As Kevin and George note, it was a slow news week.
For those who would like to skip all the important stuff and just listen to what they have to say about Canada, it starts at 19:30:
Obviously it’s Eh-nic: this is Canada, after all.
Anglican Samizdat
You guys are SOOOOOO Good!
Love watching you!
why did George turn purple when ‘pledge drive’ was announced?
Very interesting discussion of the Anglican church of Canada, but as an ex-Anglican (now Eastern Orthodox) I would like to point out two things.
The financial problems of the Anglican church in Canada are not helped by the empty pews, granted. Nor are those empty pews (and empty coffers) aided by the Anglican’s increasingly secular approach to religion and worship. But the primary reason the church is broke is because of the class action lawsuit and controversy over the Residential Schools. These were boarding schools operated jointly by the Federal government and the Christian churches of Canada, including the Anglican Church for over 100 years. Native Indian (First Nations) children were forced to attend these schools. Their culture, language and history were systematically stripped from them in a failed, misguided attempt to assimilate them into white Canadian society. Many of the children were abused physically, emotionally and sexually while at the schools.
The settlement bankrupted at least one diocese in the province of British Columbia (political province, as opposed to eclessiastical province). Many of the rest of the dioceses, including the Diocese of British Columbia (I know, it’s confusing – the province and the smaller diocese have the same name) had to pay out huge amounts of money to the survivors of the schools. That’s what caused the sale of the properties in the Diocese of British Columbia – but you’re quite right – the churches that were put on the block have been virtually empty for over 30 years.
The Diocese of British Columbia is not actually north of the Diocese of New Westminster. It’s south and west, and comprises Vancouver and the Gulf Islands (it’s my old diocese).
I wanted to give you a taste of the whole story, because it’s not just empty pews that have caused the problem. The death knell in my opinion was sounded when the Residential Schools issue gathered steam.
Hi Bev. I would like to suggest that the failure to graduate from the hippie Liturgies of the 1960s also had something to do with the demise of the C of E in Canada. The residential school travesties certainly helped to bankrupt the various dioceses. The aboloition of any meaningful Liturgics also contributed to the evaporation of the congregations in many places. Priestesses invoking, “the work of our own hands we offer to you” in place of “thine own of thine own….” was certainly a portent.
Hear! Hear! I could also see the writing on the wall with those signs in Anglican washrooms about “Jesus wouldn’t mind if you come as you are.” Perhaps not, and there are certainly instances in which this would not matter, but I bet he always presented himself as well as possible in Temple, which was his Father’s house.
The tsunami of countercultural values in the 1960s sounded the death knell for so much that was good.
As the “me” generation of baby boomers retire and pass the torch to the next generation I am hopeful that much of the damage these boomers (who now like to call themselves “zoomers”, which I suppose is another “me” thing in which they try to tell themselves that they are not really getting that old) will be fixed.
I am not overly optimistic that things will be restored to the way they were in the good old days. For example, a return to the 1962 BCP is not likely to happen. But other things just might, such as the publication of a contemporary language BCP (and not another further revised BAS). While trying to not see things that are not there I am watching with patient eyes for the next re-formation.