Anglican Unscripted 716 - Revolution without a Church

Anglican Unscripted 716 - Revolution without a Church

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all right so let's set up the show real

quick for you before we get too far

i am in an rv

in the middle of florida

and the sun is beating down on me it's

75 degrees

and so we could conduct a really really

good

audible version of unscripted i had to

turn the ac off

so we may seem rushed george will seem

comfortable but at some point you're

going to see little sweat beads and my

face is going to get red and that's just

that's part of

the sacrifice i'm willing to make for my

audience there out of the way george how

you doing this week

i'm poor kevin i'm poor for the first

time since 1969 the conga family uh two

three generations are mercedes-less

i got rid of the last mercedes uh i

owned uh this past week got a great

price for it used car prices are out of

this world absolutely and i got it it

was a it was consi the insurance company

called it a uh

total loss and i'm figuring i was gonna

get two three four thousand dollars

i got multiples of that wow because the

used car prices got well don't wow me

because on monday susan had a root canal

and crowns replaced and so

all that money all that trip to you know

all that the vacation money or money for

me to go out shopping find a new car to

rebuild and all this and that it went

into uh

porcelain things in my wife's mouth

so i had to say you know happy wife

new car

like a happy wife car project

so george's wife has well she feels

terrible but she's happy

and i'm still trying to recover from

covet-like

flu or whatever i had but

well i know i've not i've been sick

longer but not as violently have you

have been in the past few days right

after i finished recording the show of

last week you know i'd flown back from

connecticut

um i went to bed that evening

and i got hit with what people call the

norovirus the stomach flu the 24-hour

bug the oh you don't want to do it when

you're almost 60. and so i spent the

night uh next to the porcelain idol in

the bathroom

doing what you don't want to do

for many hours and uh

you know it's a 24 hour bug but it's a

it's a seven day recovery especially you

know at this age i haven't been on the

bike since i've been back i haven't done

it i i got up the energy yesterday to go

get the mail that's

that's my energy level right now as we

uh we're recovering from the norovirus

so george and now we're starting like

old jewish mothers enough about our

health let's talk about what's going on

in the news and i got a couple emails

from concerned viewers who said you know

in episode 714

you talked about

doing a little segment with the upcoming

um candidates for pittsburgh bishop

yes we did we're sorry we had breaking

news about the conclave

archbishop foley beach called for a

conclave to happen in south carolina

right after the consecration of chip

edgar's and we reported that

we left out the pittsburgh say well do

the pittsburgh segment next if you've

not seen the conclave story go back to

episode 715 and you can watch it there

so let's talk about the pittsburgh

candidates george i have a screenshot

with them up and i'll put them up here

that's not the one

that's not the one here we go

and uh well it's gonna be a fun to talk

well the problem the uh

the search committee has given the

diocese of pittsburgh

uh an invitation to uh basically an

episcopal food court

you know you go to the mall and you can

go to the food court and if you want

chinese your wife can have italian and

your child can have barbecue or whatever

we've got three different candidates

that are not comparable

in experience and interest and

background

first you have a parish priest peter

frank

peter is known to kevin and i for 20 odd

years i guess

at this stage

peter for the last 10 plus years has

been rector of i think he's epiphany in

chantilly virginia that's right very

successful parish priest a great pastor

loved by his people built that church

came out of the diocese of pittsburgh

has parish experience in pittsburgh

next person is joel skandra joel is an

academic

and joel is at trinity seminary he was

involved in the creation of the anglican

catechism he's written books with j.i

packer this is somebody with serious

theological credentials

the third is a not-for-profit leader

alex cameron from chicago

now this is somebody who can run a

diocese

so you basically have a choice of a

pastor an academic theologian and a

manager

and

it's not like you've got peter frank is

against running against somebody with

less parish experience plus somebody

with more parish experience so you're

trying to prepare the three

you basically are walking into the food

court and you're trying to decide what

do i feel like today

and this is the

but that's the difference normally you

go into uh your convention and you're

choosing from uh three local

uh priests who all have the same

experience to one degree or another here

you have completely different job

dynamics in their resume

uh general manager well that may work

for the diocese academic that might work

for this diocese a parish priest that

