Author Archives: David

How to endorse a political party while maintaining plausible deniability

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The old cliché “The Anglican Church is the Conservative Party at prayer” has devolved into “The Anglican Church is the Communist Party at a smudging session”.

The Anglican Church of Canada doesn’t want to appear to endorse any particular party in the forthcoming election since it doesn’t want to be exposed for what it is: an impotent purveyor of socialist agitprop.

Thus, the inevitable “letter from Anglican, Lutheran leaders about the 2021 federal election” doesn’t mention any political party by name. Instead, it provides links to sites promoting causes beloved by the outer fringes of the lunatic left.

So as a faithful Anglican, the ACoC won’t tell you who to vote for, but you’ll know anyway. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Read it all here:

A letter from Anglican, Lutheran leaders about the 2021 federal election

BY GENERAL SYNOD COMMUNICATIONS ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

On September 20, Canadians will vote in a federal election, electing Members of Parliament who will help shape the life of our country for the next four years. We give thanks for each candidate and their willingness to offer their vision, gifts and service for consideration for leadership in public life.

Over the last two years, many events have pushed for deeper reflection on the kind of Canada we desire.

Finding the remains of more than 1,300 Indigenous children who were buried in unmarked graves at the sites of several former residential schools is traumatic, heart-wrenching and profound. Many more sites have yet to be investigated. The call for healing, reconciliation and renewed relationships among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples is a fundamental element of work for social and ecological justice in the Canadian context today.

The murder of George Floyd in particular, along with many other incidents in Canada and beyond, have called attention to anti-Black racism and other expressions of systemic racism. In March 2020, the Anglican Church of Canada’s Council of General Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada’s National Church Council participated together in a session of anti-racism training. This was one step on a multi-faceted journey of working to dismantle racism and to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in all areas of life.

The recent report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  highlights the need to address the climate crisis. This election takes place during the Season of Creation, when we are invited to reflect on our relationships with Creation and our impact on our shared home. Indigenous wisdom and relationships with the land need to inform individual, community and societal choices for healthy relationship with the Earth.

Anglican churches begin to demand proof of vaccination

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From August 29th, worshippers at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco will have to produce proof of vaccination before they are permitted to enter the building to attend a service.

From here:

Following the guidance of local public health officials and our Bishop, we will be requiring that everyone 12 years and above will need to show proof of vaccination before entry into Grace Cathedral. Starting Aug 24 for Events and will expand to include all Services starting Aug 29. We have implemented an advanced proof of vaccination form for you to complete and upload an image of your vaccination card.

The Diocese of Long Island is demanding all its clergy be vaccinated. Or else.

Meanwhile, both dioceses are working diligently to expunge Matthew 8:3 (“And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed”) from all the Bibles in its parish churches – the few that still have Bibles, that is. After all, Jesus’ reckless act might encourage others to welcome or even touch the unvaccinated.

Calgary church to require vaccine passports

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It was inevitable, I suppose, and the Marda Loop Church in Calgary has the distinction of being the first: it has decided to refuse entrance to those who have not been vaccinated or who cannot provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

The church’s vision statement claims that the church exists “to help [vaccinated] people Engage God Everywhere“  and that it “will be a church where [vaccinated] people who don’t go to church feel at home.”

All this is being done in the name of science and to protect the vulnerable – even though there is increasing evidence that the vaccinated can be just as infections as the unvaccinated. Still, Jesus did say “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and vaccinated, and I will give you rest”, so pastor John van Sloten must be on to something.

From what I can see, this is a new church. As an experiment in exclusion, I wonder how it will fare.

Read more about it here:

Taking in the ever-evolving news on vaccine passports this past month, I kept wondering why nobody ever mentioned churches. If gyms, bars, entertainment venues and places of work merited strict vaccination policies, why not places of faith?

Given the nature of churches — places where children and adults closely intermingle, where seniors and the immunocompromised regularly gather, where diverse groups share food, sing together, and meet in often small, old, poorly ventilated buildings — wouldn’t a mandatory vaccination policy make sense? Wouldn’t it be the Christian thing to do?

And yet, I’ve haven’t heard of any churches making this call. Which makes it hard to be the first.

This week, our church leadership team decided that when our church opens for live gatherings next month, all attendees 12 and older will need to be fully vaccinated.

