Author Archives: David

Marriage Canon Machinations

Posted on by
4

Anglicans wishing to redefine marriage to encompass same-sex couples will, when they get their way, not only take God out of marriage, emptying it of significance, but drive believers out of their churches with an efficiency that would be the envy of the most rabid atheist. That’s not what is bothering the bishops, though; what is bothering them is that the few remaining conservatives in the Anglican Church of Canada will, when they leave, take their offerings with them.

From here:

A resolution to amend the marriage canon to allow for same-sex marriages may itself be amended to include protections for Anglicans who hold to the traditional view of marriage, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

“There is a possibility” that the resolution, which passed its required first reading at the last General Synod in 2016, may be amended when it is presented for a required second reading in 2019, Hiltz said in an interview Thursday, April 19.

Another possibility is that a separate resolution to amend the canon could be made, one that “would enable the church as a whole, as a General Synod, to say something clearer to conservatives who want to remain in our church” in the event the resolution passes, he said.

Preparing for a potentially divisive second vote on the resolution was an important topic of conversation for the Anglican Church of Canada’s House of Bishops at their spring meeting in Niagara Falls, Ont., April 9-13, Hiltz and other members of the house said.

Larry Robertson, bishop of the diocese of Yukon, said he and some other bishops expressed concern that, if the resolution passes its second reading, those who hold to the idea of marriage as between a man and a woman may lose their status within the Anglican Church of Canada. They fear, he said, they’ll be told, “You are not in communion with the church; you are out of sync with the doctrine of our church.’ ”

Larry Robertson’s concern is rather belated. Conservative clergy in liberal dioceses have been laughed at, given the worst jobs and emotionally harassed for years. Usually this is called “inclusion”; sometimes it’s call “diversity”.

I know it’s hard to believe but, during the marriage canon vote at the last synod, the merchants of tolerance, inclusion and homoeroticism were accused of bullying anyone who had the temerity to stand in their way:

General Synod 2016 was marred by complaints of bullying during discussions of the resolution, and a statement released days after the synod by seven bishops contending that the decision endangered their “full communion within the Anglican Church of Canada.”

There are those who are still under the impression that the Anglican Church of Canada can be further “broken and divided” even though the very small piece that remains is homogenously liberal:

“I think everybody is trying to find ways that will enable our church to respect more than one view on marriage,” he said. “Many people, I think, are committed to move in that direction so that we don’t come out of General Synod as a broken and divided church in which people are saying, ‘I’ve had it, I’m gone, and I feel I have no choice but to leave.’ “

There is some good news, though: the Anglican Journal may go out of print and someone is finally questioning whether it should come clean and admit that it is nothing but the mouthpiece of a lost denomination:

Bishops also heard an update from a committee reviewing whether the Anglican Journal should continue to exist in print form and continue its traditional policy of editorial independence.

A gun-control Easter

Posted on by
1

Easter isn’t about bunnies, eggs and chocolate: it’s about gun control. According to Bishop Melissa Skelton’s Easter message, at least:

 As I write this, snow is on the ground covering the many crocuses and snowdrops that were just popping up last week to remind us that spring is indeed on the way. Also as I write this, almost two weeks have passed since the deadly shooting at a school in Florida in which young people and teachers lost their lives.
It’s hard to know sometimes how much news from the US affects us here in Canada, and given the fact that I was born in the US, I don’t always trust my instincts on such things. But as the news about the shootings in Florida spread, once again, Canadian after Canadian wanted to talk with me about it, about their perplexity at a society where access to guns, especially assault weapons, is so easy. And they wanted to talk to me about their amazement and awe at the young survivors of the shooting who overnight began speaking up and demanding stricter gun laws.

I don’t pretend to know much about guns nor am I particularly interested in them, but I am reasonably certain that “assault weapon” is a slippery term whose definition varies depending on who is using it: after all, a kitchen knife is an “assault weapon” if it is used to stab someone. Still, we mustn’t be too hard on Skelton because she is an Anglican bishop with years of seminary training in Biblical slipperiness to confuse her thinking.

Here is a list of assault rifles – a more precise term –  and they are not easy to obtain:

The US Army defines an assault rifle as follows:

“Assault rifles are short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges. Assault rifles have mild recoil characteristics and, because of this, are capable of delivering effective full-automatic fire at ranges up to 300 meters.”

