The Saint Barnabas’ Blog

One of the great comforts of being an orthodox Catholic Christian is that our adherence to the faith of the ages affords us a joined up philosophy for life. Because we really do believe in the full revelation of Jesus Christ, bound in scripture, we have genuine confidence in our tradition. And because of this confidence we feel certain in our trust of the living Word of God which comes to us in Word and Sacrament each day.

To uphold this eternal faith in Jesus Christ -the same yesterday, today and forever- is both liberating and radical. It leads us to a life of humble obedience and faithfulness, quite different from the modern practice of merely going to church and paying lip service to a vaguely Christian tradition! Living the faith of the ages is most certainly NOT that ghastly habit, so often found in modern Anglicanism, of merely cherry-picking our way through the Gospels obeying the bits we admire.

Understand that only such uncompromising and orthodox faith, the sort in harmony with Church teaching down the ages, can be certifiably said to come from the apostles. For this is the only faith which is present through the ages. And paradoxically it is only this deeply traditional faith that is never in danger of growing ‘out-dated’. Why? Because it never marries the spirit of the age but always stands up for the spirit of God! In times of Christian sympathy and in times of persecution its voice never changes.

This is the Catholic and Apostolic faith that provides a different way of living than that of this world. This is the light in the darkness and the salt in the world. It may not be popular, with its emphasis on self sacrifice, obedience and self control, but it is a profound and beautiful thing. A joined up way of life in which every living person is cherished and where all are equally called to lives of service. Oh that the world could live according to the Gospel for just one day…there would be no murder, hatred, destruction or sorrow.

But that is not the world we live in. Instead we Christians must swim against the tide of worldly opinion. And what a confusing, muddled and ghastly environment this creates. In the secular West it means we must live our lives in an increasing culture of death. The elderly can be extinguished when no longer useful, the babe in the womb lives in peril and there is pain, hurt and hatred almost everywhere we turn.

One famous school of modern worldly thinking is that of feminism. Like most things it is not all bad but rather founded on principles that none can deny are admirable. Who could not agree that women need to be respected and given opportunity in life? Who would not want their daughters, wives and friends to be able to work on an equal footing to men? But that is not the only message that feminism puts forward. Sadly it also leads us into dangerous waters by putting forward a philosophy of self and rights. And worse still it has always proudly promoted abortion believing it a tool for freeing the emancipated woman.

What bitter but predictable irony we witness when the fruit of this thinking is considered. In the economist last week (biretta tip to a regular informant!) a frightening report informed us that cheap and easy abortion has led to a bewildering fact. In cultures where sons are prized, women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. For those who oppose abortion, this is mass murder on a scale that should harrow the soul.

This is how the Economist puts it:

Imagine you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.

Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do? For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son.

And so we arrive at the disturbing fruit of pro abortionist thinking, a warping of nature through unintended social engineering. It means that China now has a huge deluge of single young men who have no hope of finding a spouse which in turn results in an angry and restless generation who inevitably descend into lives of violence and despair. To understand the scale of this consider that China alone stands to have as many unmarried young men—“bare branches”, as they are known—as the entire population of young men in America.

Now the feminist will naturally pull me up short and claim that this catalogue of infanticide is due to cultural chauvinism and not feminist ideology. They would have a point whilst missing the point I am making! Certainly chauvinism is the reason it is the girls who are butchered but that role could easily be reversed if one added just a fraction of the anti-male rhetoric one finds in feminist thinking! So instead of blaming a gender let us focus on the true culprit here….the belief in abortion as a tool for lessening female emancipation. Quite clearly the feminist passion for advocating ‘pro choice’ has ensured that it is, albeit unintentionally, part of the problem and not the cure for the many female babies whose lives are under threat. For one cannot marry our culture of death and then seriously claim to stand up for rights and freedom.