Even though it’s a temporary measure, and there will be online alternatives, and unvaccinated people will still be able to attend with proof of a recent negative COVID test, it still feels wrong. Churches  should never turn people away, should they?

Yet we do. The moment we accommodate the unvaccinated we alienate those who want to shield their unvaccinated children, immunocompromised individuals who are still vulnerable to breakthrough infections, and anyone else who’d rather avoid the risk.

Either way we make a choice. So, our little faith community has decided to side with the majority of civic-minded, science-trusting Calgarians for practical and theological reasons.

Practically, more than 76 per cent of Albertans 12 and up have received at least one dose of vaccine. Clearly most Albertans trust the science. We want to honour their choice and make our space as hospitable and safe for them as possible.

Theologically, the argument is stronger. To be a Christian is to model one’s life after Christ. Jesus always put others first. He gave up his individual rights for the common good and sacrificed for the sake of the weak. He loved others as he loved himself and would have surely done anything to best protect the unvaccinated children in his neighbourhood. A Christian ethic always puts the vulnerable first.

A Christian worldview, historically, has also been very pro-science. Shouldn’t Christians be first in line when it comes to celebrating God’s good gifts of vaccines? There is a direct line connecting Jesus’ first century call to heal the sick to the hospitals that fill our cities today. Western health care started in early churches and monasteries, as did the movement that would lead to modern universities (and their capacity to do scientific research). For 2000 years, the spirit of Christ has been growing humanity’s capacity to understand the biology of the human body — so that we can better care for it.

The plague, the vaccine, and our Jeremiah moment

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Most people are uninterested in what priests from mainline denominations have to say. I can hardly blame them since so much of it is utter nonsense. We still have a priestly caste that has authority, though: doctors, scientists, experts in general and politicians, although the lustre of the latter has become tarnished of late. The reason for this is that we like to be told what to do: freedom, as Dostoyevsky noted, is a burden which we are only too eager to give away to whoever offers to relieve us of it.

As a result, we sheep listen keenly for our shepherd’s call and follow him where he leads.

Jeremiah encountered false prophets who insisted that everything would turn out fine:

Jeremiah 23:16ff
[16] A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: “Don’t listen to the sermons of the prophets. It’s all hot air. Lies, lies, and more lies. They make it all up. Not a word they speak comes from me.
[17] They preach their ‘Everything Will Turn Out Fine’ sermon to congregations with no taste for God, Their ‘Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen to You’ sermon to people who are set in their own ways.
[18] “Have any of these prophets bothered to meet with me ,the true GOD? bothered to take in what I have to say? listened to and then lived out my Word?
[19] Look out! GOD’s hurricane will be let loose— my hurricane blast, Spinning the heads of the wicked like tops!
[20] God’s raging anger won’t let up Until I’ve made a clean sweep, completing the job I began. When the job’s done, you’ll see that it’s been well done.

We have been assured by our medical experts that taking one or a combination of the readily available COVID-19 vaccines will save us. Such is the fervour of these priestly panjandrums and their devotees that the vaccination ritual has taken on a eucharistic aura. Selfies of the first dose rite are posted on Facebook, garnering enthusiastic approval and congratulations; new converts feverishly – literally in some cases – proselytize their friends to partake of the Dose; scorn is heaped on the reluctant.

What lies underneath all this? Does it have a spiritual aspect?

It now seems plausible that the COVID-19 virus was man-made in the Chinese Wuhan laboratory as part of their gain of function research – a process partially funded by the US National Institutes of Health. Which goes to show that the existence of a conspiracy theory is not evidence of the absence of a conspiracy. So, the havoc that has been visited on mankind was, in all likelihood, self-inflicted.

Our efforts to extricate ourselves are mainly focussed on vaccines, all of which (in North America, at least) have been produced or tested using a kidney dissected from a baby girl aborted in 1972 (the HEK-293 cell line) or the iris of another baby aborted in 1985 (the PER.C6 cell line). This may or may not fill you with unease; in my case, it does.

