Gentle Wisdom

… that is, except for Ruth Gledhill. In a blog post which starts with

she writes that the Anglican bishops meeting at the Lambeth Conference are planning

But the question remains open of who will be investigated, and who will do the investigating.

In other words, will she be accepted as an inquisitor or become a victim? Will this Faith and Order Commission be tasked with enforcing the decisions of past Lambeth Conferences, including the one against homosexual practice? This would please the GAFCON conservatives but will surely lead to the North American churches and liberals in other countries leaving the Anglican Communion. Or will the plan be put together in such a way as to bring the North American churches on board? I can’t see how that could be done, at least if the moderate conservatives are also on board, without making the Commission powerless and meaningless. The plan seems so unlikely to be helpful that I suspect it is no more than someone’s half-baked proposal, leaked to the press and built up into something more than it really is.

So I don’t expect the Anglican Inquisition. Anyway, even if it does turn up, I’m sure it will be no more cruel than Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition whose most horrific torture was forcing its victim to sit in the “comfy chair”.

Dave Walker has clearly been working hard as cartoonist in residence at the Lambeth conference. In this cartoon (part of his Lambeth series) he seems to have uncovered and portrayed Archbishop Rowan’s secret strategy for getting the bishops to talk to one another.

UPDATE: Ruth Gledhill confirms the story with real pictures of bishops queuing, not for dinner but for a bus.

But there have been no new cartoons since this one which was Monday’s. I hope that Dave hasn’t been so distracted by his legal issues that he has been unable to do any new drawing. He has at least managed to post direct from his mobile phone a picture of bishops marching in London this morning, with Rowan in the front row and the slogan “Keep the Promise - Halve Poverty by 2015″.

The story of how the SPCK bookshops were taken over by St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, recently in the news, prompts me to this purely historical study of who this St Stephen the Great might be. I remembered only one thing, that he is not the biblical Stephen, the first Christian martyr. I thought I had remembered another fact, that he was a Serb like Radovan Karadzic, but it turns out that my memory was faulty.

It was hard to find good information about this St Stephen. I did manage to find the following transcription of Mark Brewer’s words from a video, but only courtesy of a Google cache as this is from one of the posts by Dave Walker whose deletion Mark Brewer seems to have demanded.

I also found with some difficulty a Wikipedia article about St Stephen the Great, who in fact seems to have been a 15th century ruler of Moldavia (Moldova). He does indeed seem to have been a great defender of the cause of state-controlled Christianity in eastern Romania. So it is not surprising that he was canonised by the Romanian Orthodox Church, and is even now considered in Romania to be the greatest Romanian of all time.

But there is another side to this man at least in his associates. The details are sketchy, but Stephen seems to have been a close relative of Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula, Stephen’s contemporary as ruler of Wallachia (southern Romania). The name “Dracula” comes from the Order of the Dragon (dracul, a stange symbol for a supposedly Christian order) into which he had been initiated as a child. The two rulers were close associates. As young man Stephen fled to Vlad’s court for protection from his enemies; he sent troops to help Vlad regain his throne; and later he married Vlad’s niece. Vlad also defended Romania from Turkish invaders, and on one occasion managed to impale 20,000 Turkish prisoners. He probably avoided being canonised by the Orthodox by later converting to Catholicism.

Stephen doesn’t seem to have been the same kind of cruel character as Vlad. But, despite the claim that “He was victorious in 34 of his 36 battles”, he ended up losing the war and having to cede sovereignty over his lands to the Muslim invaders:

Is this man a fitting patron saint for today? I would not presume to comment.

C.S. Lewis must be turning in his grave. His estate seems to have been taken over by the Telmarines, King Miraz and his people who in the novel and film “Prince Caspian” had taken over Narnia by force and banished all the little people and talking animals.

According to this news report, a little person, a child rather than a dwarf, and his father had perfectly legally acquired, by purchase, the domain name narnia.mobi, for use by the boy on his mobile phone. But “C.S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd.”, which owns the rights to Lewis’ work, objected to this as a breach of trademark. Now the purchasers have been stripped of narnia.mobi by force, by the “World Intellectual Property Organization”, which, according to the reports, failed even to examine the purchasers’ evidence proving that they had not been using the domain for commercial purposes.

What we need now is a new Prince Caspian, new High Kings and High Queens, and a new Aslan, to put this injustice right, set free the Internet Narnia, and restore it to the little people who are its rightful owners.

