An Earth Day message from Fred Hiltz and Susan Johnson

Posted on by
4

From here:

Let us remember our first calling as human beings is caring for the Earth. So sacred is this calling that as Lutherans worldwide mark the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation in 2017 with an overall theme “Liberated by God’s Grace,” one of the subthemes is “Creation—not for sale.” So sacred is this calling to Anglicans worldwide that they hold among their Marks of Mission a commitment “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth.” This mark of mission is now reflected in the vows made in baptism.

I don’t dislike pollution any less than Fred Hiltz but, surely, “our first calling as human beings” – or, at least as Christians – is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the unsaved, not to “care for the earth.” The earth is not a sentient living thing made in God’s image, possessing a soul whose eternal destiny rests on whether or not it has received Christ’s free gift of salvation. It is just like the rest of the universe, a system which is subject to entropy; it is running down, degenerating gradually into disorder until God remakes it as part of the New Heavens and New Earth.

That is, unless, as appears to be the case for the purveyors of this Earth Day Statement, your god is Gaia.

Diocese of Niagara is demolishing churches because everyone is doing it

Posted on by
3

Rev. Bill Mous, possessor of what can only be an antonymic title – director of justice, community and global ministries – justifies turning St. Matthias in Guelph into a six story apartment building by telling us it is “a story that’s playing out in communities across the country”.

I await, with considerable anticipation, the same story playing out for the diocesan cathedral.

From here:

GUELPH — The story of St. Matthias Anglican Church is a story that’s playing out in communities across the country, says a spokesperson for the Anglican Diocese of Niagara, which oversees Anglican ministry in Guelph and the surrounding area.
The decision to sell the church, located at the corner of Edinburgh and Kortright roads, came about from a variety of factors, said Rev. Bill Mous, director of justice, community and global ministries in a phone interview.

“It came from the congregation’s size and their ability to financially support the ministry and the property,” Mous said. “And it didn’t happen overnight. The congregation made many attempts to engage the community in the ministry of St. Matthias. But in 2013 they faced reality and voted to leave their building.

“It was difficult, and bold.”

When the church went up for sale, several offers were received including offers from two churches, but theirs were “substantially lower than the others,” Mous said.

It just goes to show that difficult and bold social justice in the church is mainly concerned with maximising profits – just like capitalism but less honest.

Anglican Church of Canada resolves to fight anti-Semitism

Posted on by
6

Or perhaps it is creating a smoke screen to conceal from the unwary that, by loudly denouncing anti-Semitism, no one will notice that it is working quietly to undermine Israel.

Here you can learn the Anglican Church of Canada’s view on “what it means to be anti-Semitic in the contemporary context” – although, I can’t see why the contemporary context would be any different from any other context, so I am left with the uneasy suspicion that this is code for something unsavoury.

And here you can read one reaction to the Anglican Church of Canada’s sponsoring of a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism”:

Later this month, Canadian Friends of Sabeel will hold a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism.” Sabeel describes itself as an “ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology centre” that is “working for justice, peace and reconciliation in Palestine-Israel.” In reality, it is a group that promotes a misrepresentation of events in the Middle East. The conference slated for Vancouver is explicitly aimed at undermining Israel among its North American Christian supporters.

Canadian Supreme Court rules against prayer at city council meetings

Posted on by
6

The atheist who made the complaint against prayer was awarded “$33,200 in compensatory damages, punitive damages and costs”. Leaving aside the devil and his minions, being damaged by prayer must surely be a unique experience. What trauma could this hyper-sensitive disbeliever possibly have experienced to be worth $33k in compensation? Did he burst into flames like a vampire in sunlight? If only atheists could be dispatched that easily.

The Supreme Court ruled that “the state neither favour nor hinder any particular belief” and, by reciting a prayer, it favoured Christianity – a right and proper thing for a civilisation founded upon Judeo-Christian morality to do; right and proper for a civilisation that is not bent on its own annihilation, that is. By the time we have finished driving God out of Christendom we will have nothing left but a howling wilderness, as Peter Hitchens puts it. Let’s hope no atheists are offended by that.

