Just imagine if the Pope came to Lismore. That would be a story.
Well, this week we were graced (pun intended) with a visit from the spiritual leader of the Anglican communion. He is not, technically, the head of the Church of England. That privilege, since the time of the multiplied married, philandering Henry the Eighth, rests with the British monarch. Some things never change.
The Archbishop came to Lismore.
At any rate, Justin Welby included flood ravaged Lismore in his Australian itinerary. Ostensibly, the visit was to provide comfort to a city wracked by natural disaster.
Archbishop Welby is nearing the end of a two-week visit to Australia that has included Perth, Melbourne, and the Torres Strait Islands.
He said he particularly wanted to visit the Northern Rivers after hearing about the devastation of the floods.
Parts of England have had their own experiences with catastrophic flooding in recent years.
Archbishop Welby said he wanted to see what his church could learn from its Australian counterparts about supporting communities through a disaster.
He said he also wanted to show solidarity.
So far, so good. The spirit of the good Samaritan lives on.
Inevitably, the Bill Gates funded Guardian newspaper portrayed the visit as a discovery of the ravages of climate change.
Justin Welby says churches should encourage direct action on climate change as he sees boarded-up shops and unliveable houses in far-flung parish reeling from disaster.
“It brings it home”.
The ecclesiastical bus pulls into the great edifice that is the Catholic St Carthage’s cathedral. Its bells haven’t rung out since February when it went under in the floods and took the bells with it. But they did manage to get one bell to ring when the Queen died. It is an honour, Bishop Gregory Homeing (sic) tells him, “and an extraordinary ecumenical gesture for you to come to us as a friend”.
Here at midday prayers the archbishop goes off-piste again and delivers a homily no one was expecting at the pulpit. He speaks of the ecumenism of suffering.
“Climate change does not respect demarcation of churches, it affects everyone. We have so much to learn from you, we seek to emulate you.”
It brings it home?
It does nothing of the sort, of course. It seems tedious to have to point out the post hoc ergo propter fallacy reflexively repeated here. Or the circular reasoning. We say that global warming leads to more floods. Lismore had a bad flood. Therefore, global warming caused the Lismore flood. Stick to religion, Your Grace. Oh, wait a minute. Given the over-the-cliff crashing of faith in your Church, you might not actually want to talk about that. Maybe the two are connected?
The Archbishop continued:
The archbishop also said the visit would have a "very significant effect" on his thinking about climate change — a topic he has long been passionate about.
He recounted the Archbishop of Polynesia once telling him, "For you guys in the west, this is a problem for the 30s and the 40s. For us, it's life and death today".
"You come here, and you realise it's not just Fiji. It's here [where] it's life and death today," Archbishop Welby said.
"So, it just sharpens your mind and your sense of priority."
It’s not just Fiji. Oh dear. Crisis in Fiji. Lismore floods. Climate emergency!
As the fictional British Prime Minister Jim Hacker noted (in The Bishop’s Gambit), it is astonishing how politicians now want to talk morals and prelates want to talk politics. They might also try logic. Evidence. Science.
Perhaps a perceptive reporter on the scene might have tested Welby’s knowledge of local climate matters with a question about Tim Flannery’s infamous prediction that, as a result of global warming, “the rivers and dams would never fill again”. No point building dams. Maybe if Lismore had had a dam … Perhaps if the Archbishop of Canterbury had confined himself to expressing sympathy and grief for the many victims of the flood, exacerbated by unforgivable failures of New South Wales governance, it might have had more impact on the ground. Something beyond a photo opportunity. If only he had resisted the opportunity to make the flood about his preferred ideology.
The Archbishop did get close to the real issues:
Archbishop Welby said he had been shocked and disappointed by how many residents had struggled to find the assistance they needed to recover from the floods.
Difficulties in obtaining flood insurance and payouts were high on the list.
He called for organisations and all tiers of government to band together for a grassroots-led recovery.
"[You saw] that phenomenal communal spirit, and you just thought, 'Oh, come on, surely, you can bottle some of this and take a swig before you deal with the people here,'" he said.
