Monthly Archives: March 2011

Montreal parish does Lenten study on Islam

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The Parish of St. Andrew and St. Mark studied Islam during Lent:

Understanding Islam:

Conversations with our Muslim Brothers and Sisters

Everyone who is interested in learning about another faith is invited to come and share in our Tuesday Lenten Series on Islam, The evening will begin with a talk given by our local Imam, Dr. Ahmad Shafaat,  on the basics of the Islam faith.  It will be followed by a question period, and opportunities for more conversation in small groups, with invited visitors from our local mosque.

Three Tuesdays in Lent

February 23, March 2, March 9.

7:30  PM

St Andrew and St. Mark’s Anglican Church

To make sure they had the hang of Islam, 23 parishioners attended prayers at the Dorval Mosque:

 

There is no word on whether the 23 Anglicans converted to Islam or not. Either way, it probably wouldn’t make much difference.

UK schools ban Gideon Bibles to avoid upsetting other faiths

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From here:

Schools have banned Christians from handing out Bibles to avoid angering other faiths.

The Gideons have become famed for handing out signature red Bibles to young children during school assemblies.

But they have been told to stay away from some classes because it may spark complaints from different faiths.

Abbot Beyne School and Paget High School near Burton On Trent in Staffordshire have made the controversial ban.

Even though the evil Gideons are not allowed to distribute their nefarious literature, the homosexual lobby has managed to infiltrate every subject taught in UK schools – at every level:

In geography, for example, they will be told to consider why homosexuals move from the ­countryside to cities. In maths, they will be taught ­statistics through census ­findings about the number of ­homosexuals in the population.

In science, they will be directed to ­animal species such as emperor ­penguins and sea horses, where the male takes a lead role in raising its young.

Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the ­camouflage of ­education. It is an abuse of childhood.

And it’s all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very ­concept of normal sexual behaviour.

Time will tell what the effect of this is, but I suspect the socially engineered brave new world where children are more familiar with gay penguins than the ten commandments will rapidly approach a state of degeneration where it will become unsustainable – as environmentalists like to say.

Homosexual Anglican clergy are so 2003

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I was toying with the headline, “Anglican priests finding their inner hermaphrodite” but, no matter.

It appears that truly modern Anglian priests aspire to “transition” in order to illustrate the independence of bodily appendages and inner gender.

From here:

Last week, the Rev Dr Christina Beardsley, vice-chair of Changing Attitude, a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual members of the Church of England, was one of the voices featured on 4Thought.tv’s week of short films featuring trans people and faith.

While the US Episcopal church developed a maverick reputation within the Anglican communion for blessing same sex marriages and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, the House of Bishops of the General Synod of the Church of England’s report Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003, contained a chapter titled “Transsexualism”. Currently, one can find about a half dozen trans clergy in the UK and US. These numbers are imprecise, as some clergy do not wish to go public beyond the scope of their individual parish or diocese – a concern that’s understandable given that the trans community seldom receives even the legal protections afforded gays and lesbians .

Beardsley, who was ordained for 23 years prior to her transition in 2001, observes that “some within the Church of England feel the issue of trans clergy has been settled” by citing such cases as the Rev Carol Stone and the Rev Sarah Jones. However, she says: “Not all trans clergy have been supported by their bishop, as these two priests were, and some have been excluded from full-time ministry because of Church of England opt-outs from UK equality legislation.”…..

The Rev Vicki Gray, a Vietnam vet before her transition, and currently a deacon with an emphasis on ministry to the homeless, noted that their goals at general convention were to assert that we exist as flesh-and-blood human beings, to demonstrate that we are here in the church as decent and devout followers of Jesus Christ, and to begin the process of education and dialogue that will lead to full inclusion in the life of the church, not only of the transgendered but of other sexual minorities such as the inter-sexed (known to some as hermaphrodites).

Here’s to the full inclusion of hermaphrodites: I suppose this means that the Anglican Church will be producing a liturgy to celebrate a person marrying himself. Or should that be herself?

The Anglican Church of Canada does Gaia theology for Good Friday

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Apparently, the real problem for humanity is not a sinful rebellion against God, but viewing ourselves as higher or more valuable than animals and the earth.

Earth Day falls on Good Friday this year so, according the Anglican Church of Canada, what better way to remember Jesus’ atoning death on the cross than to bewail our conceit in thinking we are the pinnacle of God’s creation.

So it’s time to forget Psalm 8:5: “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”

And Hamlet was right out to lunch with:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me— nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

According to the ACoC:

Yet, for many centuries most people, including most Christians, have thought of humanity as being higher, greater, more valued than or even separate from the rest of Creation. This hierarchical attitude has also infected relationships among humans.

In this way we have broken our Covenant with God. We have broken the Great Commandment because we have not loved God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. Nor have we loved our neighbour as ourselves…….

One of the results has been our willingness to sacrifice the community of all living things, our Earth community, in order that humans might continue to consume fossil fuels without restraint.

And by drilling for oil, it seems we have put the earth itself – Gaia – on the cross:

And so it is with the Earth. In our indifference, in our callous disregard for the needs of all living beings, we have put the Earth upon the Cross. Today is the day for us to recognize our guilt in perpetuating injustice against our partners in Creation and confess it. In the journey from Good Friday to Easter Sunday we have an opportunity to repent and beg for mercy. True repentance requires a change of heart, a change of mind and new actions that demonstrate our new conviction.

