The Age of the Apology

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Fred Hiltz has apologised, Linda Nicholls has apologised, Justin Welby has apologised, and the Pope has apologised. Now some people are saying Queen Elizabeth should apologise for abuse that took place in the Canadian Residential schools. I expect God is next on the apology list.

I don’t doubt that there was abuse in these schools, nor do I doubt that there was some good in the system. I also don’t doubt that the hell in which most clergy have ceased to believe is considerably less pleasant than the “hell” Justin Welby says existed in the schools.

What I do doubt is the sincerity of all the apologisers: it is too easy to be sorry for the sins of one’s ancestors. I’d take the handwringing of Linda Nicholls, for example, more seriously if, as CEO of the ACoC industry, she accepted responsibility for the numerous current sex scandals in her organisation and resigned. Although, come to think of it, I suppose the ACoC is one massive sex-scandal and is celebrated as such, so how could she resign.

One final thought: I have an uneasy feeling that what is underneath the abject wailing of Welby et al is a deep-seated disbelief in the worth of his own cultural inheritance; of Christendom. And, perhaps, even of Christianity.

From here:

Residential school survivors, Indigenous leaders say Queen should apologize next
Métis leader says she’ll bring up an apology when she meets with Prince Charles and Camilla this week.

Now that residential school survivors have an initial apology from Pope Francis for the conduct of some Catholics at the facilities, president of the Métis National Council Cassidy Caron says the Queen should be the next to apologize.

Following a suggestion from a Métis residential school survivor, Caron is calling on Queen Elizabeth II, as Canada’s head of state and leader of the Anglican Church, to apologize for the operation of residential schools and pay reparations to survivors.

“There’s so much healing that is needed,” Caron said.

Caron said she plans to deliver that message when she meets Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at Rideau Hall this week during their Canadian tour.

Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General, called the visit a chance to “showcase the evolution of our country, our diverse and inclusive society, as well as the resilience of Indigenous communities.”

Many First Nations signed treaties with the Crown that made promises — such as pledges to share resources — that the Crown later violated.

Anglican Church of Canada has 2 year budget surplus of $8M

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This, we are told, is not so much a reversal of a general financial downward trend but a saving on travel expenses during the pandemic and shrewd investments in the capitalist system the church is otherwise bent on destroying.

Read all about it here:

The Anglican Church of Canada’s national office recorded two consecutive multi-million-dollar yearly surpluses in 2020 and 2021, for a combined total of just over $8 million, the church’s treasurer and chief financial officer has confirmed.

As reported to the Council of General Synod (CoGS) in March, General Synod netted an excess of revenue over expense of $3.6 million. But the corresponding figure for the previous year was also in the millions—just over $4.5 million, treasurer Amal Attia says.

The two figures added together approach the national office’s total spending in 2021, which was $8.5 million.

A 2020 financial statement was presented to CoGS in May 2021, but was not reported on by the Anglican Journal at the time. The CoGS session took place on the weekend immediately after then-acting editor Tali Folkins departed for a sabbatical leave, and immediately before then-editor Matthew Townsend returned from a two-month parental leave—and shortly before the sudden departure of both Townsend and staff writer Joelle Kidd over the sharing by church management of a draft article on sexual misconduct. (See “Off on the wrong track?” on p. 8 of this issue.)

The church should plan to carefully steward the combined $8 million in revenue surplus and savings it accrued across 2020 and 2021, say two of its financial leaders. General Secretary Archdeacon Alan Perry and Attia caution that the pandemic years have offered a windfall that will not likely be repeated.

There’s no recent precedent for this, says Perry, noting that over the past couple of decades, the revenue for the church has been trending downward as congregations shrink. “Having a surplus of any kind is quite extraordinary. And especially of this size,” he says.

The surplus should not be taken as a reversal of that downward trend, Perry says. Rather, it represents a couple of key factors that set the pandemic years apart. The first is a substantial savings on money the church normally sets aside for travel expenses as clergy and lay leaders travel for ministry and church governance. When the pandemic postponed some of those meetings and moved others online, the church saved money.

The other major component is that the past few years have been unusually successful for the church’s investments, which increased in value by about $6 million over the course of their eight-year maturation period, says Attia. Some of that comes to the church in the form of capital gains, she says, but the majority of it doesn’t come back in cash until and unless the church decides to sell those investments. As a result, much of that $6 million is in the value of the stocks the church holds, not money it has at its disposal.

 

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.

Anglican reactions to impending supreme court abortion ruling

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The Episcopal Church has issued the following statement:

Episcopal Church statement on reports concerning Supreme Court case pertaining to abortion

May 3, 2022

Office of Government Relations

Since 1967, The Episcopal Church has maintained its “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them.” In light of the recent report about a pending decision in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, The Episcopal Church reaffirms our commitment to “equitable access to women’s health care, including women’s reproductive health care,” which we view as “an integral part of a woman’s struggle to assert her dignity and worth as a human being.” The Office of Government Relations will continue to advocate at the federal level to protect reproductive rights.

