Audio highlights from the Diocese of New Westminster’s synod, May 2011
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Category Archives: Diocese of New Westminster
The Diocese of New Westminster’s remarks on the death of the Reverend Dr. Harry Robinson
From here, my emphasis:
Dean Peter Elliott focused his opening remarks on the funeral of the Reverend Dr. Harry Robinson that took place that afternoon, 1pm at St. John’s Shaughnessy.
Peter said that Harry was one of the great figures of the Diocese of New Westminster and at the forefront of the Evangelical movement in Anglicanism.
Harry retired as the Rector of St. John Shaughnessy. There were many people from the D of NW at Harry’s funeral. In retirement, Harry attended a number of diocesan churches including St. Mary’s Kerrisdale and Christ Church Cathedral and for a number of years celebrated Morning Prayer at St. Mary’s. Up until his death Harry remained a Priest in the Anglican Church of Canada.
It’s interesting to note that Rev. Harry Robinson was appointed rector at St. John’s Shaughnessy in the late ‘70s when the parish was not faring too well. He helped build it into the largest Anglican parish in Canada and planted a faith in Jesus that would later provide the strength for St. John’s to follow its conscience and leave the Anglican Church of Canada.
The diocese’s drawing attention to the fact that Harry remained a priest in the ACoC couldn’t mean that they are using this circumstance to make a tawdry case for their claim that, all evidence to the contrary, evangelical priests really are welcome in the Anglican Church of Canada, could they?
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Diocese of New Westminster demonstrates ADS – ANiC Derangement Syndrome
The diocese continues to try and make a case that it has a vibrant and emerging congregation at St. Matthew’s, Abbotsford, a parish that left the diocese for ANiC because of its heretical drift. Here is a photo of the emerging congregation:
Funnily enough, while occupying St. Matthews with fifteen squatters, the diocese has been busy closing what it sees as non-viable parishes with a far higher number of parishioners.
Here is the fond farewell from St. John’s, Burnaby:
And here, from St. Peter’s:
Notice the difference? It’s hard not to conclude that the Diocese of New Westminster is only prepared to maintain a small – minuscule, actually – parish when, by doing so, it furthers its plan to deprive a thriving ANiC parish of a building .
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Someone stole the Diocese of New Westminster’s brass eagle
From here:
Sometime between 9:10 and 10am on Sunday, January 9th, 2011, a person or persons unknown stole the brass Eagle Lectern from the narthex of Christ Church Cathedral.
Following the interior renovation of the 116 year old heritage building the Eagle lectern was moved from its former position in the sanctuary to the narthex (entrance lobby) vestibule where it served as a welcoming presence for visitors.
The “Eagle” is estimated to have been at the Cathedral since prior to World War II and it weighs roughly 80-90 kilograms.
The Cathedral Parish would very much like to have this item returned. Selling it for scrap is going to be very difficult, particularly as Cathedral staff immediately contacted the VPD and notified foundry owners of the disappearance of the item.
Boy, that thing was heavy.
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Diocese of New Westminster: St. Matthew’s Abbotsford; no room at the inn
It seems that, at Christmas, St. Matthew’s Abbotsford, a parish that voted 184 to 4 (with 5 abstentions) to join ANiC, wasn’t able to “accommodate” the Diocese of New Westminster’s congregation that continues to worship in the building.
From here:
The growing community of worshippers who attend the Sunday, 8am Eucharist in the Parish Hall of St. Matthew’s Abbotsford were eager to have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas together.
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) congregation currently using the St. Matthew’s buildings did not accomodate the Anglican Church of Canada congregation but happily the Parish of St. Dunstan, Aldergrove stepped forward and offered the use of their sanctuary for a special Christmas Eve service.
St. Matthew’s trustee Carole Keighly reported that the service was a great success, no small credit to their hosts who made them feel so welcome.
The service was simple one. Archdeacon Beverly Stewart crafted an innovative service which included the administration of communion to each other and the singing of a number of traditional carols including Silent Night in English and German.
Following worship the congregation met for coffee (provided by St. Dunstan’s) and potluck brought by the St. Matthew’s congregation.
Randy Murray
What is not entirely clear is why the diocesan growing community of worshippers – all 12 of them – didn’t simply join in with the ANiC congregation. Perhaps they wanted to avoid the danger of spontaneous self-combustion – like vampires in the sunlight.
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The Diocese of New Westminster: still distorting the facts
Trustees of four Vancouver-area churches will be filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, appealing an earlier court decision which prevents them using their church buildings.
In spite of the fact that the parishes have made generous offers to settle the dispute, the Diocese of New Westminster seems determined to portray the Vancouver parishes as litigation villains who are unwilling to negotiate with the diocese outside of the courts.
The diocese declares:
ANiC Trustees Initiate Further Legal Action
Bishop Ingham has offered to meet with the leaders of the four congregations to discuss how everyone can move forward in keeping with the decisions of the courts and appoint new clergy for these parishes. To date, there has been no response.
