Category Archives: Diocese of Huron

Gaia worship in the Diocese of Huron

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I’ll give this to Trivitt Memorial Anglican Church in the Diocese of Huron: they are completely open about the god they serve: Gaia.

Most ACoC churches use tradition Anglican FudgeTM to conceal their abandoning of Christianity. Not Triviit! They advertise the fact.

From here:

When you walk inside Trivitt Memorial Church in Exeter, Ont., it’s hard not to be taken aback by the sheer size and scale of the Earth, unlike what many people have ever seen.

“You walk in the front door, and you’re just sort of greeted with the biggest interpretation of Earth, I think, I’ve ever seen. It’s bigger than a cinema screen or projection, and I really appreciated it. The kids walked in and had that ‘A-ha!’ moment. They were blown away,” said Darryn de Souza, who brought his homeschool class from Perth County to see GAIA.

Measuring 20 feet wide and six metres in diameter, this version of Earth is suspended from the ceiling of Trivitt Memorial Church, spinning to the sounds the astronauts aboard the spacecraft that took the pictures that made this display possible.

“Generally, people say ‘Look at how much water there is. Look how far north Canada is. Look at the size of Africa, as a continent’,” said the man who helped bring the GAIA exhibit to Exeter, John Miller.

GAIA, named after the Greek Goddess of Earth, mother of all life, is the centrepiece of the Huron Waves Music Festival this summer. Eight concerts, inspired by GAIA, take place between now and July 3rd. That’s when the inflated balloon leaves Exeter.

St. Aidan’s rainbow doors vandalised

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Under the tutelage of Rev. Kevin George, the youth group at St. Aidan’s in London has painted some rainbow doors “to display as a sign of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community”.

Someone who is less than enthusiastic about drag queen story hour has vandalised them with the following:

Admittedly, this is a trifle rude, but then Rev. George is not averse to posting scatological incivilities in his twitter feed when it suits him:

That didn’t deter the good Rev from piously tweeting this about his vandalised doors: “To the person or persons who did this last night at St Aidan’s Church, we will not be deterred. Hate will not prevail.” I suspect what he really means by that last sentence is “Hate will not prevail, unless it’s what I hate”.

From here:

Members of St. Aidan’s Anglican Church arrived this morning to find some of their property vandalised.

Overnight, a door they had painted for pride month was spray painted with profanity. The vandalism was referring to “drag queen story time,” an event that has recently sparked controversy.

The Church’s Rector Kevin George told CTV News that young members of the Church created a pride art installation a year ago with multiple doors saying, “God’s doors are open to all.”

The Pride Flag door was left on display on a fence outside the Church Saturday and was vandalized with profanity spray painted over it.

“It was disheartening to see that message,” Rector Kevin George said in response to the “vulgar message” they found on the door.

In a post on social media, George, said, “To the person or persons who did this last night at St Aidan’s Church, we will not be deterred. Hate will not prevail.”

George said members of the Church spent part of the afternoon repainting their doors in Pride colours, which will be on display for next month.

Beatitudes for National Coming Out Day

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Not only do we have a National Coming Out Day, but it has its own beatitudes.

I was unaware of both until the Diocese of Huron – always a reliable source for the most delusional fantasies cherished by the looniest fringes that lurk on the outskirts of what is left of our civilisation – advertised the fact:


For those of you for whom the original Sermon on the Mount is just not out enough, here are the rest of them:

October 20th is International Pronouns Day

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking forward to celebrating this all year. Casting such trivia as chromosomes into the dustbin of useless outdated science, there’s no better icebreaker at an Alpha meeting than to say – as I am now a fully integrated Canadian – “hi, my name’s Cuthbert and I use ey/em pronouns, eh”. It’ll be a riot.

The Diocese of Huron has this helpful guide on when a they is a ney and a him is a nem (page 8):

October 20 is International Pronouns Day. This day seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity – it is about respecting and honouring people for who they are – in fullness. It is about breaking down the gender binary, stereotypes, and assumptions – and hearing people for who they are and the language that feels right for them. It is about celebrating the diversity of God as emulated through God’s diverse children.

The most common pronouns are she/her and he/him. Additionally, the most common gender neutral pronoun is they/them – this has been used as a singular pronoun since as far back as 1375 – so it is certainly not new! For example, rather than saying: “He and I went to the store”, you would say: “They and I went to the store”. It also helps avoid the awkwardness of saying “I can’t wait to meet him or her!” – instead, you can simply say: “I can’t wait to meet them!” There are many pronouns beyond she/her, he/him, and they/them – this includes mixed pronouns (when people use multiple different sets of pronouns, such as “she/her and they/them”), and neopronouns (other sets of gender-neutral pronouns, such as ney/nem, ze/zi, ey/em, etc).

Diocese of Huron Proud Anglicans Lambeth statement

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Proud Anglicans from the Diocese of Huron have reacted to discussions at Lambeth on the 1998 Lambeth resolution I.10: “Holy Matrimony is, by intention and divine purpose, to be a life-long, monogamous and unconditional commitment between a woman and a man”.

Bizarrely, the Proud Anglicans statement is blaming a lack of enthusiasm for same-sex marriage on Western colonialism, in spite of the fact that Western churches are exercising colonialism by attempting to impose Western sexual ethics (or lack thereof) on the rest of the world that contains 80% of practising Anglicans.

