Justin Welby to meet with Fred Hiltz

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From here:

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and his wife, Caroline, are expected to arrive in Canada on Monday, April 7, for a “ personal, pastoral visit,” with Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The brief visit is a part of Welby’s personal commitment to visit the primates (senior archbishops) of the Anglican Communion, to meet them and learn about their provinces prior to the next meeting of all the primates.

If a prior meeting is anything to go by, what Welby learns from Hiltz is going to be slightly one-sided: the lawsuits, the attempts to intimidate conservative clergy, the inhibiting of clergy and the acquisition of buildings will, I am sure, all be glossed over.

[Welby] has said that his visits are aimed at fostering friendship and “mutual understanding.”

And here is the fundamental problem: there is already mutual understanding. Conservative Christians understand the Anglican Church of Canada so well that most of them have left. The Anglican Church of Canada understands that conservative Anglicans who have left are engaging in unfair competition by preaching the genuine Christian Gospel. What more is there to understand?

The Diocese of New Westminster sells a church to make way for a mosque

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The diocese sold St. Richard’s Anglican Church to the North Vancouver Islamic Association for $3.05 million as a site for the Ar-Rahman mosque.

After selling a church to a competing religion, the next obvious step for members of the diocese is to start attending the mosque. After all, all religions are equally valid; there are many ways to God; we don’t want to exclude anyone; everyone knows Michael Ingham’s book should have been titled “Mosques of the Spirit”.

3 Women's Prayer RoomFrom here:

On Sunday March 30th, forty-five Anglicans and Lutherans were guests at Masjid Ar-Ramnan, the mosque in the former St. Richard’s building in North Vancouver. As part of a North Vancouver Lenten Visiting Program “Who is my neighbour?”

Two more reasons to use Firefox

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I have used the Firefox browser for a while because it is the only Windows browser that can be configured to use a monitor’s profile to display colours correctly on a high gamut display.

Now I have two more reasons: standing with Mozilla’s CEO who is in trouble for supporting traditional marriage; being blocked from accessing the okCupid dating website.

From here:

Brendan Eich, the CEO of Mozilla, which created and maintains the Firefox web browser, is under fire for having donated $1000 to Proposition 8 in California. Prop 8 was against changing marriage to make homosexual unions equal to heterosexual unions.

Among many protests against Brendan’s ‘politics’, the dating site okCupid is blocking visitors to its site using Firefox and asking them to ditch the Mozilla browser as a way of punishing Mozilla and Brandon for his views.

The champions of tolerance once again have turned into bullies to harass and punish all who disagree with their opinions.

Bishop Michael Bird v. David Jenkins lawsuit. The final chapter

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As many of you will be aware, in February 2013 Bishop Michael Bird sued me for defamation of character. I was served on February 19th, five years to the day that my church, St. Hilda’s was served with papers to take possession of the church building and freeze our bank account.

The lawsuit has now been settled; hence the post beneath this one.

I thought it might be instructive to catalogue much of what has occurred between February last year and today.

In brief, the claim sought:

  • $400,000 in damages plus court costs and their legal costs.
  • An interim and permanent injunction to shut down Anglican Samizdat.
  • An interim and permanent injunction prohibiting me from publishing further comments about Michael Bird.

Here is a summary of what has happened:

2013
March
An initial attempt on my part to achieve an early settlement was rebuffed since I was unwilling to “put some money on the table.”

April
I filed my statement of defence.
I received the initial Discovery Plan from Bird’s lawyer and the Pleadings were closed.

May
The Hamilton Spectator published an article on the lawsuit.
The Anglican Journal published an article on the lawsuit.
The Church of England Newspaper, and various bloggers including VOL posted articles.

Following this publicity, I received a formal Offer to Settle which included:

  • I pay $50,000 damages plus Bird’s legal costs.
  • I remove the complained of posts.
  • I remove any other things I may have said that refer to Bird anywhere else on the Internet.
  • I cooperate in removing anything said about Bird by third parties anywhere on the Internet.

I responded with an offer to settle that included:

  • I remove the complained of posts.
  • We each pay our own legal fees.
  • I donate $5000 to World Vision in Michael Bird’s name.

There was no response to my offer.

October
After numerous delays, the Examination for Discovery took place.

Directly after Discovery, Bird’s lawyer made a new offer to settle:

  • I pay Michel Bird’s legal expense but no damages.
  • I publish an apology.
  • I remove the complained of posts.
  • I agree not to publish any similar posts about Michael Bird in the future.

