Kilsally

Drum Beat: The Pride and Protestant Boys draw crowds
http://www.newslette...rowds-1-3849291
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Published on Thursday 17 May 2012 08:46

SOME very large events took place last week, with almost 100 bands on parade between just two alone, the processions of Pride of Knockmore Lisburn and East Belfast Protestant Boys each attracting almost 50 bands.

The Lisburn city parade was led by the distinctive and popular Whiterock Flute, the start of a free-flowing and well marshalled evening. Ulster Grenadiers were among the highlights for many, with Gortagilly Coronation and Robert Graham Memorial too getting a great reaction.

Ballynahinch Protestant Boys Flute produced plenty of volume, with the flute corps of Pride of the Shore very strong. The melody section was highly competitive, Lisburn Young Defenders having a large band out on their home turf. The Regimental Band, Skeogh, Ballymacarret Defenders and Ballylesson Old Boys also excelled.

On Saturday night, large crowds gathered in east Belfast for the East Belfast Protestant Boys Flute, spectators being seen in number around the entirety of the long procession route. Belfast bands South Belfast Young Conquerors, Blues and Royals Sydenham, City of Belfast Corps of Fifes and Drums and Gertrude Star all were highly entertaining, while Antrim visitors Steeple Defenders and Lurgan’s Upper Bann Fusiliers were both on fine form. Clogher Protestant Boys Flute had a strong showing, with Colour Party, Drum Corps and Bass Drum sections all drawing positive comments. Keady’s Drumderg Loyalists Flute equally had many talking, with another notable performance coming from Flutes and Drums Donaghadee. This weekend, Friday night will see large band events in Co Down and Co Tyrone. The Tyrone hosts are Cookstown Sons of William Flute, with proceedings beginning at 8.45pm in the town’s Milburn Street.

The Co Down parade has an earlier kick-off, the popular Corbet Accordion’s annual procession and competition starting at 7.30pm in Kenlis Street Car Park, Banbridge. Saturday morning will see the long anticipated Balmoral Review taking place with parades beginning at 10am from points in Clifton Park Avenue, Shankill Road and Sandy Row, converging at Donegall Street before making their way to Ormeau Park. The return parade will leave Ormeau at 4pm sharp. That night Ballykeel Loyal Sons of Ulster host their traditional parade in Ballymena, beginning promptly at 8pm at Wakehurst Road.

If you would like to publicise fundraising, competition, cultural or indeed any events related to the large Ulster marching band community, you can contact Drum Beat by ringing or texting Quincey on 07835624221 or emailing quincey@ulsterbandsforum.net. All contributions, opinions and news from the country’s thriving band movement are very welcome.

Gay row cleric ‘should clarify whether relationship is sexual’
http://www.newslette...exual-1-3843633

Published on Tuesday 15 May 2012 13:42

DEAN Tom Gordon – whose civil partnership last summer led to the current Church of Ireland debate about homosexuality – should state whether he is in a sexual relationship, Bishop Harold Miller has said.

In his first public comments about Dean Gordon’s position, Bishop Miller said that he saw some merit in the Church of England’s regulation which makes clergy in civil partnerships give their bishop an assurance that they are celibate.

Bishop Miller also said he did not believe that Saturday’s motion reaffirming the church’s teaching on marriage would make any difference to the possibility of both Dean Gordon and his bishop, Michael Burrows, being brought before an ecclesiastical court over the affair.

“There are several aspects of the situation with Tom Gordon,” he said. “I can only work from the explanation that he himself gave on Sunday Sequence and what he said was that he explained his situation to his bishop and explained what was going to happen, I think those are the kind of words which he used.

“I presume that the first bit [relates to] his relationship to that point which he says everybody knew about – I don’t think that’s true.”

When asked whether he knew about Dean Gordon’s relationship, Bishop Miller said: “Did I know about it? There are rumours that go round the Church of Ireland, like any other place, but what does knowing mean?

“I wouldn’t really have been very much in touch with Tom Gordon. Tom’s at the other end of the country and was in Dublin before...”

However, he added: “I do think that it is a serious situation, obviously a serious situation. You can see what has happened in the church – and I think it would be very helpful to hear some clarification about the situation.

“I mean, I don’t know, for example, if Dean Tom Gordon would be prepared to clarify the situation and say: I am not living in a sexual relationship. That may well be the case.”

In the Church of England, a compromise between liberals and evangelicals was struck several years ago whereby clergy could enter civil partnerships so long as they informed their bishop and assured him that it was a celibate relationship.

Though many in England are unhappy at that situation, the Church of Ireland did not implement any rules whatsoever.

