“Bishop Geralyn Wolf of the Diocese of Rhode Island has inhibited the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding for publicly professing her adherence to the Muslim faith.” Source: Episcopal News Service
The more I know about Bishop Wolf the more respect I have for her. I wish Ms. Redding the best in her faith journey and respect her decision, made with integrity. I may disagree with it, but I respect it.
Bishop Wolf’s comment about the Church wanting to be diverse and inclusive is true, but there does come a point where the Church needs to say, “No.” This “no” need not be made in anger or hubris, but in recognition that the directions in which we take ourselves may take us outside the umbrella of this Church. That is our freedom by our own decision, respectfully. We are Christ-followers, not Mohammad followers despite what can be learned within the Muslim system.
We are Christian, and to have a respect for and understanding of the integrity of the two faiths bring us in humility to recognize that priestly responsibilities cannot be exercised within both faiths simultaneously, the priest being so bifurcated, with esteem given to both and to those seeking Christ. Whether we like it or not, Jesus explained to us that it is through him alone that we come to his Father, God. As a priest in this Church, I am called to make such a proclamation, with respect given to those choosing to follow Mohammad. IMHO.
Category Archives: faith
Assemblies of God
Gov. Sarah Palin spent a good deal of time in the Assemblies of God, just about the largest Pentecostal denomination around the world. This is the denomination I started attending during my senior year in college, and with whom I spent the next 8 years working as a campus pastor in their campus ministries.
I departed this Christian expression in1992 for Anglicanism in 1992 1994 – I saw what was coming in the politicization of American-Evangelicalism. I’m glad I grew up Pentecostal – my developmental years where spent in The Foursquare Church, which being based in Los Angeles is a little more laid back and, well, “hip” I guess – the A/G is based in the Springfield, Missouri in the Ozarks. Hillbilly vs. Southern California. I am so glad I am not there, now!
A lot of people find it very easy to dismiss the Assemblies of God. That is a mistake. In Anglican Land, we brag about being the third largest expression of Christianity in the world with our 38 autonomous provinces and 77 million adherents.
Um, consider this:
“An Assemblies of God study from 2006 found 60 million adherents in more than 300,000 churches worldwide. About 2.8 million of these are in the U.S.”
I believe it. This one denomination (with cooperative agreements in many nations with indigenous churches that came out of their missionary endeavors) is just about as large as the whole Anglican Communion! It is larger than The Episcopal Church in the U.S.
What would Jesus do?
A quote from Sojomail:
It’s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.
– Bono, rock star and anti-poverty activist. (Source: The American Prospect blog)
My question to the Religious Right and Neo-Conservatives: “What would Jesus do?”
Hum, I wonder…
Where are they going?
REVOLUTION by George Barna — studies recent church trends and what the church of 2025 will probably look like. Published in 2005..
This description for a new book by Barna, who focus a lot on American Evangelicalism:
“World-renowned pollster George Barna has the numbers, and they indicate a revolution is already taking place within the Church–one that will impact every believer in America. Committed, born-again Christians are exiting the established church in massive numbers. Why are they leaving? Where are they going? And what does this mean for the future of the Church? Using years’ worth of research data, and adhering to an unwavering biblical perspective, Barna predicts how this revolution will impact the organized church, how Christ’s body of believers should react, and how individuals who are considering leaving (or those who have already left) can respond. For leaders working for positive change in the church and for believers struggling to find a spiritual community and worship experience that resonates, Revolution is here. Are you ready?”
I still contend that the exodus from American-Evangelical churches may well be because for over the last 20+ years the movement’s leadership has tied the movement to Neo-Conservative politics. The way the Culture Wars have been thrust upon American society does play too well any longer, particularly among younger Evangelicals.
Just as people fled the Mainline Protestant denominations when they became too closely associated with liberal politics, so now the same is happening within Evangelical churches. When power, dominance, control within the larger society overwhelms Christian organizations or individuals, the Gospel suffers and eventually people leave.
What do we really know, and do we understand it?
I post the following because I know, from long experience, the attitudes and certainties of this way of thinking – the “mind-set,” as Rev. Howard Bess, the interviewee, states. From what I read and witness, this is the belief system of Gov. Sarah Palin.
