Author Archives: David

Marriage Canon: the Local Option Loophole

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As tax evaders are drawn to tax loopholes, so Anglican bishops are attracted to canon law loopholes. Although the resolution to change the marriage canon failed to pass at synod, resolution A101-R1, adopting the document A Word to the Church, did pass.

The document has this statement:

Affirmation #2
Diverse Understandings of the Existing Canon
We affirm that, while there are different understandings of the existing Marriage Canon, those bishops and synods who have authorized liturgies for the celebration and blessing of a marriage between two people of the same sex understand that the existing Canon does not prohibit same-sex marriage.

In other words, bishops who are already marrying same-sex couples claim that they can do so because the existing canon does not prohibit them; so they can continue. And a motion affirming that idea has been passed.

This is what we’ve come to in the Anglican Church of Canada: do anything you like as long as you can’t find a rule that tells you not to.

Diocese of Ottawa to ignore Marriage Canon vote

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Following the example set by the Diocese of Niagara, the Diocese of Ottawa will continue to perform same-sex marriages, ignoring the fact that the vote to change the marriage canon failed to pass. I’m quite sure others will follow: Toronto, Montreal, Huron among others:

 

 

Diocese of Niagara will ignore Marriage Canon vote

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Bishop Susan Bell has announced that, in spite of the fact that the synod motion to amend the Marriage Canon was defeated, she will continue to marry same-sex couples.

If bishops are free to do this, why bother with a vote? Why bother with a synod?

More here:

A Message from the Bishop of Niagara
The Right Reverend Susan Bell

My heart aches with lament and my soul is filled with anguish knowing all the pain and hurt caused by the General Synod’s failure to ratify a change to the national marriage canon that would have explicitly expanded the meaning of marriage to include same-sex couples.

To the members of the LGBTQ2S community especially, I want to say that I stand with you and I share in your tears. I deeply value the person God beautifully created and called you to be and your contributions to the life of our Church.  Your faithful witness has been long, difficult, prophetic, and sacrificial, and I give thanks to God for it.

While I am deeply disappointed, the General Synod did also overwhelmingly vote to affirm the prayerful integrity of the diverse understandings and teachings about marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada. This includes the inclusive understanding of marriage affirmed by the Report on the Marriage Commission, This Holy Estate, that we hold in Niagara.

As a result, nothing about this decision will change our practice in Niagara; I remain steadfast in exercising my episcopal prerogative to authorize the marriage of all persons who are duly qualified by civil law to be married, thereby responding to the pastoral needs present within our diocese. Two rites of The Episcopal Church, The Witnessing and Blessing of a Marriage and The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage 2 continue to be authorized for use in our diocese, in accordance with our established episcopal guidelines.

There will be more to say in the coming days but for now I ask your prayers and solidarity for and with the LGBTQ2S community, globally and locally, in the wake of this decision and in the face of persistent discrimination, oppression, and violence. Pray also for the members of General Synod that in the days to come the Holy Spirit will help us discern a way forward that upholds the dignity of every human being and boldly proclaims God’s Way of radically inclusive love.

Marriage Canon: A message from Archbishop Melissa Skelton

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Bishop Skelton did not attend the synod because of illness. She had this to say about the failure of the motion to change the Marriage Canon:

I was very disappointed not to have been with our delegates on account of my illness as the vote on the marriage canon occurred tonight. All that I can say is that I’m very sorry for all the feelings of hurt that this vote has caused, and that I urge everyone to pray for the Anglican Church of Canada.

Remember that this Synod is not over! And so please pray that together we can find a better solution to the marriage question.

+Melissa

There was a lot of emotion following the vote. Someone screamed. Another person ran out in tears. The final prayer was delivered by a lady who had tears trickling down her face. Fred Hiltz said he was “concious of pain in this place”. Anyone would think the the desire to change the canon was propelled by emotion rather than Scripture and reason.

Like a zombie that just won’t die, the possibility of a new motion to revisit the Marriage Canon resolution was raised from the floor at the end of the evening.

Anglican Church of Canada: motion to change Marriage Canon defeated

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The two thirds majority needed to allow same-sex marriage was met by the laity and clergy but defeated by the bishops.

