Category Archives: Anglican Angst

Fred is up to the Hiltz in mendaciloquence

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The Canadian House of Bishops has issued a statement that said this:

“A continued commitment to the greatest extent possible to the three moratoria — on the blessing of same-sex unions, on the ordination to the episcopate of people in same-sex relationships and on cross-border interventions — until General Synod 2010. Members of this House, while recognizing the difficulty that this commitment represents for dioceses that in conscience have made decisions on these matters, commit themselves to continue walking together and to hold each other in prayer.”

A casual reading makes it appear that Canadian bishops are indeed willing to stop conducting same sex blessings; but then there is that surreptitiously inserted phrase “to the greatest extent possible”.

Later in an interview with the Anglican Journal, Fred:

acknowledged that this stance allows dioceses such as Montreal and Ottawa some wiggle room to continue what their bishops have recently described as “incremental” and “experiential” steps toward same-sex blessings.

“Experiential”? Doesn’t that mean “doing it”? “Incremental” is presumably intended as a condescending pat on the head to the recalcitrant fundamentalists who, given enough time, will become enlightened like Fred; just thinking about that gives me the willies.

So what is really going on, other than the usual emissions from Freddie’s Industrial Strength Fog Machine?

It seems clear that the official HoB statement is designed as a pacifier for Rowan Williams to suck on: through it Fred is whining: “listen Rowan, I’m a good boy, I’m saying what you told me to say, please, please don’t cut me off from Lambeth.”

As usual, Fred wants to hold on prestige and power at all costs, won’t discipline his wayward bishops because he secretly agrees with them and is waffling at full throttle in an attempt to conceal what is really going on.

The Invasion of St. Hilda’s.

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The latest Niagara Anglican has an article on the Niagara diocesan squatters . To read it all, go here and scroll down to page 9; there is a similar article by Martha Tatarnic on page 1. Here is some of it:

St. Hilda’s, Oakville: A church that is just a church
LUCINDA LANDAU
In the midst of a break-up, something new is being born. A church community without a budget, committees, staff or even an altar guild is beginning to grow at St. Hilda’s in Oakville. “A church that is just a church,” is the approach of the newly appointed Priest-in-charge, Reverend Martha Tatarnic. “At this moment in time,” said Rev. Martha, “we have the unique opportunity of gathering simply as Church to worship and to be a community.”

When Lucinda tells us that the diocese has not allocated a budget for this political occupation masquerading as a church, she is correct. Poor Rev. Martha has not been given a cent by the diocese; but then, neither have we (the real ANiC St. Hilda’s) even though the court has ordered the diocese to share the cost of running the building. Now, to be fair, the diocese, in a moment of what I can only assume was feeble-minded magnanimity, offered to cover one seventh – 14.29% – of the cost.

Since the diocese is occupying the building when we would normally have our Sunday service and is there for no particular reason at other times of the week, we said, no, you should pay more. The diocese refused; in the case of such disagreement, the court ruled that an arbitrator should be appointed; the diocese refused. So the diocese is in contempt of court and we are paying all the bills. This is chronicled here and here. Since that was posted, the furnace that heats the sanctuary broke (we no longer use the sanctuary). Guess who leapt in like a flash to offer to pay and fix it? Correct, not the diocese; we couldn’t let Martha’s poor lambs freeze, so we paid (well, my teeth were gritted somewhat).

The invitation to attend Sunday worship at St. Hilda’s 8:30 a.m. service is open to everyone, with a particular invitation to those who are members of St. Hilda’s but have not agreed, or felt comfortable, with the decision to split. Right now the service is also supported by parishioners from St. Jude’s, Oakville.

I’ll say it again: the vote at St. Hilda’s to join ANiC was unanimous; there was no-one who disagreed with the decision to realign. None; zero; nil; zip; zilch; naught; zippo; n/infinity. Got it yet?