And so the irony is that the Catholic, who may well believe that men and women are equal but called to be different, is doing far more for women’s rights than the noisy army of Germaine Greeresque modernists putting forward flawed rhetoric. It is the faith of the ages that leads us to treat everyone, male and female, with love, dignity and respect. It is the modern secular mindset that powerfully fights for someone’s rights in one breath whilst extinguishing souls in the next. And that is why so many hospitals have become bewildering places of ethical paradox….the tiny baby being lavished attention under life support machine in one room as countless tiny bodies are washed down the drain in the next. It is not life that is celebrated in the West today but choice. The select choice of the privileged few who move mountains to ensure the victims, those who in reality pay for such choice, are shielded from public attention.

Give me the joined up thinking of Catholicism any day over the confused, conflicting and compromised logic that lies at the heart of Broken Britain and the wider secular West. I choose life even as the majority around me choose death.

Pictured above are our next door neighbours, Ian and Barbara Bradford, playing with Jemima during the winter snowfall. The Bradfords are not only neighbours but also supportive and committed members of Saint Barnabas Church. Ian is a PCC member and Barbara organises our intercession rota. We are therefore very grateful to them, not least because they already offer so much of their own time running a charity, Antokia, which they founded themselves. It is the charity which our Sunday School is again proud to support this Lent.

The Antokia Children’s Charity supports disadvantaged children in Uganda and focuses on education as the means to them improving their own lives and enabling them to take an active part in the development of their community – perhaps of their country. The genius of Ian and Barbara’s charitable work is that it is small and localised and thus goes direct to the heart of a needy community ensuring there is no possibility of corruption or government interference.

Antokia all began when Ian and Barbara’s daughter was teacher training in Uganda and moved a deaf child into a special school, pleaded with them to help fund him. They now support 50 primary children, covering fees, lunches, uniforms, scholastic and hygiene materials. They support 13 children in a primary school for disabled children and sponsor 40 secondary children, and several post secondary students, including medical and nursing students. The project has even seen them build class rooms and latrines!! You can find out more by following this link here and you might donate whilst doing so!

Another way of supporting Antokia, whilst thoroughly enjoying yourself, is to attend a forthcoming concert in the Chapel at Tonbridge School on Thursday 18 and repeated on Friday 19 March at 7.30pm. The first part of the concert will be the Overture to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet but the highlight of the concert is a setting of Psalm 122 specially composed for Tonbridge School by the very popular composer Howard Goodall. This was commissioned after the chapel burnt down in 1988, and was first performed in 1993 in Rochester Cathedral. It will be the first time it is performed in the setting it was composed for making this a very special night indeed. It was scored for Symphony Orchestra, Organ, Chapel Choir, and a chorus that involves the whole school, half the school on each night. On these occasions the choir is being supplemented by girls from Benendon School.

Tickets for the concert are £10 each, and can be purchased from the Box Office 01732 304241

Today I am travelling to Walthamstow to give a talk to the Chelmsford Chapter of the Society of the Holy Cross. The Society was formed in 1855 with the intention of building up a strong interior life by an Anglo-Catholic hero of the faith, Fr. Charles Lowder, and five other priests who wished to bear witness to the cross of Christ in their ministry. Its principle objectives were to strengthen and consolidate the spiritual life of its members according to the teaching of Catholic doctrine, to defend truth against error and to unite its members in a special bond of mutual love and support.

Since 1855 the society has brought together like minded priests and helped them to support one another as they live together under a common rule of life. Members meet regularly through local chapters- here in Rochester Diocese we do so once a month- to share lunch and spend some time in theological reflection.

One of the main aims of the Society throughout history has been to pray earnestly for the reunion of Catholic Anglicans with the Holy See. It is for this reason that this is a very exciting and uncertain time for the life of the movement. How exciting that over 150 years of faithful prayer has finally born fruit! How amazing that our prayer for communion with Rome, once a distant dream, can now become a firm reality!

