World Vision to hire married same-sex couples

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From here:

The prominent Christian relief agency World Vision said Monday it will hire Christians who are in same-sex marriages, a dramatic policy change on one of the most divisive social issues facing religious groups.

Oddly, the same article goes on to say:

“I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue,” Stearns said.

World Vision requires employees to affirm, through the agency’s statement of faith or the Apostle’s Creed, that they follow Christ. Stearns said the agency will continue to follow that policy, including requiring employees to remain celibate outside of marriage. World Vision says it hires staff from dozens of denominations with different views of gay relationships.

Stearns seems to be contradicting himself: he claims not to be endorsing same-sex marriage yet he is employing people in a same-sex marriage while requiring employees to remain celibate outside of marriage. Surely recognising same sex “marriage” as a true marriage is endorsing it.

Franklin Graham’s view of World Vision’s decision is here:

I was shocked today to hear of World Vision’s decision to hire employees in same-sex marriages. The Bible is clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.

My dear friend, Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse, would be heartbroken. He was an evangelist who believed in the inspired Word of God.

World Vision maintains that their decision is based on unifying the church – which I find offensive – as if supporting sin and sinful behavior can unite the church.

From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Scriptures consistently teach that marriage is between a man and woman and any other marriage relationship is sin.

I stopped supporting World Vision in 2010 after its ambivalent attitude to abortion became apparent.

Aborted babies used to heat hospitals

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A predictable consequence of treating unborn babies as little more than disposable waste tissue: Soylent Green energy.

From here:

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

Anglican Church of Canada participates in Truth and Reconciliation

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From here:

From March 27 to 30, several thousand Indigenous and non-Indigenous people will gather in Edmonton, Alberta for the seventh and final national Truth and Reconciliation Commission event.

The Anglican delegation will include Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald, the Venerable Michael Thompson, General Secretary, and Archbishop Terry Finlay, Primate’s Envoy on Residential Schools.

Bishops, clergy, and parishioners from the dioceses of Edmonton, Athabasca, and Calgary will also be present for TRC events including the lighting of the sacred fire, statement giving by residential school survivors, church listening circles, and a public Anglican expression of reconciliation.

The purpose of the Sacred Fire is:

The Lighting of the Sacred Fire happens before we begin each National Event to ensure that the Spirits and the Teachings guide and protect us while the Commission does its work.

And:

The fire is generally started during the first part of opening ceremony after sacred space has been set. The Fire Keeper quietly calls in the powers of the directions as well as the fire powers when the Sacred Fire is first lit.

The most curious thing that strikes me about the Church’s attempts to atone for thrusting Western religion and cultural values on Indigenous North Americans is its eagerness to now do the opposite: displace Christianity with Indigenous Animist practices. The Church seems to be saying: “we were wrong all along and to prove it we will adopt your religious beliefs in favour of our own.”

I have a suspicion that this would not be happening if the church did not secretly think that any belief system is just about as good as any other. If Anglican Church of Canada clergy truly wanted to provide compensation for those their predecessors abused, they could sell their church buildings – many of which are almost empty – and donate the proceeds to the ex-inmates of the much loathed Residential Schools. A lot more practical than a “full-colour historical timeline of evolving relations between Indigenous peoples and the Anglican Church of Canada.”

Average Sunday attendance in the Church of England

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From here:

The Church of England attracts fewer than 800,000 worshippers to its churches on a typical Sunday, according to new estimates yesterday.

Numbers in the pews have fallen to less than half the levels of the 1960s, the count showed.

The signs of continuing decline in support for the CofE follow census evidence of a widespread fall in allegiance to Christianity, with numbers calling themselves Christian dropping by more than four million in a decade.

The Church’s figure for ‘usual Sunday attendance’, the method used since the 1930s to measure congregations, found CofE churches had 795,800 worshippers on Sundays in 2012. The numbers were 9,000 down on the previous year.

They indicate that repeated efforts by the Church to modernise its services and its image – through a series of modern language rewrites of its prayer book, attempts by its leaders to appeal to supposed public concern with poverty, and efforts to make its government more efficient – have not succeeded in drawing young people.

The statistics upon which this article is based can be found here. Here is the graph of “usual Sunday attendance”:

CofE ASA

I must admit, the decline is not as precipitous as I had expected; not nearly as severe as in North American Anglicanism. The Anglican Church of Canada, presumably to save itself the embarrassment, has not published detailed attendance figures since 2001.

Earth Day condoms

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Apparently, Earth Day is getting back to its roots: fertility management. Humanity is a blight on the face of the earth, so environmentalists are coming to the rescue with 44,000 free condoms. Naturally, they are environmentally friendly, Fair Trade condoms: you will be pleased to learn that eco condoms are made entirely from fair trade and FSC certified rubber.

From here:

In honor of Earth Day this year, groups are giving out 44,000 “Endangered Species Condoms.”

The environmentally friendly condoms will be distributed in an effort to refocus the green holiday back to why it was started: to campaign against “runaway human population growth and overconsumption.”

“April 22 is the 44th Earth Day, and this year we want to bring the holiday’s focus back to its origins: runaway human population growth and overconsumption, the root causes of our most pressing environmental crises,” the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in a pitch to its supporters.

None of this deters the Anglican Church of Canada from celebrating Earth Day, of course. Perhaps a packet of Fair Trade Condoms will be served along with a cup of the Primate’s Blend Fair Trade Coffee.