This paragraph does clear up one little mystery, though. During the tenure of the adorable Rev. Dr. Brian Ruttan, there were actually no people attending the diocesan service; none; zero; nil…. Well, you get the point. Martha on the other hand pulls in around 15 cars each Sunday. Who are these people? I have always suspected that this massive influx was not a result of the New Evangelism . The more likely explanation was that Martha brought people with her from St. Jude’s (her last parish) a few miles away in downtown Oakville. And this, it seems is indeed the case.

Which leads me to the obvious question: what is it that these stalwart St. Jude’s parishioners do in St. Hilda’s – by now – musty, damp, faux-50s, threadbare-orange-carpeted sanctuary that they cannot do in the plush, warm and handsome St. Jude’s? Why, make a political statement, of course! I am sure that, at the next court appearance – which could be as early as December –  the diocese will want to point to something that has the appearance of a viable congregation even though this was said by one of their own.

We are compelled to do the majority of our community building outside the church walls – ironically,the limitations imposed by the court on our access to the church buildings may turn out to be our finest asset.

I have a way of enhancing your finest asset; stop occupying the building and leave it for those who paid for it – and continue to pay for it.

We gather in a building that is at the centre of intense legal scrutiny and unchristian argument.

That quote is from Martha’s article. Martha, the ‘unchristian argument’ is taking place in the courts; it is your employer, the Diocese of Niagara who initiated the court proceedings. Moreover, your diocese has repeatedly rejected requests by ANiC to negotiate outside the courts.

So, if you find the idea of church without bureaucracy appealing, if you are looking for “eckleisa” in its simplest form, come out and experience a fresh approach to worship at St. Hilda’s in Oakville.

This is a Diocese of Niagara church, right? The diocese has no bureaucracy? They’ve all been fired? They must be more broke than I thought.

c/p Essentials blog

Rev. Dudley makes his excuses to the Bishop of London

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The Rector of St Bartholomew the Great, the Rev Dr Martin Dudley makes his excuses to the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres after conducting a same sex ‘wedding’. Here is his letter along with a translation:

Dear Bishop,
As the result of a conference with my solicitor and with my counsel, Chancellor Mark Hill, I am able to respond fully to your letter of 18 June. I think I now have my butt covered; which is just as well considering the company I’m keeping.

I can now appreciate that the service held at St Bartholomew the Great on 31 May 2008 was inconsistent with the terms of the Pastoral Statement from the House of Bishops issued in 2005. Whilst the precise status of this pastoral document within the Church of England generally and the Diocese of London in particular may be a matter of differing interpretations, I ought to have afforded it far greater weight. You and I both know that we’ve had centuries of experience re-interpreting the bible to make it fit our queer… err peculiar way of looking at things, so this wimpy pastoral document should present no problem at all.

I regret the embarrassment caused to you by this event and by its subsequent portrayal in the media. I now recognise that I should not have responded positively to the request for this service, even though it was made by another incumbent of your Diocese, who is a colleague, neighbour and friend of us both nor should I have adopted uncritically the Order of Service prepared by the him and his partner. I had not appreciated that the event would have been attended by so many nor that it would have attracted the publicity and notoriety which it did. Hey, these are our buddies we are talking about; OK, maybe I should have looked over the service a bit, but honestly, I had no idea so many reporters would be present. We’ll do a better job of screening the onlookers next time.

I share your abhorrence of homophobia in all its forms. I am profoundly uneasy with much of the content of the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Statement which anecdotal evidence suggests is being widely, though discretely, disregarded in this Diocese and elsewhere. Nonetheless, I am willing to abide by its content in the future, until such time as it is rescinded or amended, and I undertake not to provide any form of blessing for same sex couples registering civil partnerships. We both know everyone is ignoring the HOB Pastoral Statement; it’s designed to pacify those pesky homophobic, conservative, fundamentalists; we should really just ignore them and leave them to their snakes. Of course, we have to both pretend to do what it says – next time I’ll be more circumspect; I’ll even make sure you’re invited! And there’s always a great party afterwards, know what I mean… nudge, nudge.

