In Response to
“Will Parish Churches Survive the Squeeze?”
Dear Editor,
In answer to Prudence Daley’s question, ‘Will Parish Churches Survive the Squeeze?’’(last edition of the EC, No 8105) “ because their once-loved village churches are no longer holding regular service, or have closed altogether,” I would dare to suggest because women and the ‘Messy Church’ increasingly dominate the church, it will not survive.
In 2015 The Church of England appointed as the suffragan Bishop of Sherborne, a single lady and a leading advocate of Christian nudism, Ven Karen Gorham. She was the former Archdeacon of Buckingham and was under the authority of the Bishop of Oxford, Alan Wilson, a passionate promoter of homosexuality. At her appointment she came under the authority of the Diocese of Salisbury, whose bishop was Nicholas Holtham, one of the most pro-gay clergy in Britain, who said in 2016, “The blessing of Gay Pride in Salisbury was a joyful celebration of a people who are part of our community and among the rich diversity of all God’s children”.
Bishop Gorham has said, “There is need for much education and openness to talk about issues of sexuality, to remove false taboos which we tend to have about our own bodies, and to define the differences between what is impure and what is godly and properly natural to us,” she wrote in “Naturism and Christianity: Are they compatible?”.
The number of female clergy is now at a record high with women making up nearly a third of the 20,000 active clergy in the Church of England, and they now make up the majority of those undertaking non-stipendiary ministry.
Isaiah 3:12 says it all – ‘ As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths’.
David Skinner
Bournemouth
Dorset
