Author Archives: David

Diocese of Toronto waves goodbye to objective reality

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The Diocese of Toronto has decided to proceed with same-sex marriage even though the vote to change the Marriage Canon to permit such marriages was defeated at general synod.

In a masterstroke of ingenuity, the diocese has found a way to get around this inconvenient obstacle. We don’t have to change the marriage canon; all we must do is reinterpret it to mean something other than what is clearly stated in the canon.

The diocese has entered the murky realm of post-truth ecclesiology.

From here (my emphasis):

From this sharing and listening, we will gather what we’ve heard into our diocese’s message for the Council of General
Synod when it meets on Nov. 23-25, and to General Synod itself.
This is what we are considering:
• Declare that Canon XXI (On Marriage in the Church) applies to all persons who are duly qualified by civil law
to enter into marriage. (This is an interpretation of the Canon, not a change to the Canon.)
• Change wording to be gender neutral (i.e. “the parties to the marriage”).
• Opt-in process. (Noting that no cleric is required to marry anyone.)
• Must be authorized by the diocesan
bishop.

St. John’s, Shaughnessy fills pews with witches, warlocks, vampires, ghosts and demons

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Ever since the Diocese of New Westminster evicted the orthodox congregation of St. John’s, Shaughnessy, the place has been like an empty mausoleum.

Since the diocese can’t fill the pews with Christians, it is filling them with witches, warlock and demons instead. There’s a metaphor begging to be interpreted here.

From here:

The 14th Annual Hallowe’en Organ Spooktacular
Witches, warlocks, vampires, ghosts, demons and more populated the pews of St. John’s, Shaughnessy (SJS) the evening of October 25, 2019 for the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO) 14th Annual Vancouver Hallowe’en Concert.

Diocese of Niagara sings a new song

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The theme of the 2019 diocesan synod was “Sing A New Song”. Most of the items in the bishop’s charge fell rather short of being either new or worth singing about. For example, ever eager to jump on the latest thinly disguised vacuous Gaia worship bandwagon, the diocese has declared:

a climate emergency and [is] urging advocacy and action to address it

If that doesn’t stimulate your vocal cords, perhaps this will:

expressing a steadfast solidarity with the local and global LGBTQ2S+ community, affirming the prophetic witness of Bishop Michael Bird and Bishop Susan Bell, and receiving the affirmations contained with the “Word to the Church”

Susan Bell doesn’t have much of a prophetic witness act to follow, since Michael Bird’s prophetic abilities didn’t manage rise to the level of dismal failure represented by CNN’s attempt to predict the outcome of the 2016 US election.

I expect what the article meant to say was: “affirming the woke witness of Bishop Michael Bird and Bishop Susan Bell”.

O come let us adore Him

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A merry and blessed Christmas to all.

A few carols played by me:

 

I dreamed a dream and I thought it true

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I’m not much given to visions or the dreaming of visions, but I did have this dream some time ago.

In my teens I enjoyed dabbling with electronics. I would take radios and TVs apart either to fix them or see how they worked.

I had fixed a wireless and left it outside its cabinet at the side of my bed. Plugged in. The mains supply in the UK is 240V, much more robust than the anaemic North American 120V. Upon awakening, I reached down to turn on my masterpiece of renovation only to discover I had unwittingly grasped the 240V input terminal to the power transformer.

I don’t recommend you try this for yourself but, if you do, you will discover that your hand will seem to stick to the point of electrical contact while every muscle in your body spasms and shrieks at you in the utmost agony. Needless to say I survived, in spite of my attempt to invent the ultimate alarm clock. My first activity of the morning was to put the cabinet back on the wireless.

This brings me to the dream. Even though my conscious mind had long forgotten the incident, much as my hand had stuck to the electrical terminal, my unconscious was still grasping, or in the grasp of my adolescent electrocution. 60 years later I dreamt about it. There was one thing different in the dream version, though: I heard a voice say “you have one more second of conscious life left to you, then your self-awareness will be obliterated for ever.” I awoke in a panic.

