Monthly Archives: September 2010

Rowan Williams backs celibate homosexual bisops

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From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he has “no problem” with gay people being bishops but they must remain celibate.

In his first explicit declaration on the subject since taking office in 2002, Dr Rowan Williams signalled his personal support for the consecration of gay bishops in the Church of England but said he would never endorse gay clergy in relationships because of tradition and historical “standards” .

His comments, in an interview in the Times, risk deepening divisions within the church and the wider Anglican communion. Liberals will be angered by his explicit acknowledgement that celibacy must be compulsory for homosexual clergy but not for heterosexuals. While conservative ire will be fuelled by his stance which puts him at odds with church teaching.

In the interview, Williams explained why he has stood with conservatives against homosexuality when it came to official church policy.

He said that he could not endorse gay relationships for clergy and bishops because “the cost to the church overall was too great to be borne at that point”.

And the problem with this is in the last three words. Williams has made it clear that this is a move to soften up the recalcitrant conservative opposition in preparation for the time when non-celibate homosexual bishops won’t be a cost “too great to be borne.”

This has been the liberal strategy all along and, by and large, conservative Anglicans have fallen for it.

Einstein was right

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From here:Add an Image

It’s taken a century but scientists have finally prove that Albert Einstein was right – time really does past more quickly if you stand on a step ladder.

In a bizarre experiment using the most accurate atomic clocks ever invented, researchers showed that clocks run faster if they are raised by just 12 inches.

However, anyone hoping that a lifetime living in a basement is the secret to longevity will be disappointed.

The effect is so small that it would add just 90 billionths of a second to a 79 year life span.

The extraordinary experiment – published today in the respected journal Science – demonstrates one of the strangest consequences of Einstein’s theories of relativity.

Einstein’s work famously showed that time is relative.  In 1907 his General Theory of Relativity showed that clocks run more quickly at higher altitudes because they experience a weaker gravitational force than clocks on the surface of the Earth.

It also means that your head ages more quickly than your feet, that people living on the top floor of a tower block age more quickly than those on the first floor – and that time passes more slowly for people living at sea level than it does for those on mountains.

Or maybe not: my head is about 25 but my feet and the rest of me are…. well, older.

Some interesting numbers from the UK on the percentage of the population that is homosexual

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From here:

The first ever official count of the gay population has found that only one in 100 adults is homosexual.

The figure explodes the assumption  –  long promoted by social experts and lobbyists  –  that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten.

The Office for National Statistics said 1.3 per cent of men are gay and 0.6 per cent of women are lesbian.

Another 0.5 per cent consider themselves bisexual, according to the figures gathered from questions put to nearly 250,000 – the biggest survey possible outside a full national census.

This means that, in total, around 1.5 per cent of the population is either homosexual or bisexual.

There isn’t much reason to suppose that the percentages would be substantially different in North America. I strongly suspect that the percentage of homosexual Anglican priests is much higher, though.

Other than the attraction of dressing up in robes, I can’t think of any convincing reason for this: it does help to explain the obsession that the Anglican church has for what it calls “the full inclusion of gays”. It has more to do with self-interest than anything else.

Rev. Keith Nethery in the world of blogs

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Rev. Keith Nethery is becoming rather alarmed (page 2) – disturbed even – at what he reads on blogs:

What does it mean to study something? How do we go about discussing an issue?
I spend considerable time reading blogs and various media from around the world on things Anglican. In doing this, there is something becoming more and more obvious to me and it is alarming. Now let me say first that I do NOT just read one side of the story. The blogs that I have marked for daily consumption cover the entire scale of theological opinion. What bothers me is that I see some disturbing trends in how we answer the two questions that I began with.

My understanding of study is that one will find a variety of opinions and see how that informs the thoughts that they possessed going into said study. More and more, it seems to me, that study is another term for a determination to prove the “other” wrong……

When folks search “Anglican” on their computers, it is scarey what they will find masquerading as the true face of who we are. If the foregoing statement was posted on many of the blogs I read daily, it would be followed by an immediate swell of condemnation from people on both ends of the spectrum, because discussion and study have become code words for further opportunity to demand agreement for one’s place on the scale.

This comment by the very same Rev. Nethery tends to show that he is less than eager to take his own advice when he feels called upon to show that those of us who “haunt the far right side of Anglicanism” are in sore need of “a dose of reality.” ­

Job well done in this post and in the discussion with David on Samizdat. I’ve had more than one such conversation with David, Warren and the others that haunt the far right side of Anglicanism that ended similarly – oh, but we’re right and you’re wrong because we say so, thank you for coming and come back again so we can tell you how right we are. I honestly think that we need to bust into their world every once now and again to give them a dose of reality.