It will give me particular pleasure to speak with the Chelmsford chapter this day for this was the first Chapter I ever joined when serving my title at Saint Thomas of Canterbury Church in Brentwood. I look forward to seeing lots of familiar faces and catching up with old friends. And what is the subject of my talk today…..

….my thoughts and reflections on running an Anglo-Catholic blog!

What a sensationalist and shallow media we have developed in this country. I make this point due to the unhelpful manner in which journalists are dealing with John Venables, who as a boy lured a toddler onto a railway track with an accomplice before torturing and killing him and who has now been arrested as a grown man on alleged child pornography offences.

That the crimes of this deeply disturbed individual are truly monstrous none can deny. I am sickened to the core by every facet of this story and can only conclude, if allegations are true, that this man needs locking up indefinitely to protect both society and himself from his sick and destructive behaviour. So let us agree that he represents the very worst of all that is twisted in human nature by demonstrating a love of violence, deep perversion, selfishness and total lack of compassion for others.

That this man is evil I do not question. But it is deeply unhelpful when the media merely label him a monster and lay the entire sorry episode at his feet. Why do they not look deeper and hold up his life up as a mirror to our broken society? For if they did it might help move us away from being delighted rubber-neckers peering in fascination at the monstrous freak and allow us to turn that gaze inwards that we might start to comprehend our own contribution to all that is wrong with this world.

John Venables does not exist in a vacuum. He was born into this world and nurtured by his family and society. And it is here that we need to begin to ask questions. It can be guaranteed, I think, that his home life was chaotic, abusive and troubled. Quite honestly if a child is given love, values and support then they do not grow into monsters. That is not to say that all children from dysfunctional homes become monstrous, many heroically succeed against the odds, but it is nevertheless true that damage in the early years
has a profound impact in later life.

The really worrying part of this realisation is that John Venables is far from alone. Throughout Britain there are now countless homes in which children are
emotionally, physically and especially spiritually deprived. So many parents no longer have much time for their children. Many more than we like to think abuse sexually, physically or emotionally. And almost none in modern Britain take the time to help their children develop spiritually, teaching them to love God and really understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong. The result is all too predictable- pampered, spoilt and selfish children are becoming the norm in areas of privilege. Deeply needy and emotionally stunted children are all too common in areas of social deprivation.

Once upon a Britain we valued our Christian heritage. Across the social divide children were given a Christian upbringing and taken to church on a Sunday. Whilst there was just as much social deprivation and injustice, which is lamentable, there was far, far less brawling on Friday nights, sexual crime and incidents of children committing the most wicked of sins including murder, torture and rape. When are we going to accept the fact that secularism is failing? When will we begin to address the deep spiritual and moral vacuum that is hampering our societal development and ensuring the Western empire is waning?

One final niggle to share. Why does the mother of the murdered toddler have a right to information on the new case as the media is demanding? My heart goes out to her and she must need more healing than I can imagine. But no amount of exposure to John Venables life today or knowledge of his present crimes is going to bring reconciliation to her past. He needs dealing with by the justice system and it is likely that his soul is so deeply disfigured that, barring a miracle of grace, he will need locking away for a lifetime. But that is not the business of the media or anyone else as far as I can see.

And, no matter what he has done, we must ensure as a society that our prisons are places of dignity. For God still loves John Venables and will never completely abandon him. That is the message of hope that lies at the heart of our Gospel. And so my prayer is for a deep and genuine conversion in his life. Not one that brings about release (I think his earlier crimes warrant a lifetime in jail) but one which turns his heart sincerely to Christ.

As you can see Benedict Peter is doing really well in life as he celebrates four months outside the womb today! Hopefully his rapid growth and enormous appetite will abate soon allowing us all a little more time for sleep.

Along with three year old sister Jemima he is the apple of my eye! What a blessing children are to us and how important it is to include them in our decisions for the future. Where can we secure for them a place of santuary and assurance to help them grow in the Christian faith that they may flourish as God intended?