Primate Fred Hiltz appeared to be stunned by the vote.

Before the meeting was adjourned, there was talk of making another motion to somehow bypass the decision of this defeated motion, so this may not be over.

Bishop David Parsons is not happy

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I’m watching the live stream of GS2019. The discussion is about the change to the Marriage Canon. A motion has just been made to close debate. That means that Bishop David Parsons will not be able to express his views; apparently something similar happened in 2016. I wish I had recorded it, but the gist of it was that, in spite of all the talk about respect for all points of view, not much respect was being shown to the bishop – who, of course, disagrees with the motion.

It went further – almost to the point of unCanadian unpleasantness – as the bishop seemed to throw down a gauntlet: there would be serious consequences if he wasn’t heard. If anyone has a better recollection of exactly what was said, please comment below.

Bishop David: I’m sure ANiC would be delighted if you spoke at any of its synods.

Anglicans learning to be polite at synod

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From here:

In an exercise intended to produce more compassionate discussions than those that sometimes prevailed during marriage canon discussion in 2016, members of the 2019 General Synod spent almost the entire afternoon of the gathering’s first official day of business hearing about and practicing ways of speaking and listening respectfully to one another.

An organisation that spends an entire afternoon discussing how to discuss things doesn’t stand much of a chance of getting to the heart of the matter to be discussed. It is like Kierkegaard’s view of ‘reflection’ as opposed to ‘immediacy’, where you have an idea about something and indulge in endless conversations about the idea, instead of dealing with the thing itself. Will anyone be allowed to express any strong reasons to oppose same-sex marriage or will they be squashed as hurtful or bullying. We’ll see.

From 1:30 p.m. until close to 5 p.m. on July 11, with one break, Lynne McNaughton, bishop of the diocese of Kootenay, and priest and psychologist Canon Martin Brokenleg led a session on “being a synod,” discussing the importance of living out Christian love during debates about potentially contentious issues, and having synod members practice respectful listening and talking skills in table groups.

The Anglican version of “Christian love” has devolved into mushy sentiment centred around not hurting anyone’s feelings.

Dean Peter Wall, chair of the General Synod planning committee, said the idea for the exercise arose out of a great deal of talking and praying committee members had done, in the hope of creating a “listening, learning atmosphere” at the 2019 synod, and to help it be “both a community and a body.”

The alleged “listening, learning atmosphere” is a hoax: no one was willing to listen to ex-homosexuals and ex-lesbians from the Zacchaeus Fellowship in prior synods and no one will be in this synod.

Brokenleg was to have co-led the session with Archbishop Melissa Skelton, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon and diocesan bishop of New Westminster, but Skelton was ill and unable to attend General Synod on Thursday. McNaughton, another member of the General Synod planning committee who, Wall said, was closely involved in developing the exercise, took her place Thursday.

McNaughton said she hoped the exercise would allow members of synod to be their “authentic selves” in their discussions while at the same time making room “for others with different authentic selves and perspectives.”

What on earth are “authentic selves”? How did non-authentic selves get nominated as delegates? Have synod delegates been the victim of alien body snatchers and become Pod People, duplicates in every respect except in their ability to maintain a connection with authenticity? It would explain the behaviour of many of the clergy.

Listening and speaking well through difficult discussions, she said, is a way to “be as Christ to one another, to love one another as Christ has loved us,” and by doing this, Christians can be an example to the world.

“We are called to be a witness to a world that is hungry for civility, parched for compassion,” she said. “The world is watching how we treat each other in the midst of difference, and the world is waiting to be inspired.”

The world is hungry for truth not sickly, bogus, anodyne civility.

Theatres showing Unplanned receive death threats

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Unplanned is a pro-life film which has not yet been shown in Canada because Canadians don’t wish to be reminded that abortion kills babies and Canadian law does nothing to protect them. Nor, in spite of all their crowing about caring about society’s most vulnerable, do most mainline churches.

Those who claim to be “pro-choice” are actually not when it comes to choosing to see Unplanned. Two Canadian film theatres have received death threats because they are going to show the film. That must mean it is worth seeing.

From here:

Police are investigating death threats sent to two Canadian independent theatre owners because they are screening the pro-life movie Unplanned on July 12, LifeSiteNews has learned.