I am writing to you in confidence but seek your guidance on such steps as may be necessary and appropriate to make public my regret and my undertaking, mindful that your initial letter to me was widely disseminated. What’s the best way to cover this up? And please make sure this letter doesn’t get leaked.
Yours sincerely

Rowan vs the House of Lords

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From the Guardian

The House of Lords today drew stark attention to the conflict between sharia and UK law, calling the Islamic legal code “wholly incompatible” with human rights legislation.

The remarks came as the Lords considered the case of a woman who, if she was sent back to Lebanon, would be obliged under sharia law to hand over custody of her 12-year-old son to a man who beat her, threw her off a balcony and, on one occasion, attempted to strangle her.

The woman was seeking asylum in the UK to avoid the provisions of sharia law that give fathers or other male family members the exclusive custody of children over seven.

In the most high-profile UK criticism of the family law provisions of sharia law so far, the Lords stated that these provisions breached the mother’s rights to family life and the right against discrimination and were severely disruptive to the child.

Contrast this reasonable and clear-sighted view of reality on planet earth to that of Rowan Williams, the Mr. Bean of the Anglican church:

From the BBC:

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

Not only does Rowan think parts of Sharia might be a Good Thing, he picks the bits that would allow a demented Muslim husband to abuse his wife and child.

There are still some Canadian Anglicans with guts

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God bless: St George’s, Ottawa; Church of St Peter, Hamilton; St. Aidan’s, Windsor.

These courageous parishes have chosen to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). That means they have set truth above the cultural nicety of belonging to the Anglican Church of Canada’s social club – whose main interests consist of bazaar sodality and an old-boy fraternity of priestly misfits.

These parishes know that the local ACoC goon squad will soon descend, dressed in black, to demand keys, deliver court appearance schedules and generally make life miserable, all in the name of diversity. But that won’t matter because the battle is the Lord’s and it is already won.

Update (Oct 23): Let’s add St Bede’s Anglican Church in Kinosota, Manitoba to that list. They joined ANiC on Octber 15th.

Richard Dawkins makes mincemeat of Rowan Williams

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And it’s not because Dawkins has a better argument than Rowan, it’s because Dawkins actually believes what he is saying and Rowan doesn’t. In this interview, it is quite clear that Rowan Williams, defender of the faith, is ashamed of what he is supposed to be defending. It is embarrassing. One does not expect a scientific plodder like Dawkins to have any imagination, but Williams – poet, Druid and hairy Welshman – surely should: sadly, he doesn’t. Lacking the imagination needed to defend his faith, he uses Anglican fog instead. View and weep:

Diocese of Niagara privately declares churches ‘non-viable’

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Time for a brief update on the continuing unpleasantness between the diocese of Niagara and ANiC churches, St. Hilda’s Oakville and the Church of the Good Shepherd St. Catherines.

In a recent Clericus meeting, the diocesan priest in charge at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Bruce McPetrie  declared that neither Good Shepherd nor St. Hilda’s have ‘viable congregations’. No kidding, Bruce; how many years of theological training does it take to be able to figure out that a congregation of zero is non-viable.

Which leaves the obvious question: since the diocese of Niagara has been desperately maintaining the charade of needing the ANiC buildings to hold diocesan services, why admit the obvious at this point? Possibly because the diocese is so confident that it will eventually win the court battle, they are already paving the way to closing the buildings and selling them for 30 pieces of silver.

Which brings me to Brian Ruttan, the priest in charge at St. Hilda’s. He has received a commuted sentence from the diocese; his last Sunday at St. Hilda’s was September 14th and he is off to greener pastures in sunny Grimsby. His replacement is Martha Tatarnic, wife of the delightful Dan Tatarnic who, when approached by St. Hilda’s proper for support in our hour of need had this to say: “Dan Tatarnic here, keep your opinion to yourself, it is not worth two cents.”

