Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Luke 13:34
More here.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Sanctuary of Gethsemane:
Church of the Visitation:
Yet another Church:
The Wailing Wall:
Along the Via Dolorosa:
Bishop James Cowan performed the first same-sex blessing in the Diocese of BC on June 1. As the article below notes, everyone processed into the church immediately following the civil wedding: the distinction between marrying and blessing that dioceses who perform same-sex blessings were so keen to make has, for all practical purposes, already vanished.
I notice that “Draw the circle wide, Draw it wider still” has made a comeback –”a step in drawing wider a circle of welcoming inclusiveness which needs to be drawn wider still.” Or to put it another way: you can’t hide; no matter how fast you run, we are coming for you and, when we find you, you will be included.
It was a wonderful, exciting, joyous and emotional service which took place in the Church of St. John the Divine, Victoria, on Saturday June 1.
To the magnificent sounds of Sigfrid Karg-Elert’s Marche Triomphale from St. John’s Casavant organ, the large community of parishioners, family and friends processed into the church immediately following the civil wedding of Paul Gillan and Michael King in the church garden.
In a grace-filled landmark service of praise and thanksgiving, Bishop James Cowan conducted the first Blessing of a Same Sex Union to occur in the Diocese of British Columbia.
In his brief homily, the bishop noted the significance of this event in the Anglican church. Referring to the words “Draw the circle wide, Draw it wider still.” from the just-sung hymn “Draw the Circle Wide” (CP 418), Bishop James acknowledged that this service marked but a step in drawing wider a circle of welcoming inclusiveness which needs to be drawn wider still. He paid tribute to the long struggle for equality advanced at many Synods over the years by the parishioners of St. John’s and other churches in the diocese. In this service which included choral Eucharist, Bishop James spoke of God’s covenant with us.
As we gathered together to witness and bless the public commitment of Paul and Michael to each other, the bishop reminded us that all our covenants with family and friends are signs of God’s faithfulness and love, living expressions of God’s promises to us and sources of hope to others.
With joy in our hearts, we celebrated the covenant between Paul and Michael, praying that the life they share will reflect the love of God for the whole world. We also pray that this is just a beginning.
From here:
H&M stores across Canada have pulled faux feather headdresses from their shelves after receiving complaints the items are offensive to aboriginals.
Bishops have put in a bid for the entire stock to wear in their mitres at the next Anglican Church of Canada smudging ceremony.
It comes from an Anglican vicar rather than Richard Dawkins. The ‘What The F*** Would Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker is a creation of the Reverend Alice Goodman.
Goodman pointed out that she gave Rowan Williams a ride in her car and he didn’t raise an eyebrow. How could she tell – surely they don’t move?
The Venerable John Beer, Archdeacon of Cambridge, reckons ‘Christianity has a long tradition of open debate where people can bring their differing views and share their perspectives.’ I reckon that a vicar who thinks she will stimulate open debate by resorting to a vulgarity, whose overuse has rendered it meaningless, is unhinged.
Rev Goodman: if you really wants to stimulate – not necessarily open – debate, try WTFWMD. M=Mohammed.
From here:
A female vicar yesterday insisted she has not sinned against God by putting an obscene bumper sticker reading ‘WTFWJD’ on the back of her car.
The Reverend Alice Goodman stuck the sticker, standing for ‘What The F*** Would Jesus Do?’, on the back of her red Subaru Legacy – sparking outrage from members of her parish.
But the Reverend insists the sticker is harmless and even the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams was happy to accept a lift in her car in the past.
The sign – a play on the Christian motto ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ – has offended some of the worshippers in the Fulbourn and Wilbrahams parish in Cambridgeshire where Dr. Goodman is the rector.
But the American-born vicar, 54, claimed she was simply using an Old English word.
She said: ‘F*** is not a blasphemy, it’s a vulgarity, an Old English word.
First let me say something about how Canadian law works in defamation cases. I will use hypothetical offers to settle.
Let’s say the plaintiff make the defendant an offer to settle for $100,000. If the defendant turns down the offer, loses the case and the plaintiff is awarded $101,000 in damages, the plaintiff can make a claim upon the defendant for 100% of his legal fees since the date of the offer.
If the defendant makes an offer to settle for $50,000, the plaintiff turns it down, the defendant still loses and the plaintiff is awarded $49,000 in damages, the defendant can make a claim on the plaintiff for his (the defendant’s) legal fees since the date of his offer.
