Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

The flawed Marriage Canon Report

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It was never a secret that the purpose of the marriage canon report was to find a way – any way – to justify the marriage of same-sex couples. It was an exercise in using theology to disguise what the Bible clearly teaches; it was a rationalisation:

In psychology and logic, rationalization or rationalisation (also known as making excuses) is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable – or even admirable and superior – by plausible means. It is also an informal fallacy of reasoning.

As Ephraim Radner puts it:

“It was not a theological report. It was a report that used some theology, but for a non-theological purpose,” says the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in the diocese of Toronto who has frequently spoken out in opposition to same-sex marriage.

For Radner, the report was compromised from the very beginning due to its starting assumption that committed, adult same-sex relationships are acceptable expressions of human sexuality.

But Radner’s frustration also stems from the fact that the commission’s mandate was not to look into the theological possibility of same-sex marriage, but to provide an argument for why Canon XXI, which governs marriage, could be changed to include same-sex couples.

“I don’t think it was set up in order to be methodologically sound with respect to the issue at hand,” he says. “It wasn’t actually asked to think through an issue in some kind of steady state, even-handed, neutral manner in the Christian tradition.”

[…….]

“What’s missing is concern about the survival of Anglicanism in Canada,” he says, citing dwindling attendance and sales of property. “I think moving ahead on this very controversial issue is just hammering another nail into the coffin.”

Gay Syrian men to be given preference for settling in Canada

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From here:

The federal government will include gay men among the Syrian refugees it brings into Canada as part of a plan that puts the focus on accepting women, children and families.

Now we know why the Anglican Church of Canada has been campaigning for more refugees to be admitted: an influx of potential ACoC priests.

Same-sex marriage vote

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From here:

It’s not a foregone conclusion.

As much as some quarters would have everyone believe, there’s no telling how the 2016 General Synod will act on a motion to change the church’s law so that clergy can marry same-sex couples.

The answer will come in about nine months, when the church’s governing body gathers for its triennial meeting in Toronto. But right now, there’s work to be done, if the church hopes to arrive at a faithful and principled decision about this weighty matter.

In 2013, General Synod passed Resolution C003, which asked Council of General Synod (CoGS) to draft a motion “to change Canon XXI on marriage to allow the marriage of same-sex couples in the same way as opposite-sex couples.” It also asked for supporting documentation that:  demonstrates broad consultation about the motion; explains how this motion does not contravene the Solemn Declaration; confirms immunity under civil law and the Human Rights Code for bishops, dioceses and priests who refuse to participate or authorize the marriage of same-sex couples on the basis on conscience; and provides a biblical and theological rationale for this change in teaching on the nature of Christian marriage.

Considering the report is focussed almost exclusively on legitimising same-sex marriage no matter what 2000 years of Biblical understanding and tradition have to say on the matter, and considering that most conservatives have already abandoned the Anglican Church of Canada, I should think passing the motion is a forgone conclusion. We shall see.

Any ACoC priest planning on exercising the conscience clause who takes comfort in the report’s claim that he would be immune from civil prosecution is living in a fantasy world.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, acknowledged that it would be a challenge to ensure that when they arrive at General Synod, delegates would have read the report so that they can join discussions in an informed and meaningful way. And, one might add, so they can vote confidently and independently.
I expect Hiltz is right: delegates won’t read the report – why bother to wade through the mire when the results are a forgone conclusion.

Anglican Church of Canada to use indaba groups for same-sex blessing vote

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The whole idea of the indaba groups is to create a climate of respect during which delegates put on a display of hugging, crying and earnest pondering while, in the background, there are secret machinations to pass the same-sex marriage motion and once again bamboozle the few remaining hapless conservatives still clinging to risible notion that the ACoC bears a passing resemblance to a Christian church.

From here:

Council of General Synod (CoGS) has stressed that delegates to the 2016 General Synod need space, time, and appropriate preparation in order to keep discussions around same-sex marriage from becoming antagonistic.

“The use of an indaba process or a Sacred Circle type of process is going to create a climate of respect,” said Don Wilson, of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia. “There is a view of some that the revisionists are heretical and the traditionalists are stuck in the past, and if we can get beyond that and into a kind of respect, it could smooth things out.” (Indaba is a Zulu word for decision-making by consensus. The Indigenous Sacred Circle often involves the process of talking circles.)

Though the resolution that brought the issue before General Synod ultimately requires delegates to give either a “yes” or a “no,” CoGS has vowed to make the conversation leading up to that vote as non-adversarial as possible.

Dean Peter Wall makes Joke of the Week

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He reckons that TEC envies the Anglican Church of Canada its ability to bring churches together. This is after the ACoC was instrumental in causing a rift in the Anglican Communion that will probably be permanent and after driving dozens of ANiC parishes first out of the ACoC and then out of their buildings.

Twit

Of course, TEC has lost some of its lawsuits with dissenting parishes, whereas the ACoC has won all of its lawsuits. Perhaps that is the nimbleness that is really the object of TEC’s envy.