Michael Bird’s legal expenses amounted to $24,000. I made a counter-offer of $12,000 in addition to the other items.

2014
January
Michael Bird’s lawyer made another offer of $18,000 for legal expenses in addition to the other items.

February
I decided that further financial haggling was infra dig, so I agreed to the terms.

I would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support during this interesting episode.

Church of England decline halted

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And that is the reason the CofE is considering blessing same-sex unions and allowing clergy in a same sex relationship to marry: to get it going again.

From here:

Official statistics issued recently suggest that attendance at C of E churches may have levelled out after decades of decline.

A report by the Archbishops’ Council, Statistics for Mission 2012, released on Friday 21 March suggests that, on an average Sunday in 2012 (the latest year with available data) about 859,000 people attended a C of E church. This compares with 901,000 in 2003.

Justin Welby meets Noah

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There was probably a time when if an actor met the Archbishop of Canterbury, we would be forgiven for presuming that the Archbishop would offer his opinion on matters spiritual while the actor listened attentively, hoping to learn something. Not so today, of course: when Russell Crowe paid a visit to Justin Welby, it was the actor whose exposition – albeit from a prior interview – on the meaning of the Flood was reported by Christianity Today, not the archbishop’s. It’s all about the environment and our treatment of animals, apparently.

All that was missing to make the visit complete was Justin Welby explaining how to pursue a career as an an actor.

archbishop-of-canterburyFrom here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby welcomed Hollywood actor Russell Crowe to his official residence on Tuesday ahead of the UK release of Noah on Friday.

The Archbishop’s office said the two men discussed faith and spirituality during the short private meeting at Lambeth Palace.

[….]

“The great thing about this film, whether you’re somebody of faith or not, is that you come out of this movie and you want to talk…about our stewardship of the earth, our relationship to animals, what is spirituality, who am I in this world, all these fantastic subjects for conversation.”

Bishop Colin Johnson disappointed by Earth Hour apathy

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March 29, 8:30-9:30 was Earth Hour; we were all supposed to turn our lights out. To the great disappointment of the Diocese of Toronto’s bishop, most of the lights stayed on. He used his conveniently operational computer, phone or tablet, running on fossil fuel produced electricity, to tweet his anguish:

30-03-2014 9-32-47 PMAs environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg is only too happy to point out, Earth Hour is worse than an empty gesture encouraged by gullible clerics who can find nothing better to believe in; it does the opposite of what it purports to achieve.

As the United Kingdom’s National Grid operators have found, a small decline in electricity consumption does not translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore will not reduce emissions. Moreover, during Earth Hour, any significant drop in electricity demand will entail a reduction in CO2 emissions during the hour, but it will be offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward.

And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels—and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs. Using one candle for each switched-off bulb cancels out even the theoretical CO2 reduction; using two candles means that you emit more CO2.

 

A prophecy of doom from Rowan Williams, climate expert

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Rowan Williams, in a burst of prescience which had completely deserted him during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, has declared that a weather crisis is upon us and it is all the West’s fault for burning too much fossil fuel.

What seems to have escaped Rowan’s attention is that China is now the largest consumer of fossil fuel in the world. Perhaps it hasn’t though: heaping carbon sin opprobrium on a communist country is not necessary since the global warming crusade is less about science than it is about wealth redistribution – and that is supposed to have already arrived in China’s Marxist paradise.

From here:

Former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has spoken of his fears for the global climate, saying the winter flooding was a portent of what is to come in the future.

He has blamed the lifestyle of Western countries for climate change, which he said is ‘pushing the environment towards crisis’.

He said the floods in Britain and similar weather-related catastrophes around the world are the clearest indications yet that predictions of ‘accelerated warming of the Earth’ caused by the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels… ‘are coming true’.

Merry Christmas

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It’s nine months until we celebrate the birth of Jesus and today is the Feast of the Annunciation.

I believe that the moment of conception is the moment a human being, made in God’s image, a person with an immortal soul, is created by God. For a Christian no other view stands up to scrutiny; no other view is logical.

Today, then, we celebrate the moment when God himself became fully Man while remaining fully God. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. He emptied himself to the extent that he became a microscopic clump of cells embedded in the womb of one of his creatures.

EmbryoJesus came into the world at the moment of his conception.

Merry Christmas.