If both parties make the above offers and the plaintiff is awarded damages that fall between the two offers, the plaintiff can still make a claim for his legal fees but the amount awarded would be much less than 100%.
Hence the case becomes a bluffing contest between the plaintiff and defendant: a cross between a poker game and a protection racket, having little to do with the law or justice. In Canada between 80 and 90 per cent of defamation cases are settled in this way.
For my particular case, there are 31 items in dispute and I only have to lose on one of them to lose the entire case; as of this writing, we have not settled..
Both sides have exchanged an affidavit of documents for Discovery. The Examinations for Discovery were set for August but have been delayed until the latter part of October owing to the bishop’s vacation among other things.
I had written to Justin Welby thinking he might be interested to know that a Canadian bishop is suing a parishioner; I suspect he didn’t see the letter, but I received a pleasant response from his Liaison Officer:
Dear Mr Jenkins
Thank you for your e-mail of 5 June 2013 to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the statement of claim that has been made against you by Bishop Michael Bird, which you sent for his information.
Thank you for taking the time to write in this way. I fear that because the Archbishop has no archiepiscopal jurisdiction in any Province other than his own, it would not be possible for him to intervene in any way in what must be a very difficult situation for you. Please, nevertheless, be assured of his prayers that this lawsuit will be resolved amicably.
With all best wishes.
It’s an odd thing for an organisation to celebrate apologising for abusing children but, then, the Anglican Church of Canada is an odd thing.
Here they are celebrating a 20 year old apology for sexually, physically and emotionally abusing children. It’s a nauseatingly self-congratulatory statement, awash with revolting faux-humility, lamenting the supposed attempt to remake the children in a white man’s image.
That was never the problem: the problem was that those who abused the children were not Christians; they couldn’t have been. The Anglican Church of Canada’s fault was – as it is today – allowing those who believed and peddled a false gospel to remain within its leadership ranks.
As if to compensate, the ACoC in its sacred circles and smudging ceremonies has, for some time, been attempting to remake itself in an aboriginal image.
Anglican Church in Canada celebrates the twentieth year since the apology to American Indians in Canada
Twenty years ago, on August 6 1993, the Anglican Church in Canada apologized to the Canadian-American Indians, who attended Anglican residential school in Canada.
Like the United States, Canada also did their share to destroy various nations and people, using both genocide and their own brand of Carlisle Schools, but Canada’s government and Anglican Church gave a formal public apology.
Today, the Anglican Church in Canada celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the Church’s apology.
Archbishop Michael Peers listened the stories of the Natives and felt moved to make amends. During the National Native Convocation in Minaki, Ontario on August 6 1993 Peers, devoted to healing, gave an apology for how the Church treated the Natives in Anglican residential schools.
He made a series of “I’m sorry” statements, which included an apology for the Church’s sexual, physical, and emotional abuses, attempting to remake them into the White man’s image, taking away their identities, and then stated that he understood words are meaningless and action means more.
Perhaps it’s just me but, short of claiming to work for the Diocese of Niagara, I can’t imagine much that I would find less inviting than a vicar proclaiming himself to be dynamic and accessible to all faiths.
The Reverend Andy Cain not only makes these boasts but also wants to create an inclusive support network of community champions, a phrase of such concentrated prosaism, it gives me the shivers.
Rev. Cain busies himself with things like “inter-faith” – akin to the “inter-net”: 90% incoherent, 9% squabbling and 1% unverifiable fact – being non-judgemental, utopia now rather than heaven later, and Gandhi quotes.
I’m sure he means well, though.
From here:
A dy
namic vicar, inspired to take up the cloth following a near death experience, is aiming to unite different faiths and create an inclusive support network of community champions.
The Reverend Andy Cain took up his role as the vicar at St Mary’s Church in Cuddington – “a church that was already doing okay but was seeking a greater community focus” – he said in September last year.
The 37-year-old, who was born in Carshalton, is not only focused on diversifying what the church offers to its Anglican community, but on bringing different groups together – regardless of their religion – to “significantly impact the area for the better”.
He said: “Many people give a significant amount to the community.
“I need to find those people are encourage them more, to become great ambassadors for the community.
“I see myself as someone who meets, encourages and drives community champions.
“I would like to be part of the growing spirituality of the community, but want to be accessible to all faiths and none.”
From here:
As part of an effort to cut crime at the Alewife MBTA subway and bus station in Cambridge, transit police placed a cardboard cutout of a police officer in the bicycle cage. Hundreds of people use the racks daily.