Dave Walker, cartoonist and blogger extraordinaire, blogger for the Church Times, friend of bishops (he’s the one on the right) and hanger-on (when they let him in) at the Lambeth conference, has shown what he is made of - that it is the typical spineless stuff of British Anglicans, who typically give in to every demand from Americans. (Well, the same is true of British politicians.) For in his fight to save the former SPCK bookshops, sold off for a song to the American Eastern Orthodox group St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSGCT, or just SSG), Dave has capitulated at the first shot from his American opponents.

Dave writes today:

Mark Brewer is an American lawyer and chairman of SSGCT.

But, Dave, you have not been forced to make this decision. Mark Brewer is making an empty threat. I am not a lawyer, but it is quite clear even to me that the material you posted about the bookshops is at least for the most part perfectly legal. There can be no question of libel concerning the matters of fact in the public domain which make up the great majority of what you have written, and of the comments which you have allowed. You have routinely removed comments which might be considered defamatory. There may be minor specific matters which could be judged defamatory and so which you should remove. But in demanding a general removal of all material Mark Brewer does not have a leg to stand on. This is a basic issue of your freedom of expression, which is protected under national and international law. As bloggers we need to stand up against threats of this kind.

British courts do not take kindly to clever American lawyers trying to take out injunctions against ordinary people to stop them doing what they have a perfect right to do. If Brewer actually brings this to court, which is unlikely, he will be sent packing.

My advice, as a non-lawyer, to you would be to reinstate the posts and write back to Mark Brewer. You should say that you will not remove all the material because at least the majority of it is factual and therefore not defamatory, and you have a legal right to post it as a matter of freedom of expression. I suggest you also offer to remove any specific sections of posts or comments which they can demonstrate to you as being defamatory. The very least that will do is gain you some time as they will be forced to read all of your material to select some of it. If they send back a short list of items they would like removed, then comply or at least edit out what is truly defamatory. If they insist again on a blanket removal, offer to see them in court.

If you need legal advice but can’t afford to pay for it, I am sure there are people around who will offer this as part of their work to protect human rights in this country. Newspapers of course have legal teams to protect the rights of expression of their correspondents. I’m sure that even the Church Times has, and they may help you, but then they are British Anglicans.

Phil Groom’s blog about the former SPCK bookshops is still accessible, at least as I write. I wonder how long it will last. Probably at least until Phil returns from his holiday, as if he has been sent a similar letter to Dave’s he will not receive it until he returns. But I hope Phil is made of sterner stuff than Dave and does not capitulate to empty threats from the Brewers.

In a comment on another blog a few days ago I referred to the infamous filioque addition to the Nicene Creed, or, more correctly, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The original 4th century version of this Creed, adopted at the Council of Nicea and revised at the Council of Constantinople, affirms that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father”. In Western churches by the sixth century this had been changed to “proceeds from the Father and the Son”, by the addition of the Latin word filioque “and (from) the Son”. This is the form normally used in Roman Catholic and Anglican liturgies. But the addition has never been accepted by the Eastern Orthodox churches and has become a major point of contention between eastern and western churches.

Pat Ashworth, reporting in the Church Times Blog from the Lambeth Conference, writes the following in describing the opening service in Canterbury Cathedral:

So why was the filioque clause omitted from the Creed as recited in Canterbury? I suppose that it was because of a resolution from a previous Lambeth Conference, which unlike the present one actually discussed substantive matters and made decisions. This is from section 5 of Resolution 6 of the 1988 Lambeth Conference, the resolution about Anglican-Orthodox Relations (Wikipedia’s link to the Anglican Communion website is broken, I have given the current link):

So I suppose whoever designed the liturgy for the Lambeth Conference is at least following the conference’s own resolutions. It would also appear that in the twenty years since 1988 not many provinces have actually implemented this resolution, for many bishops stumbled over the revised wording. Indeed in the Common Worship liturgy of the Church of England, “Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, 2000-2006″, the form of the Nicene Creed without the filioque is specified only as

And as such occasions are rare it is not surprising that even most Church of England bishops stumbled at this point.

The comment I made a few days ago makes an argument from Revelation 22:1 that the Holy Spirit does indeed “proceed” (whatever this means - the Greek word simply means “go out”) from the Father and the Son, thus giving a theological justification for the filioque clause. So I would have to suggest that the filioque clause is theologically justified. However, the Anglican Communion’s position, as reflected in the 1988 Lambeth resolution, is not rejection of the theology of the filioque. The position seems to be that the proper text of the Nicene Creed is what was agreed at the Ecumenical Councils including both eastern and western churches, rather than in subsequent decisions of the western church alone. On this basis I can accept the creed without the addition - although I too would be likely to stumble over it.

