“A Very Significant Improvement” in CofE Women Bishops Proposals

Up to now, I have been pessimistic about the prospects for an amicable resolution to the push for women bishops in the Church of England given a major faction (feminists) has no problem pushing another (traditionalists) out of the church.

But yesterday, Bishop Jonathan Baker, Chairman of Forward in Faith, issued a statement that gives some hope.  It begins:

The new draft legislation on Women in the Episcopate and the associated proposals in the Steering Committee’s report represent a very significant improvement on the former draft legislation which failed in November 2012.

He goes briefly into the improvements, then adds:

Though these proposals are still far from what we have long said would be ideal, we believe that they may have the potential to provide workable arrangements for the future, which will ensure that our people, clergy and parishes have continued access to a ministry that will enable us to flourish within the structures of the Church of England and make our full contribution to its life and mission. They hold out the possibility of bringing to a conclusion a process that for too long has been a distraction from the Church’s mission. Much will depend on the continuance of the atmosphere of trust that has at last begun to be fostered by the process that produced these proposals.

We therefore encourage the General Synod to send the legislation for revision in full Synod, so that the process may continue as expeditiously as possible.

Do read the whole statement for yourself.

And I invite those with more knowledge of the discussions than me to comment.  But really I could not have hoped for more at this point.  Women bishops in the Church of England are close to inevitable.  The main question is whether traditionalists will at the same time be given a tenable place.  And Bishop Jonathan, whom I know and highly respect, now seems reasonably hopeful of that prospect.

The Bookworm on Obama’s Pattern of Lying

Back in 2008, I rightly had Obama pegged as a Leftist and a liar.  And nobody can say I did not warn people about him.

But one Bookworm did me one better I must confess.  Not only did he see Obama as a liar, he dissected with remarkable precision the character and pattern of his lies.  Last week, he pretty much said “I told you so,”  beginning,

More than five years ago, when Barack Obama threw his hat into the political ring, I realized that he was a malignant narcissist who lied compulsively.  For Obama, truth was then and is now defined by the needs of the moment.  If it will benefit him at that moment to say something at variance with facts as other people know them, he is telling the truth because his political needs are the ultimate yardstick by which all truth must be measured.  This pathological outlook means that, when Obama is caught in what ordinary people would characterize an out-and-out lie, he engages in a cascading cover-up of lies, all dictated, not by objective facts, but by his needs at the moment.

And then he goes back to what he said in 2008, which goes into more detail of Obama’s pattern of lying.  I don’t want to paste too much of his post, so please go read for yourself.  But it suffices to say Obama habitually engages in the textbook “affirmative defense” method of prevarication, and the Bookworm was remarkably prescient in spotting that before The One became king President.

And we are seeing that pattern again with his progression of lies on Obamacare.

A Reminder About Apologies

Not all apologies are created equal.  For an apology to be genuine, it has to be accompanied by reasonable efforts to make amends when that is possible.  If the one who makes the apology has the power to make amends, to right the wrong he did, but does not do so, his apology is close to worthless.

I thought this reminder might be timely after a certain so-called apology yesterday.

Ace Sums Up the Obama Presidency

I might have mentioned this before, but Ace of Spades has become my favorite blog.  It comes with a language warning and *ahem* uninhibited “moron” commenters, but wow is it informative, fun, and wide-ranging.

Yesterday, the lead blogger there, Ace, teed off on Obama for giving his union buddies a $63 Obamacare break while not lifting a finger to keep his promises and help those afflicted by Obamacare cancellations, higher premiums, and higher deductibles.  But then most of those unfortunates don’t vote Democrat, do they.

Obama has shellacked middle class individual policy holders precisely because they're (mostly) not in his coalition, but boy is he afraid to impose a $63 a year tax -- that's like five pizzas, in case you're wondering -- on members of his coalition.

The reason I bring this to your attention is that, in the process of addressing this outrage, Ace summed up the Obama Regime all too well:

This is deadly, toxic stuff, pure out in the open piracy, stealing from citizens outside Obama's core supporters to give to his loyal minions. This is Banana Republic stuff.

This is looting.

Obama is the President who bequeathed America our new Looter Economy. . . .

It's government-sanctioned piracy -- it's privateering, siccing some citizens on others, giving First Tier Citizens permission to loot the Second Tier Citizens.

And I cannot do better than that in summarizing the Obama presidency.

The Problem With Lying, Illustrated

To be exact, there are many problems with lying.  God doesn’t like it, for one thing.  But one big problem is that if one wishes a lie to remain believed, one may have to tell additional lies to cover for the earlier lie.  For example…

President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times.

The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.”  [ed. To be exact, Obama did use that exact wording.  I am not sure he used that exact wording 29 times.]