might work with this diocese i i i think

that the parish or the the selection

committee here has made the choice

rather difficult

not so much difficult but it's made it

very stark in other words you have you

as a voter in pittsburgh have to decide

what is the priority for the diocese at

this time

do we have a management crisis do we

need to have theological rigor and be a

shining light

do we need a parish priest to pastor us

after some of the grief we've had over

the past few years

so

each of these are worthy candidates each

would be an excellent bishop but they

would be different bishops

i think that the telling point will be

the dog and pony show where the three

candidates go to various places for

meetings with the voters

and people will come away thinking

they'll be predisposed towards what do i

need and then they'll decide whether

they like the guy or they don't

well so but if i if i'm being strategic

people have already made up their mind

what they think the diocese needs

and then they're going to decide do i

like the guy who represents what i want

now if they don't like him then they'll

find a new need so this is almost like a

negative

search

in the sense that

if i think we need an academic

and if i like joel skander that the at

the dog and pony show i'm voting for him

but if i don't like y'all then maybe i

think we need something else yeah so in

other words it's it it's your it's your

game to lose but if you will well it's

also a timing thing

this person is not replacing bishop

duncan

yeah

uh people remember archbishop duncan is

the former bishop of the diocese of

pittsburgh there was a not an interim

but uh a previous bishop jim hobby was

there for a couple years uh it just

didn't work out

so you're not stepping into to

archbishop duncan shoes here that that

game it's all out this it's kind of a

brand new ball game here we're starting

over brand new playing field here's our

three choices um you as a diocese need

to sit down and let us know um who is

the best pick here and they're all good

backs you know from one from one stand

to the other so it's interesting to see

this

as a

thing all right let's move on to our

next story

um

next story is interesting because

uh english tv became famous because i

would sit down and interview people i in

my my first big interview was um

bishop ackerman back at hope in the

future and so sitting down and with the

camera talking to people about the

church life and talking about the

politics of the day made english tv very

very uh popular i had a very great

interview with with bishop duncan right

after

uh bishop loves consecration about

dealing with 8 15 and second avenue and

all the politics and it was it was a

great interview so i know the value of

interviews and i know the value that

that can have in your ministry

i have read recently

that justin welby has been offered a

half hour gig

uh to interview people by the bbc

where he's going to sit down with

church people and

other people in the in the

british society and do and conduct

interviews and i thought oh boy he'll do

great

maybe not

so let's because there's a lot of video

of justin welby on the internet already

and i don't know if he has and we'll

discuss this this

uh vowel later

not vowel constant later but uh

doesn't have it george

doesn't have yeah

if this were rowan williams i said i

would say excellent idea

what a wrong one one of ron williams

strengths was his wit his conversational

ability his quickness his available

uh his vast knowledge of many many

issues

his ability to speak with their eyebrows

remember he would just bring that one up

a little bit you're like oh i got the

right question he's thinking he's

thinking

absolutely

now justin welby does not seem to shine

in those same areas

and

they have been putting out videos from

lambeth palace with justin for years and

he doesn't really get very good

viewership

now could be the production values are

poor it could be the writing it's what

could be anything marketing absolutely

marketing but

he's just not been able to be shown to

be able to hold an audience

so that means

he's going to be successful by his

guests

but will they want to bring on guests

who will make him uncomfortable and make

him if you will beat him in a

conversation sure will they want to

bring in

people who will echo his views

um

i from a strategic point of view from a

professional broadcasting point of view

the idea is wonderful but the guy you

the host you have planned

isn't ideal

um

in other words john centauma can be

combative

he can be

wonderfully ignorant

and he can be happily ignorant

and it doesn't and

but it makes for good tv

him in conversation with people whom he

disagrees sure just justin welby has

that sort of english infection of

niceness that he wants to be nice

because he's been culturally attuned to

do that

and

uh he just

i don't see how that's

no you can't have sting uh every week or

uh

or some british rocker every week to

sort of bring in the audience at a

certain point you're going to have to

have i would love to see an elton john

justin welby interview i think that