The Catholic church is one of the few denominations that have made a statement on the morality of taking a vaccine whose development relied on an aborted baby (the Anglican Church – even ACNA- has yet to make an even flabby pronouncement on it). To summarise the Catholic position: it is morally acceptable to take such a vaccine if no alternative is available because the abortion was not performed for the express purpose of harvesting the baby’s organs for sale to a laboratory; that was incidental to the abortion and the use of the vaccine is not encouraging further abortions. There is no material cooperation with the evil act of abortion. In my view, the argument is flawed for a couple of reasons. Here is one: it has recently come to light that the university of Pittsburgh has been aborting babies by induction so that they remain intact, a requirement for optimal organ harvesting. The babies may still be alive when they are induced; indeed, they may still be alive when they are dissected. The organs, once removed, are sold to laboratories for medical experiments, just as the kidney and iris were to develop our COVID-19 vaccines. To consume the vaccine is to grant tacit assent to a demonic abomination, an abomination which would have no reason to continue if all refused to inject the fruit of its macabre experiments.

One of the enduring conceits of mankind has been that we are in command of our own destiny. “The vaccine will give us our freedom back”, we are told. “It will ‘flatten the curve’” – remember that? “You will be able to travel, take off your mask, eat in restaurants, hug your grandchildren, go to baseball games” and so forth. I vaccinate, therefore I can ….. hug, dine out, travel – insert your choice distraction.

But what if God is in control, not us?  What if this is His judgement on an evil generation? What if He is waiting for us to repent?

Countries that have instigated draconian lockdowns and mask mandates have not done significantly better than Sweden that didn’t.

Israel was the first country to start vaccinating people. The majority of the population has received two Pfizer injections. Yet this was the headline in yesterday’s Times of Israel:

Health officials predict thousands of seriously ill COVID patients within month

It goes on to say:

Israeli hospitals have to prepare for an influx of nearly 5,000 coronavirus patients within weeks, half of whom will need acute care to deal with severe bouts of COVID-19, health officials have warned Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, according to reports Wednesday.

An old friend of mine used to like telling me: “If you sup with the Devil make sure you use a long spoon”.

I’ll leave you with some questions: are we in control of this pandemic or is God? Is our priestly caste spouting piffle when they assure us that everything will be fine if we just do as they say or are we at a Jeremiah moment? If you take the vaccine, is your spoon long enough?

A Prayer as I Put on My Mask

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For those who are still unconvinced that all but the most stubborn have become glassy-eyed disciples in a new and seemingly irresistible cult, I give you this – sorry, I don’t know what to call it – thing, allegedly written by The Right Reverend Richard Bott, Moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Creator,
as I prepare to go into the world,
help me to see the sacrament
in the wearing of this cloth –
let it be “an outward sign
of an inward grace” –
a tangible and visible way
of living love for my neighbours,
as I love myself.

Christ,
since my lips will be covered,
uncover my heart,
that people would see my smile
in the crinkles around my eyes.
Since my voice may be muffled,
help me to speak clearly,
not only with my words,
but with my actions.

Holy Spirit,
as the elastic touches my ears,
remind me to listen carefully –
and full of care –
to all those I meet.
May this simple piece of cloth
be shield and banner,
and each breath that it holds,
be filled with your love.

In your Name
and in that love,
I pray.

May it be so.
May it be so.

The latest in woke children’s books

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See below for a selection of books from the children’s section in Chapters.

I grew up with Narnia, Wind in the Willows, The Famous Five, Biggles, Winnie the Pooh and Worzel Gummidge, for which I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to my mother.

I’m so relieved I won’t be around to see the results of this:

Catholic priest cancelled

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It didn’t take long for cancel culture to invade the church. The Roman Catholic church; the Anglican church has already cancelled itself, so no invasion is necessary.

Monsignor Owen Keenan, priest at Merciful Redeemer Parish in Mississauga, was foolish enough to express the opinion that there may have been some good done in the residential schools.

Admittedly, his timing was bad and perhaps he is wrong and nothing good whatsoever was done in the schools – a proposition I find implausible. But that isn’t the point. He surely should be allowed to voice his opinion without being fired – well, he “resigned”.

But no, there are some things you just can’t say and expect to get away with it. Including in the RC church. To make matters worse, he committed the secular mortal sin of denouncing the flying of Pride flags by Catholic schools.

I don’t suppose Keenan has a death wish; he is probably just harmlessly naïve.

From here:

A priest who referred to the “good done” by the Roman Catholic Church in residential schools has resigned from his role as pastor, the Archdiocese of Toronto confirmed on Friday.

