Category Archives: Diocese of Niagara

Pseudo-Christian eco-babble in the Diocese of Niagara

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When I interviewed Dr. George Sumner, principle of Wycliff College recently at the Anglican General Synod, we had the following exchange about attempting to run a program like Fresh Expressions in a diocese that has, for all intents and purposes, abandoned the Gospel:

David: I talked to another of your professors about Fresh Expressions. The concern I raised was what would the techniques he was teaching be used to express – would it be the Gospel?
Rev. Dr. George:  I think encouraging the church to let many flowers bloom evangelistically is good. You know, the flowers will thrive or they’ll die – like the parable of the sower. The fact that the professor in question himself is a theologically grounded is not irrelevant. These things are not just techniques – the Gospel is never a technique.

David: My point is that that was all very well, perhaps, while he was still involved, but once it was handed over to a less than orthodox diocese, it would no longer be a Fresh Expression of the Gospel, but something else.
Rev. Dr. George:  Maybe I’m an optimist.

David: I’m not accused of that very often.

This is a recent video by the Diocese of Niagara extolling the eco-expiatory benefits of using green certified cleaning products. The email contact at the end of the video is freshexpressions@niagara.ca. I’m tempted to send this to Dr. Sumner to curb his optimism.

Rev. Eleanor Clitheroe pension increase denied

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From the CBC:Add an Image

Ontario’s highest court has closed the door on a pension increase for fired Hydro One Inc. executive Eleanor Clitheroe.

Clitheroe sued Hydro One seeking to have her pension raised to $33,644.21 a month — slightly more than the average Hydro One pensioner gets annually.

The lawsuit was originally dismissed, but in appealing the suit to the Court of Appeal Clitheroe noted she worked 16-hour days and earned bonuses for her performance and is the only income earner for a family of four.

In a brief decision released Friday, the court dismissed the appeal saying Clitheroe had made the same arguments at trial and the court agreed with the trial judge’s reasons and conclusion.

Clitheroe’s pension is capped at $25,637.08 a month due to legislation passed by the government that limits executive salaries at the utility.

Clitheroe was dismissed in July, 2002 after weeks of controversy over executive salaries at the publicly owned transmission utility.

Although I am generally against the government interfering with a person’s negotiated pension settlement – and that is what has happened here – I can’t help wondering why, rather than spend a small fortune on lawsuits, Rev. Clitheroe didn’t simply adopt a philosophical, “you win some and you lose some” attitude. It isn’t that hard to live on $25,637.08 per month.

Rev. Clitheroe is now a part-time priest in the Diocese of Niagara; a paid part-time priest. Bishop Michael Bird has written a letter explaining Rev Clitheroe’s financial hardship. Bird points out that “as we are all aware legal matters can sometimes drag on for many years” – and he should know. He appears to be under the impression that Rev. Clitheroe is currently receiving no pension at all, which is, to say the least – odd:

We also understand that the legal matters have been very costly for her and her family, and we do not begrudge her right to seek a peaceful resolution and compensation through the justice system. She has the right to do so, just like all Canadians, and we respect that.

Ellie’s legal issues date back several years, to a time before she was ordained and joined our Diocese as a priest. Naturally, she will want to see those matters concluded, and as we are all aware legal matters can sometimes drag on for many years.

Ellie worked for over twenty‐five years in the private and public sector and received pension compensation for her work. She consistently took her pension with her as she moved from being a lawyer and banker, to deputy minister and then a CEO.

These pension matters have no impact on her compensation for her part time work in the Diocese. She does not currently receive and has not received a pension from Hydro One or the government. She has indicated to me that she hopes that she will receive a pension when she is 65, and that she wishes to use it wisely, in Christian stewardship in support of her family, the community and her church.

This letter is all part of Michael Bird’s Blueprint for Poverty Reduction.

Bishop Michael Bird responds to the “Gaining Respect” article

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The original article is here, and Bishop Bird’s response is in the Letters section of today’s National Post and on Holy Post:

Re: Gaining Respect; St. Hilda’s Parish Is No Longer An Outpost Of Orthodoxy But A More Acceptable Manifestation Of Anglican Faith, Charles Lewis, June 12.

