Author Archives: David

Non-Christian ‘spiritual teacher in residence’ appointed at Ottawa cathedral

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A current fad amongst those who have an uneasy feeling that there may be something to Christianity but are too lazy to get up early to attend church on Sunday is to protest that they are “spiritual not religious”.

To the modern mind – or the muddled randomly firing synapses that have replaced the mind – spirituality is inherently superior to religion. Religion is just too physical: you are expected to present yourself bodily in church, the Eucharist is physical, the liturgy demands activity, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice“, and so on. All a regurgitation of Gnosticism where the immaterial is good, the material bad, secret knowledge or spirituality rather than Jesus is our salvation and ignorance is our problem, not sin. Contemporary Anglicans who, in their heart of hearts, have never liked the idea that not only did God choose to inhabit a body but physically brought it back to life and then, horror of horrors, continued to inhabit it find all this quite appealing.

Latching on to this fad and go one better – or worse, really – the Diocese of Ottawa is becoming “spiritual but not Christian”.  “How is this different from what has been going on for the last 30 years?” you may be thinking. Up until recently, clergy in the Anglican Church of Canada have been too shy to admit their heterodoxies, preferring to continue reciting the Creeds while changing the meaning of the words in their heads. Now they are out of the closet.

The Diocese of Ottawa has appointed a spiritual teacher who is not a Christian. He, unlike many of our bishops, doesn’t even pretend to be a Christian.

From here:

Algonquin spiritual teacher in residence appointed at Ottawa cathedral.
In a historic appointment, local Indigenous spiritual leader Albert Dumont has been named Algonquin Spiritual Teacher in Residence for a two-year term at the cathedral. During his term, Dumont will help educate members of the cathedral community on traditional Indigenous spirituality, while deepening the relationship between the Diocese of Ottawa and the Algonquin nation upon whose unceded territory most of the diocese sits.

Dumont’s appointment marks the first time that a non-Christian Indigenous teacher in residence has been assigned to a cathedral of the Anglican Church of Canada.

[…..]

The Very Rev. Shane Parker, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, appointed Dumont as Algonquin spiritual teacher in residence. The appointment came with the full support of Bishop John Chapman, as well as Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Chief Jean Guy Whiteduck.

Both Dumont and Parker highlighted the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a crucial impetus for the appointment. The recommendations included recognition of the equal value of Indigenous spirituality.

“Albert is not a Christian,” Parker said. “He is an Algonquin man who has been shaped by the spirituality of his community, of his ancestors, throughout his life. I feel that having him in the cathedral will help us to understand Algonquin spirituality in particular, but [also] Indigenous spirituality in the context of a relationship, because I believe at the heart of reconciliation is developing a meaningful relationship between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people.

“Having Albert at cathedral signals our mutual concern … to learn and to share from one another’s spiritual traditions, and recognize them as equivalent.”

The Diocese of Niagara has a new bishop

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“First female bishop seated in Niagara” trumpets the headline. The significance of the event seems to pivot on the “female” aspect of the seating rather than the overall qualifications of the bishop – which could be stellar, of course; we shall see.

Stirring cello melodies, gleeful banter of children, inspired words, reflection and invitation, moving intercessions mingled with familiar hymnody and the loving words shared by Jesus millennia ago were some of the sounds that poignantly filled Christ’s Church Cathedral Hamilton as Bishop Susan Bell was seated as the 12th diocesan bishop of Niagara.

As is so often the case when the church chases cultural fads, it has already been outdone by the inane conceit it seeks to emulate. Were it truly abreast of the latest in non-binary, gender-fluid inclusivity, the headline would read: “First femxle bishop seated in Niagara”.

From here:

In England, ‘womxn’ is in, as activists try to replace word ‘woman’ in the name of inclusiveness.

There have been womon, womyn and even wimmin. Now activists at British universities have settled on womxn as the latest attempt to replace the words woman/women.

Confusingly, King’s College in London, England, has the KCL Women in Physics student society and the Womxn in Physics Society.

The KCL womxn society, says a website, was founded to address “the issue of underrepresentation of women and non-binary people in the physics department at King’s College London.”

It adds, “This society aims to act as a safe space for all minorities in the field of physics.”

How to use the word “conversation” 5 times in 5 sentences

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Learn from that master of vacuous verbiage Fred Hiltz. In the quotes below, I suspect he was attempting to shatter the Guinness World Record by using “conversation” in five consecutive sentences. That would have been a monumental – nay Herculean – achievement; as it is, only four of the sentences are consecutive.