Bishop Miller said he would like to see a similar rule to that in the Church of England being introduced in Ireland: “It may well clarify it. I think that in the Church of Ireland you’re also working with two different civil jurisdictions with different kinds of legislation and, for example, there is an opt out clause for the church in Northern Ireland which I gather is not the case in the Republic, so there’s all sorts of civil aspects to it as well.

“But the basic question that you’re asking is, I think: Where are things now?

“I would think that Tom would be going away from synod and reflecting and saying: Where do things fit with this?”

So is Saturday’s motion the definitive teaching of the Church of Ireland to make clear whether a cleric can be in a civil partnership or is it a step towards such clarity?

“I think that it is a step towards getting clarity,” he said.

“As I understand it, there is only the one situation that I am aware of. There may be others that I am not aware of – and I think that, as you say, the Church of England has a position that if a minister is in a civil partnership that person has to make it clear to their bishop that it’s not a sexual relationship.

“The Church of Ireland has not yet made that clear and there’s no doubt about it that this does not, as it were, finalise the clarity on that but it does bring together the kind of material from what we already believe that would come to bear on that.

“In other words, that sexual intercourse is only properly within marriage, that marriage can only be defined as between one man and one woman for the Church of Ireland, so same-sex marriage is out and that outside marriage what is asked of people is that they live chaste lives.”

`the monarch is the only person in the country not free to have whatever personal faith they wish, or have none at all.` ...but they do have the choice of whether to be Monarch or not and can choose their faith over the Monarchy if they so choose

Monarch’s role as head of Church of England “unsustainable”
Posted: Tue, 15 May 2012 00:03
http://www.secularis...d-unsustainable

The National Secular Society says that the Queen's or any future Monarch's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England is unsustainable – despite the results of a new poll showing that 79% of British adults think that the Queen still has an important "faith role".

The ComnRes poll for the BBC also shows that 73% of respondents agree that the Queen and future monarchs should keep the titles of Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith.

Meanwhile, just one in four think the Queen and future monarchs should not have any faith role at all.

By comparison, opinion is more divided regarding Prince Charles's suggestion that he should be Defender of Faith (as opposed to Defender of the Faith; 50% agree that if Prince Charles becomes King, his title should become Defender of Faith, compared to 35% who disagree.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: "Britain is a very different country to what it was when the Queen came to the throne in 1952. We can no longer sustain the idea that the Church of England is of any real significance to the vast majority of people.

"Attendance at churches continues to fall – now only one in fourteen is in church on a normal Sunday and the rising proportion who declare themselves to be non-religious is around the same as those declaring themselves Christian.

"If the Queen declares an allegiance to, and indeed preferential status for, only one religion — as she did at her coronation — then it renders everyone who is not of that religion to be less than full citizens.

"Prince Charles's suggestion that he be "Defender of Faith" would be a step forward, but the ultimate goal must surely be for the Church of England to be disestablished and for Britain to be a secular democracy that includes everyone of whatever creed or none without privilege or disadvantage. No head of state, be they monarch or not, should express any religious preference, far less be under a formal obligation to sustain one.

"The monarch should be free to follow any personal faith, or none, but the monarch is the only person in the country not free to have whatever personal faith they wish, or have none at all.

"The monarchy's role in this country is now almost entirely ceremonial anyway, and its relevance will be continually reduced as demographic trends of diversity continue. If the monarchy is to survive as anything more than a sentimental relic, it will have to face up to the fact that this country has changed radically over the past three generations. The next monarch must move on or be left behind as a Ruritanian-style sideshow.

"Despite dwindling congregations, British monarchs promise in their Coronation oath to maintain privileges for the Church of England. It is unacceptable that only a protestant Christian can be head of state. Neither could be less appropriate in one of the least religious and most religiously diverse countries in the world. Practically all western democracies have abandoned the medieval concept of establishment, most recently Sweden.

"That younger people are so markedly less enthusiastic about a religious monarchy is a sign that this is the way we should be changing the oath for those that will be our head of state in future generations."

Had the question about whether 'the Queen and future Monarchs should have any faith role or title at all' not mentioned the Queen, we are convinced that the result would have been much more in favour of no faith role.

Free Presbyterian Elders at ecumenical service
http://www.newslette...rvice-1-3841243

Published on Tuesday 15 May 2012 09:02

WITH reference to your correspondent, Concerned Free Presbyterian, and the attendance of Ian Paisley at the ecumenical service held in Ballymena on Sunday April 29. Thanks to the internet I can quote exactly what Mr Paisley stated as to the reason that he could not attend the nuptials of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer: a Roman Catholic cardinal, Basil Hume, would participate and he determined that this was “an undermining of the Protestant foundations of our nation”.