From here:

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the municipal council in the Quebec town of Saguenay cannot open its meetings with a prayer.

In a unanimous decision today, the country’s top court said reciting a Catholic prayer at council meetings infringes on freedom of conscience and religion.

The ruling puts an end to an eight-year legal battle that began with a complaint filed by atheist Alain Simoneau and a secular-rights organization against Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay.

The court ordered the City of Saguenay and the mayor to stop the prayers. It also ordered the city and Tremblay to pay Simoneau a total of $33,200 in compensatory damages, punitive damages and costs.

Diocese of Edmonton does instant Christianity

Posted on by
3

Much as instant coffee doesn’t bear much resemblance to brewed coffee or McDonald’s hamburgers to real beef, so fast-favillous Christianity doesn’t have much in common with the real thing.

Although I think taking the church outside the buildings is generally a good idea, the Ashes to go fad seems to be yet another example of a church clinging desperately to rituals which, over the years, it has worked strenuously to drain of meaning. Having nothing left but the empty husk and their fancy dress, the bishop and her tribe of clerics parade themselves in public, a charade where the bystanders have to guess whether, perhaps, the church is smearing carbon on people as yet another protest against global warming.

AshesFrom here:

In 2010, the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton joined the international “Ashes to Go” initiative to share God’s love and mercy in informal settings such as train stops, shopping malls and neighbourhood streets.

In the heart of downtown, Bishop Jane Alexander, Dean Neil Gordon, Archdeacon Chris Pappas and Lutheran Pastor Ingrid Dörschel greeted commuters at the Churchill LRT Station.

Government donates $1 million to Diocese of New Westminster

Posted on by
8

The diocese needs a new roof for its cathedral and BC taxpayers will, unwittingly, be paying a part of the bill. This means that the diocese’s prophetic voice, whose clarion call is heard most clearly during the annual gay pride parade, is unlikely to be decoupled from the state sponsored zeitgeist any time soon.

From here:

Earlier this afternoon, the province of British Columbia announced it will give $1 million to Christ Church Cathedral’s building campaign, which is raising money to repair the cathedral’s roof, add a new bell tower and expand its community outreach kitchen.

“This generous grant recognizes the place that Christ Church Cathedral holds in Vancouver and British Columbia,” said Bishop Melissa Skelton of the diocese of New Westminster, “and will help ensure that the cathedral community continues to play a significant role in meeting the spiritual and physical needs of the people of Vancouver.”

New secretary general of the Anglican Communion gets Frank Griswold’s approval

Posted on by
3

That can’t be good.

From here:

Many Anglican and Episcopal leaders are celebrating the appointment of Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon of the Anglican Diocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, as the next secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

“Josiah is, above all, a man of communion, a careful listener, and a respecter of the different ways in which we are called to articulate and live the good news of God in Jesus Christ,” former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold told Episcopal News Service following the appointment.

He is ‘committed to God’s mission of reconciliation’. He isn’t, of course, because God’s reconciliation is for us to reconcile to himself through his Son. God expects us to love one another: if a fellow Christian departs from the faith once delivered, it isn’t loving for everyone to pretend nothing is wrong by institutionalising a bogus state of reconciliation.

Connecticut Bishop Ian Douglas, a member of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, said he has known Idowu-Fearon for more than a decade through a variety of inter-Anglican bodies and responsibilities and finds him “committed to God’s mission of reconciliation, both between people of different faiths and between the churches of the Anglican Communion.”

One might be tempted to take comfort in the hope that Idowu-Fearon could scarcely be worse than his predecessor, Kenneth Kearon, whose facility for churning out densely packed clichés was unmatched by even the most tenaciously vacuous bishops in Western Anglicanism. Time will tell.