would be great i mean you know there are

people he could interview that i would

sit down and and tune in for but i would

like to see

topical this is the arch bishop of

canterbury leader of the anglican

communion the title of the interviews

are conversations of christ on christ

that would be great i'd watch that

well let's think think sort of

programmatically here who are the best

if you will interviewers

conversationalist talk show hosts well

from and i'm just talking about america

now because

mostly americans we have on the far far

left altra sleaze is howard stern

on the other side you can go back to the

70s you had the dick cavett dick have it

can't have it

johnny carson yeah yeah

in other words the success of people

like dick cavett johnny carson jay leno

sure um

as opposed to the current crop of late

night hosts because they're not

interviewers or talk show hosts anymore

they're basically

stand-up comedians who then but but that

was jim you look at uh

johnny carson he could take martha off

the farm still holding her pitchfork put

her in the chair

and it was the most delightful 20-minute

interview you've ever seen

he could interact with just about

anybody

from them it's the same with and this

and like let's say

rowan uh

justin welby's personas maybe closer to

dick cavetts than to

johnny carson dick cavett being the

almost

stereotypical yale type new yorker even

though he was from nebraska

even then but dick cavett could work

and bring his guests into

his weak areas

and keep the conversation you know alive

and stimulating and interesting

can justin welby do that

well well

yeah well the bbc's

you know but is he going to be ellen

oprah

just like

i can't think of any good bbc

uh interviewers

i'm just not familiar familiar enough uh

with the bbc but oh that that's some

wonderful i mean uh uh

clark uh

jeremy uh jeremy clarkson i think oh

yeah sure um yeah i mean there's there's

um

they're all coming into my head

simultaneously and that's so i know i

see their name and their face and i'm

trying to say who's that who's that is

it well for for our uk viewers please

put them in the comments so we can look

them up but i just want to but

i also want to uh put in here

justin welby has recently been defending

the bbc

is it because he had a future job coming

up is is this related

no just he's defending the establishment

of which he is example number one

um

so

oh my

it's crazy well

luckily luckily he won't be compelled to

sell advertising to support this show

because i can't see a soap manufacturer

somebody putting money into him

well

let's lay out some

real quick things here that he doesn't

have to worry about

george and kevin have proven

looks have nothing to do

with popularity in anglican

interviews don't worry about it

um vocation nope nothing to do with it

you just have to be a little bit

entertaining a little funny a little

provocative sometimes

and just talk about just be real be

yourself

now is is being yourself going to work

for justin well we'll have to see

i'll have to see

so justin and the church of england and

uh some people in the uk

may have had some influence in ghana and

i thought we'd talk about that this week

only because there's a citation to a

quote and we can't find the quote

from the church times and i thought you

could lay this out to us in a good

format george because it's hard to

um

get a handle on the story unless you

know the whole story

give us the background and the story

okay the theme is uh

trying to satisfy two masters

talking out of both sides of your mouth

okay in november in november there was a

flat because the bishops of ghana 12 11

diocese of ghana

uh

have backed a proposed law to stiffen

the proposed penalties to stiffen the

sodomy laws the technical term in ghana

penalties for homosexual conduct

behavior

they've been on the books since the 60s

now they're being changed from

misdemeanor to a felony

the uh

archbishop of canterbury denounced these

laws

and the ghanaian bishops

the ghanaian bishops then contacted

welby and said why didn't you talk to us

first and welby apologized back down

and had some private video zoom meetings

with the ghana bishops

well

and that sort of ended it except

some diocese in england like suffolk and

other places which have links to god

diocese in ghana

they began to do little localized

actions of

cutting off support for joint projects

vowing to end uh link relationships

things of that nature

well the church times

ran a story in this week's issue came

out yesterday

saying that the

primate of ghana the bishops of ghana

have put out a new statement

last week

saying that the proposed laws that

they're backing as they're written are

too harsh

and it then goes on the church times

then goes on to quote

part of this statement saying the laws

are too harsh

and so it looks like from an english

perspective the

ghana bishops are basically going justin

welby's way they're sort of responding

to the concerns of english diocese with

whom they have linked relationships

that the letters they're getting from

the english bishops and concerned clergy

are persuading them to do something

different