Deputy Chief Robert Lenehan says the fake cop, along with video cameras and a new lock, has cut bike thefts by 67 percent.
It’s also a money saver. Lenehan estimates it would cost $200,000 a year to have an officer watch over the cage full-time.
The Anglican Church of Canada could learn something from this: replacing bishops with cardboard cut-out replicas would save Anglicans millions of dollars. No more high salaries; no more travel expenses; no more lawsuits.
In a recent interview the Pope said:
If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person?
Since the Catholic Church hasn’t changed its view that while same sex attraction is not sinful, homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered”, the Pope was obviously referring to a celibate gay person.
This did not deter the Diocese of New Westminster’s Dean Peter Elliot from taking the Pope’s statement and using it to imply that he suddenly supports gay marriage.
So goes the tortured logic of liberal Anglicanism.
Dean Peter Elliot’s talk is aptly named, The Spirit of the Time.
From here:
Obviously the furthest thing from the Pope’s mind when he held his impromptu press conference last Sunday evening was that his remarks about gay people would be received, in Vancouver BC, at the beginning of Gay Pride Week. This annual festival culminates on August 4 with Vancouver’s largest parade with well over 100,000 people downtown.
It wasn’t always so. For generations homosexual people were relegated to the sidelines of society, forced to hide relationships and encouraged to lie. The first pride parades attracted but a few participants and often incurred the ridicule of homophobic onlookers. But over the years a transformation – you might even say transfiguration-of consciousness in Canadian society occurred. Many things contributed to this change of mind including the decriminalization of homosexuality, the increasing numbers of LGBT people ‘coming out’ to families and friends, the public face of the gay men’s health crisis of HIV-AIDS, and an exploration of sexuality by scientists leading to the conclusion that homosexuality is simply a normative variation in human nature, in and of itself, morally neutral.
The Anglican Church of Canada and its sister church in the US, the Episcopal Church have been deeply involved in this discussion: for well over a decade, church councils and conventions were dominated by heated debates about the place of LGBT people within the church and the status of our committed relationships. This diocese of New Westminster became a primary location for this: through the leadership of our Bishop Michael Ingham and the passionate voices of laity and clergy this became the first diocese in the Anglican Communion where, in 2002, a rite for the blessing of committed same sex relationships was authorized. In 2003 Canadian courts followed, opening the institution of marriage to same-sex couples, a position that was later endorsed by federal Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Within the last year the President of the US has advocated for same sex marriage, and then last Sunday the Pope made his comments.
[…..]
Pope Francis, in his statement If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person opens the possibility that the good news of Jesus includes all of God’s beloved children. It is in Christ that all of us seek transformation so that we too can take our part in bringing liberation and dignity to all people-taking our part in the bending arc of the universe toward justice.
The worthy Dean has been so busy exerting himself in the bending arc of the universe, he missed the Freudian slip.
Rod Bower, the rector of the Australian parish has erected this interesting sign outside the church:
The sign is in much the same spirit as the Richard Dawkins’ bus advertisement:
As of this writing, the Anglican Parish of Gosford does still believe in God, though – sort of; perhaps I should have said “god”.
In its belief statement, the church doesn’t quote the historic creeds because, I suspect, the historic creeds make definitive statements on things like Jesus’ divinity, his bodily resurrection, the virgin birth and so on. They are not inclusive in that those who don’t subscribe to what they say can’t call themselves Christian. That is the point of the creeds: they nail down the beliefs that are necessary to Christianity.
The Anglican Parish of Gosford prefers a more mushy approach, asserting the existence of a god of two persons – Jesus isn’t included:
We believe in God, a divine presence, gentle and loving, the ground of our being.
We believe in Jesus, who demonstrated to us the love of God, and who urged his followers to express that love in their daily lives.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, as God’s continuing presence in our world, surrounding us in compassionate love.
We believe in the church where people gather to learn about and praise God, to share our concern for one another, and to bring justice and healing to all of God’s Creation. Amen.
Even though the parish is reluctant to include Jesus in the godhead, his purpose – perhaps to compensate – was one of radical inclusion:
Jesus’s central message is about radical inclusion, thus we welcome anyone to participate in our fellowship without judgment or forcing them to conform to our “likeness” or affirm our creeds in order to be accepted. We invite and offer all a place at the table – no exceptions.
Jesus didn’t die for our sins, so we are all still in them; never mind, get over it. Love, god:
Jesus came to show us the “Kingdom” not to die for our sins!