On the bright side, there is one case where two instances of the word are kept from interfering with each other by the interjection of a mere pronoun: good effort, Fred.

I wonder what this Regional Primates meeting is actually about?

From here:

ARCHBISHOP FRED HILTZ HOSTS REGIONAL PRIMATES’ MEETING IN TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA

“I am very happy to welcome all of the primates of our region of the Communion. This is a meeting that is conversational. We are not making decisions or pronouncements. We are being invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to come together in our respective regions to have conversations. These conversations will then feed into the Lambeth design group for Lambeth 2020.”

“I take the Canadian contribution to the conversation of Lambeth 2020 very seriously. It is for all the bishops – not for just the Primates – to shape the agenda.”

“At the last meeting of the Canadian House of Bishops, we had good conversations about the Instruments of Communion and how they bolster the life and witness of the Communion as a whole. We also reflected on the theme of Lambeth 2020: God’s Church for God’s World.”

Fred Hiltz wants ‘good disagreement’ in marriage canon discussions

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From here:

The church should embrace a “humble humanity” and a “way of living together that is more respectful of our dignity as children of God,” Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said Friday in a report to Council of General Synod (CoGS).

[…..]

Hiltz also related this ideal to his hope that the Anglican Church of Canada would practice “good disagreement” in upcoming discussions of the proposed amendment to the marriage canon to allow for same-sex marriage, which will be discussed at CoGS and then be subject to a vote during General Synod in July 2019.

I’ve had enough of faux “good disagreement” or “we are doing things our way and we don’t care if you disagree”.

At the First Council of Nicaea when Christianity was muscular, when the participants weren’t effeminate men and aggressive women, St. Nicholas punched the heretic Arius on the nose. That’s “good disagreement”.

Rev. Laurel Dykstra and Lini Hutchings imprisoned for chaining themselves to a tree

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Then the chief captain came near, and took him [Paul], and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done. Acts 21:33

In the early church, the civil authorities were inclined to bind Christians with chains for spreading the Gospel.

Today Anglican clergy bind themselves with chains because they don’t like the civil authorities spreading oil through a pipe.

We can thank the Anglican church for this deeply profound new understanding of Christian chain hermeneutics.

From here:

The only two protesters arrested at the Trans Mountain pipeline project to be found guilty of civil contempt of court have been sentenced to seven days in jail and ordered to pay $2,000 of the company’s legal costs.

Anglican priest Rev. Laurel Dykstra and Lini Hutchings, one of her parishioners, were taken into custody May 25 after tearing down a fence and chaining themselves to a tree at the company’s tank facility in Burnaby.

Like dozens of other protesters who were arrested, they were charged with criminal contempt of court.

But in August, Dykstra, a 52-year-old mother of two, and Hutchings, a 48-year-old mother of two, saw those charges dropped by the Crown.

The Crown set aside charges against 15 other protesters, but proceeded with criminal contempt charges against more than 200 others.

Among the protesters who had their charges dropped, Trans Mountain elected to proceed with civil contempt of court charges only against Dykstra and Hutchings, according to their lawyer.

Financial problems in the Anglican Church of Canada

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Here is a recent twitter feed generated by the Council of General Synod meeting:

Someone had the temerity to ask a pertinent question:

These are the items [along with helpful editorial comments in brackets like these] preoccupying the luminaries in the meeting; could there be a connection between this and falling revenues?

  • intentional discipleship; [as opposed to the unintentional discipleship practiced hitherto]

  • becoming a post-colonial church; [the real worry should be becoming a post-existing church]

  • honouring the emergence of Indigenous churches;

  • imagining the church God is calling us to be; [or imagining the church we wish God was calling us to be]

  • learnings from the Consultation of Anglican Bishops in Dialogue; [learnings?]

  • supporting the witness of the church in Holy Land; [shrivelling to extinction – at least, the Anglican variety]

  • sustainable development goals; [advice from an organisation unable to sustain itself]

  • migration and human trafficking; [about time: the bishops are planning on taking migrants into their own homes]

  • gender-based violence; [we like non-gender-based violence]

  • state-sponsored or sanctioned violence; and [except for socialist state sponsored violence. And Islamic state sponsored violence. And communist state sponsored violence. And…. so on]

  • interfaith dialogue and collaboration [we really prefer other religions to Christianity]

The pressing problem of orcophobia

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The Anglican Church of Canada is fretting about racism again, along with a few other isms:

The words of Archbishop Dawani also came to mind for the Primate in relation to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which takes place in 2018. This year also marks the 35th anniversary of the sixth assembly of the WCC, which took place in Vancouver and saw then-Primate Ted Scott serve as moderator. At that assembly in 1983, members of Christian churches joined together against social ills including racism, sexism, militarism, and violation of human rights.