here's the problem this statement has

not appeared publicly in ghana

it's only appeared in the church times

so

we've not run it on anglican inc and

anglican inc is almost always the place

where you find breaking african church

news

and what i think this is is and the

anglican church of ghana has a very

active press office has a very active

website and facebook page

and this statement is nowhere to be seen

and i went through their their releases

and statements and announcements just to

make sure because i just did an article

about the new bishop south african

bishop of temo uh south african bishop

of accra

you know it's not like i'm not paying

attention and there's nothing there they

have an active facebook page i mean

there's a lot there you can

if they had said something ad made it

public

it would be somewhere and we couldn't

find it anywhere in fact the church

times did not

uh

give they cited it but then tell us

where they found it so

yeah in other words i like whenever we

do some stuff like this remember we

broke the uganda adultery news sure but

we broke it with a copy of the

archbishop letter and then our reporting

on that letter

we didn't just

we didn't uh

just say we've been told confidentially

x y z we we needed to be able because it

was such an extraordinary statement we

needed to be able to have other people

look at it and say they're not making it

up

now i'm not accusing the church times

are making it up their reputation isn't

worth being trashed over an african

story

so what we have here is the ghana

bishops playing both ends

they're basically trying to mollify

their english critics keeping cash

flowing

at the same time

keeping

their true beliefs

uh

at home in ghana

and i know it's disappointing to even

hear about that but that stuff happens

all the time it happens all the time

we just want to you know bring

transparency to it

um now

yeah and the real story would be if i

were the church times the real story

would be i've got this breaking news

here's what it says plus

they haven't shared this at home yeah so

unbeknownst to god

absolutely uh next story uh is a

european story and

for me

having followed the episcopal church for

so many

years now decades actually by now god

i'm so old

uh it was not a surprising story

other than the fact this person happened

to be defrocked by his adultery and i

can remember you telling me stories

about people here in the us who got

caught in adultery and

they just took a little suspension or a

little time off or you know

it's handled a little differently here

uh let's talk a little bit about this

and

why it's so strange in this age

of the church

well you're

absolutely right kevin in the episcopal

church

um

if you get caught in adultery in most

places bishops are they're put in the

penalty box

for how many seconds or how many minutes

uh well usually you're given uh a

suspension with pay for a year and then

you gently retire after that suspended

year is over we saw that up in michigan

recently

or in kentucky recently and

bishops are human beings they will cr

they will have moral failings and

they'll get nailed

but in the episcopal church and even the

the acne bishop in the upper in uh the

great great lakes was given a chance to

repent come clean

and he was nailed because he

couldn't he wouldn't

uh come

he he was unable to fulfill the

obligations of the college of bishops

who said you have a problem we will give

you treatment if that doesn't work then

we'll take it a step further and you'll

be dismissed

so that's sort of this that's the and

that's sort of the situation in in north

america

sweden church of sweden is as lucy

goosey liberal uh far out as they come

i mean my goodness there you know any

sort of kookiness it's happening in

sweden right now

well the bishop of visby thomas peterson

thomas patterson

uh thomas peterson

what seven of his clergy filed a

complaint against him accusing him of

having adult committing adulterous

relationships with a member of his staff

a woman on his staff

and patterson was brought before church

court he admitted that he did this and

the court then and there

stripped him

of his

all priestly and episcopal authority

and he went from being bishop patterson

to mr pedersen in one day with no right

to appeal and the swedish church said he

violated his consecration vows

and he brought disgrace upon the church

and out he goes

and

kevin maybe it's something to do with

scandinavians or swedes because you know

you're from that part of the world i

mean you're

genetically from that part of the world

but

you got to follow the rules and you have

to follow the rules no i mean yeah you

think of that type of world norway

a land of conquest that you if you left

away on a business trip you were going

to conquest something

you know and so sweden decided at some

point they were going to be a little

more neutral and it's really if you look

at your average swedish

seminary

it's so bad george you know it

i don't think we need to get a greater

discussion of that right now but uh it's

interesting that you it's you you'll get

more

uh penalty for adultery in sweden than

