Monthly Archives: February 2013

Justin Welby’s anfractuous path to reconciliation

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Rowan Williams spent ten years attempting to synthesise a middle ground between Anglican liberals and conservatives: ten years of conversation, Indabas and listening. It didn’t work because it is no more possible to find a convincing middle ground between the Gospel and an anti-Gospel than it is between the propositions: 1+1=2 and 1+1=4.

Justin Welby seems to have caught on to the fact that Rowan Williams’ efforts fell flat so, instead, he is attempting to reconcile…. something – I’m not sure what. And therein, I suspect, lies the problem. Two people or groups can be reconciled to one another in the sense that they can mutually forgive one another for past wrongs – something that has been a hallmark of Welby’s ministry to date – but contrary propositions can no more be reconciled than they can be synthesised.

So while he may be able to convince the warring factions in the Anglican Communion that they should not hate each other and may even sit in the same room together, I cannot see much hope for reconciling the beliefs that have driven the two sides apart.

And without that, the reconciliation will be a shallow veneer of strained tolerance that will crack at the first hint that someone is about to express a firmly held conviction.

Read the complete address here:

The Crooked, Straight Path of Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is recognition of diversity and a transformation of destructive conflict to creativity. It holds the tensions and challenges of difference and confronts us with them, forcing us to a new way of life that accepts the power and depth and radicality of the work of the Holy Spirit in our conversions.

We speak often in foreign policy of failed states, or failing states. Their common characteristic is the inability to manage diversity and grow with it, enabling it to change them significantly into better places. The core of the American sense of exclusivism is often found within that vocation of being a diverse and thriving nation.

If the Church is not a place of reconciliation it is not merely hindering its mission and evangelism, appalling as such hindrance is, but it is a failing or failed church. It has ceased to be the miracle of diversity in unity, of the grace of God breaking down walls.

John Lennox: "Seven Days That Divide the World"

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John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

In his excellent book, Seven Days That Divide the World John Lennox argues that the Genesis account of creation and contemporary science can peacefully co-exist. Here he is, giving a lecture on the same subject:

Man and Superman. And Orson Scott Card

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Orson Scott Card will be writing a story in the Adventures of Superman for DC Comics, a comic that The Comic Book Shoppe will not carry.

“Ottawa comic shop pulls books of anti-gay writer” blares the CBC headline. “’This is a man who wants to criminalize homosexuality,’ store owner says”.

Well, not quite.

Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, a writer of science fiction, and someone who believes gay marriage to be wrong. As the CBC article notes:

In a 1990 article for Sunstone Magazine, Card wrote an essay in which he said:

“Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.”

What the CBC fails to say is that Card subsequently changed his opinion and, while he still does not agree with gay marriage and homosexual activity, he does not now advocate its criminalisation.

Perhaps the CBC has been infiltrated by the aliens from Enders Game:  the journalists, rather than thinking for themselves, exhibit ant-like group behaviour, deriving herd consensus from the Jungian wilderness of an unconscious zeitgeist. Or maybe they are just daft.

Bishop James Cowan announces his retirement

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From here:

Vancouver Island’s 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. 31. He made the announcement to the diocesan council, indicating he had already informed the church hierarchy.

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 “sleep for four months.”

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.

“I think it’s time to go,” he said. “There is a need for new leadership, different leadership.”

Due to a decline in attendance, Bishop Cowan has instigated a diocesan “restructuring”, including the closing of eight parishes. He has also approved a liturgy for blessing same sex couples.

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:

“Now, it’s almost a non-issue in the life of the church,” he said. “Yes, there are people who don’t like it but, by and large, it’s a non-issue.”

Tell that to Justin Welby whose enthronement could be boycotted by bishops representing up to 80% of the communion:

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.

Canadian church and Muslim leaders meet to sort out the Middle East

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From here:

Representatives of Canadian churches and church-based groups met on Feb. 4 with Arab and Muslim leaders who are similarly committed to “peace with justice” in Israel and Palestine.

Both sides have been careful to note that the meeting signalled nothing more than a commitment to meet face to face more regularly in order to consult and share information about issues affecting peace in the Middle East.

Hosted by the Canadian Friends of Sabeel, the meeting in Toronto gathered an ecumenical forum on the Middle East which includes representatives from the Anglican Church of Canada, the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Roman Catholic Church and church-based groups such as KAIROS. They were joined by six delegates from the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), which describes itself as “a national, non-partisan, non-profit” umbrella of over 40 member organizations.

The article goes on to note that “[t]he meeting signals a new beginning of intentional conversation”. Churches pontificating on how to achieve peace in the Middle East is hardly new: presumably prior efforts to establish Elysium were thwarted by the conversations being unintentional.

The only tangible action being suggested is a divesting of church interests in companies that do business in Israel; predictably one-sided and hardly new – however intentional.

