... δῆλον γὰρ ὡς ὑμεῖς μὲν ταῦτα (τί ποτε βούλεσθε σημαίνειν ὁπόταν ὂν
φθέγγησθε) πάλαι γιγνώσκετε, ἡμεῖς δὲ πρὸ τοῦ μὲν ᾠόμεθα, νῦν δ᾽
ἠπορήκαμεν...
»Denn offenbar seid ihr doch schon lange mit dem vertraut, was ihr
eigentlich meint, wenn ihr den Ausdruck seiend gebraucht, wir jedoch
glaubten es einst zwar zu verstehen, jetzt aber sind wir in Verlegenheit
gekommen«1.
Haben wir heute eine Antwort auf die Frage nach dem, was wir mit dem Wort
»seiend« eigentlich meinen? Keineswegs. Und so gilt es denn, die
Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein erneut zu stellen.
Sind wir denn heute auch nur in der Verlegenheit, den Ausdruck »Sein« nicht
zu verstehen? Keineswegs. Und so gilt es denn vordem, allererst wieder ein
Verständnis für den Sinn dieser Frage zu wecken. Die konkrete Ausarbeitung
der Frage nach dem Sinn von »Sein« ist die Absicht der folgenden Abhandlung.
Die Interpretation der Zeit als des möglichen
Horizontes eines jeden Seinsverständnisses überhaupt ist ihr vorläufiges
Ziel.
Das Absehen auf ein solches Ziel, die in solchem Vorhaben beschlossenen
und von ihm geforderten Untersuchungen und der Weg zu diesem Ziel bedürfen
einer einleitenden Erläuterung.
'For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use
the expression "being". We, however, who used to think we understood it,
have now become perplexed.
Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean
by the word 'being'? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew
the question of the meaning of Being. But are we nowadays even perplexed by
our inability to understand the expression 'Being'? Not at all. So first of
all we must reawaken our understanding for the meaning of this question. Our
aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the meaning of
Being and to do so concretely. Our provisional aim is the Interpretation of
time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being.
'The Holy and Undivided Trinity:' orthodox concepts, playing with
words and horrific penalties for disbelief

Pater: 'God the Father'
Filius: 'God the Son'
Spiritus Sanctus: 'Holy Spirit'
Est: 'is'
Non est: 'is not'
Strongly recommended: consulting the Wikipedia page,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_
burned_as_heretics
even though the list is far from being a comprehensive one.
One of the cases listed is that of Pomponio Algerio, boiled alive in oil
in the Piazza Novona in Rome in 1556. He had declared at his trial that 'This
Church [The Roman Catholic Church] deviates in many things from truth.'
I refer in various pages of the site to the case of Edward Wightman,
burned alive at Lichfield in 1612 but this section gives some
additional information. Three weeks before Edward Wightman was burned alive
in Lichfield, Bartholomew Legate was burned alive at Smithfield, London.
Both of these men had no belief in the Trinity and both of them fell
foul of King James, who was determined that they should be executed. .
When Edward Wightman was charged with heresy, he wrote a summary of his
theological beliefs for his defence in the case which would soon begin. He
sent a copy of the document to King James I, the King James of the King
James translation of the Bible. He had come to the throne in 1603 and took
very seriously indeed his title, 'Defender of the Faith.' He took very
seriously the creeds of the Church, the Apostles,' the Nicene and the
Athanasian. He took 'heresy,' which threatened his orthodox beliefs,
very seriously too.
Edward Wightman referred to these creeds as 'three inventions' of
man. A Commission was set up to examine the issues and the first item in the
Summary of Charges was this claim by Edward Wightman: that 'there is no
Trinity.'
The King certainly believed that Jesus Christ was his Saviour and
qualified for redemption by the grotesque orthodox doctrines of redemption.
So, the persecutor was saved and the man who didn't believe in the Trinity
was damned. The King was not only an active persecutor of heretics but an
active persecutor of alleged witches. He had women tortured and executed for
the alleged crime of witchcraft.
All this is part of the 'Christian heritage,' the shameful legacy of
Christian history which should be taken into account by self-proclaimed
'progressives' and 'liberals' in the Church of England and other churches.
Of course, again and again they ignore all this. These progressives and
liberals, like others, need to be challenged. The need to explain why they
support some kind of doctrine of redemption by Jesus - and what kind of
doctrine they do support, and if they don't support a doctrine of
redemption, what are they playing at? Why belong to a church with a vast
majority of believers in such things?
