in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in churches. "The fact of past and present abuse is a matter of lasting pain and regret," they said.

"We repent of those times when the Church is and has been culpable and has failed to protect those entrusted to the Church's care." So, did Welby say what a total disaster the Church of England has done about safeguarding with regard to Bishop Peter Ball, The Rev. Jonathan Fletcher and the Rev. John Smythe and how they abused young men for over 30 years and almost got away with it because the establishment covered their backsides. It all finally came out, however, and justice might yet be done because victims are being persistent.

No, this last-ditch effort in Jordan to bring all the primates on board has already failed. GAFCON may have fewer bishops show up in Kigali, but they will represent far more of the communion's laity. That is something Welby can't change and can't parse away.

The die has already been cast. Welby has been found wanting; all the smoke he is blowing will evaporate with the morning Canterbury sun.

END

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