Epiphany

At the start of 2022 the world we live in seems a very confusing place. The effects of the pandemic have been felt right across society, from causing severe disruption to our children’s education, to the virtual collapse of the National Health Service as we have known it and to the whole pattern of employment and business maybe set to change for ever.  Old certainties are disappearing before our very eyes and we are not sure if we are seeing the last of this coronavirus nightmare or whether this is merely a trial run for even worse disasters to come in the future.  We must pray that the Lord will preserve the faith and sanity of His people and make us ready and willing to offer the forgiveness, comfort and help of Christ to those who now, may be for the first time, find themselves suffering in mind, body or circumstance.
 
The general air of confusion within the Church has already increased within the first days of this New Year with the announcement of Caroline Boddington’s replacement as the Archbishops’ adviser on episcopal appointments.  We might well ask whether there is now any hope of an orthodox bishop ever again being appointed to the English bench now that a man in a same-sex marriage is in charge of the selection process.
 
In Wales the situation is even worse.  Orthodox Evangelicals and Catholics were always a tiny minority within the Church, but now the entire bench is composed of liberals, who seem to be agreed that “mission areas” must replace the parishes, whatever the cost in loss of people and income.  It is, of course, a patently obvious policy of suicide, which will obliterate the orthodox and kill off what little spiritual life may be left in this sad backwater of the Anglican Communion. What a miserable cotrast to the Revivals of 1859 and 1902!  We wish Josh Maynard and his people in Angle every blessing as they begin a new Anglican existence within the GAFCON family.  We sincerely hope that others in Wales will follow their courageous lead by unshackling themselves from this failing institution and starting to think of newer, more creative and imaginative ways to reach the millions in the country who know nothing of the Gospel of Jesus.  There are enough of them scattered round the Principality.  The aim must be to create new orthodox Anglican centres in Cardiff and Swansea to begin with, not forgetting to establish a presence somewhere among the towns of the North Wales coast.
 
Scotland is in an equally dire situation.  While we must thank God for St. Thomas’s Edinburgh, St. Silas’s Glasgow and a little group in the Isle of Lewis, there must be new centres established as soon as possible, not least in Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness.  Although the parochial appointments system in Scotland allows a parish to follow its orthodox churchmanship and make a suitable appointment without interference from outside, the dominant liberal philosophy is now so widespread and so ingrained that good men have for a very long time been discouraged from even daring to venture across the border.  The situation there is now irretrievably lost.
 
In these times of confusion we must stay loyal to Jesus and His Word and to perceive and know what things we ought to do and also have grace and power to bring these good intentions into reality.  Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, Lord have mercy.