After reading this article I am left asking the question: What criteria did reporter Charles Lewis use in declaring a small group of conservative Christians a “religious revolution”? What he reported on is, in fact, a process of maturation within the world-wide Anglican Communion. It is a lot like adolescence, as people jostle for position in the midst of a debate. Dioceses, like the one I lead, advocate for the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of our Church.

It’s hard to see exactly what point Michael Bird is making here: is he saying that it has taken 2000 years for the Christian Church to reach adolescence, that acts explicitly forbidden in the Bible become acceptable once those engaged in them have “matured”? It seems incoceivable that anyone could really be daft enough to honestly believe this; but, then, Bird does have some pretty strange ideas – see below.

For many of us, the kind of inclusion that Rev. Paul Charbonneau [who opposes same-sex unions, and who led St. Hilda’s Church out of the Anglican Church of Canada] speaks of is not acceptable.

The kind of inclusion that Rev. Paul Charbonneau believes is uncannily similar to the inclusion God advocates: everyone is welcome, but not all activities are equally good or beneficial to those who indulge in them. This is a pretty basic point: man is sinful and the church’s job is not to condone sin but help people turn away from it. Surely that should not be beyond the grasp of a bishop?

What is so ironic is that he is part of a small splinter group that represents less than 2% of Anglicans in North America. They would have us return to a way of thinking that is much closer to the last Reformation that began in the 15th century, as opposed to moving us toward a new Reformation.

The purpose of a Reformation is to return the church to orthodox Christian belief and discard the man-made accretions that tend to accumulate in the institutional church. The Diocese of Niagara is quickly becoming nothing but man-made accretions.

At the heart of our exciting vision for the Diocese of Niagara is a call for prophetic social justice making, a continuous culture of innovation and a strong desire to engage with the people of this generation and walk with them in their search for God and their desire to change the world.

This ends up being little more than leftist political activism.

As Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has stated: “God just wants us to love each other.” Many, however, say that some kinds of love are better than others. But whether a man loves a woman or another man, or a woman loves a man or another woman, to God it is all love, and God smiles whenever we recognize our need for one another.

I don’t remember God’s injunction for us to love one another including optional genital activity: I must have missed those verses in the Bible.

I will leave it to your readers to decide what a religious revolution really looks like in this day and age.

I’ve decided.

Bishop Michael Bird, Anglican Diocese of Niagara, Hamilton, Ont.

The 136th synod of the Diocese of Niagara

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will be held on November 13 2010

Please mark your calendars because there will be a great earthquake. The sun will become as dark as black cloth, and the moon will become as red as blood. Then the stars of the sky will fall to the earth like green figs falling from trees shaken by mighty winds. And the sky will roll up like a scroll and be taken away. And all of the mountains and all of the islands will disappear.

And all while Bishop Michael Bird plays his bagpipes.

Selected heresies from the Diocese of Niagara

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Plucked fresh from the May Niagara Anglican:

Jesus is not God:

St. George’s, Guelph, is a free thinking church, where dissent from the faith is permitted, if not encouraged. Everything is open to debate, including the divinity of Christ and the Trinity.

Man is not sinful:

Reservations of St. Augustine’s theology, especially that part which described “humankind as a mass of corruption and sin, or looked upon the world as irredeemably evil.”

The Good News is temporal and unrelated to Jesus atoning for our sins, salvation or eternal life:

“To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom”…. The Marks of Mission invite the church to begin our ministry where Jesus began his, with proclamation that another way—the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, a New Creation—has become an available choice within history, and not just a hope for the eternal future.

Jesus is not unique; all religions lead to the same place:

Who’s in charge? No one person or religion, and that’s fine. Let’s work with other religions as a global force doing God’s work and let’s allow our traditional rivalries to die away……

Recently a cartoon was printed of a wall dividing a dry desert from a luscious garden with every fruit tree imaginable in it. In the wall were two gateways; one with “Right Religion” over it, the other with “Wrong Religion.” Everyone, of all races and tribes were clamoring to enter the one marked “Right Religion,” but no one the one labeled “Wrong Religion.” Above were God and some angels. The caption read, “It’s too bad that they just don’t get it.”