Anglican Church of Canada fined for unsafe work environment

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From here:

The Sorrento Centre Anglican Church of Canada was fined $14,384 for allowing workers to be in an area where there was damaged and exposed asbestos without using adequate personal protective equipment or safe work procedures.

“The firm should first have ensured that all friable (easily crumbled) asbestos-containing materials were removed or enclosed so as to prevent the release of asbestos fibres,” reads a recently released WorkSafe B.C. report. “These designated high-risk violations may have exposed workers to asbestos, a known carcinogen.”

The church has filed a notice of appeal, but the Sorrento Centre representative dealing with the matter was out of the office and not available for comment Wednesday.

The ACoC has not yet been fined for exposing parishioners to an unsafe worship environment, something that happens almost every Sunday in most parishes. A good start would be to issue earplugs at the door to render the social justice sermon gibberish inaudible.

United Church of Christ and Canada to pool their ineffectiveness

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Apparently, there will be a great deal of living into things; always a bad sign.

From here:

The United Church of Christ and The United Church of Canada have both formalized a full communion agreement in a worship service at St. Andrew’s United Church, Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Through the agreement, the U.S. and Canadian-based churches, both members of the World Council of Churches, agreed to “commit to living into a common vision of ministry and mission together.”

On Oct. 17 they “committed to exploring the possibilities of this full communion relationship, and to finding ways of living into deeper, fuller expressions of witness that will strengthen the Church as we learn and grow together.”

The important similarities between the two denominations are that they have both displaced the Gospel with obsessive social action, same sex-marriage, gender confusion and an openness so vast that all meaning has dissipated. A marriage of convenience, made in hell:

There are similarities between the two churches in their commitment to social justice and commitment to inclusion of diversity in sexual and gender identities, in disabilities, in theological openness and expression.

The painful Anglican Church of Canada

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In an uncharacteristic flash of insight, the Anglican Church of Canada’s bishops have realised that overturning 2000 years of Biblical teaching on marriage by merely voting to do so, might not be what God wants. That doesn’t mean they won’t do it, of course: the few tenacious conservatives remaining in the ACoC haven’t felt enough pain yet.

From here:

The Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada say that they recognise the “deep pain” that will be caused by next year’s General Synod vote on allowing same-sex marriage in Church; and question whether the Synod’s parliamentary-style procedures are “the most helpful way to discern the mind of the Church, or of the Spirit, in this matter.”

Anglican priest wears a hijab

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Rev. Cheryl Toth from the Anglican Diocese of Qu’Appelle wore a hijab for a day to “see what it’s like” and because she is unhappy that hostility towards women who wear a hijab, niqab or burka is increasing. And, of course, “to contribute to the conversation” – it wouldn’t be Anglican without that.

She didn’t go for the full cover-up of a burka, presumably because in a burka, no one would have any idea that she was a lady Anglican priest declaring “look at me, aren’t I progressive”, rather than an actual Muslim. That wouldn’t have been much of a publicity stunt.

Here she is:

And here are thousands of women protesting against being forced to wear a hijab in Iran in March 1979. I know which spectacle find more convincing:

Iran protest

From here:

Anglican priest Cheryl Toth decided to wear a hijab for a day to see what the experience is like. (Submitted by Cheryl Toth)

Concerned with what she calls the “increasing rhetoric about the wearing of the niqab by Muslim women,” an Anglican priest in Regina decided to take matters into her own hands. She wore a hijab for a day to see what’s [sic] like.

In a post on Facebook, Cheryl Toth said she’s “uncomfortable with the way the debate focuses on what women wear (or decide not to wear). I am afraid that [the rhetoric] will increase hostility towards women who choose to wear a hijab, a niqab or a burka.”

She said she sees her trial run with the hijab as a way “to contribute to the conversation.”

Discipline is on the agenda of the Primates’ meeting

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David Virtue is reporting that both TEC and the ACoC are to be disciplined at the Primates’ meeting in January.

There are ACoC clergy that have a keen interest in discipline, but only if it is accompanied by bondage.

From VOL:

The discipline of The Episcopal Church (and presumably the Anglican Church of Canada) will be the first item on the agenda when the Primates of the Anglican Communion meet in Canterbury in January, VOL has learned.

If TEC and the ACoC are disciplined for their departure from the faith and do not leave the meeting, the Global South Primates will not be likely to stay, VOL was told.

If they are disciplined, repent and do the right thing and leave, the Global South archbishops will stay on, said the source.

A report by the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Canada Fred Hiltz that ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach had only been invited for one day before the formal meeting gets under way — “as an opportunity for some conversation, in the ultimate hope that we might be able to find a way forward towards reconciliation,” is simply inaccurate. Hiltz described this as “a good thing.”

But VOL was told that this interpretation by Hiltz about what he thinks will transpire in Canterbury is simply not true and avoids the facts. Archbishop Beach will only come if the Global South archbishops come and they will only appear if Beach is invited and the issue of the North American departure from Scripture is the centerpiece of the discussion.

“The central issue of this meeting will be the theological innovations of The Episcopal Church and not climate change,” VOL was told.