Here is the statement (click on it for a more readable view):
Meanwhile, the Diocese of Huron deconsecrated St. Jude’s, Mount Brydges on August 9th and will be deconsecrating All Saints, Waterloo on September 26th. Bishop Todd Townshend couldn’t attend the first deconsecrating because he was busy at Lambeth affirming and celebrating LGBT+ people.

Update: a reader pointed out that, although All Saints is being deconsecrated, it is moving to a new building.

Queering Pentecost

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I’m unsure as to why Pentecost has to be “queered” or even exactly what it means, but it is something that, so we are told, is occurring in the Diocese of Huron.

Read all about it here:

As we move through the Easter season and look towards Pentecost, I want to offer a reflection, a “queering” of the story of Pentecost and what it means for our ideas of community and communion.

Pentecost tells us that we are called to be Christian in community. The earliest converts at Pentecost were initiated into community and participated in community. Community is essential for Christians. It is one of the primary ways in which we are formed, how we discern, and how we enter into relationship with God.

Community can be difficult for LGBTQ Christians. Christian communities can fall on a spectrum between affirming to welcoming, tolerant, condemning, or actively hostile.

God Rest You Queer and Questioning

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen as performed by the Proud Anglicans of Huron – with the words slightly altered.

I was shocked to notice the missed opportunity, however: “merry” remains unmolested, despite what surely must have been an overwhelming temptation to unburden the gentlemen of their heterosexuality and make them gay.

Trinity Anglican Church, St. Thomas is now an Islamic Centre

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Trinity Anglican Church in St. Thomas was founded in 1877 to replace an older church which worshippers had outgrown.

Alas, the church’s website is no more, just like the church. The parish’s last gasp of life can be found in its Facebook page. Unlike their owners who dwell in a realm where moth and rust doth corrupt, Facebook pages are beneficiaries of cyberspace immortality. There the parish optimistically proclaims that it is a “vibrant, engaging, faith community with a fully accessible building.”

In a sense that is still true, it’s just not a Christian faith community. For all we know it never was, at least within living memory.

From this:

to this in one short year of the plague:

Zombies in the Diocese of Huron

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No, I’m not referring to members of the diocesan clergy, but to the fact that St. Andrew’s Memorial Anglican Church has found a new way to lure zombies – sorry, people – into its unsacred spaces.

The parish is hosting a discussion group on George A. Romero’s 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead. Apparently, the film has something to say about racism, so, having given up on Christianity, it’s an obvious choice for an Anglican All Saints study.

Besides, the word “zombie” is derived from “Nzambi”, a West African voodoo snake-deity so it fits nicely into diocesan theology.

Book now before it fills up:

Saturday from 15:00 EDT-16:15 EDT

Public · Hosted by St. Andrew’s Memorial Anglican Church

Online event

A pandemic. Fear of neighbours. Lockdown in homes. Panic. Mobs and militias. Racism. George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie film is surprisingly smart and terrifyingly relevant to our own day. Simply watch the movie on your own (it’s widely available through libraries and streaming services) and come prepared for an engaging discussion via the Zoom videoconferencing app.

Contact matthewkieswetter[at]diohuron.org (or whichever email account you have in your address book) for the Zoom coordinates and to receive some optional preparatory reading material.

While this event is connected with St. Andrew’s Memorial Anglican Church in Kitchener, it’s open to anyone of goodwill! [Viewer/parental discretion is advised.]

Diocese of Huron in rapid decline

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From the diocesan paper:

Between the years of 2007-2017 Huron witnessed the disappearance of more than fifty congregations. Each of these was a mission light that has gone out in our Diocese.

[….]

Statistics that show that between the years 2007-2017 Huron’s membership declined by 15,771 baptized members, with 5,037 fewer worshippers on Sunday, seeing 10,846 fewer participants for Easter celebrations and witnessing the disappearance of 2,346 children who had previously been learning God’s story through Sunday ministries. Trends that document that 85% of congregations in Huron were marked by membership decline in that decade, while roughly 10% were holding steady.

The article goes on to note that some may find it consoling that the rest of the ACoC is also evaporating at a similar rate. There are few things as comforting as all gurgling down the toilet together.

Some in our Church find consolation in these changing times knowing that most Anglican dioceses in Canada are in the same boat together – that widespread membership trends of decline are being experienced across the country. Researchers Brian Clarke and Stuart MacDonald have calculated that the annual decline of national Anglican membership to be roughly 22,700 members per year!

The same edition of the paper invites us all, on October the 11th, to celebrate:

National Coming Out Day. Celebrate with your queer and trans* friends and parishioners. Honour their journeys; hear their stories; lift up the voices of queer and trans* people within your community.

The author goes on to explain that ney (that’s nem’s pronoun – or perhaps it’s the other way around. It gets confusing), over the years has:

… gone by many different terms for my sexuality – lesbian, pansexual, demisexual, gay, and now the all-encompassing “queer”.

That’s a lot to celebrate.

If that hasn’t convinced you to come back to church, this workshop, described in the same newspaper, will:

A total of four workshops on allyship and the  place  of  queer  and trans* identities within the church  were  offered  online    on  August 22 and August 29 by the newly-formed Proud Anglicans of Huron.

I still don’t know what the asterisk affixed to “trans” means. Perhaps it’s another pronoun for those yet to come out with more arcane, hitherto undeclared, sexual inclinations.

If, for some inexplicable reason that doesn’t halt the diocesan slide into oblivion, this video is sure to do the trick.

After watching that, I am experiencing an irrepressible urge to move to Huron myself. Just so I can attend an Anglican church there.