Martha, welcome to the non-viable diocesan congregation at St. Hilda’s.

The Church of England monkeys with Darwin

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If you sit enough monkeys down with typewriters, eventually they will produce the latest theological meanderings of the Anglican Church. This experiment was successfully verified at Lambeth 2008.

In the never ending quest for its own destruction, the CofE is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’. It is a fitting tribute to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, since the Anglican Church in the West is a live demonstration of the theory’s application. The church, having adapted to its surrounding culture in all the wrong ways, has made itself irrelevant and incomprehensible (just listen to Rowan Williams) to all and sundry; very soon it will cease to exist – it will have adapted itself into extinction.

The CofE pays its homage here.

It is this need for humans to think, and love, that forms the centrepiece of a new retrospective by the Revd Dr Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the Church of England, called ‘Good Religion Needs Good Science’. After warning of the social misapplication of Darwin’s discoveries, where natural selection justifies racism and other forms of discrimination – perhaps predicted in the “misguided” over-reaction of the Church in the 1860s – Brown writes: “Christians will want to stress, instead, the human capacity for love, for altruism, and for self-sacrifice.” He separates the biological and emotional further by pointing out the naivety of assuming a wholesale evolution of the human race: “Despite our vastly expanding technical knowledge, even a fairly cursory review of human history undermines any idea of constant moral progress.”

This is replete with the usual Anglican drivel. First, if natural selection is true, then of course it would engender ‘racism’: if one race is superior and stronger than another, the inferior will be selected out. If natural selection is true what incentive is there to indulge in the opposite – self-sacrifice. And as for ‘other forms of discrimination’, there is hardly any worse discrimination than that of the abortionist towards the unborn child; a fairly predictable result of adopting a theory which declares that the strong survive and the weak perish.

The very worst part of all this is the diabolically bad logic of attempting to believe in Christianity and natural selection simultaneously. Leaving aside the squabbling about whether the universe arrived in 6 days, minutes, millennia or a few septillion years, the fact is, natural selection depends on accident to work. This means that mankind is accidental: it would be quite possible – indeed likely –  for it not to have existed – ever. From a Christian perspective this is absurd: the Christian view is that God planned man’s existence, planned revealing himself through Jesus, planned to redeem us through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, and eventually plans to renew all of creation. The very opposite of an accident.

So, Church of England, you can have Christ or natural selection; you can’t have both. And it seems you have made your choice.

Rule Britannia

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From the Telegraph.

We knew that sharia courts were operating in Britain even before Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the lecture  in February which caused such a stir.

It was said that these courts arbitrated on marriages, as Jewish courts or Catholic marriage tribunals do. Everything was to be done with the consent of both parties. More surprisingly, it seems that sharia courts are giving judgement in criminal cases. In six cases of domestic violence, according to Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

Can you imagine what kind of consent wives involved in such cases have given to the sharia court’s jurisdiction?

Often, Muslim women marry in an Islamic ceremony without the ratification of a marriage in English law. This gives them no rights under the law of the land in the case of divorce. Nor would they have any claim to inherit under English law.

So we see the growth of sharia as a parallel jurisdiction to the law of the land, imposed on a sector of society that cannot resist it.

It’s fitting that this is being publicised at the same time as this piece of anti-Christian claptrap from the BBC:

A successful Christian children’s author says he was refused appearances on the BBC because it couldn’t be “seen to be promoting Jesus”.

G P Taylor’s first novel, Shadowmancer, spent 15 weeks at the top of the British book charts in 2003. His second book, Wormwood, sold 22,000 copies in one day.

Yet the author claims that invitations for appearances on the BBC stopped once producers found out he was a Christian.

“I had good relations with them until they realised that there were religious allegories in my stories,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

“Once they had decided that I was promoting Christianity in my books I found the door firmly shut.”

Mr Taylor said his faith meant that he was not welcome on children’s programmes like Blue Peter.