The exchange in question is here and, as these things go, was reasonably civil and entirely devoid of the phrase – or idea – “oh, but we’re right and you’re wrong because we say so.”

Rev. Nethery’s solution (page 2) to all this seems to be:

My oft unpopular position is that there is always room to be further informed and to weigh more ideas.

Doubtless this is a remedy that he wishes those of us that infest the swamps of Anglicanism’s right would embrace, but one – in spite of protestations to the contrary – in which he is reluctant to dabble himself: that must be because we are just spinning:

Even one of ANIC’s spinning best bloggers can’t draw more than a comment or two posting on Holy Post at the National Post.

I can’t help wondering whether what is really eating Rev. Nethery is the fact that there are people who disagree with him; and they just won’t shut up.

Fox News North

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For reasons that escape me, I received an email fron Ricken Patel, Avaaz.org saying:

We’ve got them on the run! When 80,000 of us signed a petition refusing to be forced to pay for “Fox News North” (aka SunTV) on our cable bills, the Sun media empire threw everything they had at us – smear pieces in their newspapers, threatened lawsuits, and SunTV frontman Kory Teneycke even admitted insider knowledge of a criminal sabotage of our petition!

Sorry to break it to you, Rick, but I like Fox News South and would welcome the SunTV channel in Canada. I’m about as likely to sign your wretched petition as I am to stick a corkscrew up my nose.

If I were not already convinced, this from Margaret Atwood would do the trick:

THE ACTUAL PETITION

“As concerned Canadians who deeply oppose American-style hate media on our airwaves, we applaud the CRTC’s refusal to allow a new “Fox News North” channel to be funded from our cable fees. We urge Mr. von Finckenstein to stay in his job and continue to stand up for Canada’s democratic traditions, and call on Prime Minister Harper to immediately stop all pressure on the CRTC on this matter.” THE VERBS ARE “APPLAUD,” “URGE,” AND “CALL ON;” NOT “BAN,” “SUPPRESS,” AND “CENSOR.”

The “Fox News” comparison is from the Sun’s own CRTC Application # 1. Is it “American-style hate media?” You judge.

The CRTC refused Sun TV News’ request for a special licence that forces all cable and satellite distributors to offer the station, thus generating almost automatic income. Application #2 — almost the same deal as #1, but for three years — will be considered. The Sun says it needs this special deal for its “business plan.” Should it get one? Should anyone? Can I have one too?

AM I A PROPONENT OF “CENSORSHIP”?

Nope. Read the petition again.

Now Konrad von Finckenstein has said he isn’t under pressure (unlike his fired CRTC deputy), and will judge Application # 2 on its merits. Good!

REAL CENSORSHIP INCLUDES

Book burning, murdering, jailing and exiling writers, and shutting down newspapers, publishers, and TV stations. If you are against this, support PEN International and Index on Censorship.

Calling the Avaaz petition “censorship” is beyond cheap.

Calling something censorship that is censorship isn’t cheap, it’s accurate. Rather than let the great unwashed decide for themselves whether the new channel is “American-style hate media” by being given the chance to watch it, a liberal elitist would take it upon herself to act as nanny and tell us we can’t have “Fox News North”. Instead we’ll just have to put up with the current Canada-style drivel media that meets Margaret Attwood’s approval – and is paid for by our cable fees, not to mention our taxes in CBC’s case.

Although I wouldn’t burn them, I dislike Margaret Atwood’s novels as much as she dislikes Fox News; to plagiarise a remark by Malcolm Muggeridge about Edna O’Brien, I’d rather be a minor character in a Jane Austen novel than a major one in a Margaret Atwood novel.

Homosexuals in the military: Don't ask, don't tell

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From here:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Marine Corps says he doesn’t think Congress should lift the ban on gay troops who want to serve openly.

Gen. James Amos’ comment came hours before a Senate test vote on a defense policy bill that would repeal the 17-year-old law, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

It’s probably only a matter of time before the law is repealed, though:

The law is already under siege. A federal judge in California recently ruled the ban on gays was unconstitutional, polls suggest a majority of Americans oppose it and Lady Gaga has challenged it in a YouTube video.

What chance does it have if Lady Gaga – a well known advisor to the US military – is against it? She has a simple solution to opposition:

She suggested a new policy should target straight soldiers who are “uncomfortable” with gay soldiers in their midst.

“Our new law is called ‘If you don’t like it, go home!'” she said.