Today heralded my return to the rugby pitch for the first time since slipping a disc in December. I was understandably a little nervous prior to kick off, fearful as to what might happen in the first scrum…..but after that went smoothly it was back to business as usual! The back held up perfectly and it felt absolutely fantastic to be back.

That said the fitness levels were not quite where I would have liked and I felt completely drained at the final whistle (depsite being slow throughout!) The final result of Tunbridge Wells Veterans 55 – 5 Lordford meant it was a rousing victory as well. Two pints of Sussex best later and a very gentle evening on the sofa lies ahead….bliss!

It is a very unsettling and nervous time for Anglo-Catholics as we look to an uncertain future with trepidation, excitement and fear. Clearly the landscape we occupy is changing and we need to discern, above all else, the voice of God. Today that voice came to me through a comment left on the blog which is spoken with love and by one who, it seems to me, has the eyes to see what is really going on for us. I print it in full and thank its author from the bottom of my heart- brother your words arrive as manna in the desert, feeding us at the most difficult of times:

How absolutely silly some of this is, so many commenting upon an internal matter of St. Barnabas parish. I need to apologize immediately as I’m not part of St. Barnabas parish either, but I would add my two cents as well.

There is a definite “Romo-phobia” in many of the comments of outsiders that I think largely motivates such ignorant and petulant comments. I am not a Roman Catholic priest, but an Orthodox one so I understand that I have different concerns related to the papacy (although I would be disingenuous if I said that of late I’m also considering the Tiber).

I grew up an Anglo-Catholic in a very traditional parish in the U.S., and like most US Anglo-Catholics, I was deeply committed to the English Missal variety of worship. I still am for that matter. But I could no longer remain in TEC (ECUSA at that time actually) and had to leave. I believed I had a vocation to the priesthood so Rome was not an option at that time. England is now experiencing much of the continuing disintegration that we experienced in American Anglicanism (that looks rather odd doesn’t it?). And Father is right in one. There is no longer a way to remain a Catholic within Anglicanism if the Synod measure passes for women in the episcopate. That is axiomatic.

But Father is a parish priest and pastor of a parish, and he wisely is trying to prepare his people for possible futures. Options are never equal and so Father does not need to try and put forward the option A more “fairly”. Frankly, that’s a dreadful option and one that will lead to a couple of heretical disorders. One of them is certainly a sort of parochial Nestorianism that separates a local parish’s beliefs and worship from its diocese. (May I say that this is another reason that I felt obliged to leave Anglicanism these years ago? It seems to me to have become institutionalized compromise and congregationalism. If that is unfair, please remember my experience was in the US, perhaps English experience is different.)

I applaud Father Edward’s courage and foresight to speak openly to his parishioners about these concerns. He is also trying to point out where he is personally going–that is a matter of honesty. If he has the convictions that this is the best direction to travel, then why would he not also say that to those to whom he ministers? To not do so would be scandalous. To not do so would reveal the heart of a hired servant rather than that of a shepherd of souls. He truly has the heart of a priest. I also take well (in another one of his entries) the critical distinction between being a “minister” and a “priest” as regards a future Evangelical Anglicanism.

I have thought that the Catholic movement within Anglicanism was gone. As my rector said to me years ago, “The dream was beautiful, but it has died in the morass of the reality of Anglicanism.” I am only surprised that more of the clergy are not also trying to press the faithful on the the fulfillment of what we always believed our ultimate dream was. Will it necessarily differ from what was experienced within Anglican sphere? Yes indeed. I am thankful that I have not had to endure the obstinacy and politically correct directions of diocesans as I tried to lead the faithful to salvation. There will also be some deep challenges, and I believe that Father Tomlinson has those in mind.

But I shall end (and end my intrusion in a private arena) by saying that we should support Fr. Tomlinson and St. Barnabas parish in their discernment. We should allow them the quiet and prayers needed and not add extra comments in the discussion. They will have their own concerns and I’m certain they will be discussed and considered within the parish. We all ought to recognize that this cannot really be a democratically voted discernment. Each parishioner will have to take a stand personally. This is about finding home when the one that one has known heretofore has been burnt down, set ablaze by modern Thomas Cromwell’s.