He said: “A BBC producer told me ‘off the record’ that it was a matter of my faith and the fact that I was an Anglican priest. ‘We can’t be seen to be promoting Jesus’, he said with a laugh.”

A spokesman for the BBC denied the allegations. “Programme makers make their own editorial decisions about which guests to have on their shows. There is no truth in the claim that there is a BBC ban on G P Taylor.”

However, Mr Taylor said: “They weren’t turning me down because I was a bad guest, but because of who I am.

“I’m an Anglican priest and sadly while it’s OK to be the next Philip Pullman, it’s not all right to be a Christian writer.”

And, one imagines, the Arch-twit of Canterbury, Rowan Williams – having explained to us why sharia law in the UK is such a good idea – will have absolutely nothing to say about this blatant discrimination against the religion he is supposed to be defending.

Ephraim Radner at the Entmoot

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Truthful Language and Orderly Separation – of the wheat from the chaff in the Anglican church.

I’m sure Ephraim in a lovely bloke with wonderfully good intentions. The trouble is, he and the rest of the ACI are ponderously slow to act, suffer from logorrhea of such proportions that no normal person can read an entire article without becoming comatose and live in an ivory tower so high that they can no longer find their way down.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be a tiny change of direction. Ephraim, while taking a very long view, acknowledges that separation is inevitable – although he still isn’t in favour of it – and wants the separation to be orderly (he doesn’t really say why) and, that’s where the ACI comes in: to make it orderly.

At least, I think he is saying that.

Trouble is, by the time the ACI is actually geared up for action, it will all be over.

Insomniacs can read it all here

Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, recently aroused comment when he [said], “I continue to see a negotiated ‘orderly separation’ as the best and most fruitful way forward for the Anglican Communion. The experience of this Lambeth Conference […] has again convinced me that the Anglican Communion cannot hold in tension convictions and practices that are incompatible, and so not patent of ‘reconciliation’, without continuing seriously to damage the life and witness of Anglican Churches”. It was this reference to “orderly separation” that struck many as significant, coming as it did, not from the bigoted reactionary that some have wrongly made him out to be, but from a bishop who has steadfastly stood for and offered witness on behalf of the imperative and blessings of ecclesial Communion among Anglicans. His admission that such an “orderly separation” may be necessary at this time is significant because, in fact, he has worked hard for unity and believes in it. It is this kind of admission that should spur us to hard thinking.

Indeed, I do not want such a separation. I pray against it’s demand… But I agree that the sheer practical dynamics of the situation we are now in may well uphold Bp. Scott-Joynt’s views…
What, therefore, shall we do? I offer the following conclusions – as well as the preceding reflections – not to attack current directions being followed by Communion leaders and offices of various persuasions, but rather to point out the need to face challenges that have become increasingly visible.

At the least:

We must allow our categories of discussion, policy, and strategy as a Communion (and hopefully within member churches) to reflect and respond to the reality we confront:

  • there should be no more use of the term “moratorium”; instead, clear directives need to be stated
  • “moral equivalence” must disappear as qualifier or anti-qualifier, in favor of simple descriptive demands that are bound to the realities of each context and approached on their own terms: the notion that the practices of gay inclusion and boundary-crossing are logically analogous issues is false

…
…
… it now looks as if separation is simply necessary, not historically so much as logically and morally. … And the survival of catholic Christianity makes plain the moral necessity of such orderly separation by demonstrating the demands of one logic over the other. It is separation that preserves Anglicanism as a Catholic form of Christianity.
Some have suggested that the Covenant and the process leading to its adoption would, of itself, if not deliberately at least as a matter of course, provide the “orderliness” by which a separation, if needed, could indeed unfold. If it is to be the Covenant and its process, this indicates that we must not fear the kind of clarity and accessible steps of implementation that would allow for such differentiation if that is indeed the end towards which the present logics turn out to be moving. … A Covenant that makes clear that diversity has its limits and attaches consequences for violation of those limits preserves Communion while holding open the possibility of reconciliation…