Anglican Churches in Ontario closed until September

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In Ontario, the Anglican Church of Canada will not be meeting in its churches before September, regardless of government regulations.

I have no idea whether this is the right decision or not but I do wonder how many parishes will have ceased to exist by September.

ANiC has not made any announcement for Ontario yet.

From here:

The past three months have been difficult as we journeyed through a time of wilderness with the closure of our church buildings and as we have creatively adapted our ministries to respond to the emergency situation. Inspired from the witness of scripture, a time of sabbath rest invites our clergy and lay leaders, as well as the whole Church, to take time apart from our usual patterns in order to bring renewed energy and knowledge and skill to the practice of ministry.What this means is that regardless of where the Government of Ontario is with its reopening plan, our churches will not be reopening for in-person worship until at least September. This decision was made in consultation with public health experts as well as our diocesan executive officers and chancellors, with the well-being and safety of all our parishioners and the communities we serve uppermost in our hearts and minds

Let your yes be maybe and your no maybe not

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The Diocese of Toronto has decided that same-sex marriage is both legitimate and not legitimate. In polite company, this is known as an antinomy. Or, in plain language, rubbish.

The good news is, there is almost no one who cares anymore what the Anglican Church of Canada thinks about anything. So the fact that it has decided to stake its reputation – what is left of it – on a statement that raises illogicality to the status of dogma is of little interest to anyone who continues to inhabit objective reality.

From here:

“Marriage in equal measure means that our Diocese chooses to hold in creative tension two views of Holy Matrimony that are, at once, contradictory and yet legitimately supported and honoured by our bishops, clergy and laity. This place of creative tension follows a long season of study, reflection, conflict, revelation and struggle. Clergy and laity in this Diocese will be supported in holding and teaching a theology of marriage as being between a man and a woman or a theology of marriage that does not require the couple to be of opposite gender.”

Bandwagon Bishops

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Anglican bishops like nothing better than jumping on a fresh bandwagon to parade their glistening halos for all to admire. Racism isn’t exactly fresh, of course, but it is in the news, so it’s only fitting that our Canadian bishops are using the opportunity to intone such pieties as this from Melissa Skelton:

It is difficult to decide where to start on any communique to all of you related to racism and racist acts today. Whether it’s stories from here in Canada related to aggressive acts toward Canadians of Chinese, Japanese or Filipino heritage, discrimination against a First Nations man just doing his banking, the disturbing increase in anti-Semitism world-wide, or the stark images of African-American men pursued, threatened and murdered in the US—the times we are in continue to remind us that not only is racism not dead, racism seems to have become stronger or perhaps more exposed in the midst of this pandemic.

It goes on…. and on; if you wish to bore yourself silly with the rest of it, you can do so, but I won’t quote more here.

Those who persevere will discover that what is missing from Skelton’s concatenation of cliché’s is any explanation of why she finds racially inspired evil to be any worse than, say, murder motivated by jealousy or envy or love of mammon or plain dislike. I don’t remember the 10 commandments reserving special condemnation for racially inspired killing, lust, idolatry, theft or covetousness. All men and women bear God’s image. To act as if that were not so is wrong if the person is of a different race. But it is just as wrong if the person is of the same race.

The reason, although I sure she would not admit it, is because denouncing racism is a cause beloved by the political left (what would they do without it?) and all causes of the political left are beloved by bishops; it’s so predictable that I’m tempted to think it’s genetic. Underpinning the fantasies of the left are the lies that man is innately good; that those who are less than good are, nevertheless, perfectible if they only they make the effort; that society is also perfectible and, thus, anything short of utopia is to be an object of scorn.

In their heart of hearts, this is what Anglican clergy believe. What they should believe is Jeremiah 17:9.

Also missing from Skelton’s “Pastoral Message” (how is it in any sense pastoral?) is any robust condemnation of the rioting, looting and violence being perpetrated by those who are bent on destroying what is left of our civilisation. The left want our civilisation gone because, after Christianity, it is based on capitalism – hated by the left even more than racism – and because it isn’t utopia. And Anglican bishops want what the left wants.

Anglican Church signs Just Recovery document

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The Anglican Church of Canada has signed a document that suggests that, since we are busy trying to sort out how to get back to work in the middle of a pandemic, while we are at it we might as well also fix the “climate emergency”, redistribute wealth, eliminate all inequality, get rid of fossil fuels, allow unrestricted immigration, provide free healthcare for all, and bring back the rainbow coloured unicorns and flying pigs.

After all, isn’t that what the church is really all about?

From here:

The other principles of Just Recovery include a paramount focus on people’s health and well-being, a stronger safety net and direct relief, prioritizing the needs of workers and communities, and building resilience to face future crises.

The Just Recovery document has been signed by the Canadian Labour Congress, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Toronto Environmental Alliance, the Canadian Federation of Students and many more.

Anglicans and politics

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The Anglican Church of Canada’s Primate, Linda Nicholls has written an article explaining how the church decides to align itself with a particular social or political cause. She says:

Let me share how our church approaches that discernment and share a recent example in the life of our church. The general secretary and I are sometimes approached to add our signatures to a public letter on a significant public issue. Deliberation on the issue requires careful listening to a variety of sources. It is governed first by statements and resolutions of General Synod. Then we turn to Church House staff with knowledge of the issue and to our archivist, Laurel Parson. We also explore where our current partnerships and working relationships are implicated by what we might say.