This  would probably result in the most Marines heaving a sigh of relief and returning home to their families, leaving the US military looking something like this:

We’ll probably wait a long time before General Petraeus complains that an openly gay military would be like a red flag to a bull for the Taliban and will endanger lives.

Anglicans celebrating Earth Day at Christ Church, London, Ontario

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I can only assume that this is an attempt to convince curious passers-by that Anglicans are perfectly normal; and that the intrinsic comedy in overweight middle-aged Anglican ladies flinging aside inhibition to cavort on the grass to the beat of native drums wielded by ersatz Aboriginals is an essential component of Christian worship.

Looking on the bright side, we can at least be grateful that they kept their clothes on – this year at least.

An Anglican priest who understands Islam

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From here, where he had this to say about those speaking out against the Islamization of the West and the ground-zero mosque:

There is this idea floating around that those who are speaking up about Islamic radicalism must be bigots and therefore they must be ignorant. Ironically the loudest critics of Islam are usually the ones who have studied the fundamentals of Islam the most rigorously. Those crying “bigot” can be the most ignorant, and will come up with absolute howlers, real nonsense, spoken with a poker face as it were the most serious thing in the world. They decry accurate and reliable information about Islam as “Islamophobic facts,” just as the Soviet courts used to reject what they called “calumnious facts.”

When non-Muslims go into interfaith dialogue without a good understanding of Islam, they are severely handicapped. The dialogue can easily be manipulated to become an exercise in da’wa, or proclaiming Islam. A good example is the label “Abrahamic faith.” This is a Koranic term, and in Islam it stands for the idea that Abraham was a Muslim. According to the Koran, the faith of Abraham is Islam. Getting Jews and Christians to speak about “Abrahamic religions” has been a great coup – it is a manifestation of the Islamization of our religious discourse.

The problem of dialogue is especially acute if your Muslim counterpart subscribes to the doctrine of taqiyya, which favors the use of misleading impressions, or even direct lies. Everyone involved in interfaith dialogue with Muslims needs to understand that under certain circumstances – for example, if Muslims feel threatened – giving a misleading impression could be regarded as a righteous act. Not all Muslims will go down this track, but for some it is a real option, and there are plenty of clear examples of it happening all around us. In The Third Choice I give a very clear explanation of the doctrine of taqiyya, and explain how it arises in Islamic theology, how it is being taught by Muslims, and how it is being applied today.

So perhaps the suspicion that the cultural centre cum Anglican Ladies Tea-room is really just a cover for a victory mosque isn’t so far off the mark. Shocking.

Bishop Michael Bishop Nazir-Ali on Pakistan aid

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From here:

A senior Christian leader has warned much of the aid flowing into Pakistan to help deal with massive flooding may never be used for relief.

Retired Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, a Pakistani national who has spent much of his life in Britain, is visiting Australia to discuss issues around Islam and its growth in the West.

“The misery that the (Pakistani) people are in has been caused, to some extent, by corruption and incompetence,” Bishop Nazir-Ali told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

Much of Western aid to third world nations seems to be used to prop up corrupt and despotic regimes. Short of a civilising colonial incursion, there probably isn’t a solution and, as Malcolm Muggeridge used to say,  Western aid tends to earn its givers the undying contempt of the recipients.

Australian Anglicans preparing for a split

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Orthodox Anglicans in Australia are trying to forestall the North American debacle:

IN AN unprecedented linking of church and state, the national leader of the Anglican Church has asked the NSW government to stymie a move that would let the powerful Sydney diocese ”divorce” the rest of the Australian church and leave the national office impoverished.

On the eve of the Australian Anglican Church’s three-yearly synod, which opens in Melbourne today, Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall wrote to the NSW Attorney-General, shadow attorney-general and director-general of the Department of Justice, seeking their help.

Australia’s primate responded with:

AUSTRALIA’S Anglican leader launched a passionate plea for unity yesterday, saying divisions severely damaged the Christian message and risked fragmenting the church.

”How can we talk about unity, tolerance and respect with regard to the Middle East or justice if we can’t live it out in our own life?” asked Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, the primate of Australia. ”We undermine our message if we don’t model it.”

He acknowledged the depth of divisions in the worldwide church over gay bishops, but said there could be disagreement without disunity.

Aspinall reckons there can be disagreement without disunity. Since unity in this context means: the state or quality of being in accord; harmony and this particular Anglican disagreement has been so lacking in harmony it has split the Anglican communion, Aspinall, to be even thinking this, must have fallen down a rabbit hole and be taking tea with the mad hatter.