Unplanned dramatizes Abby Johnson’s conversion from Planned Parenthood abortion facility manager to pro-life advocate and was written, produced and directed by Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman.

As a safety measure, the movie’s producers have now removed from their website the comprehensive July 12 listing of 46 Canadian theatres — independents, Cineplex and Landmark locations — that will be showing Unplanned, Konzelman told LifeSiteNews.

They did so at the request of B.J. McKelvie, pastor and president of Fredericton-based Cinedicon, the Canadian distributor of the film.

McKelvie confirmed to LifeSiteNews that two Canadian independent cinema owners contacted police after receiving death threats they perceived as credible, and that they are “fearful for their families.”

Another Canadian independent theatre owner “has been harrassed to the extreme.”

One of the two owners who contacted the police has cancelled the Unplanned screening, but all the rest “are holding their ground,” McKelvie said.

Toronto bishops issue pastoral statement on marriage canon vote

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Read it all here:

Of all the items of business on the General Synod agenda, a lot of attention has been given to the second reading of the motion to revise Canon XXI – On Marriage in the Church to include same-sex marriage.

We do not know, nor do we wish to anticipate, how that vote will go at General Synod. We hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will infuse the conversation with holiness and will guide the results of the balloting. We are all approaching General Synod in a spirit of openness to ongoing discernment.

The College of Bishops, embodying as we do a breadth of theological views ourselves, is committed to remaining united regardless of the outcome. Whether the motion passes or fails, we will not be divided. We will stand together through the grace of God and by faith in our Saviour Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We call upon the Diocese of Toronto to stand together with us, unified in all our glorious diversity under the banner of Christ.

I can’t see much that is pastoral about this letter. It is filled more with an air of denial and desperation than of spiritual guidance and care.

Denial of the reality that the church has already fractured over same-sex marriage and desperation at the probability of the fracture widening and expressing itself as a loss of yet more members and their wallets.

And nobody is “approaching General Synod in a spirit of openness to ongoing discernment”. Anyone who has not already made up his mind about same-sex marriage has no mind to make up.

Retired Bishop Dennis Drainville running for Green Party

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From here:

Dennis Drainville, retired bishop of the diocese of Quebec, is re-entering politics by running for the Green Party of Canada in this fall’s federal election.

Drainville, who retired as bishop in 2017, announced June 5 he would be running for the Greens in the riding of Gaspésie-Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which covers a swathe of the Gaspé Peninsula as well as the Magdalen Islands.

Drainville, who served as a member of Bob Rae’s NDP government in Ontario 1990-93, says he’s been involved in politics in some capacity his entire life, so that returning to it feels second-nature to him. His decision to re-enter now, he says, was spurred by a realization that the coming vote, scheduled for Oct. 21, will be “an election like no other,” because it will require momentous decisions to be made on how to deal with the twin threats of climate change and unethical government.

Drainville was Bishop of the Diocese of Quebec between 2009 and 2016 during which time around two thirds of the parishes were closed, sold or amalgamated. I don’t think this was all the bishop’s fault but it’s hard not to look at this as an example of reverse evangelism.

Following this ecclesiastical success, he is setting his sights on something easier: solving climate change and reforming unethical government.

The Occupy Movement (remember that?) reveals where Drainville’s political sympathies lie: with the 99% (we) and against the 1% (they) even though, on a bishop’s salary, he was almost certainly in the 10% category and consequently had more than a toe in the “they” camp. Perhaps he will find people to Occupy all the empty churches in the Diocese of Quebec.

The Occupy movement has created a focused public debate on economic and political institutions and provided “a new and powerful critique” of them, says Bishop Dennis Drainville of the diocese of Quebec.

Invited to speak at various events Sept. 28-30 sponsored by Occupy Nova Scotia and churches in Halifax, Drainville noted that the anti-capitalist movement that spread around the world in 2011 has brought new awareness to the notion that ‘They are the 1 per cent and we are the 99 per cent,’ ” Drainville told those attending his lecture at the Atlantic School of Theology. “This formula underlines the structural inequalities of our political and economic system and highlights the collusion between the corporate and political elites,” he said.