I quote from a Free Presbyterian publication, entitled Our Own Heritage, page 371, Separation from the apostasy of the ecumenical movement and steadfast adherence to the historic, reformed and Protestant faith.

It is abundantly clear that this solemn oath taken by clergymen and elders of the Free Presbyterian Church at their ordination has been totally disobeyed.

I understand that a number of elders of the Free Presbyterian Church were also present at the ecumenical service in Ballymena.

They should be removed from their office immediately.

Jane Moore

Templepatrick

Church may never resolve gay dispute – says Bishop
http://www.newslette...ishop-1-3841197

Bishop Harold Miller pictured at his offices in Belfast

Published on Tuesday 15 May 2012 08:46

A SENIOR Church of Ireland bishop has said that he doubts whether the divide on homosexuality between conservatives and liberals in the church can be reconciled.

The Bishop of Down and Dromore, Harold Miller, said that the debate over whether same-sex relationships were sinful or normal had not been resolved anywhere in the Anglican Communion and questioned whether Irish Anglicans could find middle ground between the two positions.

In his first in-depth interview since it became public last year that a serving Church of Ireland cleric, Dean Tom Gordon, had entered a civil partnership, Bishop Miller told the News Letter that the development had created a “serious situation”.

Bishop Miller, who is the leading conservative bishop in Ireland, said that it would be “very helpful” for Dean Gordon to now say whether he was in a sexual relationship with his partner.

His comments follow a victory for conservatives within the church who on Saturday secured more than two-thirds of the votes in the church’s General Synod for a motion which backed traditional marriage, despite the public opposition of two liberal bishops.

When asked whether the two positions within the church – that homosexuality should be celebrated and that same-sex relationships are sinful – were in any way reconcilable, Bishop Miller said: “They have not been reconcilable in the Anglican Communion.

“This was clarified at the 1998 Lambeth [conference] and groups have continued down, as it were, a certain direction. They have not been reconcilable in the Communion so I doubt if those two views are in the end reconcilable.”

Asked then what in that case the point was of continuing to discuss the issue, he said: “I don’t think that a dialogue is held only to see if two definite positions are reconcilable. A dialogue is held so that each position has clearly heard each other...and all of us going into a dialogue have to have a preparedness to look at our own points of view and reflect on our own points of view.

“But I couldn’t say that I really have great hope that the two opposite positions will suddenly come together into one.”

Bishop Miller said that he did not personally see any problem with the three motions put to the church’s General Synod last Thursday in an attempt to help clarify the church’s teaching on marriage and same-sex relationships and was “very disappointed” when debate was stopped.

Bishop Miller said that as the motions stood on Thursday the word “therefore” — to which the liberal Bishop Michael Burrows objected — “quite obviously” referred to the preceding paragraph, not the preamble to the motion.

However, he said that that was “neither here nor there” as he went by the ruling of the Archbishop, whom he said had given a “wise” decision not to debate the motions, something which he said was “not in any way a political decision”.

“I felt that we may not have anything to put to the synod and that worried me because when you don’t have anything to put to the synod, especially a synod that actually wants to discuss it – and the synod did want to discuss it – you create a vacuum.

“And when you create a vacuum, if there are any disagreements the gulf can become wider. So I was very exercised that the thing should be discussed at this year’s General Synod.”

However, despite his unhappiness at the three motions not being debated on Thursday, Bishop Miller said he now believed that it was better to combine them in a single motion and remove the preamble which referred to the fallout from Dean Gordon’s civil partnership.

“I think it was better and more than two-thirds of the synod voted for it but for those who didn’t, I have to recognise that some of them feel very strongly about it. I can’t quite get to the core of what the issue is for them.”

Opponents of the motion argued that it could become a pretext for a “witch hunt” against gay clergy and possibly even lead to a retrospective attempt to bring Dean Gordon and Bishop Burrows before an ecclesiastical court over Dean Gordon’s civil partnership.

But Bishop Miller said that in his view the motion made no difference to Dean Gordon, who he said could not be disciplined retrospectively based on a motion which had not been passed when he entered his partnership.

“If anybody was bringing either Bishop Burrows or Dean Tom Gordon to an ecclesiastical court, it would have to be on the basis of what was in place when the problem occurred.

“The motion wasn’t creating something new – it was just restating [doctrine]. So it makes not the slightest bit of difference.”

And Bishop Miller hit out at liberals for alleging that a “witch hunt” could take place against gay clergy, something he said that he had “never ever seen” in the “generous” church.