The next section is supplementary material on torture and execution of
alleged witches, a separate matter from the doctrine of the Trinity,
obviously.
Strongly recommended, the Wikipedia page, 'List of people executed for
witchcraft,'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed
_for_witchcraft
One of the cases listed is the Pappenheimer Case. The page
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/pappenheimer-family
gives a summary, but is far more than that. It does omit many of the
horrific details of the tortures and executions.
'Show Trial. After twenty years of scraping by on the
margins of legality without attracting much attention from government
authorities, the Pappenheimers were arrested, having been denounced as
“murderers of seven pregnant women” by a thief with whom Paulus may have
quarreled. There was no evidence to support this accusation, but the
Pappenheimers were clearly a family of vagrants, and the normal juridical
procedure would have been to evict them from the territory after a fairly
uncomfortable period in jail. Unfortunately for them, the accusation came at
a moment when official and popular fear of witchcraft was reaching a peak,
so instead of receiving the rough, but predictable, treatment of the
vagabond, they became caught up in a show trial. The Pappenheimers,
bewildered, were brought to Munich, accused of witchcraft and murder, and
tortured until they confessed to unspeakable, and completely
unsubstantiated, crimes. Their confessions led to the arrest of some of
their friends and associates, who were also arrested, accused, and tortured
until they confessed. At a public execution attended by thousands, Paulus
was tortured with red-hot pincers, broken on the wheel, then impaled; Michel
and Gumprecht also were broken on the wheel. [This punishment involved
smashing the limbs and breaking the bones, by using a large wheel.] Since
breaking on the wheel was proscribed for women, Anna simply had her breasts
cut off. All four were then burned alive. Hansel, horrified, was required to
watch it all before being executed by burning with other accused witches at
a second public execution several months later.
The Wikipedia account of the case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappenheimer
_witch_trial
gives more detailed information about the charges, which included a
very large number of murders - including the murders of non-existent people
- and alleged witchcraft causing
gales and hailstorms, the poisoning of meadows and the affliction of cattle.
At the first
execution, the condemned were brought to the place of execution by cart and
'the
carts temporarily stopped by a cross by the Neuhaus gate where they were,
according to custom, led in chains to say a prayer.' This was a Christian
execution, after all. The father Paulus Gämperl was executed by impalement,
a sharp stake being inserted into his anus and through his intestines
At the second
execution, one of those executed, with five others was the ten year old who
had witnessed the first execution.
Hansel had been re-baptized and renamed Cyprian following the first
execution.
'On 26 November 1600, the execution of the ten year old Hansel Gämperl
and the five other condemned took place in Munich.'
Like the others, Hansel had been severely tortured in the period leading up
to the execution.
The continued
prominence of the Church of England at Oxford University and the
continued employment of C of E chaplains at most of the colleges.
Only a small percentage of staff and students
at most Oxford Colleges will belong to the Church of England. There is no
generic Church of England chaplain, someone equally sympathetic to the
evangelical or high church or liberal view. The likelihood is that a high
church chaplain will be less well received by an evangelical student or
staff member and that the evangelical would vastly prefer the services of an
evangelical chaplain. Similarly for the other possibilities, such as a
liberal who would prefer a liberal chaplain, a high church student or staff
member who would prefer a high church chaplain.
A single C of E chaplain, then, is likely to be of most use not to
the class of C of E sympathizers or active believers at a college but to a
sub-class, a small percentage of a small percentage.
Those flexible people who claim to be able to accept many different
varieties of Christian faith, without endorsing any in particular, fall prey
to the pitfalls of relativism. As a matter of fact, Jesus gave very specific
teaching about many issues (if the historical record can be trusted, in
particular, the synoptic gospels. He gave no teaching whatsoever about a
very large number of other issues, leaving the later church to flounder,
make things up, engage in many destructive courses of action.
Vicars / priests in almost all other settings have, of course, vastly
more people who can be regarded as possible members of a congregation. The
Oxford college chaplain (and the Cambridge college chaplain) have duties
which are much less onerous. In the profiles, I'll address the various ways
in which chaplains can use their time, or pretend to use their time, in a
way which they would regard as constructive. They include counseling,
matters to do with student welfare and advice on matters to do with ethics.
I'll point out some massive difficulties in this connection.
Many chaplains will have something approaching an orthodox view of
salvation / redemption by faith: salvation available not to all but only to
those who have a faith in Jesus as Saviour. It can easily be shown that this
belief has horrific consequences. I give many illustrative examples in my
page on Church Donations and other pages
on Christian religion.