But that’s not what he really said, Obama announced Monday in a speech to about 200 Organizing for Action supporters, gathered at the St. Regis hotel in D.C.

“What we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” he told Obamacare’s political beneficiaries and contractors.

And Obama’s lie upon a lie is verified by Politico reporter Reid Epstein:

Obama adds a clause to "you can keep it" - "What we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed."
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) November 4, 2013

Another problem with lies is that when they are discovered, people who trusted them and acted on them, say, by voting for you, might become unhappy.

A Push for Women Bishops at GAFCON

I should say first that I do not want to detract from GAFCON.  Almost everything I’ve read about last week’s meeting in Nairobi is positive, and I am glad my church is a full participant in this movement.

However, I was unpleasantly surprised to read, from the ever reliable George Conger no less, that there was a push to get GAFCON explicitly to support women bishops:

A behind-the-scenes fight over language describing the ministry of women also shaped the final document. It said: "We affirm the ministries of women and their vital contribution to the life of the Church: their call to the task of evangelism, discipling, and building strong marriages, families, churches, and communities. GAFCON 2013 upholds the Bible's teaching that men and women are equally made in the image of God . . . excercising different gifts. We recognise that we have differing views over the roles of men and women in church leadership."

Delegates from provinces that support women in episcopal leadership, however, fought for the inclusion of language in support of women bishops. The move was blocked by the dominant Nigerian bloc (almost 500 of the 1300 delegates), in alliance with conservative Evangelicals. When the final document was offered to the conference, a Ugandan woman clergy delegate voiced a lone "No" vote.

While thankful that this effort was successfully blocked, I am flummoxed that there was a notable effort to get GAFCON to support women bishops at all.  Are there that many in GAFCON who are that ignorant or unconcerned about how the issue of women bishops has strained and is straining Christian unity, particularly in the West?  Are there many that insensitive to the awful experiences orthodox Anglicans in the West have had with that issue and with a number of women bishops in particular?

Up to now, GAFCON has wisely had a flexible policy about women bishops – that it is up to the provinces – and has otherwise pretty much left the issue alone.  Even many or most of those who support women bishops have seen that forcing that on a church is destructive and have seen amicable disagreement and space on this issue a far better way to go. That continues to be the policy, thanks largely to the Nigerians and allied conservatives.

But naysayers of orthodox Anglicanism have said that the germs of the problems that have consumed much of the Western church remain in the bodies of those Anglicans who have split off and formed orthodox provinces and dioceses.  I hope said naysayers are mistaken, but after reading the above about GAFCON, I wonder.

The Usual Losers

The Federalist has an article by John Daniel Davidson of the Texas Public Policy Foundation which documents that many of the losers under Obamacare will be the young and the healthy.

I’ll defer to Mr. Davidson for the details.  But it immediately occurred to me that this is typical of Democrat policies, and not just under Obama but for decades.

Democrat policy has always been to buy votes now at the expense of future generations.  Opposing Social Security reforms is but one example.  Simple demographics have long shown that Social Security has become a Ponzi scheme that will blow up on today’s young.  But when Republicans tried to avoid this outcome with reforms, Democrats demagogued and told the elderly that Republicans were trying to take their Social Security.  And this worked at the ballot box time and time again as the elderly for decades voted Democrat.

Then there are the multiple ways of buying votes with deficit spending, endangering the future economic health of the nation.  (And, yes, establishment Republicans have participated in this vote buying as well.)

In short, Democrat policy has long been “Screw the young!  Win the next election!”

The other major set of losers under Obamacare and Democrat policies are those who take care of themselves, in other words, the healthy.  (Granted, some people through genetic or economic inheritance are physically or financially healthy through little effort of their own.  So, yes, I am generalizing.)  Under Obamacare, a big reason premiums for the healthy are going up is because people with pre-existing conditions are covered, and someone has to pay for that.

Now it sounds all good that pre-existing conditions are covered. And I have a friend who has had epilepsy since childhood.  I don’t have a big problem helping out someone like him, who has an acute health problem that is no fault of his own.  But a lot of pre-existing conditions are self-inflicted through over-eating, laziness, smoking, etc.  Should someone who works to take care of herself have to pay for the willful negligence of others?  But that is exactly what happens under Obamacare.

And you probably see where I’m going.  Democrat policy is to buy the votes of the lazy and the looters with the taxes of the workers and with deficit spending.  Work, responsibility, and success are punished.  Laziness and fecklessness are rewarded.

So Obamacare is the same old same old from Democrats . . . just on steroids.

So hey, you younguns and those who take care of yourselves, are you tired of being screwed over yet?