By no means am I attempting to criticize her salvation (that is God’s business) or the right of any Christian to seek public office or influence society. Under the Constitution, this is the privilege we all share as Americans. Yet, I will pause and add my voice to the warnings that the theological framework (or lack thereof) held by this group of Christians will inevitably influence or determine the adherents’ estimation of current events or societal conditions and direct their responses to such things.
I have to also say, since I am not all-knowing (shocking, right?), that all of this may well be within God’s will – the rise to power of Sarah Palin and those in league with her (and I don’t mean Republicans). I doubt, however, if it is God’s will that it is for the reasons her supporters believe it to be – mainly the triumph of good (them) over evil (those who disagree with them).
I spent a good part of my life – from around age 10 up through age 32 or so – in the Evangelical-Pentecostal realm of the American Christian faith. I spent 8 years in direct campus ministry with the Assemblies of God, Palin’s long-time and now former church. This was before the overwhelming of the movement and it’s organizations/churches by the American-Christian form of fundamentalism and the unrelenting drive of some of it’s primary leaders to gain political power and social domination through the Culture Wars of the politicized Religious Right. I saw what was coming down the line, for it had already started. We are fully in the swarm of it all.
I’m very glad to have experienced much of the very positive and life-giving aspects of American-Evangelicalism and the strong faith and expectation of Pentecostalism. Perhaps because I worked in university ministry, the rampant dualism and extremism that are now hallmarks of the movement and its organizations/churches was not so apparent to me. I don’t know. But I do know all too well how the system works and the mind-set or world-view now held by the movement’s leaders and adherents.
For me, I think this is the takeaway quote from Rev. Bass: “Forget all this chatter about whether or not she knows what the Bush doctrine is. That’s trivial. The real disturbing thing about Sarah is her mind-set. It’s her underlying belief system that will influence how she responds…” (emphasis mine)
Here is first few paragraphs of the interview:
The pastor who clashed with Palin
By David Talbot
Sep. 16, 2008 | The Wasilla Assembly of God, the evangelical church where Sarah Palin came of age, was still charged with excitement on Sunday over Palin’s sudden ascendance. Pastor Ed Kalnins warned his congregation not to talk with any journalists who might have been lurking in the pews — and directly warned this reporter not to interview any of his flock. But Kalnins and other speakers at the service reveled in Palin’s rise to global stardom.
It confirmed, they said, that God was making use of Wasilla. “She will take our message to the world!” rejoiced an Assembly of God youth ministry leader, as the church band rocked the high-vaulted wooden building with its electric gospel.
That is what scares the Rev. Howard Bess. A retired American Baptist minister who pastors a small congregation in nearby Palmer, Wasilla’s twin town in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley, Bess has been tangling with Palin and her fellow evangelical activists ever since she was a Wasilla City Council member in the 1990s. Recently, Bess again found himself in the spotlight with Palin, when it was reported that his 1995 book, “Pastor, I Am Gay,” was among those Palin tried to have removed from the Wasilla Public Library when she was mayor.
“She scares me,” said Bess. “She’s Jerry Falwell with a pretty face.
“At this point, people in this country don’t grasp what this person is all about. The key to understanding Sarah Palin is understanding her radical theology.”
Read the entire enter interview here or below.
Common-ness, or something…
This is too long, but in my “thinking out loud,” brevity isn’t easy. I am very thankful that this Church makes a place for those who wrestle with doubt. I am very glad that those who find this Faith very difficult to manage are given a place to struggle. Our Tradition dictates that we make a way for those with whom we disagree, for those we may find it difficult to engage, and that we can find our strength and balance in having a wide theological and pietistic berth. It is a strength of our Anglican Tradition.
I love the fact that within this Church we have Charismatic Anglican-Evangelicals and Anglo-Papists, and all the theological and pietistic diversity that comes into play as a result. What a positive witness to the world of a way of being that is so peculiar within the prevailing worldly systems. Yet, our Tradition calls us to put aside all these differences and come to the Eucharist and receive the Bread and the Wine together, to common prayer and worship, from a unifying Book of Common Prayer. We are witnessing the reality that common worship and prayer and means of maintaining diversity are not possible when we all decide to do our own thing – province to province, diocese to diocese, parish to parish, and individual to individual.