Ottawa is handing out free condoms

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Ottawa’s Public Health department is handing out free condoms, ostensibly to prevent sexually transmitted diseases:

Not using a condom is the top risk factor among individuals diagnosed with an STI: In 2010, nearly 75% of people diagnosed reported not using one. Condoms, when used correctly and consistently, are an effective method to prevent STIs and unplanned pregnancies.

There is a Condom Locator, an Order Form, Instructions for halfwits and a Resources  page which, strangely enough, concentrates on gay sex.

I was scratching my head as to why Ottawa rather than, say, Toronto or Montreal, has decided to spend taxpayer dollars on condoms. Then it occurred to me that the program will be in full swing in time for the Anglican Church of Canada Synod scheduled from July 3 to 7 in Ottawa.

Justin Welby appoints a Director of Reconciliation

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From here (my emphasis):

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is delighted to announce the appointment of Canon David Porter as Director for Reconciliation at Lambeth Palace. Canon David will work part time on the Archbishop’s personal staff, seconded by Coventry Cathedral where he remains Canon Director for Reconciliation Ministry – bringing first-hand knowledge of the Cathedral’s eminent and longstanding reconciliation work to Lambeth Palace and the wider Church.

The focus of Canon David’s role will be to enable the Church to make a powerful contribution to transforming the often violent conflicts which overshadow the lives of so many people in the world. His initial focus will be on supporting creative ways for renewing conversations and relationships around deeply held differences within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

It’s early days for Justin Welby so, while I’m prepared to give his ability to sort out the Anglican Communion the benefit of the doubt for the moment, I find it hard not to agree with much of what was said about this at Stand Firm.

Coincidentally, yesterday was the five year anniversary of St. Hilda’s joining ANiC and tomorrow is the anniversary of the Diocese of Niagara’s dumping wads of legal documents on our office desk, demanding our keys, freezing our bank accounts and inhibiting our rector.

What, in that conversation is there left to say, let alone renew? What divides us are not “deeply held differences” that can coexist within the Christian faith: ANiC and the ACoC adhere to different religions, believe different creeds and answer to different masters.

The only thing I can think of to say to the Anglican Church of Canada’s hierarchy is: repent before it is too late. But that is not much of a conversation starter.

Why does social justice always have to be so conspicuous?

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St. Matthews, Abbotsford presents an extremely large cheque – well, a physically large cheque – to a food bank:

 

Food Bank 006

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matt 6:1-3

 

Koran control

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Since a Koran wielded by the wrong person kills, perhaps it is time to start background checks on potential purchasers to ensure none fall into the hands of the mentally unstable. Considering the second paragraph in the quote below, even those that are sold should have a page capacity limit of 10.

Incidentally, when I grew up in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, not even the police carried Korans.

From here:

In the summer of 2010, mourners lined the streets of Wales’s capital city to pay tribute to a seven-year-old boy killed in a house fire. In fact, Yaseen Ali Ege was brutally beaten to death, and then set alight with barbecue fuel. By his mother. For failing to learn the Koran. Over the preceding months, Mom had used a stick, a rolling pin, and a hammer on her son, but, despite these incentives, he had memorized only a couple of pages. And so she killed him, and subsequently declared she felt “100 percent better.”

[….]

Of course not all Muslims brutalize their families — although the ten-year-old daughter of Asia Parveen of Stoke Newington was treated for 56 injuries after being beaten for not reading enough verses of the Koran, and Hesha Yones of west London had her throat cut by her father for being too “Westernized,” and a five-month-old baby in Halmstad, Sweden, was beaten to death with a Koran

 

Diocese of New Westminster closes church with 35 people

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No, no, not St. John’s Shaughnessy, they have 40 people and that extra five makes all the difference. Apparently, “[t]he minimum standard …. for sustainable and viable ministry is being able to afford a priest”. Is the diocese paying for St. John’s priest because Michael Ingham would look too much like a dog in a manger if he didn’t use the building he fought so hard to keep for something that at least bears a passing resemblance to a church – albeit a nearly empty one?

Much better to mothball St. Mark’s which, ironically, is a diocesan appeasing “inclusive community” which is “grounded in social justice” – neither of which prevented Ingham giving them the chop:

From here:

Pam Martin married at St. Mark’s Anglican Church. She was baptized and confirmed there, as were her children. But at month’s end, the 52-year-old and the rest of St. Mark’s congregation won’t be allowed to use the church building at 1805 Larch St. anymore.

The Diocese of New Westminster owns the property, and Bishop Michael Ingham told St. Mark’s it couldn’t hold services after Feb. 28, although the building isn’t being closed.

Membership at St. Mark’s is stable but small – about 35 show up for Sunday worship. It’s been able to support only a quarter-time priest for years. Martin is upset about not being able to use the building, which she considers her spiritual home.