Does the chaplain who believes in these doctrines of redemption believe
that of the students at the college, only those who have faith in Jesus will
be saved? Does this chaplain believe that all academics - and other staff -
in a department will be consigned to separation from God, except for those
who have made the essential decision to choose Jesus? Here, I obviously use
the language of the believer without any belief of my own in the doctrines.
To give a further example from a very different sphere, does this chaplain
believe that those members of the allied forces who helped to defeat Nazism
share the same fate as members of the SS, that those who helped to save
Jews, and the Jews who were murdered in the death camps, share the same fate
as the staff of the death camps? Does this chaplain believe that those who
executed Jews who had a belief in Jesus, at the time or later (there are
such people) are saved?
As part of a preliminary classification, the Church of England
chaplains at the colleges could be considered as belonging to one of three
broad groups, evangelical Anglicans, high church Anglicans (or
Anglo-Catholics) and liberal Anglicans. The most diverse group would be the
'liberal Anglicans' - the word 'diverse' isn't used here as a term of
praise. 'Liberal' Anglicans' may be people with a consuming interest
in trans issues and other issues to do with sexuality and gender, or people
with different priorities.
It can safely be assumed that all the evangelicals, certainly all the
conservative evangelicals, will have a view of salvation which amounts to
'justification by faith.' The Anglo-Catholics are far more likely to
consider the claims of justification by works, the 'liberals' also - but
liberals can easily be found whose view of salvation is close to the
conservative evangelical view.
Chaplains may differ in their attitude to Christians who have beliefs
which very different from their own, but in many cases, their own view will
amount to a conviction. My view is that convictions can be spurious, false,
or worthy of respect - argument and evidence are needed to make the
important distinctions.
Problems facing the Church of
England and Church organizations in brief
Reputation management' is taken seriously by the Churches -
for a variety of reasons, such as the wish to maintain the
flow of donations, but reversing the decline of reputations
can be far from easy - impossible.
Reversing declines in Church attendances likewise. The
information which follows concerning church attendances is
quite long. To skip it and read about other matters, please
click here.
From the page
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/
07/church-in-crisis-as-only-2-of-young-adults-identify-as-c-of-e
The Church of England is facing a generational catastrophe
with only 2% of young adults identifying with it, while
seven out of 10 under-24s say they have no religion,
research reveals.
C of E affiliation is at a record low among all age groups,
and has halved since 2002, according to the British
Social Attitudes survey.
Far fewer actually attend church services on a regular
basis.
Meanwhile, the trend towards a secular society has increased
over recent years. The BSA survey found that 52% of people
had no religion in 2017 compared with 41% in 2002. However,
the proportion last year was slightly down on 2016, when 53%
said they had no religious affiliation.
The demographic breakdown in the new data is particularly
unwelcome news for the church. Younger people are
significantly less likely to identify with the C of E than
older age groups, and evidence suggests that people rarely
join organised religion in later life. The trend indicates
that affiliation with the C of E could become negligible
with successive generations.
People over the age of 65 are most likely to say they belong
to the C of E. But at 30% it is still a minority, and the
proportion has fallen from 52% in 2002. This older
demographic also saw the biggest increase in those saying
they had no religion, up from 18% in 2002 to 34% last year.
The proportion of people of all ages identifying with the C
of E has fallen from 31% in 2002 to 14% last year. The
sharpest decline was among 45- to 54-year-olds, from 35% to
11%.
Overall, 8% of people identify with the Roman Catholic
church, 10% with other Christian denominations and 8% with
non-Christian faiths.
[Only the number of those with no religious
belief have risen, new figures show]
Researchers found a significant gap between people
identifying with a church and those attending church
services. Of those who say they belong to the C of E, only
one in five attends church at least once a month, apart from
weddings and funerals. Among Roman Catholic adherents, two
in five attend church at least once a month.
In Scotland an
even higher proportion of people – 56% – say they have no
religion and 18% say they belong to the Church of Scotland,
although only a quarter of those attend church at least once
a month.
Roger Harding of the National Centre for Social Research,
which conducts the BSA survey, said the figures showed “an
unrelenting decline in Church of England and Church of
Scotland numbers. This is especially true for young people
where less than one in 20 now belong to their established
church. While the figures are starkest among younger people,
in every age group the biggest single group are those
identifying with no religion.