“We confess these threats are as great today as they were more than three decades ago,” Archbishop Hiltz said. In March 2018, the WCC held its Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Arusha, Tanzania, out of which had come a “powerful statement” to Christ’s church throughout the world, The Arusha Call to Discipleship, which also drew inspiration from African spiritual traditions.

As is often the case with the Anglican Church of Canada, the root of the problem has not been unearthed. The ACoC is toying with superficial peccadilloes: it’s really all Tolkien’s fault, the underlying problem is orcophobia. Does anyone seriously think this fellow would stand a chance when applying for a bishop’s job? A clear case of racial prejudice; also, he doesn’t look gay enough.

From here:

Is Lord of the Rings Prejudiced Against Orcs?

The story, which appears in Duncan’s new collection An Agent of Utopia, was also inspired by Michael Moorcock, who has criticized Tolkien for depicting creatures such as orcs, trolls, and goblins as intrinsically evil.

“It’s hard to miss the repeated notion in Tolkien that some races are just worse than others, or that some peoples are just worse than others,” Duncan says. “And this seems to me—in the long term, if you embrace this too much—it has dire consequences for yourself and for society.”

Toronto Bishops acknowledge Trans Day of Remembrance

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From here:

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, as Bishops of the Diocese of Toronto, we wish to acknowledge the dignity and inherent worth of all people, including every transgender person, and our opposition to all prejudice, discrimination, or actions that deny the full personhood of any individual based on their gender identity.

Trans people are valued and beloved members of our Church, as clergy and lay leaders, as members of our congregations, as people we serve and by whom we are served.

Now if the bishops would only acknowledge “the dignity and inherent worth of all people” including those still in the womb, their statement might be worth something. As it is, all the bishops are doing is sailing effortlessly along on the tide of our cultural foibles and expecting to be congratulated for it.

Looking on the bright side, since God is no longer Father and, hence, must be transgender, fae must finally feel at home as a “valued and beloved member[s] of our Church.”

God is the only person not allowed to choose his gender

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From here:

God should not be referred to using a gender because ‘our father’ was not male or female, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Most Rev Justin Welby has warned human language is inadequate to describe the Christian deity and that despite the use of words such as ‘king’ and ‘lord’ – he is not male in the human sense.

[…..]

God is not a father in exactly the same way as a human being is a father. God is not male or female. God is not definable.

‘It is extraordinarily important as Christians that we remember that the definitive revelation of who God is was not in words, but in the word of God who we call Jesus Christ. We can’t pin God down.’

Justin Welby says he believes Jesus is God incarnate. God incarnate tells us to address Him in this manner: “Our Father, who art in heaven”. Not having the benefit of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s insight, Jesus omits mentioning how inadequate the language of His prayer is. Someone must have it wrong: I wonder who?

Could the Archbishop of Canterbury’s vision be clouded by contemporary gender befuddlement, viewing divine revelation through a faers darkly?

How to do Anglican Interfaith

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From here:

The largest and oldest interfaith gathering in the world, this year’s parliament took place from Nov. 1-7 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The Toronto-based event brought together an estimated 10,000 people from 80 countries, spanning more than 200 different religions, faiths, and belief systems, for a week of programs, discussions, and interactive experiences.

The Anglican Church of Canada had an official booth in the exhibit hall, where clergy and volunteers were on hand to speak to attendees, and share information about the church national.

The Rev. Dr. Scott Sharman, Animator for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in the Anglican Church of Canada was one of the official representatives on site.

Sharman described Canadian Anglican attendance at PoWR as a “ministry of presence” and a valuable opportunity to converse with people about “where Anglican expressions of Christianity fit within the wider world of inter-religious dialogue, and ways that we can find common ground.”

“Within our history, [there has] always been a tradition that has been able to find ways to live in dialogue across different approaches and different perspectives on theological issues,” Sharman said.

“That’s kind of been hardwired into Anglican DNA within the Anglican family. […] Certainly it’s important just because so many of the economic and political and social and ecological issues of our time deeply involve how people think about the world, and how people structure their communities and think about the meaning of life and make decisions. Religion is part of how that happens.”

Overheard later in the Anglican booth: “whatever you do, don’t mention Jesus. I did once, but I think I got away with it.”