What does it profit to bishop to give his soul, not for the whole world, but for transgenderism? Low drama, high farce and spiritual tragedy in the C of E.

Dec 17, 2018 by

by Gavin Ashenden:

Dr Jules Gomes has described succinctly how Julian Henderson, the Bishop of Blackburn presided over the committee that designed the pastoral guidelines to use the baptism liturgy afresh for transgendered persons and then denounced himself for doing it.

At the beginning of the week he announced the new guidelines. There followed a considerable amount of criticism that this was an abuse of both baptism and the Bible.

The Church of England’s Evangelical Council then panicked, realising it had to say something. It cobbled together a statement criticising the guidelines with some vehemence. It just so happens however that Bishop Henderson is chairman of the CEEC, and by the end of the week, we saw him admonishing himself for the abuse of Scripture as the leading signatory to the CEEC critique.

The Church of England has begun to morph into the world of Gilbert and Sullivan’s amateur operettas with Bishop Henderson developing something of a resemblance to Pooh Bah in the Mikado, who at one and the same time was Chief Executioner and Chief Justice. Only Bishop Henderson has taken it further and has become, judge, prosecutor, victim and theological malefactor all at the same time.

Having created and commended the liturgy, he came out as his own foremost critic.

Read here

 

Related Posts

Tags

Share This