{"id":18916,"date":"2013-02-22T09:03:42","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T14:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=18916"},"modified":"2013-02-22T09:03:42","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T14:03:42","slug":"bishop-james-cowan-announces-his-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/bishop-james-cowan-announces-his-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishop James Cowan announces his retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Vancouver Island\u2019s top Anglican priest, Bishop James Cowan, has announced his retirement.<\/p>\n

Cowan, 61, who has served as bishop of British Columbia for nine years, said he will retire Aug.\u00a031. He made the announcement to the diocesan council, indicating he had already informed the church hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Cowan, who is married with two grown sons, said he has no firm plans for his retirement. But he joked to church staff his immediate plans are to rest, perhaps even \u201csleep for four months.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview, he said that during his church career, he has always known when it was time to step aside and now seemed like the right time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s time to go,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a need for new leadership, different leadership.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Due to a decline in attendance, Bishop Cowan has instigated a diocesan \u201crestructuring\u201d, including the closing of eight parishes. He has also approved a liturgy for blessing same sex couples.<\/p>\n

Just as he sees no connection between the blessings and the decline, he maintains the stoutly blinkered perspective that, apart from occasional tut-tutting from the few remaining recalcitrant conservatives, the fuss is all but over:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s almost a non-issue in the life of the church,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, there are people who don\u2019t like it but, by and large, it\u2019s a non-issue.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tell that to Justin Welby whose enthronement could be boycotted<\/a> by bishops representing up to 80% of the communion:<\/p>\n

Sources in Africa tell VOL that archbishops from provinces like Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya say that they will continue their policy of not appearing at future primatial meetings if Jefferts Schori is invited and that the Communion will devolve into two distinct Anglican bodies with leaders from the Global South drawing together orthodox Anglicans from across the globe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From here: Vancouver Island\u2019s top Anglican priest, Bishop James Cowan, has announced his retirement. Cowan, 61, who has served as bishop of British Columbia for nine years, said he will retire Aug.\u00a031. He made the announcement to the diocesan council, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[494,2104],"class_list":["post-18916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diocese-of-bc","tag-bishop-james-cowan","tag-diocese-of-bc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}