From
THE SHROPSHIRE TIMES:
He wants to be able to express his pagan-leaning beliefs in the new role and a druid chief and goddess priestess have been invited to his induction. The ceremony will be led by the Right Reverend Jonathan Blake, best known for conducting a wedding on Channel Four’s Big Brother’s show.
Mark said, "I’ll be able to be myself finally and do things like gay ceremonies, unusual baptisms and marriages between Christians and Buddhists. I still love the Church of England but I got tired of the creakiness and backwardness of it all. I am very much a radical, but the Open Episcopal Church is very similar in structure and tradition to the Church of England. What it will do is to continue my very eclectic ethos and serve people who are right on margins of our society.”
COMMENT: Mark is a good, Christian man of integrity who attempts to be as true to the Gospel and himself as possible. I really do wish him well and I pray that his ministry will flourish.
In many ways I find myself in a similar position to Mark. In fact, I have been advised on many occasions, especially by Unitarian blogger, Adrian Worsfold, to follow Mark's path. Of course, I have been tempted, but it isn't going to happen. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, like Mark, I am disillusioned with the Church of England at the moment. I am an idealist and my church is embarrassingly pragmatic at the moment, functioning more like a business venture than a community of believers in the radical teachings of Jesus Christ. But, I am not just a member of the Church of England, I am a member of the worldwide Anglican communion and there are parts of that communion, especially in the Americas, that I am certainly not disillusioned with enough to want to break from them. In fact, I have a very high regard for the Episcopal Church in the United States as a whole even if I think some of its bishops are bullies and hypocrites.
I believe that the diocesan bishop is the office around which an episcopal church is built. I do not like the idea of bishops crossing borders. This means that, although I would really love to approach a TEC bishop and ask him or her to accept the role of being the episcopal authority over me, I cannot do so (even if there was a TEC bishop open to the idea) because it would be a hypocritical act. I can hardly denounce CANA whilst accepting the leadership of a bishop in another province from my own. However, I have been mulling over the idea, that has been suggested elsewhere, of a bishop for the Internet and have come to the conclusion that such an office, if adapted, could be useful and could persuade disillusioned priests, like myself, to stay within the Anglican fold. But one thing is for certain, a bishop with such a remit could not act like a bog standard diocesan bishop. She or he would be restricted by the nature of the Internet and its users to a spiritual and pastoral role. And this is exactly what I need. To be honest it is something I have never experienced with a diocesan bishop which is, no doubt, a major reason for my estrangement from the institution of the Church of England at present. But an Internet only bishop, freed from the administrative duties of a diocesan bishop, and chosen for his or her pastoral abilities, should have the time to do this most central part of a bishop's duties properly. Anyway, it's an idea.
The second reason I cannot follow Mark's chosen path is that, after much research, I have found that all the alternative episcopal communions in England are more than a little barmy (crazy). For example, my local independent catholic congregation believes in many of the doctrines and teachings of the theosophical movement. Now, I have no problem with Christians taking on board other spiritualities. I have no problem, whatsoever, with Mark wanting to include elements of paganism within his priestly ministry. I hope that this attitude comes across strongly in what I say on this blog. But, personally, as I keep telling people, I am boringly orthodox myself. I have to accept the fact that the reason I will not consider leaving Anglicanism is that I am an Anglican. It's my church and I'll be buggered if I'm going to leave it because its present hierarchy cannot see the wood of the cross for the trees of the institution.
To put it simply, the Church of England is stuck with me and I am stuck with it. I do have an alternative priestly ministry to what is the norm at this moment in time and I have started to pursue it with all the energy and enthusiasm I can muster. But I do so as an Anglican priest, a stubborn Anglican priest who is one hundred percent convinced that one day people like me will not be the outsiders and that the good news of Jesus Christ will once again inform his bride, the Church.
MARK TOWNSEND'S WEBSITE
THE OPEN EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S WEBSITE
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