If you look up “gender-based violence” in Wikipedia (not the most reliable source admittedly, but it will do for now), you will find that it means:
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against women or girls specifically because they are female, and can take many forms.
The Anglican Church of Canada has a definition that is a little more…. modern. Along with some other denominations, it has published a small volume of “16 devotions inspired by the annual 16 days of activism against gender-based violence”, all based on the Magnificat. Sort of.
I suspect you are unaware of the fact that if you naïvely refer to members of your Christian fellowship as “brothers and sisters”, you will have committed an act of violence against non-binary individuals. Consider yourself warned. I myself am analogue through and through, so I suppose I fall into that category and am entitled to feel suitably aggrieved. “Same-sex marriage” is also a no-no. I knew it wouldn’t last:
In our efforts to “preserve unity” or “maintain relationships”, we commit an act of violence against the communities who are most vulnerable, who are most trying to find a place of belonging in a system that invalidates their very identities and existence. When we welcome our “brothers and sisters”, we erase nonbinary people such as myself. When we refer to “same-sex marriage”, we ignore the diversity of the queer3 and trans community. When we turn a blind eye to the direct, indirect, and systemic forms of queerphobia and transphobia, we commit violence against God’s beloved children. We are directly responsible for the fact that trans and queer individuals do not consider churches to be a place where they can belong.
And let’s not forget that every-growing alphabetic menagerie, 2SLGBTQQIA:
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls heard the testimonies of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people that oppression against them is primarily based on colonialism, racism, and gender, with other factors, such as education, income, and ability, sometimes coming into play. In particular, families and survivors consistently referred to four general ways that maintain colonial violence.
We are informed by Rev. Susan C. Johnson that 2SLGBTQQIA1 stands for: two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual. She is a bishop no less, so this information must be reliable, although I would suggest she add another “S” for people like me who are Skeptical.
Some good sleuthing here. While the publication is hardly official Anglican Church of Canada policy, the article in question, “Singing a Song of Belonging” helps to define a position of inclusion that I’d venture to say is becoming more widely accepted in the Anglican Church of Canada. Problem is, the more identities that are included, the more fragmented the attempts at inclusion become. Witness the ‘United’ Methodists in the US and plans to launch both a new inclusive denomination known as Liberation Methodist Connexion, and a conservative Methodist denomination, The Global Methodist Church. Covid has delayed plans to split. Perhaps God has a hand in the pandemic after all….
Just call it LGBQblablablah.
The ACoC needs to be reminded that in Gen 5:2 “Male and female created He them…”. Also Mat 19:4 “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,” Clearly from these words given and spoken by God there are only these two genders. Any pretending that there are others or more is to commit heresy against God!
Susan Johnson might well be called a bishop but like others with her perverted views she clearly denounces the SCRIPTURE and has chosen to worship the “god of political expediency”. It is well past the time for the Christian church to make a firm stand for the authority of Scripture and to denounce and defrock those who have chosen to worship a false god.
Hanukkah 25 Kislev 5782 + Advent I Sunday, November 28, 2021
The Song of Joy at the Promised Coming Redemption for the sins of the whole world begins not with either Miriam or Hannah; but with Sarah + Genesis 15 and 18.
To suborn Holy Scripture to bless sin invokes the Evangelical Prophet’s 59th chapter:
“Behold, The LORD’s Hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;
neither His Ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated between you and your GOD,
and your sins have hid His Face from you that He will not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness…”
Advent +
“And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there is no intercessor; therefore His Arm brought Salvation unto Him..
and The Redeemer shall come to Zion+, and unto them that turn from transgression…this is My Covenant with them, saith The LORD, My Spirit that is upon Thee, and My Words which I shall put in Thy Mouth, shall not depart out of Thy Mouth, nor out of the mouth of Thy seed…from henceforth and for ever.” Amen.
+ Romans 11:26, 27. Amen.