As I’ve ruminated before, discipline is very important in this kind of environment, else we end up with chaos and disunity. Benevolent ecclesiastical discipline is a necessity, theological rigor is vital, honesty and good will must be maintained, else we fly apart, we demonize our opponents, we act very unchristian in front of a world that seeks something, someone, someplace that can offer hope beyond what they find with these world systems. We fail them and the cause of Christ when some of us in the aggregate insist on acting the way we have been in this Church and this Communion over the past 5 years specifically and really building over the last 20+ years, perhaps more. The fault and blame lie squarely at the feet of people who claim both conservatism and liberalism, but with the intent of imposing their own ideology on the rest of us. Social and political ideology have become more important than our unity. Looks just like our polarized civil government, doesn’t it?
Over the years, I’ve noticed a shift in part of the ethos of this Church – perhaps only in the leadership (bishops, priests, theologians), perhaps within its very fiber – away from something that sounds like, “The Church teaches, even as I struggle to understand…” to something that sounds more like, “This is what I want to believe, regardless of what the Church teachers.” We continue to move down the path of self and hyper-individualism in belief and action over the Common good – this is a weakness, a proclivity that has and continues to hinder us in our proclamation of the Cause of Christ in word and deed.
Is this Church more like the Unitarian Universalists, that believe that each person can cobble together their own belief system in good faith or is it more like the Southern Baptists that believe it is imperative that all must agree on every jot and tittle, else they be expelled from fellowship? After all, what does light have to do with darkness.
One group shouts, “Hurray! We are moving to the enlightened position of the Unitarian Universalists and we are remaking this Church just like we want it to be!” Even as we lose members and become irrelevant to the larger society. Another groups shouts, “We must stop this heresy and re-impose the faith that has been handed down unchanging since the time of Jesus, else we cannot ourselves believe.” Even as we no longer provide a space for those who doubt or have a hard time believing or are looking for an example of a place where people can get along despite important differences. Most of all the rest of us just want to be Anglicans, as the Tradition reveals.
What have we done with “Doubt,” the twin of faith and necessary for the Faith to be realized, IMHO? One side has elevated doubt into a virtue to be extolled and emulated. Another side has condemned it to be antithetical to a Christian life. Right now, the side that extols doubt to the point of virtue is on the ascendancy. Couple that with our rampant individualism and you have a recipe for chaos and disaster. This is where were we are living. It can’t last. The world isn’t seeking chaos, a place that has no real identity, or a people that have no clue what they believe in common. For the rest of us, we just want to be Anglicans, as the Tradition reveals.
This may be an exaggeration of the real condition of the parishes across the Church. Jason has reminded me that to get caught up in generalities can be problematic, and I tend to. I tend to look at trends – I don’t see the forest for the trees, at times. Yet, I can’t take a broad look across this Church and think that we are going in good direction on the whole. The statistics, and I have the statistics, show that we continue to decline – and that means our positive influence over the powers-that-be politically, socially, and financially for the good of all continues to decline. The path this Church has gone down and continues down – elevating doubt to a virtue, allowing hyper-individualism to overwhelm our Common experience, and putting aside our discipline – works counter to the very things the leadership has proclaimed it be important. We pass resolutions that no longer impact anyone.
As I’ve said before, the clergy take vows to maintain the discipline of this Church through which we received our Holy Orders and are licensed to fulfill our priestly office; we vow to maintain the Church’s teaching in its Canons and the Book of Common Prayer as we act pastorally, prophetically, sacramentally. We are failing the people; we are failing the nation; we are failing Anglicanism, as the Tradition reveals – in the aggregate.
Confession and The Book of Common Prayer
A year or so ago, I ran into a Roman, as in Catholic and not nationality, priest on a subway car. I don’t see Roman Catholic priests in clericals very often, so I wondered whether he might be an Episcopalian or perhaps a Lutheran. We talked a bit and have gotten together a couple of times, one being yesterday. When I was showing him around St. Paul’s, he mentioned the confessional booth we have in the back of the nave. It hasn’t been used in a long time, primarily because when someone wants to confess it is usually done face-to-face these days.
I mentioned that I’ve been thinking about wanting to return to using the booth for a type of confession in a kind of way that may resonate with young folks who do not have a history or tradition of confession.