Small Arms Identification and Operations Guide – Eurasian Communist Countries, pg 100 para 90

Real assault rifles are capable of automatic firing. Therefore, they are regulated by the federal government as machine guns under the Federal Firearms Act of 1934 and the completely misnamed Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act entirely banned the new manufacture or importation of automatic weapons for civilian use. That left roughly 150,000 registered automatic weapons in private ownership and eligible for transfer between individuals. The transfer of such weapons is handled by the ATF’s NFA branch. Basically, anyone wanting to legally own a fully automatic weapon needs $15,000 to over $40,000 to buy a weapon from an already licensed owner willing to sell one of theirs, plus pay a $200 federal transfer tax, plus pass a background investigation of National Agency Check with 10-point fingerprinting.

Pastoral Anglican euthanising

Posted on by
6

I remember a time when for a church to be “prophetic” it had to stand against the tide of the culture, against the immorality of the state, against the prevailing delusions that beguile our impressionable egos. Not so today. Because same-sex marriage is legal, the church has embraced it and has assigned committees loaded with waffling liberal clergy to contort Scripture to their collective will. It is much the same for abortion. And now euthanasia.

On March 27 Mr. and Mrs Brickenden committed suicide together with the help of a doctor:

On March 27, George and Shirley died holding hands in their own bed in a Toronto retirement home.
Their children, who watched from the foot of the bed, say the couple drew their last breaths at almost the same moment.
They had been married for just shy of 73 years.
The Brickendens are one of the few couples in Canada to receive a doctor-assisted death together, and the first to speak about it publicly.

The local vicar was on hand, perhaps to deliver a sermon in hope of hastening the couple’s exit:

Present were Pamela, Saxe and Angela, their spouses, the two doctors and Andrew Asbil, the Dean of Toronto’s St. James Cathedral, who later told me he had “without hesitation” supported the couple’s wish for their funeral to be held at the Anglican church.

March 27 was Maundy Thursday when we remember Jesus’ Last Supper before his excruciating death on Good Friday, an unpleasantness that he would be pastorally encouraged to sidestep by today’s Dying with Dignity Anglicanism.

The Anglican Church of Canada has produced a report in which it comes down firmly on the side of indecision. There is also a study guide to encourage parishes to have indecisive conversations about the church’s indecision.

It is important to remember that In Sure and Certain Hope was not intended as a contribution to the debate about the moral appropriateness of medically-assisted dying. The changed legal landscape has moved us beyond that to a point where many of us are likely to know, love and care for those who will face difficult decisions and may choose to avail themselves of medically-assisted dying or to reject such an option.

How long will it be before General Synod has a motion before it to approve a euthanasia liturgy and consummate its longing to become a death cult. I’d give it 10 years.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

Posted on by
6

One of the hymns we Anglicans like to sing goes like this:

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole, and calms the troubled breast;
‘tis manna to the hungry soul, and to the weary rest.

Dear Name! the rock on which I build, my shield and hiding place,
My never-failing treasury, filled with boundless stores of grace.

Jesus, my Shepherd, Brother, Friend, my Prophet, Priest and King,
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring.

Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought;
But when I see thee as thou art, I’ll praise thee as I ought.

When John Newton wrote that, he could not have foreseen that 250 years later the sweetness of Jesus’ name would no longer be thought of as manna to the hungry soul, but ice-cream to the greedy stomach. The Sweet Jesus ice-cream company, we are told, was born out of a love for experimentation. Experimenting with shabbily belittling what Christians regard as the most important event in human history: God becoming man.

Christians have so little influence on Canadian society today that not only can an ice-cream merchant name his sticky wares “Sweet Jesus” without fear of losing his profit, but the free advertising generated by gratuitously irritating Christians will probably result in increasing it.

Had the owners been less astute in their assessment of the cultural zeitgeist and named their obesity inducing, artery clogging sugar laden junk confection “Munchable Mohammed”, they would not only have lost their profits but been prosecuted under Bill 59; assuming they hadn’t lost their heads first.

It doesn’t help that the “t” in “Sweet” is an inverted cross and the “s” in “Jesus” is a lightning bolt, both obliquely tied to Satanism.

Adding to the odious miasma that wafts effortlessly like mist from a B grade horror film are these advertisements that feature what some have called “creepy” looking children:

There are some online petitions urging a name change, something that the owner is not willing to do, and there are numerous expressions of outrage on both sides.