Jesus was a heretic and but a caricature of God:

But we do see Jesus, the greatest heretic of all time, but the truest manifestation, or caricature, of God we’ve got, or will ever get.

Faith is shaped not by objective truth, but by experience:

There’s no part of the faith that’s so sacrosanct that it cannot, or should not, be questioned, pulled apart, and put back together again. Faith is not like the multiplication tables. We may question whether six times seven is the same as seven times six, which equals forty two; but it won’t change, no matter how we look at it.

The Diocese of Niagara has something to be proud of

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The Anglican Church of Canada is shrinking faster than a haemorrhoid in an argon laser. Consequently, the dioceses of B. C., Toronto, Rupert’s Land, Ottawa, Ontario and Huron (and Montreal) are “restructuring” in order to survive with fewer people. This, of course, is a euphemism for closing parishes.

I just received an email from a friend in the Diocese of Rupert’s Land who was very excited by the fact that a committee of the Synod will be looking at the vitality and viability of all the parishes in the diocese. This follows on the news of the completed Diocese of B. C. study that called for the closure of some parishes and restructuring of others. The Diocese of Toronto has a strategic plan in the making, Ottawa, Ontario and Huron as well as others I may not know about.

The Diocese of Niagara, however, during the diabolarchy of its last three bishops, has been clever enough to anticipate fleeing parishioners and has been closing churches in advance. Bravo the Diocese of Niagara!

This is simply to illustrate that in light of declining membership and resources in many dioceses the leadership is taking a hard look at the future, most have decided to create a “grand plan”. We in Niagara have taken a slightly different approach and under the leadership of the Bishops Asbil, Spence and Bird and the support of Synod Councils over the years, we have been closing and amalgamating parishes at a pace that makes us the Canadian leaders in restructuring for mission in a changing context.

This technique has been so successful, it is to be exported:

Our Synod has been so successful in our approaches to these issues that the writer and other members of the Mission Strategy Committee have been asked to present our methods to other Diocesan leaders across Canada and the United States.

The whole thing is based on relationship and trust:

This respect leads to relationship which leads to trust and finally a mutual understanding of what the next steps in ministry may need to be.

And doing things the Niagara Way:

What is more it all seems to be very much our “Niagara Way”.

The Anglican Peace and Justice Network calls for setting aside “internal divisions"

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From the Anglican Journal:

Anglican churches should set aside their internal divisions and be sensitive to the needs and struggles of people in societies worldwide, an international body representing various provinces of the Anglican Communion has urged.

The call was made by delegates to the triennial meeting of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN), which met March 14 to 20 in Geneva.
The APJN also urged member provinces of the Communion to “incorporate issues of justice into missional work and into theological education at every level.”

A network of the Communion, the APJN is the vehicle by which Anglicans around the world collectively advocate for global peace and justice issues. Now in its 25th year, the APJN is composed of representatives from about 24 active provinces of the Communion.

Since the Diocese of Niagara is hosting the fun-filled Justice Camp in May, this must mean that Bi$hop Michael Bird is going to set aside his differences with the three Niagara ANiC parishes and stop suing them; right Mike?

Why the Diocese of Niagara doesn’t evangelise

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The Diocese of Niagara may not have a mission, but it does have a Mission Strategy Committee. According to one of its members, (page 1 here) bold steps are needed to pull the Niagara diocese out of what even the most optimistic are seeing as a slump.