In Christianity Today (August, 2008 edition), there is an article of an Evangelical pastor and his church and the decision that several of them made to decide together to actually live out Leviticus for a month. Now, they didn’t live the judgments – what was to be done if a law was actually broken. If they did, they would end up in prison – can’t go around killing children when they talk back to their parents. The outcome and what they experienced and learned is interesting.
The pastor wrote the following about a fellow participant in the experiment, which coming from an American-Evangelical is of interest to me. The following quote gets to the growing use of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer by American-Evangelicals/Reformed Christians (and I’m sure to the chagrin of many older American-Evangelical leaders that consider anything touched by the heretical Episcopal Church to be anathema). It also gets to the point about the sense I have concerning confession. Anyway, he wrote:
“For the participants in the Levitical experience, its power for personal transformation was unexpected and perhaps the most rewarding aspect. One wrote, ‘I had a hard time with Leviticus month. For about 30 days and 18 hours, I groused and complained… Early in the month I had been reading through the sacrificial section and was convinced that the modern-day, post-Jesus equivalent is confession. This is something I knew about from my Catholic days, but it had never been part of my life. I was not interested in doing this again – but the way I was not wanting to made me think that I really ought to. So I looked up the Episcopal liturgy, made arrangements with an accommodating confessor, took a very deep breath, and jumped in.’ [Emphasis mine. I will assume he went to an Episcopal priest as his confessor, since it was the Episcopal liturgy of “Reconciliation of a Penitent” that he referred to, but perhaps not.]
“‘I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was not what I was expecting. This was Large. This was a Major Life Event. I spent hours dredging up the muck in my life and preparing my list – and then it was all washed away. Gone. I was walking on air. And all of a sudden I knew that I was in a really good place and I did not want to muck it up anymore. Okay God, I prayed, this is fantastic. I want to stay here. Whaddya want me to do?’ Needless to say, reading through Leviticus again looked so different in light of grace.” (p. 33)
I do think there is a whole bunch of people who would find confession an incredible experience, if they could get beyond their self-consciousness, fear, lack of trust in a confessor, or who knows what. It is a practice that I have been anticipating for a while now, but I just haven’t gotten to it. I should. While I know that God has already forgiven me my sins as I confess to Him, a confessor is one who can confirm when I still doubt that God has truly forgiven me, restored me, and makes me able to freely forgive those who “sin against me.”
BishopBlogging
The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, the Bishop over the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, is blogging about his experience at this decade’s Anglican Lambeth Conference.
A couple days ago, he wrote this, and I think it is just about my favorite quote so far:
Speaking of Faith” on NPR and the topic was “Play, Spirit, and Character” and the importance of play to good human development. Krista Tippett interviewed play researcher Stuart Brown. The point was made that in real play risk needs to be possible in order for us to realize our abilities and potential, particularly for children to learn.I must say I awaken to think, “Oh boy, Bible study!†(Really!) Each day has brought new learnings from my brothers (the boys’ club), the study guide, and of course, the Scripture itself.
Whenever we delve into Scripture, we put ourselves at risk if we take seriously the lessons for life and love that God brings to us through the written Word of God. If we move within Scripture for the purpose of learning, changing, growing in wisdom rather than attempting to find proofs or justifications for what we already believe or want to believe, the cannot help but be made into a new creation. In the lessons for tomorrow, Jesus keeps saying, “The kingdom of God is like…” We will not move from the confusion of parable to the realization of God’s lesson unless we are will to risk, willing to play with this thing called “life in the Kingdom of God.”
This is not frivolous – all one needs to do is watch children play can be a very determined endeavor. Kids can be dead serious in their joyful play. So should we. Bishop Whalon – read again what he wrote and realize what joyfulness is present. He is playing for his benefit, for the benefit of those in his bible study group, and for us all in the Church.
How better to approach God, our Father in Heaven, with a joyful playfulness. For those who have had bad fathers or no fathers, this may be difficult to accept/understand, but the Father we have in heaven is as a father should be (as much as fallible, human fathers can be)! After all, Jesus said that we must be like the children if we are to realize the Kingdom of God. ” The Kingdom of God is like…”
My prayer is that we WILL has such an attitude (I didn’t use the word CAN, because all can if only we are willing). I pray we all can wake up in the morning and say, “Oh Boy…” bible study… or worship… or discipleship… or feeding the hungry… or being a witness for the sake of our friends and co-workers that do not know the love of God.