you will hear in america

uh ooh next

yeah i think part of it is those culture

of uh

the swedes are very law-abiding people

scandinavians are very law-abiding

people yeah and americans aren't uh

generalization

gross overstatements and simplifications

but uh

all right so next on our list of news

items is uh uh bishop tim dakin has uh

uh retired and he gave his little final

service and i thought we'd talk a little

bit about that it made anglican.inc so

it's certainly newsworthy and

uh

before we get into it i do want you to

discuss

why

this

matters uh in

kind of the recent history

the church of england has had with tim

dakin

tim dakin's been bishop of winchester

for about 10 years it's one of the major

seas financially historically this and

that

he came out of nowhere he had been the

head of the church mission society

and then was made bishop of winchester

with tim

was very destructive

he was very dictatorial he was very

he was a bastard

and he was infamous for using

non-disclosure agreements to get rid of

troublesome clergy

uh gavin nashton had some very flaming

rows where um

gavin has told this story on this show

in the past many times about

dakin just being

my words a horrible person

well and

then uh people went to his background

investigation and found not everything

was on the up and up

well finally this past last year the uh

said look unless you resign we're going

to take a vote of no confidence

in your leadership

and

the

canterbury area got involved and they

basically put the screws on uh

dakin

to take early retirement

and so this past week dakin had his

final service a farewell service at the

cathedral in

winchester

and unusually for english who were

known for their stiff upper lip and

restraint he became very emotional in

the prayers he had a pause several times

he lost his composure

and

one cannot read his mind

was he

weeping over his lost ministry

opportunities was he weeping over the

embarrassment of being toughed out of a

job we don't know

was he

going through the cro agony of christ on

the cross i don't know

but it was quite quite something that

was unenglish if you will

last time i saw an englishman cry was

downton abbey so

uh but

in that reality

if kevin can be redeemed and george can

be redeemed

it's redeemable

okay uh the the the

the top center

uh classification has been claimed by

paul

i'm claiming second

okay

and it's just like you know i just want

to be sure that people understand we're

not coming at this from holier than that

we're coming at this from hey

maybe there's a chance here for

redemption and repentance and

god can continue to use tim

awesome well

what else i think we're going to see is

i've talked to some of our friends of

the publishing world and especially in

england they're going to be one or two

newspapers that shortly are going to be

breaking stories

by clergy forced to sign non-disclosure

agreements by tim dakin when they were

forced out of the diocese

and now that dakin is gone

i don't think there's any uh desire by

the diocese of winchester to hire

lawyers to defend dakin

and now that he's out and so we're going

to see stories

where

things that were hidden will now be made

clear

and the reasons why he was so unpopular

and why it reached the unprecedented

stage of the

the diocese

threatening to

impeach him for one of a better word

took place so the dagon story is not

over just because he's gone the deacon

story is actually going to break wide

open now that the threat of his legal

action against people who he's gotten

rid of

is over

on to the next story national prayer

breakfast

you know something's happened here in

america

the president will attend the congress

will attend invited dignitaries will

attend

eric me taxes

uh

became very famous for his uh

speech at the prayer breakfast probably

eight or nine years ago maybe 10 years

ago now

and so it it's it's an event

that we have here in america called the

national prayer breakfast

and this year is a little different

george

a little bit different a little smaller

a little i mean

starting i guess with bill clinton

and through all the presidents since

then the national prayer breakfast grew

it meets it used to meet at the

washington hilton

and you get about 3000 people

ministers minister members of congress

thought leaders religious leaders

and it's basically where the president

would go and bill clinton would have all

the black ministers leia come and lay

their hands on them and pray for him and

same thing for barack obama and donald

trump donald trump the same way yes

same way and

in other words it was

both an exercise in cementing your

relationship with religious groups

whether it's the black church the

evangelical church the roman catholic

church

whatever it was barack obama would do

the same uh sorts of thing

this year under the covid

banner

there are no guests it's just members of

congress two invited speakers some

members of the administration

so no eric mc taxes no leaders of the

black church no catholic cardinals no

episcopal bishops no acne bishops fully

beach isn't

there the the reason is well we're

scared of covert of course