In case anyone is labouring under the misapprehension that Niagara’s malaise is rooted in a liberal drift away from Christianity towards an amalgam of neo-paganism, Gaia worship and Unitarianism and that to speak to a non-believer about this is simply too embarrassing, Andy Kalbfleisch sets us straight. The people of Diocese of Niagara keep quiet about their beliefs because to do otherwise might expose them as aggressive right-wingers – this ever present danger is a constant worry for the diocese:

The growth of, dare I say, aggressive right wing evangelical denominations, have made us fearful of being coloured with the same brush when we speak about mission and discipleship. We want to be seen and heard as promoting a God of love instead of a God of fear. So it’s much easier to forget or push to the margins of our church experience, actions and strategies about mission and discipleship. Instead we may engage aggressively in important, but peripheral activities that serve God but that may not spread His word in the manner of first century Christians.

Diocese of Niagara: chipping away at the divinity of Jesus

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The diocesan newspaper is a beacon of enlightenment – on how Niagara got to where it is today:

A friend recently asked me, out of the blue, “Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?” I could have simply said, “Yes,” but hesitated instead.

Of course you did: why build faith when you can sow doubt. This is, after all, what Western Anglicans mean by Evangelism.

Why? I felt that it was a simple question to which I should, as a Christian, have an immediate and satisfactory answer. Racing through my head, however, were various interpretations of these words, some more valid than others. Furthermore, what answer would be most useful to my friend at her stage of questioning? Other progressive Christians joke about being labeled heretic.

Being labelled a heretic in the Diocese of Niagara is no joke: it is a condition of employment.

Back to the question of the identity of Jesus. He called himself “the Son of Man,” a more modest label than “Son of God.” Like “Messiah,” with its overtly warlike associations, “Son of God” was an aggressive, politically loaded term from the Old Testament that some of Jesus’ followers must have pressured him to claim. They also called him “Teacher,” “Rabbi,” and “Lord.” The Christian Church has used all these titles as well as “Christ” and “Emmanuel.”

First we employ Anglican bafflegab and confuse the issue of Jesus’ divinity by focussing on the irrelevant: warlike associations and aggressive, politically loaded term[s].

By the time I had realized that this information was merely the tiniest corner of the scholarship on the topic, days had passed. I began to consider that the key word in my friend’s question was “believe.” That posed a second challenge. Have I any business expressing my ideas let alone my beliefs if I do not believe in Jesus in an orthodox way?

Then clinch the muddle by casting doubt on the meaning of common words: in this instance believe.

This is a variation on the Nicene Creed debate. Many church leaders have stopped reciting it during church services because they can no longer believe it to be literally true. No wonder many loyal Anglicans feel torn! Another friend said recently, “I like to recite the Creeds because they remind me of what I believe. If I throw out these beliefs, which I realize are limited in terms of common sense, it’s like jumping from the familiar into the unknown and I don’t know where I’ll land.”

And the coup de gras: almost no-one in the Anglican Church of Canada believes the Creed any more; if you do happen to find yourself in a parish that defies common sense and still says, “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father”, you can always cross your fingers.

As Søren Kierkegaard, the early 19th century Danish theologian, put it, to be a Christian requires a leap to faith because of the logical absurdity inherent in orthodoxy. How else, for example, can we assert that Jesus is both God and man when our rational minds say that this, let alone the doctrine of the Trinity, doesn’t make sense? To take a leap to faith requires a leap of faith. The pervasive 20th century response to the claims of religion was the existential despair of nihilism.

It’s just as well Kierkegaard is no longer with us since he spent much of his life inveighing against clergy who lived lives contrary to their professed beliefs. His solution to this hypocrisy was for the clergy to live up to their beliefs; the contemporary Anglican solution is for the clergy to abandon them.

I called my friend and gave her my rather long answer to her question about my belief in Jesus as the Son of God. She said, “Oh, really, I didn’t know it was so complicated! I’m sorry to put you to all this bother. What matters to me is not right or wrong theology but that we are friends!” As Paul put it, “if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Jesus’ divinity is mysterious; it only becomes complicated to those who don’t believe in it.

“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus seems to have been pleased by Peter’s prompt response: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Two millennia later, the question, “Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?” should not be asked as a test of orthodoxy. It deserves an answer only if asked in the spirit of friendship.

Who needs a test of orthodoxy? Not the Diocese of Niagara.