We explore the theological questions embedded in the issue. What gospel principles are at the core of this matter? Where does our baptismal covenant intersect with it? Is this an issue of justice; dignity of human persons; care for creation or love of neighbour?

One might be tempted to leap recklessly to the conclusion that “gospel principles” would nudge the church into questioning why, during the pandemic, Canada’s health care system finds the time to continue murdering babies in abortion mills but has to postpone almost all elective surgery. Or, if it wants to look farther afield, condemn China’s crushing of freedom in Hong Kong or, indeed, of its own people.

But why bother with these peccadilloes when another chance to condemn Israel presents itself?

From here:

We write to you with great concern about Canada’s silence regarding the plans of the current coalition government of Israel to propose a vote in the Knesset (likely July 1st) on annexing a significant part of the occupied Palestinian territories. These plans constitute a grave breach of Canadian and international law, specifically Article 147 of the IV Geneva Convention, prohibiting the appropriation of property. This silence of the Canadian government is puzzling in light of the recent vote at the UN affirming the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, Canada’s policy position on Palestine-Israel, and its staunch support for the rule of law.

Anglican bishops want a guaranteed basic income

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Canadian bishops from the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have written an open letter insisting that the government pay everyone a ‘basic income’ whether they work or not.

Where is the money going to come from? They don’t say: presumably from people who are working. Why work if you are paid not to work? They don’t say, although they are probably suffering from the woolly liberal delusion that people are innately good and will naturally want to work to support those who find laziness too tempting to resist – like me.

What is really behind this? I expect they are all afraid of losing their jobs and have an uneasy feeling that they would be unemployable in any other profession.

A Public Letter on Guaranteed Basic Income

By General Synod Communications on May 3, 2020

Dear Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Morneau:

Subject: COVID-19 Pandemic – Guaranteed Basic Income

We write from across our country – from the tundra of the high Arctic, the out-ports of the Atlantic coast, from French and English speaking Canada, from urban to rural, the Prairies, the Rockies and coastal mountains and from the Pacific coast; we write as Indigenous people and as non-Indigenous. We write from across denominational traditions. As bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada we write, compelled by our shared faith convictions and moral obligation to care for the human condition of all.

Although we represent great diversity, we write to you because we are united, and morally bound in a singular message: Canada needs Guaranteed Basic Income for all. We need it today.

Sit softly for you sit on my satire

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Many years ago Malcolm Muggeridge published a collection of essays called “Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes”. I still have a yellowing copy on my bookshelf. The title is inspired by a poem by W. B. Yeats and, as I recall, expressed Muggeridge’s frustration when he was editor of Punch at trying to out-parody a civilisation that had already become a parody of itself.

He could not have known that worse was to come.

Here is one of today’s headlines from the CBC who, it seems, are blissfully oblivious to its idiocy:

The pandemic is making it harder to deliver medically assisted death, doctors say
Some doctors say the pandemic is making it harder to provide medically assisted deaths to patients who request them, due to shortages of protective masks and gowns and last-minute scrambles to find places to perform the procedure.

The pandemic also is being cited as the cause of a reported surge in public interest in assisted death.

Diocese of Niagara: a decade of lies and hypocrisy

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Like most other dioceses, the Diocese of Niagara is fervently declaring that “the church isn’t the building, it’s the people”. Mainly because everyone is shut out of church buildings and the clergy are terrified that their congregations will never return. More importantly, neither will their money.

Hence, we have Rev Martha Tartanic writing articles like this, to convince us that the diocese cares nothing for buildings; all it cares about is people. Really.

The church is most definitely not closed! The church isn’t our building, and it’s not dependent on our ability to gather in our building. Our church is us. Wherever we are, and no matter what measures are put in place, our identity as church continues. We may just need to find other ways of showing up for each other and connecting as a community to God’s love.

Those of us who were part of the Diocese of Niagara in 2008 when ANiC was formed know that this is hypocritical nonsense. When the diocese liberated St. Hilda’s church building from the people who paid for it, all they cared about was the building; the people were an embarrassing inconvenience who had to be ejected so the place could be bulldozed and the land sold for $2million.

Before that could happen, the diocese had to convince the courts that they had a use for the building. In order to do that, it parachuted in a bogus congregation from neighbouring churches led by, among others, Rev Martha Tartanic.

So we have lies, hypocrisy and, now in 2020, more lies. It’s the buildings that are important to the ACoC, not the people.

The same edition of the diocesan paper has this:

Where my church was. It still stands empty:

Anglican Church of Canada’s income spirals downwards

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The Anglican Church of Canada receives 90% of its income from voluntary donations from dioceses. For the 10 years between 2007 and 2017, this income was quite stable. Since then it has been sinking rapidly:

This graph does not take into account the additional and inevitable loss of income due to the closure of all Canadian church buildings.

The solution, we are told, is not repentance and a change of direction, but more conversations:

In response to the financial presentation, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, told CoGS, “The reality is that we need a conversation…with the Council of General Synod, with the House of Bishops, with dioceses.” Citing, among other things, the trends of decreasing giving and attendance in Anglican churches, Nicholls added the conversation would require “transparency and frankness.”

It’s tempting to speculate on whether the ACoC will survive the year of the virus. I suspect some dioceses won’t.