Bishop Ingham and Diocesan leadership do not believe that there is any need to take any further court challenges, which will incur more expense and anxiety. However they respect the Plaintiffs’ right to request the Supreme Court to hear their case as the final legal option available to them.
Ingham has left the parishes the option of submitting to his leadership, leaving their buildings or continuing the appeal. His belief that there isn’t any need for an appeal is hardly surprising since things have gone his way so far: the fox has a chicken in its mouth and doesn’t see any need for the chicken to continue struggling.
A diocesan document that was filed with the courts to obtain costs from the parishes goes further:
ANiC is obviously pursuing systematic, widespread litigation across the country aimed at securing church properties for its use, in the same manner as this litigation. As ANiC has stated in its newsletter, the case at bar is just the “first significant ANiC parish trial”. If ANiC were to be insulated from adverse cost awards (and a fortiori. To be indemnified for its own legal costs from parish funds), the natural result will be simply that ANiC will pursue litigation more readily and ACC will be left to defend itself against a zealous litigant with nothing to lose.
All of which is arrant nonsense, since in the vast majority of court cases, it is the ACoC diocese that has been the zealous litigant. Even the Vancouver parishes only used the courts as a last resort: it was the only alternative to being thrown out of their buildings.
The same twaddle is being peddled from the pulpit in the Diocese of Niagara: the diocese is claiming to be the defendant in the Niagara court cases, even though it initiated the litigation.
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The organ of the Diocese of New Westminster is accepting paid advertising
With some exceptions:
We accept no advertising for liquor, tobacco, small loans, lotteries or any other gambling.
All advertising in Topic must meet the standards of good taste and be graphically and stylistically compatible with the visual format of the Topic publication.
Which make little sense since, after a dose of the graphical and stylistic good taste of the diocese, a shot of something stronger than the clichéd “more tea vicar” would be in order to steady the nerves.
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The Diocese of New Westminster defines Mission
And, naturally, they indaba it. You can watch the whole thing here, but this answer in particular is revealing in that it confirms that the fish does indeed rot from the head – the Ingham head – down: Why evangelise any more because there are many mansions of the Spirit:
| Launch in external player |
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A strange headline from Christ Church Cathedral, Diocese of New Westminster
The Diocese of New Westminster has a blog
In one of its first posts it asks “What is ‘Big Tent’ Christianity and Why Should it Matter to Us?”
The answer seems to be a place where everyone gets along no matter what their theological differences; even, I suspect, their different religions:
Let’s face it. The very term “Christian” has been “so torn apart in the battle-to-the-death between liberals and conservatives that there’s no longer any point in using it at all,” says Clayton. Indeed, I’d add that there’s really no place for words like “liberal” and “conservative” in the exercise of effective Christian witness to a fragmented world. We can’t rehabilitate the word ‘Christian’ until we jettison our baggage of institutional dualistic thinking. Adopting these kinds of oppositional stances which stifle dialogue and over-simplify deep human concerns is not only absurd, but essentially unchristian. The inability to live with one another in a ‘big tent’ in spite of our theological and cultural differences is antithetical to the very Gospel we espouse and hobbles the work of the Holy Spirit.
Bishop Michael Ingham would be very comfortable banishing the term “Christian”, since he isn’t one: if the diocese didn’t allow for members to adhere to non-Christian theology, its own bishop wouldn’t find room in the “big tent”. Not a moment too soon, some of you are probably thinking, but a bit of an embarrassment, nevertheless.
The article goes on to reveal the recipe for revitalising the diocese:
“it’s high time for a more prophetic, more counter-cultural Christian faith”
The only problem is, in a typically grotesque piece of double speak, “more counter-cultural” translates to “more cultural capitulation”:
[a faith] that is welcoming, inclusive, and validates all the gifts that the diversity of human individuals can bring to what are ideally messy, chaotic Christian communities: communities that spill out of themselves to engage our society and culture as followers of Jesus who push the envelope – or as Tim Keel puts it in his book Intuitive Leadership – ‘embrace a paradigm of narrative, metaphor and chaos’
I have no idea what that piece of cliché riddled nonsense means, but I can guarantee it does not contain an iota of anything that is counter-cultural.
The diocese is about to invade the neighbourhood in its zeal to appear counter cultural, though:
We’ll be hearing more about it. Our own diocese recently hosted an enthusiastic gathering of parishes where all of us were inspired by the stories about the birthing and nurturing of ‘neighbourhood’ initiatives. The day culminated in some goal setting and proposed action planning that have potential to transform parish life as we, as followers of Jesus, focus on finding new ways to connect to those around us.
Having worked in large companies for the last 40 odd years, I have learned that as soon as institutional fixtures get to the stage of saying things like “birthing and nurturing,” “goal setting”, “action planning”, “potential to transform” and “focus on finding new ways to connect”, they have reached a state of mental torpor from which there is no return; nothing will get done and the perpetrators of such desperate banalities will quite soon be gurgling incoherently as they submerge in their own threadbare meanderings. A typical corporate executive whose incompetence has been thus exposed is forced to look elsewhere for employment; preferably employment whose prerequisite is not clear thinking – some end up as Anglican bishops.