Archbishop defends ‘risky’ views;Times: CNC agreed on Welby as first choice for Canterbury; Pioneer ordinands start CMS course; Vicar Academy; Gay priest given permission to preach; Opponents of gay marriage dominate MPs’ postbags; Andrew Brown: sexuality wars ending, liberals have won
Archbishop defends ‘risky’ views
The Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his outspoken interventions in public debate, admitting that some of his judgements were ‘risky’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19796022
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/02/rowan-williams-defends-approach-archbishop
Times: CNC agreed on Welby as first choice
The Time – Ruth Gledhill Religion Correspondent reported – David Cameron may have to break the deadlock over the choice of the next Archbishop of Canterbury, according to a former member of the committee charged with nominating Rowan Williams’s successor.
The call came as sources said that the Crown Nominations Commission had agreed on the first name but was divided over the “runner-up” to submit to Downing Street. Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham and a former oil industry executive, has secured the necessary two-thirds majority to be recommended as first choice. But members seem divided over whether the Bishop of Norwich, Graham James, or the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, should be the second choice.
Going by tradition, the first choice would be appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Pioneer ordinands start CMS course
Five new pioneer ordinands have joined Church Mission Society’s Pioneer Mission Leadership Training course. They join 20 other new students joining the course this year as lay practitioners. The new pioneer ordinands will go on to be ordained within the Church of England. It follows the Church of England’s groundbreaking decision in January to approve CMS as an official pathway for training ordained pioneer ministers.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/3/pioneer.ordinands.start.church.mission.society.course/30730.htm
Vicar Academy – BBC Wales series shows year in the life of trainee priests
Ever wondered how priests are trained to serve in today’s communities? There’s a lot more to it than studying the Bible and learning how to compose sermons, as a television crew discovered when they spend a year following ordinands from across Wales training for ministry at St Michael’s College, Cardiff.
Their journey took them into prisons to help offenders, to schools to lead assemblies, to hospitals to visit sick and dying people, on the streets to feed the homeless and to the seat of government to campaign. Now a four-part documentary on BBC One Wales, starting on October 15, captures the challenging but richly varied life those called to ministry can expect today.
Vicar Academy was made by an independent company, Presentable. Its team shadowed several full-time students, (“ordinands”) from St Michael’s College – Wales’ only theological college – who came from all corners of the country, with vastly different backgrounds and were at different stages on their three-year course to being ordained.
http://www.aco.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2012/10/1/Vicar-Academy–BBC-Wales-series-shows-year-in-the-life-of-trainee-priests
Gay priest given permission to preach
A gay priest who was banned from preaching by the Church of England has been told he can take services again. The Rev David Page was banned in 2008 from officiating at St Thomas the Martyr in Winchelsea, East Sussex.
The church’s parochial church council (PCC) invited him to lead worship again but the Diocese of Chichester took disciplinary action against him. The diocese said in a statement that the disciplinary matter had reached an “agreeable conclusion”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-19790845
Opponents of gay marriage dominate MPs’ postbags
Three quarters of MPs who took part in a poll said they received more letters and emails opposing the Coalition’s plans to redefine marriage than in support.
The polling also found strong support for a free vote in the Commons on the issue, despite signs that Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs will face a party whip when the plans are debated.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9578028/Opponents-of-gay-marriage-dominate-MPs-postbags.html
The church’s wars over sexuality are coming to an end
Conservative evangelicals in England hope for a return to a Nigerian or Ugandan view of homosexuality, but it won’t happen –
Andrew Brown of The Guardian says the Anglican Communion’s sexuality wars are ending and the liberals have won. He writes:
There is a heart-rending interview going around the net with Vaughan Roberts, the rector of St Ebbe’s, a hardline evangelical church in Oxford. He is gay, though he wouldn’t use the term, and celibate. He talks about two things: the difficulty of remaining celibate, and the difficulty for conservative evangelicals of ever admitting to anyone, even to themselves, that they are in fact gay. A further layer of irony and pain is added to the situation because his interviewer, Julian Hardyman, leads a Cambridge Baptist church where his predecessor was chased out of the job for coming out and announcing he had a partner.
What the article makes clear is that, even among conservative evangelicals, it is no longer possible to deal with gay people, and the problems their existence poses, by simple repression.
and
So, at last, we have an important evangelical figure admitting that conservative evangelicals are repelled by gay people, that homosexuality is not a choice, and that God won’t cure it, even if omnipotence means He could: “A small proportion of people, including Christians, find that they remain exclusively attracted to the same sex as they grow into mature adulthood. God has the power to change their orientation, but he hasn’t promised to and that has not been my experience.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2012/sep/30/church-england-homosexuality-liberals-won?CMP=twt_fd