The research of the Church Army can be regarded as
irrelevant - frivolous, even - in the face of such
challenges.
An extract from the page https://churcharmy.org/our-work/
Through our work, we want the Jesus we know to be a
household name because people everywhere have found freedom
and a renewed vision for life ... Your generosity is a gift,
and our work is only possible because of you.
Find out how you can give.
The pages of this site, including this one, give a very
different view - of homosexuality-hating Christian
communities, of Christian communities which, following the
example of Jesus, actively believe in demons and think that
demons can be responsible for problems, of young people
encouraged to pray rather than seek professional advice for
health and mental health problems - and, of course, of
converts and people they want to become converts encouraged
to give to the Churches and to the Church Army, to believe
in Jesus and to believe that the Churches and the Church
Army are somehow unique. In all the areas in which they work
- except, of course, for their work in 'saving souls for
Christ' - there are many, many secular organizations,
statutory and voluntary, which carry out very
effective work. Donors should give their money to these
secular volunteer organizations rather than to the Church
Armey, which diverts a substantial proportion of the money
it receives into evangelism.
A direct question to the Church Army - do you or don't you
believe that of the people supposedly helped by the Church
Army, only the ones who accept Jesus as personal Lord and
Saviour are redeemed, and that all the others,
drug-dependent adolescents, children brought up in horrific
circumstances, all of them, are condemned to be eternally
separated from God? If you don't believe this to be the
case, then I'm sure you have some explaining to do - the
fact that Biblical 'evidence' shows otherwise, the fact that
the majority of Christian believers, past and present,
believe otherwise. I don't think it's likely in the least
that you will be willing to explain.
The Church Army can't regard the relief of deprivation and
helping the needy as central to its work, since according to
Christian belief, poverty, disease, human suffering in
general are far less important than the correct relationship
with Christ, which has consequences for the eternal
destinies of individuals. My view is that the relief of
deprivation and helping the needy is less important to the
Church Army than maintaining its paid staff in the positions
they occupy. My view is that the continued flow of donations
is very important to the Church Army for this reason - to
pay the salaries of its staff and to maintain its buildings,
even if it's not the only reason.
From the page on the outfit with the clumsy name of 'Missional
Youth Church Network
https://www.mycn.org.uk/
Enabling 11 - 18 year olds to build community and discover
faith in Jesus Christ.
The Church Army's Research Unit is a money-consuming
churner-out of irrelevant data and false conclusions -
irrelevant and false when considered in the light of the
secular statistical data and conclusions quoted at the
beginning of the section.
https://churcharmy.org/our-work/research/
The page makes this claim:
OUR RESEARCH
SEEING AND SHARING WHAT GOD IS DOING IN MISSION
But the mission is failing. An honest look at the facts
would surely make this conclusion inescapable. An honest
look at the facts and reporting honestly wouldn't encourage
the flow of donations.
How do the people in the Church Army Resarch Unit
spend their time? Some of the current research projects,
taken from the page
https://churcharmy.org/our-work/research/current-research/
Jesus Shaped People outlines a 'vision' which will
supposedly lead to 'the revitalisation of the Church.' Big
ambition, very big ambition. Chance of realizing it by means
of this initiative? Surely, non-existent. The information
ends with this far less confident assertion: 'We trust that
this will bring hope to all [to all?] as
we seek to become Jesus Shaped People.' That is, people who
believe, like Jesus, God the Son, that all the barbaric
commands and actions of God the Father cited in The Law were
actually the commands of God, with God the Son in full
agreement.
And a few more examples of the Research Unit in action.
Donors - this is how the money you give may be spent.
The page
https://churcharmy.org/our-work/research/who-we-are/
mentions 'Bespoke
dashboards to support and inform mission planning.
It also mentions 'Customised
survey design and analysis, including surveys and audits of
fresh expressions of Church.'
Scrolling down the page gives access to the section 'Meet
the Team.' It includes this, on Dr
Tim Ling, 'He provides strategic oversight for the
work of the Research Unit.' My own experience of Dr Ling in
action is very unfavourable. My experience is of him as a
banner and blocker. More on this below.
'Fresh expressions of Church' is a phrase often used in
these circles. It refers to initiatives, supposedly exciting
initiatives which attempt to convert people in settings
outside the buildings of the established Church. A decisive
objection to these initiatives is that they leave the
dogmatic core of the faith which is offered untouched. They
rely upon stale (and frequently horrific) Biblical
teaching. They have nothing to offer to the modern world.