Bishop Melissa Skelton: it’s a thing called discernment

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Skelton was recently interviewed by the CBC (listen here, March 18 starting at 2:17:00). Her appointment as bishop, she tells us, was the result of “a thing called discernment”; nothing to do with a thing called career advancement ambition. Well, she didn’t actually make the latter remark.

In the interview, she states once again that she is fully supportive of the blessing of same-sex unions and that there is no longer much of a wedge between those who support same-sex unions and those who don’t. She has reached this conclusion by listening; to whom, I wonder? Obviously not to those who left the diocese over the issue.

Losing the majority of those with whom one disagrees and calling it “healing” would, in the secular realm, be a thing called spin. In the Diocese of New Westminster where selective listening is such a refined art, it’s a thing called discernment.

Anglican climate bishops

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Faster than a speeding mark of mission, more powerful than Al Gore, able to leap foul smoke stacks in a single bound – he’s Eco-Bishop.

From here:

Anglican Communion’s Eco-bishops’ intiative [sic] begins to take shape.

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba has invited 20 bishops from around the Anglican Communion to join him in a process of discussion and discernment concerning the Communion’s witness and mission in the face of climate change and environmental degradation.

“I have asked a number of sister and brother bishops in dioceses already experiencing the impacts of climate change to join me in a process of dialogue”, said Archbishop Makgoba.

[….]

The invitation is to participate in a process of dialogue leading to, and following on, a face-to-face meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, in February 2015.

The bishops will, of course, be flying, not walking, to their Cape Town meeting.

Eco Bishop2

Anglicans for Life, Canada

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Anglicans for Life now has a branch in Canada:

No matter where you are in the world – the sacredness of life is a consistent Biblical imperative. Anglicans for Life, headquartered outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania exists to help the global Anglican Communion uphold the sanctity of life from the moment of conception to natural death.

We are honoured to host this special CANADA WEBPAGE dedicated to serving our Canadian brothers and sisters who partner in the Gospel of Life, seeking to protect, honour and celebrate every life at every stage.

ANiC Bishop Charlie Masters invites clergy to become a part of Anglicans for Life Canada:

Over the past two years I have shared in many different situations what the Lord has been bringing to my attention, particularly from Luke 1:17, about the centrality and the importance of children in the purposes of God. While meditating on this fact, I have come to think about the unborn and the need to care for and protect them. My lack of concern or involvement for the unborn in the past grieves me, especially as we consider that 4 million unborn souls have died since abortion was legalized in Canada. Did you know abortion can occur anytime during a pregnancy in Canada and, incredibly, each year approximately 120,000 babies never have a birthdate?

There has, as yet, been no comment from any Anglican Church of Canada bishop.

There will be a contingent from Anglicans for Life at March for Life in Ottawa, May 8, 2014.

New Zealand Government meddles with Anglican cathedral, church is upset

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The Anglican Church in the West spends an inordinate amount of time pontificating on how the government isn’t doing enough to redistribute wealth, combat global warming or is tilting at an insufficient number of other trendy windmills.

Strangely enough, when governments attempt to interfere in church matters, the church is suddenly overcome with spasms of territorial outrage.

From here:

The Anglican Church is dismayed that the rebuilding of earthquake-damaged ChristChurch Cathedral may feature in talks to form a government this year.

The church is deconstructing the cathedral in the face of rage from heritage groups, and now NZ First leader Winston Peters has put the issue of its restoration high on his agenda and called for government intervention.

[….]

Diocese of Christchurch spokesman Rev Jayson Rhodes says it’s puzzling that privately owned land and buildings could become part of government confidence and supply agreements.

R.I.P. Terry Fullam

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From here:

One of the most important figures of the Charismatic Movement of the late Twentieth Century died today. The Rev. Terry Fullam, was the former rector of St. Paul’s Church, Darien, Connecticut where he served for 17 years ministering renewal to clergy and laity. He was 84.

If the Charismatic movement in The Episcopal Church began with the Rev. Dennis Bennett’s experience of the Holy Spirit while he was rector of St. Mark’s Church in Van Nuys, California, in 1960 the second most important figure in the late Twentieth Century was unquestionably Terry Fullam.

[…]

Asked at the time if he thought the Episcopal Church was finished as a major Christian denomination in America, he replied, “I think ECUSA is finished.”

I and others from my church spent a weekend at St. Paul’s Darien in the early 80’s. The Sunday worship had outgrown the church building, so it took place in a local school. There was so much traffic around the school every Sunday that police were present to direct it. We discovered that allowing the Holy Spirit to move in an Anglican liturgical setting was not only possible, but a powerful expression of worship. It was an experience that had a formative influence on St. Hilda’s, one that was pooh-poohed by the Diocese of Niagara at the time; now, of course, the “spirit” is invoked by the diocese to ratify any harebrained notion that erupts from the fevered imaginings of its clergy.

Terry Fullam was a musician, so music played a very large role in the worship at St. Paul’s. He led the singing from a grand piano; there was no overhead projector with lyrics – we were expected to remember them. In those pre-ADHD days, it worked. The family I stayed with told me that he was unhappy with the organist he inherited when he arrived at St. Paul’s, so he slid onto the organ bench one day, displaced the organist and took over the playing.

One of the principles adopted by St. Hilda’s was decision by unanimity: the same family also mentioned that the principle worked particularly well at St. Paul’s by virtue of the fact that the strength of Terry Fullam’s persona was such that he was difficult to disagree with. Another principle was the ministry of all believers: God calls every member of a parish to a ministry –  with the possible exception of organ playing.

We will miss you, Terry: I do hope you are pounding out some of the tunes you taught us on a celestial grand piano – even if you have to bump an angel from his spot.