None of this surprises me. In Canada, the ridiculing of Christianity and Christians is a national sport; I am surprised that it is not worse than it is. It’s futile to blame the world: it knows no better. If anyone is to blame, we – Christians and our pathetic, impotent mainline churches  – are. If our church doesn’t take Christ seriously, and we continue to support it, why should we expect anyone else to?

From here:

There are few things that feel more care-free than enjoying an ice cream cone, and Toronto-based chain Sweet Jesus serves up gigantic, Instagram-worthy soft serve cones — or blasphemy, depending on who you ask.

The brand, founded in 2015 by Andrew Richmond and Amin Todai, has received attention from some in the Christian community for the religious imagery in their logo and advertising. Richmond told the Star in 2016 that the name stuck after an employee would often declare “sweet Jesus,” after tasting the ice cream and says the brand has nothing to do with religion.

The backlash has followed Sweet Jesus’ expansion south of the border, where they have opened up shop in Baltimore and the Mall of America. Petitions began popping up in January, after right-wing blog Activist Mommy posted an article analyzing the “blasphemous” use of religious imagery in the brand’s logo.

A petition hosted on CitizenGO, a site that bills itself as a conservative advocacy group, calls Sweet Jesus “offensive and revolting,” and accuses the ice cream parlour of hate speech towards Christians. The petition calls for a public apology for “openly (attacking) the Christian community,” and God. The petition further asks for a name change to “eliminate mockery toward our Lord Jesus.”

Clergy alcohol abuse in The Episcopal Church

Posted on by
3

The Episcopal Church in the US is “mired in a ‘system of denial and helplessness’ over alcohol abuse” according to this report.

I must admit, I have considerable sympathy for the clerical alcoholics in TEC. After all, to be employed to believe something while secretly disbelieving it, to have to keep your fingers crossed behind your back while reciting the creed every week, to maintain the farcical illusion that your career is a vocation is going take its toll eventually. It’s enough to drive anyone to drink.

The Anglican Church in the US remains mired in a ‘system of denial and helplessness’ over alcohol abuse among its senior clergy, a damning commission has concluded.

It found the Church had done little to tackle the issue after a Baltimore cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run incident by the former bishop in the Maryland diocese, Heather Cook, who was drunk-driving.

Cook was jailed for 10 years in 2015 after she pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Tom Palermo, 41. She was found to have three times the legal blood-alcohol limit.

But a report, commissioned by The Episcopal Church’s bishops, examined a number of case studies and in almost every case found ‘the ecclesial structure and polity of our church proved to contribute negatively to the situation’.

‘Clericalism, a misunderstanding of hierarchy, the canonical autonomy of parishes and dioceses, and a polity that hinders the enforcement of expectations all contributed to inactivity by responsible persons and bodies,’ the report, published this week, said.

‘The commission has discovered that in many instances, church polity has impeded the ability of the church to intervene, assess and treat impaired people and care for the injured community.’

he commission exposed a fear of exposure to liability, friendships between church officials, the autonomy of dioceses and a ‘culture of forgiveness’ as reasons for why there was a failure to address alcohol abuse among clergy.

The Cook case rocked TEC to the core after it emerged she had previously been arrested for drunk driving and the bishop of Maryland, Eugene Taylor Sutton, admitted he thought Cook was drunk at a dinner two days before her consecration as bishop.

Following the case the Church’s House of Bishops condemned its ‘longstanding tolerance for the use of alcohol’ that, it said, ‘contributed to its misuse and has undermined a climate of wholeness and holiness for all’.

The report criticised the Church’s failure to hold a central database to record the employment history and disciplinary profiles of clergy saying it has ‘no capacity for verification’.

It said: ‘There is no clarity about who should see background checks or read the self-report questionnaires. Once again, people who are not qualified to analyze the data are often in a position of making process and outcome determinations.’

However it added systems would not create ‘the great culture shift’ needed in the Church.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry does evangelism

Posted on by
4

There are two ways to be incoherent: say something that means nothing; say something that can mean anything. The latter technique is preferred by Anglican clergy because it gives the illusion of Deep Thinking while providing an escape route when someone tries to pin them down.

Thus, when the Diocese of Niagara embarked upon the Decade of Evangelism many years ago, it spent nine and a half of those years attempting to define “evangelism” and six months producing reports that concluded “evangelism” was just another word for “inclusion” because, obviously, God would not exclude anyone or their behaviour, sexual proclivities or path to salvation no matter how perverse or arcane. Shortly after that most Christians left the diocese.