They have close linkages with the Christian belief of
previous centuries. I've no need to give a reminder of the
abuses and cruelties of those centuries here. Other pages of
the site, and this page too, provide abundant evidence.
Action and inaction in the Diocese of Oxford

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/28-july/news/uk/vicar-s-spiritual-abuse-went-on-for-decades-despite-complaints-to-his-bishop-review-finds
Extract from the article on abuse and inaction.
' ... abuse was able to go unchecked in a parish in
the diocese of Oxford for almost 20 years, owing to
inaction at the parish and diocesan level ...'
In one instance, the churchwardens wrote to unhappy
parishioners telling them to be reconciled with Hall,
quoting Hebrews 13.17: “Obey your leaders and submit to
them.”
The lessons-learnt review describes an incident in which
Hall blamed the parents of a seriously ill child when his
prayers for the child did not improve their condition.
Complaints were made to the then Area Bishop of Buckingham
that Hall had told a parent that it was evil to put flowers
on her child’s grave, and had told another bereaved parent
that it was evil to watch a video of her child.
The reviewers found no evidence that this particular
complaint was investigated, or even received a reply.
Complaints about Hall’s inappropriate sexual behaviour
also went unheeded, including allegations that Hall had
encouraged men to touch women sexually as they arrived at a
party, and that he had engaged in naked saunas and massages
with members of the congregation, which, he claimed, was
part of a “healing ministry”.
Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, has been strongly
criticized for his inaction in some case of abuse. Criticism
is obviously not the same as proof. Recently, the Bishop of
Liverpool resigned, following what he says is 'trial by
media.' If victims deserve justice, alleged perpetrators
deserve justice, should be regarded as innocent until proved
guilty. Obviously, the procedures intended to pronounce on
these matters will be in accordance with standards which
aren' the same as the standards in courts of law.
This is the view of an Anglican, but a very critical
Anglican,
https://survivingchurch.org/2023/05/16/why-the-bishop-of-oxford-should-be-suspended/
The writer makes it very clear why Steven
Croft should be suspended, in his view. An
extract:
'The future of Church safeguarding must surely now
involve the unequivocal embracing of secular standards of
jurisprudence and about time too; ask the many, many abuse
survivors who have campaigned for vital reform in the wake
of the Matt Ineson case.
'That case became, perhaps, the first very public cause
célèbre because Matt had the courage and integrity to put
his own name into the public domain as he told his harrowing
story. When he saw one of the bishops who had wronged him
promoted from Sheffield to the important see of Oxford, he
protested outside Christ Church Cathedral at the
enthronement. It was a low-key protest but it has become
hugely symbolic.'
Trevor Devamanikkam was a Church of England
priest who raped Matthew Ineson in the 1980s. Ineson was
just 16 years old. In the end, Steven Croft apologized for
his inaction. The catalogue of cases of abuse in the Church
of England. The catalogue of apologies for doing nothing or
next to nothing grows longer and longer, as does the
catalogue of refusal to apologize for doing nothing or next
to nothing in cases where the facts of the matter are
clear-cut.
The head of the college is the Dean of Christ
Church. Christ Church is unique among Oxford colleges in
that
Christ Church, formally titled "The Dean and
Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the
Foundation of King Henry the Eighth" is the only academic
institution in the world which is also a cathedral,
the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Oxford. Its Head
of House, who is head of both college and cathedral, must be
an Anglican cleric appointed by the crown as Dean of the
cathedral church. The Dean lives on site in a grand
sixteenth-century house in the main quadrangle.
From the Wikipedia entry on boiling alive, a punishment
which has a linkage with the Founder of Christ Church, King
Henry VIII:
In England, the ninth statute passed in 1531 (the 22nd
year of the reign of King Henry VIII made boiling alive the
prescriptive form of capital punishment for murder ... This
arose from a February 1531 incident in which the Bishop of
Rochester's cook, Richard Roose, gave several people
poisoned porridge, resulting in two deaths. A partial
confession having been extracted by torture, the
sentence was thus imposed by attainder and without benefit
of clergy.
A contemporary chronicle reports that
'He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were big
with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw,
and were carried away half dead; and other men and women
did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would
prefer to see the headsman at his work.'
Boiling to death was employed again in 1542 for a woman,
Margaret Davy, who had also used poison.
