Stand with Packer

Let me ask a question… have you heard of Michael Ingham? I’m guessing probably about 40% at most of the people reading this will have. Second question (if you answered yes to the first one), before he started causing trouble by having gay weddings and such had you heard of Michael Ingham? We’re probably down to 5% or less now…

Third question, for everyone… have you heard of Jim Packer? I’m guessing we’re at 90% plus now… that’s because this man has actually contributed something positive to the Church. And it’s not going to be up at 90% because all the people who read this blog come from a similar theological persuasion (although that’s probably true), but I’ve met Anglicans, Baptists, Charismatics, non-Denominationalists, Emergents, Free Churchers, (can’t think of a G)… Liberals, Pentecostals… who’ve all heard of, and at the very least respect Packer, and more likely will speak of how his writings have been of great help to them.

You may or may not know that there’s some rumblings going on in the Anglican church, particularly with stuff going on in the USA and Canada… essentially it’s all about Liberal Bishops denying the authority of Scripture, and the recent outworking of that has been the appointment of practising homosexual Bishops, women Bishops and the blessing of gay marriages. Anyway, Packer and others thought it better to have some oversight (Bishop = overseer) from some Bishops who are actually Christians and actually believe the Bible… their Bishop (Michael Ingham) didn’t like that and wants to remove their licence to be a Vicar. Justin Taylor gives a better explanation here.

Packer and David Short (another vicar facing his licence being removed) have put their thoughts into a DVD and on Youtube, you can see them here… See this one below - Who’s leaving who?

Also, you can see some videos made by Ingham, these make me quite sad, Packer says it makes him “sick”. These videos show some fairly clueless supporters of the Diocese along with the biblically inept Bishop giving some answers… the first thing that makes me sad is the way he misinterprets then along with the audience laugh at Leviticus 20.

Second thing that is sad is that they’re greedy, they’re worried about loosing land and buildings, that seems more of a concern than repairing the schism.