Now it’s Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s turn.

Curry, eager to be on the trailing edge of secular trends has been influenced by the twittering success of Donald Trump. He is tweeting his enthusiasm for evangelism; and making it mean anything – or nothing – at all:

I suspect the problem is that what motivates Curry et al is not saving souls from the fires of hell but filling emptying buildings and coffers. Such is his level of desperation, he is even willing to use the trappings of loathed fundamentalism to achieve his ends.

Justin Welby bows to Saudi Crown Prince

Posted on by
3

In this photo Welby may be pointing out to Mohammed bin Salman that his shoelace is undone; or warning him not to slip on a banana peel; or inviting the prince to inspect his head for lice.

Or he might have been bowing.

Welby is meeting with the Crown Prince to discuss Saudi Arabia’s “strong commitment to interfaith dialogue”, an idea so preposterous not even an ex oil executive whose scruples must have been numbed by the necessity of buying oil from an odious oligarchy should take it seriously. The country renowned for beating critics of its leaders practically to death, that practices the most barbaric excesses of sharia law, that mutilates women because it is “noble”, has no Christian churches. None. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocracy, a nasty, brutish, despotism which does not tolerate the public practice of other religions. There is no “interfaith” because there are no other state tolerated faiths.

In other news, next week Justin Welby will be meeting with Satan to foster reconciliation, begin interfaith dialogue, and persuade him to turn down the temperature in hell.

From here:

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a private meeting Thursday with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, where he made a “strong commitment” to interfaith dialogue, the archbishop’s office said.

During the hour-long visit at Lambeth Palace, the pair discussed the crown prince’s reform plans and Welby — the head of the Anglican church — expressed his concerns about the treatment of Christians in Saudi Arabia.

“The Crown Prince made a strong commitment to promote the flourishing of those of different faith traditions, and to interfaith dialogue within the Kingdom and beyond,” the archbishop’s office said in a statement.

“The archbishop shared his concern about limits placed on Christian worship in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and highlighted the importance for leaders of all faiths to support freedom of religion or belief, drawing on the experience of the UK.”

Bishop elect Susan Bell and #MeToo

Posted on by
Reply

Noel Edison is the choir director at the Diocese of Niagara’s St. John the Evangelist church in Elora:

Under Noel Edison, its conductor for the past twenty years, the choir leads the congregation in Choral Mattins twice monthly, in the occasional Evensong and in the Choral Eucharist on other Sundays.

I should have said “was the choir director”, because Edison was relieved of his position after allegations of sexual misconduct came to light. St. John’s website still has him listed in the position, but a local paper has this to say:

ELORA — One of the few professional church choirs in the country is facing a pressing question — what happens now that their star conductor is gone?

That’s the dilemma facing the parish choir at St. John the Evangelist Church in Elora, after the departure of longtime music director Noel Edison amid sexual misconduct allegations.

[…..]

Edison has also voluntarily stepped down from his role as the music director at St. John’s, a role he’s had since the 1980s.

There is more here, here, here, and here.

As often seems to be the case with this type of allegation, there are claims that Edison’s sexual indiscretions were not a particularly well kept secret: everyone knew but no one said anything:

I find a lot of the comments from choristers and TMC/EFS disingenuous. EVERYONE knows that, at best, he has been ethically and sexually inappropriate for years. At worst, criminal. His house parties are famous. Comparing notes about “inappropriate Noel moments” is something many southwestern/GTA singers do. He is a likeable man and a great conductor, but that doesn’t make him a saint.

Interestingly, the newly elected bishop in the Diocese of Niagara, Rev, Susan Bell,  sang in the Elora choir during the period that Edison was philandering. Did she know and not tell? After all, the #MeToo movement was not the cultural hit it is today and the diocese, keenly sensitive to the caprice of the zeitgeist, might have been blissfully indifferent to Edison’s sexual antics; why should its paid choristers be any different?

The Reverend Canon Susan Jennifer Anne Bell:
In addition to academic work, another area of interest is in vocal performance. After studying for two years in England – in London and then Oxford, on my return I was a professional member of the parish choir at St. John’s Elora for 2 and a half years from 1992-94 before proceeding to theological college in Toronto.