Indeed.
The image of St Carthage’s Cathedral inundated by the February 2022 flood will live long in our memory. The Cathedral had never fallen prey to Lismore’s infamous floods. Legend has it that the local Aborigines had warned the then Catholic prelates not to build the cathedral on the site ordained, “because it floods”. It took a long time for the local Aborigines’ local knowledge to be vindicated.
But back to climate change.
Archbishop Welby is widely known to be a friend of the woke class. He has form, across the range of progressive issues. “The religious wing of Twitter”, according to one description of his tenure.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16797372/woke-welby-co-religious-wing-of-twitter/
His take on the flood was, therefore, only to be expected.
How things have changed.
The most famous Archbishop of Canterbury, back in the day when the Catholic Church ran ecclesial matters in Britain, was murdered by the henchmen of Henry II. The story was mad famous in modern times by TS Eliot in his Murder in the Cathedral. That was St Thomas Beckett, who, as far as we know, was not the least concerned about climate change. Both the medieval warm period and the little ice age lay well ahead, into the British future. Henry II spent the rest of his life lamenting the outcome of his troops’ endeavours. As well he might.
The visit of Welby to Lismore reminds us of how far the Church of Jesus Christ has fallen. The message of the visit would, no doubt, have been endorsed by that other card-carrying member of the globalist climate cartel, Pope Francis. A hypothetical visit to the scene of the floods from the Pontiff would, no doubt, have elicited similar headlines. What about Noah, and God’s vengeance? Nothing to see there. It’s all about CO2.
Paul Collits
16 October 2022
The Anglicans in England and much of Australia (with the exception of Sydney, Wollongong and New England) are almost exactly like the Roman Catholics with lots of smoke, bells and smells, but not much biblical teaching.
Welby is appointed by the government, not due to his faith. He can even be an Atheist.
He is more concerned about doing things to help the poor so he can get an article in the news and make a name for himself. Totally unchristian.
God is still God and the bible is still His word to us that is perfect and able to teach us all truth.
Believers are still in the world, but not of the world. Many do not recognize these religions or their leaders.
We have one Father in heaven, one head of the elect, the Son and one teacher, the Holy Spirit, so we have no need of anyone to teach us.
Many are deceived into believing their religion will save them and this is one of Satan's greatest weapons.
Today the gospel needs to start with Genesis showing that God created all things and has set the rules for holy living and the punishment for sin.
We have all sinned and deserve eternity in the Lake of Fire.
God has been gracious and sent His Son to pay our penalty for our sins by dying in our place.
He died for those that God elected from before the foundation of the world in grace alone.
He sends His people to tell the good news that God forgives those who repent and turn to Him for salvation.
Of course only those who are His have been given ears to hear and a heart of flesh to see their sin and repent.
The sons of Satan do not think they need to repent as they think they are as good as the next man and God must forgive everyone as it would be unloving not to.
Welby knows nothing about the good news of salvation and probably thinks that he will go to heaven because he went to church of is a leader in that religion.
Thanks for exposing this hypocrite, but not all those who are Anglicans are lost.
Beckett was murdered because of politics and his belief that he was above the King in that he was serving God first and so was able to disagree with him. He was well taught in the original languages of biblical texts, was a great thinker and has some good works that are still read today, but his flaw is that he thought that man could gain his salvation by good works and indulgences.
That is the religion of man and is not biblical.
This was common teaching in the dark ages, but there were still small groups of biblical believers in the far reaches of the world who were not linked with Rome. Rome used to search them out and force them to submit or kill them all. The Inquisition was part of that policy. Bibles were banned and the common people were left illiterate. Priests would teach fairy tales and get away with it. Ireland has a very strong Roman religion that allows for many such superstitions.
Build on a flood plain and you will be flooded, sooner or later. Nothing to do with climate change.
There are plenty of places in Australia with similar problems to Lismore. Unlikely that anything practical will be done about this problem in the foreseeable future. Something to do with the psychology of prior investment, I believe.
What's the bet that we will be getting a visit in the near future from one of Welby's woke mates, KIng Chump?