Even though it was a dream, the idea of annihilation filled me with the utmost terror, more so than any of the other options – even judgement and condemnation. Perhaps I feel this way because I am an unrepentant egotist unwilling to let go of my inner dross. Or perhaps annihilationism isn’t as kind an option as some might like to think.

The Diocese of Niagara is keeping Gaia in Christmas

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The Diocese of Niagara is promoting The Order of the Sacred Earth this Christmas. The idea is to take a vow to become “the best lover and defender of Mother Earth that I can be”.

We are assured that this is not a new religion and, since whole exercise exudes the aroma of pagan fertility rites, it’s hard to disagree: it’s an old one that has been regurgitated, then puréed and seasoned by sprinkling it with enough 21st century banalities to make it appealing to the modern palate. Another thing we can agree on is that it has nothing to do with Christianity. Just like the Diocese of Niagara.

From the diocesan web site:

ORDER OF THE SACRED EARTH
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jennifer Berit Listug (Monkfish Book Publishing Company 2018)
Fox writes that the world does not need another religion or even a reshuffling of our old religions. He says, “What it needs is a new Order.” He describes this Order as a community and movement of people [no matter what their background] to share a sacred vow to preserve Mother Earth and become the best lovers and defenders they can be on behalf of Mother Earth. A post-denominational Order and a post-religious Order – therefore a Spiritual order!

Diocese of Niagara interfaith service attracts more Muslims than Christians

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A short update on the interfaith service held at All Saints Anglican Church in Erin.

Here is a photo of the service which attracted 30 Muslims and two imams. As far as I can tell, they outnumber the regular parishioners. Finally an answer to the disastrous numerical decline in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Here is the Chrislam version of the Lord’s Prayer which was used:

Priest: And lead us not into temptation

Imam: Show us the straight path. The path of those whom Thou has favoured
Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger. Nor of those who go astray.

Priest: For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

There was one potentially embarrassing moment when someone brought up the awkward topic of “jihad”. The impertinent question was deftly diverted away from the imputation that it might involve lopping off the heads of infidels:

When All Saints parishioner Lynne Dole asked about the word “jihad”, the Imam said that for many in the West this word means war or aggression against “infidels” (those not of the Muslim faith). He explained that the word itself means effort, striving, struggling to become a good Muslim and informing others about their faith.

Anglican priest wants to keep Christ out of Christmas

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Brian Pearson, a retired Anglican priest from the Diocese of Niagara – where else – has chosen this Christmas to expose the fundamental tenets of Christianity for the myths they really are.

Forget the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, angels from the realms of glory, Magi and a miraculous star. All much too literal: Jungian mythical thinking is what we need.

Keep Jung in Christmas!

From here:

Consider this. The Christmas story is not just about Jesus. Yes, it’s a theological construct designed to bolster the Christian claim that Jesus is the Son of God. But it’s also a mythic tale that has something to say about all of us. Or why would we still be telling it, lo, these many years later? It’s not supposed to be just about him!

The hardest sermons I had to preach in my 38 years of ministry as a parish priest were at Christmas and Easter. People wanted to hear the old, old stories, and they didn’t want you messing around with them. It was hard because, as literal stories, they not only beggar our ability to believe, they have almost nothing to say to us. Jesus was born of a virgin. Okay, interesting! Jesus rose from the grave. Well, how nice for him!

These stories only speak to us if we see them as the myths that they truly are, that is, as stories that may not be literally true, but that tell a certain kind of universal truth. Or, as a First Nations saying goes, “It may not have happened just like that, but every word of it is true.”

As to Christmas, what could a virgin birth, an angelic visitation, and a guiding star possibly have to do with us? Unless, that birth is viewed mythically — as hope in a dark world, as each new birth is; as attended to by the angels, as all births are; as changing the world, as every birth does.

Then the story shifts to become a lens through which we see our own miraculous arrival, both literally, as babies, and spiritually, as we become the people God made us to be. I was a sign of hope, when I was born; the angels watched over me, and celebrated; my presence has changed the world, forever. Now that’s something to chew on over Christmas dinner.