and

i

my political sense is that well that's

the public polite excuse

but i think the biden administration has

lost such uh credibility

that they can't count on the allegiance

of the black church anymore um

recent poll shows that 50 of african

americans would support impeaching joe

biden

and the more church active you are the

more

the higher that number goes

so

of course white evangelicals uh

went 95 for donald trump

um

and you can't handle the national prayer

breakfast just with michael curry uh

because the the mainstream mainline

establishment liberal churches

really

don't have the political heft that they

used to

so i think but so for a face-saving

device

they just shrunk it down

uh to a sort of a a hell fellow well-met

uh

group

so washington hilton didn't have uh its

conference room ballroom taken off this

year by preachers and presidents

all right well let's finish this up it's

getting kind of warm in here

let's talk about the revolution

now from time to time

we had the arab spring we've had

revolutions in the air uh at least for

the last decade uh

12 years happening around the world

and

believe it to cover it we even had

something uh an uprising down in cuba

which is you know maybe 150 120 miles

south of where i am right now uh it

happened uh just uh last june they were

uprising from time to time people in the

country get sick and tired

of being told what to do

by the man the machine

and it's for me

having grown up in northern wisconsin

for so many years and having just that

understanding that everything about

over that little canadian border is

tundra uh trees without leaves and

people that just talk funny and love

curling

i was i'm intrigued by the canadian

revolution that is happening without any

support from around the world

and very little no support from the

press

the only people supporting the canadian

revolution the trucker revolution

um are the

truckers and

kind of the middle class and uh

hard-working canadians

and is this really a revolution it's a

revolution

if they get justin trudeau to give up on

the the mandates the vaccine mandates

for truckers going over the border to

the us if he gives up on that they've

won the revolution

yeah there's several revolutions going

on there's one in britain right now one

in but most uh for americans closest at

hand is canada

where you've had the if you will the

cast of ice road truckers and highway

through hell that's right those guys

have

driven their rigs to ottawa to protest

at the government

and they're tens of thousands of

truckers and the governments the

provincial governments have done their

very best to prevent

these people from using the highways the

mounties have tried to stop them

and

in the past canadians being

semi-scandinavian being very law-abiding

this would have been enough no

the anger at the trudeau government

for their unreasonable

actions

has caused

a working-class revolution led by

working-class people

there are no uh academic marxists or uh

political op right-wing political

awkward operatives

now trudeau administration

uh uh

aided and abetted by the cbc canadian

broadcasting corporation has called

these uh people

uh

russian agents

stools uh stooges

of uh the of vladimir putin and then he

calls them white nationalists yes and

one of the funny things is that sikhs

make up a large force who've been

sikhs who've immigrated from india to

canada a lot of them are in the trucking

industry for some business reason and a

lot of these guys are sikhs so now you

have sikh white nationalists

um

from russia

so the canadian government has and

abated by the press has either

downplayed that or denigrated that

calling them traitor is calling them

bigots homo

transect transphobes

uh

well they forced justin justin uh

trudeau to flee ottawa

the president fled the palace with the

approaching revolutionaries

there and more revolution has taken

place than ever took place on january 6

in washington

well but from the religious perspective

where is the church

where is the church and that

um

the anglican church in canada is like

the cbc it is an arm of the canadian

elite establishment sure absolutely and

the and if you look on the anglican

journal or any of the anglican church of

canada's websites

for news

they have news about you know

how about systematic racism

about reaching out to indigenous tribal

people

all the sort of liberal motifs and

talking points

and they're totally absent they're

silent about the

uh

revolution unfolding at their feet

now the revolution and took the oh the

riots that took place last summer in

canada and not cuba

which uh is 90 miles from key west so

it's about 250 from you kevin i said

okay i'm new here i don't know what

distances

yeah well the uh that was resolved

by the police arresting

all the leaders and these guys are

languishing in in the isle of pines

they're still in prison and they're

still being tortured and how dare you

you step out of line

and

so that revolution went nowhere

but

i guess where i'm going with this is

that the lack of moral authority that

the anglican church of canada has is is

only

is not shocking when you compare to the