During a sermon last Sunday, Monsignor Owen Keenan, the pastor of the Merciful Redeemer Parish in Mississauga, west of Toronto, talked about the remains of an estimated 215 children discovered at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. run by the church.

“Two-thirds of the country is blaming the church, which we love, for the tragedies that occurred there,” he said on a video that was posted to the church’s YouTube page but was later deleted.

“I presume the same number would thank the church for the good done in those schools, but of course, that question was never asked and we are not allowed to even say that good was done there. I await to see what comes to my inbox.”

In a statement on Twitter Friday, the Archdiocese of Toronto said Keenan resigned from his role as pastor and has been placed on an indefinite leave of absence.

“We apologize for the pain caused by his remarks,” the Archdiocese said.

The parish has issued an apology as has Keenan. It is suitably grovelling but, as expected, insufficiently so to save his job. You can read both here.

Apology to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Two Spirit, Plus Community in the Diocese of Toronto from Bishop Andrew Asbil

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You knew it was coming. Here it is. It does go on a bit.

If you want to see the tears, go here.

Read it all here:

As your Bishop, I apologize for the times and ways that we have failed to honour and cherish you, beloved children of God, made in the image of our Creator, redeemed by the love of our Saviour and embraced by the Holy Spirit.

I apologize for the teachings, words and actions that indicated that you are unwelcome, that you stand outside the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ and that you are unworthy to serve fully as members of the Body of Christ because of your sexual identity and orientation.

I apologize for the teachings, words and actions that have diminished your humanity, sexuality and identity and perpetuated the sins of homophobia and transphobia in the Church.

I apologize for the teachings, words and actions that marginalised queer members, many of whom have left the Anglican Church. I am sorry for the hurt inflicted on you and your families and friends who have also suffered. Deeper still, I am sorry for queer people who fell into despair and depression or chose to end their lives by suicide because we failed to support them with love and acceptance.

I apologize for the times that we have been silent in the face of homophobic/transphobic comments, slurs and whispers that created a culture of aggression and oppression further injuring you……

And so on – and on and on.

A footnote contains an explanation of “queer”. It’s supposed to encompass anyone who doesn’t think LGBTQ2S+ is inclusive enough.

While LGBTQ2S+ specifically identifies lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and two spirit, the term “queer” is far broader. It includes but is not limited to all of those who identify with the letters in the acronym above, but also includes those who identify as non-binary, pansexual, allies and more. It is in the spirit of inclusion that I use both terms.

What about necrophiliacs, zoophiles, libidoist asexuals, polyamorists, sadists, masochists and the plain libidinous (I know, that is so yesterday), you may be wondering. There’s always next year.

Anglican clergy complain that town is not flying a Pride flag

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The Petawawa town council voted against flying a Pride flag this June.

This has upset some Anglican clergy in the area, prompting them to write a letter to the mayor saying that this sends the wrong “message to the members of the LGBTQ2S+ community”.

Petawawa, for those who might be unfamiliar with it, is a town of around 17,000 people located in the Ottawa Valley. It is the home of a Canadian Forces base and attracts hikers, fishermen and canoeists.

As you can imagine, a rural town of 17,000 is positively seething with LGBTQ2S+ residents. Are there enough to form a community, though? Do they have their own community hall? Are they comprised entirely of the five complaining Anglican clergy? I’m not sure.

Funnily enough, one of the clergy is the Right Reverend Michael Bird. That name rings a bell, although I can quite put my finger on why.

From here:

Five Anglican ministers are expressing disappointment with the recent decision by the Petawawa town council to not fly the Pride flag because of a 23 year old municipal resolution prohibiting such public displays.

The ministers from the Parish of the Valley made their point about Resolution 11 in an open letter addressed to Mayor Bob Sweet released Wednesday.

All Saints Anglican Church, one of the churches in the parish, is steps away from the Petawawa Town Hall and it has raised a Pride flag in solidarity with LGBTQ2S+ residents of Petawawa.

“We pray that the presence of the flag at the church will be a visible reminder of members of our community of God’s unconditional love for all people,” the letter, which is signed by five ministers — The Right Reverend Michael Bird, Archdeacon of Pembroke, Rev. Susan Clifford, Rev. Matthew Brown, Rev. Gillian Hoyer and Rev. Richard Durrett — states.