The Jungian writer James Hillman says literal thinking is the enemy of mythical thinking. You make a story literal — like, insisting that the virgin birth was historical fact — and you squeeze all the life out of it. But mythical thinking — well, there we are, right in the middle of that story, right down to our soul.

Brian Pearson is a retired Anglican priest (formerly from Niagara).

Diocese of Niagara parish holds Islamic interfaith service

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Rev. Joan Dunn of All Saints Anglican Church in Erin invited two imams and 30 Muslim worshippers to a Eucharist for joint Christian/Muslim prayers and a question time with the imams.

I’m at a loss to understand why a question time was necessary. Is Dunn unaware of that most marvellous invention, the Internet? With little effort she could have discovered that Islam teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross, did not atone for our sins, was not resurrected, and was not God incarnate. Must be a perfect fit with diocesan theology.

From here:

A behind the scenes look into the Erin Islamic Cultural Centre
On Sept. 29 the mosque held an interfaith service with Rev. Joan Dunn at the All Saints Anglican Church just up the street.

“We all have the same faith, the same prophets,” said Celik, explaining that the community is curious about the new mosque and had questions about the Islamic faith.

The Erin Islamic Cultural Centre is inside a former Christian church. The group purchased the historical building and converted it into a mosque, trading wooden pews for soft carpet.

Celik said the shift was quite simple, as the site was already zoned as a place of worship. The building has a separate prayer area for women, as well.

To make the imams feel comfortable, did Rev. Joan Dunn sit in a separate prayer area for women?

Note that the Erin Islamic Cultural Centre is inside a former Christian church. So is All Saints Anglican Church.

It’s hotter than Hades down here

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A few years ago, I was chatting about Hell with a friend of one of our children. At the time he was at Oxford studying for a doctorate in theology. We were talking about Hell because he had come to the conclusion that it is empty – of humanity, at least. His reasoning was that once a dead person is confronted by God, the experience would so overwhelm him that he would be unable to do anything other than accept the salvation through Jesus that would still be on offer.

I countered with the objection that by doing this, God would be taking from us his most precious and mysterious gift: our free will. If, after death, we are not permitted to reject God, what meaning is there for those who, in life, accepted him? What of a Christopher Hitchens who saw God as a celestial dictator and wanted no part of him or his heaven? Since the friend is much cleverer than I, I also threw in a few tidbits about free-will from Dostoevsky in the hope that an appeal to authority might deliver at least a wounding blow.

He didn’t appear too wounded when he left, and I have no idea who won the argument or whether it merely ended up as an example of good disagreement. Perhaps not the latter since I privately concluded that he had succumbed to an overdose of liberal wish-fulfillment that would not serve him well outside of the foggy heights of academia.

Our encounter did illuminate one curious thing about today’s church, particularly the Anglican church. I used to think that Anglicans had altogether abandoned the transcendent, preferring to dwell in the temporal, the here and now. That isn’t quite accurate. The church has been replacing the numinous with shabby worldly substitutes for years. Sex instead of the mystical, utopia instead of heaven, socialism instead of charity.

And, of course, global warming instead of Hell.

The Diocese of Bristol and Swindon is right into the swing of things: the diocese has  declared a Climate Emergency. Clergy and laity are doing their bit to save us from the fires of earthly Gehenna by brandishing signs with intense liturgical piety. You can see the fervour in their expressions.

From here:

The Diocese of Bristol and Swindon has declared a climate emergency after a unanimous vote at its last meeting.

In response to the emergency, the Diocese aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and has an ambitious policy to help achieve this goal.

It is the first diocese in the Church of England to announce this aim, with others expected to do so over the coming months.

Bishop of Bristol Viv Faull said: “Care for God’s creation is key to our Christian faith. Climate change hits our poorest global neighbours first and worst, exacerbating migration, conflict over resources and the spread of disease.