The National Worship Conference of the Anglican Church of Canada is meeting in Regina this summer. It “will examine how church liturgy and worship practices can better reflect the diversity of modern congregations”.
The aim of the conference is to extirpate “expressions of empire” from liturgy in order to “decolonize“ it. As things stand, we are “excluding voices from the margins”.
We have to “begin by listening to the land, hearing the ancient voices of creation that hold our narratives.”
I’m not sure what the “voices from the margins” or the “voices of creation” are, although I’ve heard rumours that many clergy are hearing voices when they forget to take their pills.
Here is a radical idea: instead of straining to hear the voices of creation, try reading the Bible to see what God has to say.
You can register for the conference at the website.
All are welcome except orthodox Christians.
More here:
Berringer said she expected the subject matter of this year’s conference to be sensitive and controversial. The event’s website describes its purpose as exploring what it means to decolonize expressions of worship in the Anglican and Lutheran churches. Berringer says it’s about identifying the ways in which Anglicans and Lutherans from outside European-derived culture don’t see themselves reflected in the churches’ worship, and about finding ways to make it their own.
The word “decolonize” has so many disparate meanings to people according to their backgrounds and preconceived ideas, she says, that the conference may not get beyond negotiating a shared understanding of what the churches need to do to make themselves more inclusive. But even if that means having some difficult and uncomfortable conversations, she says it’s worth doing.
“I fully expect people to attend this conference and have pushback on everything from the title, to the description, to who we’ve included as far as workshop leaders,” she says. “We do expect people to be uncomfortable, probably. We’re providing prayer support, we’ve got chaplains ready … It’s human nature to feel defensive when the perception is ‘what you’re doing isn’t working, we’ve got to change it and make it better.’”
Only the liturgy is still true to the gospel. I wondered how long it would be before the Anglican bishops of Canada would see fit to change the liturgy so it’s more relevant.
No more iconoclastic church. This church has to be indistinguishable from the world.
Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw all men to myself.’ If Jesus were lifted up in the Anglican Church of Canada you wouldn’t be able to find a seat, it would be so full.
As it is this ‘inclusive’ church is closing churches every day. Congregations are leaving on droves. Soon there won’t be any left to celebrate inclusion and the green agenda.
Breaks my heart to see what ‘they’ have done to a once glorious tradition.
I agree completely with everything you say. Fortunately, that beautiful tradition lives on in the Anglican Church in North America( Anglican Network in Canada), the several Continuing Anglican Churches( the Anglican Catholic Church, the Traditional Anglican Church, et cetera), and the Ordinariate of the Chair of S Peter.
Generally, I appreciate the humour of the posts, even when
acerbic. However, “I’ve heard rumours that many clergy are
hearing voices when they forget to take their pills”, can be
considered bad taste re its allusion to a common symptom
of schizophrenia and the mitigating effects on that symptom
by anti-psychotic medication.
It’s humour- and the humour here helps with the tragedy that is the AOC-just scroll on if you don’t like the articles and get over it- You’re sounding very Anglican to me…..
I guess people read this Anglican Samizdat site for various reasons. Some are probably concerned about the future of the Anglican Church of Canada. Others want to pray for them. Still others may find some of the comments entertaining. Regardless, people seem to enjoy the opportunity to continue to comment on anything relating to this Canadian denomination.
It seems to me that Sunday attendance of the Anglican Church of Canada has been on the decline since 1966. Members of this denomination should be concerned about this phenomenon.
You have made a very important observation. It is true that Anglicans have left the Anglican Church of Canada, some to other continuing Anglican Churches, some to other denominations, and some no longer practise the Faith( now, commonly called Nones). But, what is often missed is that, even if no Anglicans left the Anglican Church of Canada, it would be in ever-increasing decline. Why? The answer: Anglicans have been having fewer and fewer children for at least three generations(since the mid-1960s), well below the replacement level. No children, no Church. As is often said: if it’s not crying, it’s dying.
A church that caters to all expections is a church that no-one needs.
I admit to being amused at conflating Christian belief with “decolonization”.
Christianity arose out of its great forebear Judaism, and spread by evangelism from the Middle East to Europe, long before there were European “colonial empires”. The first Christians were Jews, soon joined by a smattering of Greeks and other local ethnicities of the classical Levant, and then preaching their faith to the Romans.
If anything, the rise of the Christian faith entirely reverses the silly notion of “colonization”, by extending from the subject peoples of the Roman Empire to consolidating its hold on that very empire itself.