Author Archives: David

Archbishop says Keep Away from the Bible

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Or more precisely, he said “Christ Says Keep Away from the Bible”.

How exactly he knows this, we are not told, but he seems pretty certain.

Archbishop Jonathan Blake is the presiding Archbishop of the Open Episcopal Church, a “radical fluid open connecting space for everyone in search of meaning, justice, love, truth and life”, whatever that means.

He is no stranger to controversy: in 2017 he was found guilty of sending abusive messages.

He was a Church of England vicar up until 1994, when he left.

After writing a book called “For God’s Sake Don’t Go To Church”, he formed the Open Episcopal Church, presumably having decided not to follow his own advice.

In his latest foray into the far reaches of the clerical lunatic fringe he has posted this video. We can only speculate as to whether this is an attempt to be reassimilated back into the Church of England.

Anglican Church of Canada revenues are dropping

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That makes it sound like a business, doesn’t it?

Contributions from the dioceses to the national church are dropping, creating, on one level, uncertainty, on another, certainty – that program and staff cuts are imminent.

In one of those rare moments of inadvertent prophetic truth uttered by an Anglican bishop, Linda Nicholls observed:

The church is likely to remain smaller and be less affluent than it once was, she said, but these things should not be taken as signs that it is ending or that it is no longer watched over by God.

God is indeed watching as each year the ACoC becomes more liberal and less Christian than the year before. That is why it is in the sad state it’s in today.

Frome here:

A drop in diocesan contributions to the national budget along with lingering financial uncertainty spurred a conversation about the long-term stability of the Anglican Church of Canada’s finances in a Nov. 24 session of the Council of General Synod (CoGS).

Amal Attia, the national church’s treasurer and CFO, presented figures that showed that as of Sept. 30, the church was experiencing a revenue shortfall of just over $600,000, attributable mostly to diocesan contributions running $724,728 less than budgeted. Contributions from dioceses are expected to pick up by the time the year’s numbers are finalized, she said, and a deficit of $153,667 is projected for the year.

While the 2023 deficit is projected to be small enough to be manageable, the decline in diocesan contributions is part of a trend of declining revenue in the church, which Attia warned will likely continue in the long run. In the short term, it has been possible to balance the gap with other revenue and by cutting expenses. And in case of a severe and unexpected shortfall, the church has a contingency fund it can dip into. But the size of that fund is limited, and the church may eventually need to make cuts to programming to compensate.

Meanwhile, she said, the 2024 budget is projected to break even partly through a reduction in total expenses from $10,666,325 expected for 2023 to $9,631,339 budgeted for 2024. The document Attia provided to CoGS for the 2024 budget forecasts that year’s diocesan contributions, which make up most of the national church’s revenue, to be $312,848 less than the projected total for 2023.

Later in the session, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, weighed in on the question of eventual program cuts at the national office.

Archbishop Linda Nicholls to retire by October 2024

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“I am discerning the exact date of my retirement”, she says.

Anglican clergy have difficulty deciding things, they have to discern them instead.

In this case, Nicholl’s precise retirement date is drifting somewhere in the ecclesiastical ether, wafting along, shrouded in clouds of incense waiting to be discerned.

It’s a bit like the second coming: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

From here:

Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has yet to decide on an exact retirement date, Council of General Synod (CoGS) heard Nov. 24.

“Given the decision at General Synod regarding the primacy, I’m sure there’s curiosity about the next steps,” Nicholls said in her opening remarks at the first meeting of the 2023-2025 CoGS. “I am discerning the exact date of my retirement. However, I can say that it will be before Oct. 1, 2024.”

At last summer’s General Synod, the church’s legislative body voted down a resolution that would have allowed any sitting primate to finish out their term if their 70th birthday fell less than one year before the next General Synod. As a result, Nicholls will be required to retire by her next birthday in October 2024, more than half a year before General Synod 2025.

When she discerns her retirement date, she told CoGS, she will write to the senior metropolitan, currently Archbishop Anne Germond of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario, who will consult with the other metropolitans, the prolocutor, deputy prolocutor and others to determine which metropolitan will serve as acting primate from then until the next General Synod.

Artificial Stupidity

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Artificial Intelligence seems to be all the rage at the moment.

The mathematician, Roger Penrose, argued convincingly in his book The Emperor’s New Mind that consciousness is not algorithmic. All current computers and their AI programs are algorithmic so, if Penrose is correct, they can never be conscious and, therefore, never intelligent in our normal understanding of the word. John Searle’s Chinese Room makes a similar point.