The Kingdom of God is like children playing in free revelry. Are we willing to take such a risk? A risk for the sake of the world and our own souls.
I must confess that I’ve lost much of this playfulness. I’ve actually thought a lot about this of late. I’ve come to live in my head and am far too serious, far too busy for my own good. I’ve always been a serious kind of person, but before seminary, before the battles that are tearing the Church apart, I was able to have balance and simply have fun. I recognize that to a great degree I’ve lost that. I need to get it back.
As the world turns…
CORRECTION: The commenter did not comment on my post about the Sudanese Archbishop’s comments, but about the Ekklesia article. Sorry about that! However, it all gets mixed up in the same pot, I think.
A person posted a comment to one of my recent posts covering the Sudanese Anglican Archbishop’s call for the resignation of the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. During the press conference at Lambeth, the archbishop comments on difficulties he has with Western/American ways of living the faith and the competition for souls he is engaged in with other religions in the Sudan (and like experiences in other Global South states). For the archbishop, the reality that Anglicanism is shrinking in the West while growing in the developing world is proof that we are wrong and they are right.
The commenter wrote, “Yes, the church in the West has been shrinking, but that won’t last forever. And people who live in wealthier countries need faith, too, don’t they?” I absolutely agree, but the contexts in which we live really are different. That with which we in the West compete is not a fundamentalist Islam, but more of a fundamentalist secularism. The way both of us should proceed is not to become like the other – more fundamentalist or more permissive – but rather a third way. How we “prove†the significance and viability of our faith-system/religion is the rub, I think.
I have to look at my own “spoiled Westerner” status, too, even though because of what I’ve had to endure and struggle through I know just a little bit of the emotional and psychological and spiritual stuff that other oppressed people have had to endure. The humbling aspect for me concerning the good archbishop is that he and his folk have endured struggles I can’t imagine – 10 fold. I can’t just dismiss him like I can someone like James Dobson or Pat Robinson. They are tired and pathetic in their Culture War crusade in so many ways.
One of the problems I see is that too many and large segments of the Church universal will not or cannot understand that the West has been moving into post-modernism for a while now. This IS the way of thinking of the younger generations, and it isn’t going to change because a bunch of old men demand that these people “correct†the very constructs by which they make meaning of life. This isn’t a matter of “worldly†thinking, any more or less than Modernism is “worldly.†I content that post-modernism presents to the Church a fantastic opportunity for evangelism at least in the West, if only we can accept the challenge.
Too many Christian groups would rather demand the culture(s) not be post-modern and condemn the system as if they can stop the process/progress, rather than spending all that energy learning how to be witnesses within it. One of the problems, I think, is that post-modernism demands that Christians actually live what they say – action over words, orthopraxis over the words of orthodoxy.
If we prove the inadequacy of Christianity by our hypocrisy, then why should anyone consider Christianity or a culture/society give it a privileged position? They, it, shouldn’t. The “competitive marketplace†of ideas and the leveling out of the playing field for all competing religious systems (death of meta-narrative, supposedly) forces us in the West to live the Christian life in ways that we have not had to live for centuries. How will “they†know we are Christians or that the faith is real? By our love, by the way we live our lives and not by fine sounding arguments. (I know that Modernism and Post-modernism both seek “proof†in various ways.)
For the most part, we live a deficient Christian experience in the West. Post-modernism calls us to account, for the sake of those who do not yet know Christ. In some ways, post-modernism does to modern day Christianity what Jesus did to the Judaism of his day – to the Pharisees of his time. Jesus called the religious leaders to account, corrected them, and presented what the faith was supposed to be over-and-against their misunderstanding and misapplication of God’s Way. Post-modernism is accomplishing a very similar task with us today.
This is an exciting prospect for me, frankly, and an opportunity for God to prove to suspicious and cynical Westerners the vitality and reality of salvation, redemption, and reconciliation in ways rarely experienced in the West for a very long time. It is an opportunity, but it calls us to a level of sincerity, devotion, and the giving up of self and our own agendas and wants to a degree that many are unwilling to do. We are just like the rich young ruler who gave up discipleship with Jesus (and possibly heaven) even though he obeyed the Law faithfully – he did not go and sell all that he had. He would not give up his privileged and incorrect way of thinking and living. Will we?