God bless you Father. You and your parishioners have the prayers of this Orthodox priest as you seek God’s will and His home.

Fr. John

I have added a new page which contains the seminar I offered to the congregation this week. You can either access on the right hand tabs or else by clicking here. The picture has no real link other than being of Saint Barnabas’ church whose future is being considered!

This week a new threat to traditional Christianity emerged via a landmark vote by peers. They were voting to remove restrictions on where civil partnership ceremonies (the greatest act of social engineering in my lifetime) may be conducted. Until now they could only be performed in secular venues such as registry office and hotel but now the law will allow them to be held in religious buildings.

So why is this problematic to the Christian? Understand that it is not a problem arising from homophobia for most every true Christian I know would want to offer homosexual people dignity, respect and equality. No the problem arises due to a radically different understanding concerning sex between historic Christianity on the one hand and modern secular values on the other.
To the modern mind sex exists not primarily for procreative purposes but chiefly for our enjoyment. Hence a thriving sex industry is worth billions and serial monogamy is fast replacing lifelong fidelity amongst the general public. Once we accept this premise, that consensual sex between adults can be harmless fun, then it becomes a purely private matter. It necessarily follows that homosexual sexual activity is place on the same level as heterosexual sexual activity. Hence the desire for ‘gay marriage’ a public recognition that the granting of sexual licence is not for heterosexuals alone.

But the bible puts forward a radically different understanding of sex. Here it is seen as the sacred union between man and wife with the ultimate aim of procreation. The sexual act is not ‘a harmless bit of fun’ to be widely shared by everyone but a deeply sacred thing that if abused can lead to shame, pain and confusion. It is for this reason that the enjoyment of sex can never be entirely separated from its procreative function. And because this function necessarily leads to the creation of life, its intended purpose, it is reserved for marriage alone. And who can doubt that children are best cared for within the safe, stable confines of a loving marriage? Which is not to deny the fact that many people heroically raise wonderful children alone but rather to suggest that, ideally, they would receive the help of a loving spouse. See then that this recent development presents difficulties for it blurs the distinction between marriage and other sexual relationships- threatening to place the sacrament of marriage on a weaker footing.

The problem for the Christian is that homosexual sex is, by definition, an act separated from its desired procreative function. How then can it be blessed in the same way that a marriage might be? And this is doubly difficult because the priest does not ever offer people his own blessing but that of God. That being the case how can we give God’s blessing on a homosexual coupling, however much we might want to, without the authority of scripture and tradition? Especially when scripture makes clear that such couplings fall under the category of sin? Understand the subtle point here- gay friendships are in no way sinful but the Christian faith requires them to be chaste as it requires single people of all orientations and indeed husbands and wives to be chaste as well. (Anyone married for a long time will tell you that this is not always easy.) Nevertheless this demand for chastity will be viewed as a terrible affront by many a modern secularist and liberal Christian alike.

And this is where fear begins to grip. Whereas the Roman Catholic church will be made safe by uniting in saying ‘sorry we can’t’- the Anglican voice will not be as clear leading to myriad problems. Firstly the recent Synod decision to grant full pension rights to gay clergy partners leaves them looking rather dishonest and confused if they now refuse such ceremonies to the general public. Secondly there is the problem of what happens in a pick and mix economy. If some clergy delight in offering such unions then those conscientiously unable to proceed are made to look homophobic and are in danger of being sued in the courts. For the world will rightly deduce that if some Anglican clergy DO officiate then surely ALL could! Once again then the poor C of E, struggling with issues of authority and clarity, finds itself in an almighty mess…one that will further divide her members no doubt. Just one more reason why others are seeking the sanctuary of Rome where a consistent Church will protect us, gay or straight, us by uniting us in the faith of the ages. This is one battle I would like to avoid…