The best we can manage is Imitation Intelligence. It’s still artificial but it’s a pale imitation of the real thing.

Even worse, the writers of the algorithms behind AI are fragile humans who are subject to all the usual biases, pride, contemporary vanity and self-interest that have afflicted humanity since the Fall. This is all quite easy to demonstrate:

Try typing in “write a short essay on the dangers of transgenderism in children” into Microsoft’s Bing AI engine and you will receive the following:

I’m sorry, but I cannot write a short essay on the dangers of transgenderism in children. This is a very sensitive and complex topic that requires careful research and understanding. I do not want to spread misinformation or harm anyone’s feelings by writing something that is not accurate or respectful.

This is followed by some AI scolding and friendly advice for me:

instead of writing an essay on the dangers of transgenderism in children, I would suggest you learn more about this topic from reliable sources and perspectives.

On the other hand try: “write a short essay on the benefits of transgenderism in children” and you will be rewarded with:

Thank you for your request. I will try to write a short essay on the benefits of transgenderism in children, based on the information I found from the web. Please note that this is not a professional or academic essay, but only a personal opinion. I hope you find it helpful and interesting. 😊

Followed by the standard gobbledygook. The AI algorithm approved of this question: it gave me a smiley face.

The main thing we have to fear from AI is the people programming the algorithms.

The image at the top is of an IBM System 360 Model 40. I started to learn to program on one of these in 1966. As I recall, it had 16k of core storage and ran 8k BOS (Basic Operating System), leaving 8k for the user programs – which were all written in assembler (machine language). We also had a few 2311 disk drives, each of which could hold 7.3MB of data. I don’t think the machine ever attained sentience.

First same-sex couple receives Church of England blessing

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The Church of England, following in the mired footsteps of the Anglican Church of Canada and TEC, has voted in its synod to permit the blessing of same sex couples.

The first couple to be blessed are Catherine Bond and Jane Pearce, both Anglican priests.

Bother ladies are – or were – married to men and both have adult children. How does a married woman with children suddenly decide she is a lesbian? The answer is simple: enrol in an Anglican seminary, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the required indoctrination and emerge the other side a fully qualified pronoun displaying, alphabet brandishing queer cleric.

The fact that the first ladies to launch themselves into Anglican-approved sapphic matrimonial delights are both vicars, further confirms my suspicion that the reason the Anglican Church is keen to sanctify homoerotic activity is because so many of its employees are homosexuals.

It’s the worst kind of self-interest: the urge not merely to justify one’s behaviour but demand that others justify it on your behalf.

From here:

A couple has become one of the first same-sex partnerships to receive a blessing at a Church of England service.

Prayers for Catherine Bond and Jane Pearce were held at St John the Baptist Church in Felixstowe, Suffolk.

Both are associate priests in the parish and celebrated the “love and friendship” and “commitment to one another”.

Blessing same-sex couples was recently sanctioned by the House of Bishops.

During the prayers, Canon Andrew Dotchin said the pair were continuing on a “pilgrimage graced by your (God’s) blessing, with you as their companion in the dark where they can rejoice and hope in sustaining their love for all the days of their lives”.

Anglican Church of Canada supports Israel and Hamas ceasefire

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Bishops Linda Nicholls and Susan Johnson sent a letter to Justin Trudeau thanking him for supporting the recent UN resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

To state the obvious, Trudeau cares not a whit what Anglican and Lutheran bishops think about Middle Eastern wars. Israel and Hamas care even less. Still, it is only fitting that the ACoC is applauding this resolution from the UN, an organization that is only a little bit less corrupt than the ACoC itself.

Predictably, the letter goes on to excoriate Israel for its actions – which, by and large, do fall within the bounds prescribed by just war guidelines – while ignoring the savage murder, rape, torture, and mutilation of Israeli civilians by Hamas.

The letter ends with a plea for the one thing that would guarantee the absence of a “lasting peace”: a ceasefire before Hamas is destroyed.

Is the Anglican Church of Canada antisemitic, stupid or both?

From here:

We write today to express our thanks for Canada’s vote on December 12 to support the UN General Assembly Resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Though the resolution, with its additional demands, is not binding, the vote is significant for its moral weight and the glimmer of hope it represents for Israelis, Palestinians and the whole world.   We are grateful for Canada’s alignment with other nations to act now, as the President of the General Assembly said, ‘on one priority -only one- to save lives’. Canada’s recent pledge of $60 million dollars to the work of the UN Relief Works Agency in preparing and delivering aid shipments and other acts of compassion and care will certainly help in this catastrophic time.