Congratulations to John Richardson, the Ugley Vicar, and his bride Alison, who were married this morning. John kept this news very close to his chest. And even on the very morning of his wedding he was still blogging, not just to make the first public announcement of his wedding (meanwhile bizarrely if not accidentally disabling the posting of congratulatory comments), but also to comment on other posts, including this comment and this one in which he writes, concerning ordination of women:

I am glad Alison is making John think, and presumably vice versa. John certainly makes me think, even though I often disagree with him  But it will be interesting to see how long he can actually share the (notional) Ugley Vicarage with Alison before he gradually finds her arguments beginning to convince him.

I wish them a long and happy marriage as they come closer to one another and to Jesus in heart and also in mind!

I had intended to take a break from blogging about Todd Bentley. But I can’t resist this quote, which appears to be genuine, from Jim West:

So Todd’s and Benny’s teaching is as valuable as that of the “Fathers” of the church? Why, I thought I was praising Todd rather highly in comparing him with Jesus and Paul, but I was only saying that he was trying to follow their example. I would never have dared to compare Todd’s teaching with that of any of the respected theologians of the church. But Jim West seems to value Todd and Benny above such towering figures as Tertullian, Origen and Chrysostom. High praise indeed!

Ruth Gledhill digresses from her Lambeth Diary to give the low-down on which bishops at last week’s General Synod voted for and against the motion on women bishops. This includes some minor surprises. I won’t repeat all the details, but I will give the votes of those bishops in the Church of England who I have been mentioning on this blog.

On “the Bishop of Winchester’s motion, including the reaffirmation of the Lambeth 1998 resolution that both sides in the argument on women priests and bishops are ‘loyal Anglicans’”, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, otherwise so far apart, were together among the 14 bishops who voted in favour. Among the 31 against this motion were Archbishop John Sentamu of York and bishops John Gladwin of Chelmsford, NT Wright of Durham and Pete Broadbent of Willesden. Ruth writes mischievously that

- including Sentamu, Gladwin and Wright, also Broadbent who is not in fact “diocesan” but was included in this reckoning. So will Pete Broadbent, despite staying away from the Lambeth Conference, now be rejected by the conservatives? It will be interesting to see.

On the final motion, which I reported here, it seems that Archbishop Sentamu and bishops Gladwin and Broadbent were among 28 voting in favour, whereas 12 bishops including Nazir-Ali and Wright voted against, and Archbishop Williams abstained, alone - although at least four bishops seem to have absented themselves as 45 voted on several of the amendments. Well, at least I can agree with my own diocesan bishop on something. But there is surely something symbolically significant in the one who is supposed to be leading the Church of England choosing to abstain.

The long awaited Lambeth Conference has started. But for the moment it doesn’t seem to be very interesting, in terms of any real content. The blogging bishops, and even the usually irrepressible Dave Walker who has got himself a pass through the security fence, are keeping quiet about anything non-trivial. The real press have been reduced to talking about themselves and sneaking through the fence.

The most interesting news I have seen, with the possible exception of the contradictory Roman Catholic reactions, is that the bishops are saying what they think about the Church of England’s antiquated parish system by breaking its rules. They are meeting for their conference without the permission of the incumbent of the parish they are meeting in - as reported by that incumbent, who is also a blogger. But he doesn’t report that a bishop who is not at the Conference will this Sunday attend an open air service in his parish. Nor has the bishop in question yet reported it on his blog; this news was hinted at by Ruth Gledhill and confirmed here. Has the incumbent officially invited this bishop? Does he even know he is coming? Of course the bishop doesn’t need an invitation if he is just going to attend, but will he do more? The bishop I am referring to: none other than Gene Robinson!

What can we hope for from this conference? The press have gathered in the hope of picking over the bones of a deceased Anglican communion. But I doubt if they will find a corpse. I suspect that the whole thing is now being carefully enough stage managed that an appearance of unity will be kept up, even if everyone knows how superficial it is. In that case there will be no news to satisfy the reporters, so I hope the weather warms up so they can enjoy their swimming pool. Of course if the stage management breaks down and real fireworks start to go off among the mitres, that will be news. But I expect that even if the rain stays away Lambeth will be a damp squib, three expensive weeks which will do nothing to solve the terminal sickness of the Anglican Communion if not actually making things worse.

I am sure a lot of Anglicans are taking a “wait and see” approach to the GAFCON process until after Lambeth, and after their summer holidays. But by September they will be starting to realise that they have to make choices one way or another. Time will tell.