church of england but nobody cares what

they have to say

in england we're seeing boris johnson a

slow motion

revolution getting rid of him

and the reason why is it's an ethical

revolution a moral revolution

now in britain you either love or hate

uh your prime minister your party yeah

your prime minister

susan and i uh moved to england

almost

weeks after the election of tony blair

and you would have thought jesus christ

had come to earth himself

when tony blair was elected

uh i remember oh what was her name tracy

ullman

being on the tv in the united states

talking about

tony blair was you know

the second coming jesus christ

with uh

with a smart wife and all this and that

um

now

the queen just gave tony blair

knighthood and i don't know how many

hundreds of thousands of people signed a

petition asking me to be taken away

because of his

tremendous

unpopularity

well boris johnson

is

approaching theresa may levels of

unpopularity and it's because

of hypocrisy

of the

johnson government would push these very

harsh mask mandates

and then the news and press reported uh

that uh johnson and company would go to

these parties for government officials

nobody was wearing masks

it's like gavin newsom governor

california at the football game yeah

well i'm gonna say if that's the

standard

no politician at all should be

maintaining their job retaining their

job right now we've had gavin newsom

you've had

biden you've had every politician i can

think of around the world has two

personas

one for the camera where they had the

mask or zoom calls with biden in the

mask

and

one for

the rest of us or i'm sorry one for his

uh his friends and parties no mask beer

and armor on somebody laughing you know

that it's it's completely

at the uh

was it the nfc or the afc championships

the football game out in california this

past week gavin newsom the california

has probably the most extreme

lockdown and mandates

and newsome went you know the governor

of california

who just survived a recall effort

because of his unpopularity was

photographed

but i think was with magic johnson or a

sports pro

arm in arms smiling without mass at the

football stadium and then there was the

mayor of los angeles gil garcetti who

was footballed with another celebrity

without a mask at the same game now

garcetti said well i was i didn't inhale

like you know he didn't say that

but in california everybody else at the

football stadium had to wear a mask

a penalty of being kicked out of the

stadium and find and arrested now this

is

this is

the revolution that's happening to boris

johnson is sort of akin to that the

hypocrisy of johnson that he and his

cronies can tell the rest of the country

how to behave yet they can ignore that

the question is where's the church of

england

i believe that people like if justin

welby used his half-hour show to talk

about the morality of hypocrisy

then that really would be an ample good

use of his time where justin will be

speaks on moral issues dealing with the

life of the church

but because the church has been so

you know they talk about politics all

the time about

nobody nobody gives a damn what they

have to say because they've shot their

bolt

and the the ability to influence opinion

and to bring things to a right

conclusion has been lost to them

yeah

and they're not gonna they're not gonna

have any place in other words i'm seeing

these knows you know conservative and

back bench mps who are known for their

deep christian faith or abandoning boris

johnson because of

his moral failings

this is perfect territory for the church

to step in to either defend him or

condemn him

and when they'd if they've stepped in

it's really not resonated

outside of the

small echo chamber of their own friends

and

and there's there's the biggest problem

the biggest problem is they've lost

their voice

nobody cares what the church of england

a once very powerful religious and

political entity in the world you know

19th century even before

it is is petered out nobody cares

anymore they don't care so much that

they're willing to put the leader of the

anglican communion and archbishop of

canterbury in front of the bbc program

for half an hour a day because they're

not worried he's going to convert

anybody

they're not afraid that justin love is

going to learn lead anybody to

repentance they're not con he's not

going to be pulling at billy graham he's

not going to be pulling uh people back

into the churches

at most

at most

they will just have a whimsical view at

the end of the program well

uh yeah okay

that most

it's not always been this way george

bell when he was bishop of chichester

during the second world war that's right

in the house of lords stood up to

condemn

the bombing mass bombings of german

cities and civilians

in other words the the bombing campaign

the uh

where

britain

after a certain point stopped targeting

factories because the technology was

such they couldn't really guarantee they

could hit anything they just okay let's

just wipe out hamburg let's destroy the

housing stock burn the city down and

george bell the bishop of chichester