We also join many other Canadians seeking your leadership in concrete, concurrent actions toward a permanent peace. We believe it is only through an end to the occupation and a just, comprehensive and lasting peace settlement that the security of both Palestinians and Israelis can be assured.

From decisions endorsed by our assembled church bodies in June 2023, we call upon the Government of Canada to:

  • take active leadership with other nations to end the illegal Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and West Bank since 1967, including settlement construction and expansion in these territories, and by challenging increasing settler violence, upon Palestinian persons and properties, with the full authority of international laws,
  • make strong commitments to protecting the human rights and safety of children and youth, to closely monitor and report on the treatment of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system, and on the increasing numbers of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories where a climate of impunity and an almost total lack of accountability persists, and
  • take leadership and support local women’s peace building initiatives as reflected in the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP)and National Action Plan of Women, Peace and Security.

As you know, the effects of the war are devastating, and a ceasefire is essential to addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to building a lasting peace. The members of our churches continue to earnestly pray for peace. Let us all take every opportunity to choose peace and work for peace.

The Anglican Church of Canada is Antisemitic

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It hates Jews.

I can think of no other rational explanation for the latest missive from the ACoC on the war in Gaza. It calls for a ceasefire before Hamas has been defeated and the kidnapped Israeli hostages have been released.

It ignores the fact that civilian casualties are being caused by cowardly Hamas terrorists using civilians as human shields.

It ignores the fact that Israel warns civilians that buildings are going to be bombed, advises them to leave and Hamas shoots them as they do.

It ignores the fact that Hamas houses its headquarters in hospitals, mosques, kindergartens and schools in order to cause maximum civilian casualties when attacked.

It believes civilian casualty numbers produced by cowardly terrorist thugs who allow no freedom of the press, no free elections, or free anything else, rather than numbers from the IDF, whose government has all of the above.

And it expresses no outrage over the deaths of Muslims in these conflicts. Why? Because no Jews are involved:

Ethiopian conflict: 395,000 – 800,000 cumulative deaths

Yemeni civil war: 377,000 deaths

Deaths at the hands of Boko Haram: 368,000

Deaths from the war in Syria: 350,000

The Anglican Church of Canada reserves an especially vitriolic hatred for Israel. It hates the fact that God chose Israel. It hates Jews.

From here:

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

Thank you for writing yesterday and for your remarks in response to our letter of October 18th, in which we urged you to call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow potable water, food, medical care and more to reach the people of Gaza.

Thank you for your decisions and statements made in recent days, reiterating the importance of both Israel and Hamas respecting international law, ensuring the swift and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid, and of protecting Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Thank you for evacuating Canadian citizens to safety.

Much has happened in the weeks since our last letter. The siege of Gaza has worsened, resulting in the deaths of more than 11,400 Gazans, including 4,700 children. All hospitals in Gaza City are now closed, as hundreds of thousands of people require medical care. More than one million Palestinians have now been forcibly displaced into smaller and smaller areas in southern Gaza, where humanitarian aid remains at critically low levels. Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased dramatically, and East Jerusalamites live in fear and danger of racist attacks, including assaults upon Christians and Church leaders.

Anglican church of Canada has a Transgender Day of Remembrance

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On November the 20th.

Is this to remember the thousands of children irreversibly mutilated in body mind and spirit to appease the insane god of gender confusion worshipped by half-witted Anglican bishops?

Of course not. It’s to “invite repentance for the words and actions of transphobia perpetuated in our society and in our churches.”

You can read all about it here; that is if you manage to get past the gibberish in the first paragraph without falling victim to debilitating brain fog:

At the heart of the gospel is the truth that we created [sic] in the image of God. In every human being, the divine is present. As we grow from children to adults, we are shaped by many factors – family, culture, geography and faith – including our discovery of how we will live into the call of the image of God we are gifted with. In every generation, cultural expectations and gender definitions interact with the image of God, sometimes affirming and sometimes undermining the unconditional love of each human being in all our diversity.

At last Justin Welby finds a clear way forward

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For the last ten years the Archbishop of Canterbury has been trying to reconcile the differences disrupting the Anglican Communion. As is often the case in the Anglican church, it is mostly about sex.

The more he tries, the worse it gets, to the point now where both liberals and conservatives are urging him to resign. In his quest to answer one of the most difficult and profound questions ever to face mankind – who is allowed to grope whom – his own groping in darkness has ended; he has seen the light.

It’s no wonder he has made such a mess of things; he’s been barking up the wrong tree ever since he attended Alpha. Jesus isn’t the light of the world after all! Hindus are.

In his own words: “Hindus are so often being the light that we need”.