Of course, this dynamic is experienced primarily in the West were post-modernism has already taken hold and in many segments predominates. In parts of the world where fundamentalism reigns – Muslin, Christian, native religions, or whatever – it will not work the same. This is where the “competition for souls” takes on a temporal militancy rather than a cerebral exercise. There is a third way, if only we are willing to seek, listen, discern, and obey (oh, how we hate that last one!).
Something like that, anyway.
The experience of Post-Christendom
Ekklesia is a British organization and website that comes from a more English-Evangelical (Anabaptist) perspective, but with a more cerebral bent and with a desire to engage. On their website splash page they describe themselves as, “…a think-tank that promotes transformative theological ideas in public life.” They also detail their purpose:
“Ekklesia promotes post-Christendom approaches to social policy, nonviolence and conflict transformation, environmental action, the politics of forgiveness, economic sharing, support for migrants and displaced people, freedom of expression, restorative justice, a positive (relational) approach to sexuality, non-compulsion in religion and belief, the engagement of theology with science and culture, respectful engagement with those of other faith and non-religious convictions, and church as alternative community.” (source)
I agree with her that much has been written about the shift of Christianity from Northern and Western countries/societies to the Global South. This all started with Philip Jenken’s book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity
Anyway, in their recent e-mail update they present a paper by Savi Hensman entitled, “Lambeth Facing West and South.” A native Sri Lankan, “She is also a respected writer on Christianity and social justice. An Ekklesia associate, Savi is author of Re-writing history, a research paper on the Episcopal Church.”
I want to move to England (Scotland or Wales, which is the origin of my name). Of course, Ireland is perfectly good as well… I’ll stop right there.
I agree with her that much has been written about the shift of Christianity from Northern and Western countries/societies to the Global South. This all started with Philip Jenken’s book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. She takes a bit of a different direction, however, and presents the idea of “boundry lines” from a different perspective. Here are a few paragraphs of her observations of the Communion and the divides that afflict us. She is quoting Canon Gregory Cameron, Deputy Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.
Numerical growth among Anglicans ‘has been almost entirely in the South’, and ‘Today it is a truism to say that the average Anglican is a black woman under the age of 30, who earns two dollars a day, has a family of at least three children, has lost two close relatives to AIDs, and who will walk four miles to Church for a three hour service on a Sunday.
Canon Cameron claims that ‘the dark side to the life of the Anglican Communion is that too often the theological graduates of the seminaries of the NATO alliance unconsciously adopt an air of educational superiority, while American church leaders assume ‘implicit obligations… on the recipients of their largesse.’
So, according to Canon Cameron, it is not surprising that ‘a growing impatience with the cultural and financial dominance of the NATO aspects of Communion life, and with it, a growing critique of the Churches of the West. Not only are we in the West shrinking in numbers unlike the growing Churches of the South; for many critics, the Churches of the West are losing a sense of their identity as they get lulled into the liberalism and relativism which are presumed to be the hallmarks of the modern Western society… Increasingly, the Churches of the South have asserted their identity in the Anglican Communion, and this is an identity which is uncompromising in its commitment to the supreme authority of the scriptures as God’s Word written; which is content to see the Thirty-Nine Articles as the benchmark of contemporary Anglican life; and which sees itself contending for the salvation of souls in the face of a lively Pentecostalism and a militant Islam.’ The ‘proclamation of traditional doctrinal and moral positions’ would also help Anglicans to deepen unity with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Canon Cameron does advocate some degree of mutual respect for ‘boundary markers’. Supposedly ‘For conservatives, the boundary stones which mark out the territory set out in scripture for those who seek to be faithful to God are being dislodged. Central elements of Christian obedience, the authority of Scripture and even the divinity of Christ, are being casually moved to the fringes of Anglican identity… Equally, those who might be labelled liberals are becoming increasingly distressed because they see vital boundary stones about Anglican attitudes towards diversity, inclusiveness, tolerance, patient debate and discernment being replaced by the narrow strait jacket of a particular view of orthodoxy; worse it appears that the traditional autonomy of the different Churches in Anglicanism is being replaced by a grab for power and the attempt to impose centralisation’.