These are episodes in the vast and horrific history of
Christian cruelty. People at Christ Church, Oxford, some of
them at least, must surely be aware of boiling alive, and so
many other instances of cruelty committed on the orders of
Henry VIII, but the depiction of the King on Website
materials published by the college don't mention them, or at
least the extracts I've seen.
It can take centuries before the Church of England
apologises for obvious wrongs.
Eight hundred years after Christian leaders introduced a
host of antisemitic laws, the Church of England apologised
for 'shameful actions”' against Jews. Although, it has to be
said, the Church of England was not in existence at the
time, many, many people in the Church of England choose to
stress continuity, the supposedly glorious history of
Christianity in this country, the supposed blessings of 800
years or 1000 years or whatever of Christian history.
A service attended by representatives of the Archbishop
of Canterbury was held on 8 May 20222 at Christ Church
Cathedral in Oxford to mark the anniversary of the 1222
Synod of Oxford.
The Archdeacon of Oxford, Jonathan
Chaffey, said before the commemoration of the Synod of
Oxford was a 'symbolic opportunity' to apologise for 'the
shameful actions of past prejudicial and persecuting laws of
the Church against Jews.'
He elaborated: 'On Sunday 8 May we will celebrate the
positive Jewish-Christian relations ... '
People like this tend to be very fond of 'symbolic
opportunities,' far less interested in harsh realities, such
as the harsh realities presented by the Christian faith they
adhere to.
I've no knowledge of the exact nature of Jonathan
Chaffey's Christian beliefs. If they are orthodox beliefs,
then these are some of the hideous implications: all Jews,
apart from the tiny minority who come to feel that their
sons are forgiven by the personal Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, have this fate: eternal separation from God, eternal
damnation. During all the Christian centuries, this has been
the majority view, the almost universal view amongst
Christians.
Does Jonathan Chaffey believe that all the Jews murdered
by the Nazis in the extermination camps or murdered in other
ways are eternally damned? Does he ever find such difficult
questions raised at Christ Church? Is he completely sure
that his view of the blessings of Christianity over the
centuries isn't based on wishful thinking and denial of
realities? I wouldn't claim that the Christ Church
surroundings tend to encourage these tendencies, however.
The same mistakes are made at graffiti covered hard
evangelical Churches in crime-ridden estates.
Crime-ridden estates are part of the 'wider society'
referred to in this quotation, from the page
https://www.oxford.anglican.org/archdeacon-of-oxford/
'I love the liturgical rhythm of Cathedral life,
but also the opportunities for prayer and proclamation that
it brings. Christ Church Cathedral is unique in the world.
That creates wonderful opportunities to build bridges
between the Church and wider society.'
As well as being Archdeacon of Oxford, Jonathan Chaffey
is a member of the 'Cathedral Chapter of Christ Church' and
a member of the 'Governing Body of Christ Church.'
Andrew Anderson-Gear, the Director of Mission and
Ministry in the Oxford Diocese, isn't very familiar with
crime-ridden estates, I I would think. He writes on the
Diocesan site,
"I am thrilled at being appointed as the new Director of
Mission and look forward to getting to know those areas of
the Diocese I don't know as well," said Andrew.
"As a lay person, I believe passionately in collaborative
ministry and shared leadership and I am so excited at the
energy around mission that has grown in this Diocese.
I understand the joys and struggles we face in our
churches and through the work of the Department of Mission
and I look forward to serving the churches of this Diocese
in this new role and to seeing where God is leading us. "
This is surely affected, gushing, overeffusive,
formulaic. The post is from 2015 but he's still there, in
the same post. From his current Linkedin profile:
'Specialties: Leadership development; developing
vision & strategy; fresh expressions of church; coaching &
consultancy.' This too is standard stuff, despite the high
claim, 'developing vision and strategy.'
All the signs are that the Church of England is going
forwards and at an increasingly rapid rate - to
a condition of greater and greater irrelevance, less and
less power. Giving far less money to the Church, giving far
less often to the Church is my advice. It will be ignored by
people with far more money than sense, so I hope that there
will be fewer and fewer of these people.
The Oxford Diocese has a new Director of People,
Charnelle Stylianides, not an Anglican but a Roman Catholic.
Information about the person and the event can be found at
https://www.oxford.anglican.org/news/new-director-of-people.php
The Roman Catholic Church is in a state at least as
pitiful as the state of the Church of England. The problem
of abuse in the Roman Catholic Church is far worse. The site
contains summaries of the situation in a number of countries
- Ireland, France and Germany.