We encourage you to read this overview of The Episcopal Church’s positions on abortion and women’s reproductive health.

Put into simple terms, removing the euphemisms and Newspeak, TEC is endorsing the murder of unborn babies. An organisation promoting such a demonically inspired abomination should not be afforded the dignity of being called a Christian Church.

The Anglican Church of Canada hierarchy, being largely populated with spineless poltroons, has remained silent on the issue. Apart, that is, from the intrepid Rev. Michael Coren who cannot resist coming down on the wrong side of an ethical conundrum whenever he has the opportunity.

Read Coren’s claptrap here:

There is nothing Christian about allowing women to die in illegal back street abortions. Nothing Christian about removing the basic right of a woman to control her own body. Nothing Christian about wanting to criminalize female equality.

[….]

But what of scripture itself? The central point is that any ancient text, even one that is central to a religious faith and certainly crucial to my life and beliefs, has to be understood and interpreted in context and with understanding.

So, for example, when opponents of abortion quote Jeremiah — “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” — they should grasp a few realities. First, this was written around 2,700 years ago. Second, the text is speaking of a single person, “a prophet to the nations” rather than making a sweeping comment about the beginning of life.

Or Psalm 139, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” This is poetry and metaphor, a beautiful testimony to God’s love but not a guide to human biology. The very idea is unbiblical.

The New Testament has Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, meeting Mary, mother of Jesus, and “the child leaped in her womb.” Again, a lyrical description of an event that shaped history, but not scientific and not supposed to be. If we’re to take a literalist approach to the Bible we’re in all sorts of trouble. By the way, it sometimes supports abortion, something the Christian right doesn’t like to mention.

Anglicans applauding banning conversion therapy

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“Ensuring a safe space for all” trumpets the headline in the Diocese of Toronto’s newspaper. “All” in this case are people who are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, two spirited, and yet to be identified and, we must presume, more murky areas of our contemporary sexual wilderness.

The main concern of a recent meeting between Bishop Kevin Robinson and “150 other religious leaders, academics and lay leaders from 30 countries and a wide range of faith backgrounds” was the banning of conversion therapy. Other than for transgender individuals for whom conversion therapy and bodily mutilation is encouraged; this brand of conversion therapy has even acquired its own liturgy. Such is the nature of ecclesiastical consistency.

Read all about it here:

Empowerment: A key concern of our gathering was the harm done through the practice of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy consists of “any practice or sustained effort that has the effect of denying, repressing, discouraging or changing a person’s non-heterosexual sexual orientation, non-cisgender gender identity or gender expression.”

[….]

We believe all individuals are made in the image of God, whom many call Divine, and should be free to live a life of dignity, consistent with their sexuality and gender identity, within their faith communities without fear or judgement.

Except for empowering those who freely choose to try to resist or change same-sex attractions and who would like prayer, counselling, or non-coercive therapy to help them. No one in that category is afforded any dignity whatsoever; in order to be a certified Anglican, such a person must repress and discourage his wariness of such urges, submit to them even if he would prefer not to and wave a rainbow flag to signify his acquiescence to Anglican doublethink. All because God has made him this way, even the temptations he would rather do without.

I can’t help wondering whether Bishop Kevin Robinson, who is a homosexual married to another man, is more interested in confirming the rightness of his own actions by compelling others to do likewise than in “Ensuring a safe space for all”.

Bishop Mark MacDonald resigns after sexual misconduct allegations

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Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Archbishop, has resigned after being accused of and acknowledging sexual misconduct.

The Anglican Church of Canada announced this today here, along with a pastoral letter from the Primate, Linda Nicholls.

All evidence of MacDonald’s clerical existence has been expunged from the ACoC’s website, which until a short time ago said this:

The Most Rev. Mark MacDonald became the Anglican Church of Canada’s first National Indigenous Anglican Bishop in 2007,  after serving as bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Diocese of Alaska for 10 years. In 2019 now Bishop MacDonald was elevated to Archbishop.

This was a home-coming of sorts for Archbishop MacDonald, who had attended Wycliffe College in Toronto and served as a priest in Mississauga, Ont.

As Nicholls notes in her pastoral letter:

This is devastating news. The sense of betrayal is deep and profound when leaders fail to live up to the standards we expect and the boundaries we set.

[….]

The ripple effects of this misconduct will be felt throughout the Church both in Canada and internationally, but most especially within the Sacred Circle and Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples.

Diocese of Toronto misgenders the Holy Spirit

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The Diocese of Toronto has taken a sad step backwards from full inclusion. In a recent tweet, the diocese – and I’m sorry if this triggers someone, those of a sensitive disposition should avert their gaze now – rashly assumed that the Holy Spirit’s preferred pronoun is “her”. For all we know, it could be “zir”.

Antediluvian throwbacks like me who have always thought of the Holy Spirit as “He” had no idea that the third person of the Trinity had undergone a gender transition.