while affirming the rightness of the

fight against the nazis said this is

something we should not cannot do

because it is war against innocent

civilians

winston churchill was so angry

about bell's intervention in the house

of lords that when william temple died

the archbishop of canterbury

chit bell was the uh presumed next

person

and justin

winston churchill blackballed

uh george bell so he would not become

the archbishop of canterbury because his

political influence on a moral issue

was so profound

um

would it be that the bishops of the

church of england had that moral

authority

where they could have spoken you know

tom wright empty right tom wright spoke

out against uh

the war in iraq

uh way back i remember this at the time

when tony blair was starting to become

unpopular and popular in interruptions

1991 yeah a long time ago

no no this was the second one uh 97 98

99.

not the first not george senior but

george junior you said george okay okay

george

all right okay

tom tom wright

uh spoke against the war in iraq

but he did so parroting

the uh

labor talking points

rather than moral talking points so that

what he said really didn't have any

persuasion he didn't come at it from a

episcopal biblical perspective

john centauma for instance would talk

about

he took off on tv he was famous for

taking off his clerical collar and

cutting up the scissors and saying i'm

not going to wear a clerical collar

and we should send in troops to depose

robert mugabe but then he supported the

war in iraq so in other words

uh

how

the ability

to be prophetic

i think is lost when you don't know when

to shut up

the perspective comes out of your mouth

but when the prophetic is lost you

become pathetic

the church of the union right now is

pathetic and i hate to say it because

you know i love to visit there i love to

see the culture i love the churches the

cathedrals um all that here's what i

love i love all that

the church of england used to be

i love the the

the great religious uh organization that

it was but it's not there anymore

um i and i pray that

uh justin welby's uh half hour interview

program

turns into a half hour of theology a

half hour of uh what christ means to

britain now you know a half hour of you

know how the the church

is here to

adore and worship the lord

but you know

i'm not going to get back with you

yeah kevin before we sign off i do have

one item i'd like to share sure i didn't

mention it to you

um

kevin you and i were aware last year

about the former bishop of chester peter

foster sure uh church of england he

attended the

acna uh convocation and latrobe opa you

did last time i met him in person

he was one of the few church of england

bishops who would stand

publicly side by side with the acna he's

retired towards the end of his time at

chester he got in trouble over failure

to be as aggressive on the abuse with

some bad clergy and whatnot

wasn't that he did anything himself bad

he just didn't hammer people

to the degree that they should have been

hammered he didn't hold people

accountable and that will get you fired

from

england as well as pittsburgh go on

we were told that he had joined the

roman catholic church

and this was uh before my this is

roughly around the michael nausea rally

roughly

aft you know this was around that time

and

we didn't report it the reason why we

didn't report it was because basically

he said

it wasn't he didn't want to talk about i

mean it wasn't

this is not something he wanted to

it wasn't going with yet yes

and well the church times sort of broke

the embargo this week

and reported that last year

peter foster

joined the join the anglican ordinary

now we were able to report all the other

stories because the news originated

from the anglican ordinary or the

catholic church

or gavin ashton saying that i have

joined the catholic church prominent

church of england leaders who enter the

catholic church

from uh if you will from a media

perspective there's certain things like

we're not going to say that so-and-so is

gay

until

they make a statement to that effect why

would you

and i'm not saying being gay is like

being catholic i'm not saying that

but people can have fun with that

analogy all they want but the point is

that they're

or i'm getting divorced or things like

that in other words there's certain

personal issues that you have to respect

the individual's wishes

uh unless or until it becomes a public

matter

and a retired bishop of chester's

conversion entering the catholic church

if he didn't want that public and if the

ordinary didn't publish it we're really

not going to run with that

but the church times i think

because the ordinary it's not said

anything yet and the church times sort

of came across it this week too and

they they uh broke the news unless peter

foster's now happy with it but the

article in the church times didn't quote

him on this point so

we'll see how that turns out well this

brings us to the end about what i'm

gonna just based on news or temperature

a hot and steamy anglican unscripted

i'm kevin coulson

and i'm george conger and you've been

listening to episode 716

of anglican unscripted

you