What a revolting perversion of Good Friday.

Richard Dawkins evangelises the great unwashed

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It’s a shame that he chose one of his silliest – and there are a lot to choose from – remarks to do it: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

 

This may appear cute at first glance, but beyond that it makes no sense. Atheism is the belief that no god exists; a person who believes in one god – or God – is not an atheist any more than a person who only eats pork is a vegetarian when it comes to cows.

 

Manchester Cathedral embraces tarot cards and fire breathing vicars

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From here:

Manchester Cathedral is to host a ‘new age’ festival featuring tarot card readers, crystal healers and ‘dream interpretation’.

Local Anglican leaders have agreed to throw open the doors of the historic cathedral in a bid to embrace alternative forms of Christianity.

Fortune tellers, meditation experts and traditional healers will fill the pews during the day-long festival in May. The Bishop of Manchester, Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, said he wanted to celebrate ‘all forms of spirituality’.

The Spirit of Life festival on May 2 will also feature stalls and workshops on angels, prayer bead-making and massage.

Fire-breathing vicar Rev Andy Salmon, of Sacred Trinity Church and St Philip with St Stephen in Salford, will also perform.

Where are the dancing bears, and ritual voodoo sacrifices you are probably thinking.

Is it any wonder the Anglican Church has become a universal laughing stock as it self-parodies its former seriousness by solemnly pondering the virtues of sodomy, opening its places of worship to practitioners of the occult, employing fire-breathing performing vicars and calling the whole mish-mash a celebration of ‘all forms of spirituality’.

One can only hope that someone brings a Koran and the fire-breathing vicar ignites it in a Koran flambé.

 

 

UK: four year olds to be taught atheism

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From here:

School pupils aged just four are to be taught atheism in a move schools hope will equip them to be ‘citizens of the world’.

Education bosses in Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire, have radically restructured the RE syllabus to accommodate non-religious beliefs.

Youngsters will continue to learn about the six major faiths – Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism – but they will also be taught humanism, the belief that there is no God or Gods, and that moral values are founded on human nature and experience.

The move recognises that more than 10,000 people in the borough do not have any religious beliefs. Both primary and secondary school pupils will be included in the shake-up.

Fiona Moss, from RE Today, which helped create the new syllabus, said: ‘We really must recognise that some people do not believe in God and do not have a religious background.

‘We have to make children aware of non beliefs. ‘We want to support children to engage and enthuse them about RE to become good citizens in Blackburn and the world.

Teaching four year olds that “moral values  are founded on human nature and experience” is a recipe for disaster. The average four year old wants his own way now and without recognition of moral restraint from something higher than his own nature and experience, would still see wanting his own way as the highest moral imperative when he is forty.

That would equip them to be citizens of a solipsistic little world consisting of nothing but me.

Anglican leaders condemn Koran burning and offer "a prayer for a time of book-burning"

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“A prayer for a time of book-burning”: only Anglicans could come up with a phrase like that. The book in question is the Koran – surprise, surprise – a copy of which was burnt on March 20th in Florida. Anglican leaders have denounced the conflagration as the “act of a sick mind”.

Meanwhile, rampaging Muslims are burning Christian churches all over the place with nary a peep of protest from the same Anglican leaders: they appear to have squandered their monthly quota of indignation on the witless twerp who burnt the Koran.

From here:

Anglican leaders have condemned the act of burning of the Qur’an on March 20 in Florida, United States. Bishop Alexander Malik of the Diocese of Lahore, Pakistan, said that “Such acts were in flagrant contradiction to the teaching of Christianity… They were the manifestations of sick minds busy in spreading hatred, bigotry and unease in society.”

In Peshawar, Pakistan, Bishop Humphrey Peters noted that this was a “shameful act” performed “only to gain cheap popularity”.  Bishop Peters was speaking at a press conference alongside members of a Peshawar based inter faith group ‘Faith Friends’ at which colleagues from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities also expressed their anger at the action.

Who created Richard Dawkins' creator?

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Dawkins et al. gibber incessantly that the cosmological argument fails because, once you have concluded that someone must have created the universe and that someone is God, you must answer the question, “who created God?”. The immediate problem with this line of reasoning is the confusion between the categories of what is created and what isn’t. Science tells us the universe is not eternal but was created. By definition, God is eternal and not created: the universe needs a creator, God doesn’t.

John Lennox explains another logical problem with the “who created the creator” view here:

SCIENCE AND religion are not incompatible, but should be seen as complementary fields, a gathering in Dublin heard this weekend. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and the author of a number of works on science and religion, told the annual meeting of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Ireland that the notion that science and religion are inimical is a “myth”.

“Faith is not only a religious concept, it is also a scientific concept . . . Every scientist believes that nature is rationally intelligent. [sic – it should be intelligible]” Describing what he called the “logical incoherence” of atheism, propounded by figures such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, he said the question of “who created the creator” could also be applied to atheists. “I have said to Richard Dawkins . . . if you believe the universe created you and is your creator, who created your creator?

“Most of us have got an ultimate fact,” he said, “for atheists it is the universe, for me the ultimate fact is God. It’s not a question of whether there’s the ultimate fact, the real question is which fact is ultimate.”