According to Michael Moore, Canadians don’t lock their doors at night

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Michael Moore is convinced that, because there is so little poverty in Canada, we don’t lock our doors at night:

18% of Americans live in poverty. In Canada, it’s a little over 1%. That’s why Canadians don’t lock their doors,” he wrote

Mike, you really need to talk to Fred Hiltz so you can get your stories straight. Canada is awash with poverty:

The Anglican and Lutheran churches in Canada have asked the federal government to adopt recommendations made by a House of Commons committee to “immediately commit to an action plan to reduce poverty in the country.

I’m off to bed now – after I unlock my front door.

Sold-out Saturnalia at St George’s Anglican Church Crescentwood

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It all happened on December 21st, 2012, so I’m afraid it’s too late to attend. Still, I’m sure there will be another multifaith sacred celebration of the winter solstice in 2013 –  for Anglicans addicted to exploring any faith but their own. It was billed as “a winter solstice sacred  celebration”, so expectant revellers – and this author – must be forgiven for anticipating a Saturnalia. As it was, the Roman deity Saturn was one of the few faux-gods not represented in 2012. We can only hope for fuller inclusion in future bacchanalias – come to think of it, Bacchus was also excluded. Shocking.

From here (page 4):

On the evening of Friday, December 21, St George’s Anglican Church Crescentwood was the scene of a sold-out crowd when over 550 people attended a unique multifaith sacred celebration of the winter solstice. [….] Following a welcome by Rev Lyndon Hutchison-Hounsell , the evening opened with the Muslim Call to Prayer by Albert El Tassi and the Hindu Blessing by Pundit Venkat Machiraju. The varied mult-faith program included a harp solo by Lisa Tucker, the singing of a Ukrainian prayer by Larissa Klymkiw, the playing of Crystal Bowls by Keeper Kevin Woods, a Cree prayer by First Nations member Sylvia James, The Story of the Drum by Sister Norma McDonald and Franco-Métis member Janelle de Rocquigny, and The Bear Song by First Nations member Debbie Cielen and the Singing With Spirit Drum Group.

Fred Hiltz preaches healing and reconciliation at St. John’s, Shaughnessy

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From here (page 3):

Archbishop Hiltz started his address by thanking us for giving him the opportunity to worship together and by stating that the SJS community had been very much in his thoughts and prayers over the past few years as we addressed the tensions within the diocese. “We are all in need of healing and reconciliation and I want to acknowledge with deep gratitude your steadfastness to the Anglican Church of Canada, its worldwide mission and loyalty to the work of the Diocese of New Westminster.”

What Hiltz failed to mention is that a number of ANiC trustees are still being sued personally by the Diocese of New Westminster.

The church that brought us the generous pastoral response, holy listening and experiential discernment, is now striving for the apogee of absurdity with healing lawsuits.

Bats in the belfry

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It seems that the Bat Conservation Trust has been successful in making the Church of England provide bats a safe space in which to hang – full inclusion for bats – by having churches install bat flaps in their stained glass windows.

It’s encouraging to see that there is at least one organisation that has a convincing perspective on an enduring purpose for English churches.

From here:

Bat conservation is damaging churches not just physically but financially and cannot be sustained, Environment Minister Richard Benyon MP was told today.

The cost of replacing one small piece of a leaded window, for example, increased from £5 using plain glass to £140 when fitting a lead ‘bat flap’ was required by the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) – four weeks’ collection in the rural parish church of Wiggenhall, St Germans.

Leaving interpretation of the law on bat conservation largely to the BCT is bringing the European Habitats Directive into disrepute to the detriment of endangered species more generally, warned a Church of England delegation led by Second Church Estates Commissioner Sir Tony Baldry MP, with representatives of Natural England.

“I remain puzzled as to why our churches are treated as if they were uninhabited barns. They are not,” said the Rt Revd Graham James, Bishop of Norwich.

Justin Welby’s anfractuous path to reconciliation

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Rowan Williams spent ten years attempting to synthesise a middle ground between Anglican liberals and conservatives: ten years of conversation, Indabas and listening. It didn’t work because it is no more possible to find a convincing middle ground between the Gospel and an anti-Gospel than it is between the propositions: 1+1=2 and 1+1=4.

Justin Welby seems to have caught on to the fact that Rowan Williams’ efforts fell flat so, instead, he is attempting to reconcile…. something – I’m not sure what. And therein, I suspect, lies the problem. Two people or groups can be reconciled to one another in the sense that they can mutually forgive one another for past wrongs – something that has been a hallmark of Welby’s ministry to date – but contrary propositions can no more be reconciled than they can be synthesised.

So while he may be able to convince the warring factions in the Anglican Communion that they should not hate each other and may even sit in the same room together, I cannot see much hope for reconciling the beliefs that have driven the two sides apart.

And without that, the reconciliation will be a shallow veneer of strained tolerance that will crack at the first hint that someone is about to express a firmly held conviction.

Read the complete address here:

The Crooked, Straight Path of Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is recognition of diversity and a transformation of destructive conflict to creativity. It holds the tensions and challenges of difference and confronts us with them, forcing us to a new way of life that accepts the power and depth and radicality of the work of the Holy Spirit in our conversions.

We speak often in foreign policy of failed states, or failing states. Their common characteristic is the inability to manage diversity and grow with it, enabling it to change them significantly into better places. The core of the American sense of exclusivism is often found within that vocation of being a diverse and thriving nation.

If the Church is not a place of reconciliation it is not merely hindering its mission and evangelism, appalling as such hindrance is, but it is a failing or failed church. It has ceased to be the miracle of diversity in unity, of the grace of God breaking down walls.

John Lennox: "Seven Days That Divide the World"

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John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

In his excellent book, Seven Days That Divide the World John Lennox argues that the Genesis account of creation and contemporary science can peacefully co-exist. Here he is, giving a lecture on the same subject:

Man and Superman. And Orson Scott Card

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Orson Scott Card will be writing a story in the Adventures of Superman for DC Comics, a comic that The Comic Book Shoppe will not carry.

“Ottawa comic shop pulls books of anti-gay writer” blares the CBC headline. “’This is a man who wants to criminalize homosexuality,’ store owner says”.

Well, not quite.

Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, a writer of science fiction, and someone who believes gay marriage to be wrong. As the CBC article notes:

In a 1990 article for Sunstone Magazine, Card wrote an essay in which he said:

“Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.”

What the CBC fails to say is that Card subsequently changed his opinion and, while he still does not agree with gay marriage and homosexual activity, he does not now advocate its criminalisation.

Perhaps the CBC has been infiltrated by the aliens from Enders Game:  the journalists, rather than thinking for themselves, exhibit ant-like group behaviour, deriving herd consensus from the Jungian wilderness of an unconscious zeitgeist. Or maybe they are just daft.

Bishop James Cowan announces his retirement

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From here:

Vancouver Island’s top Anglican priest, Bishop James Cowan, has announced his retirement.

Cowan, 61, who has served as bishop of British Columbia for nine years, said he will retire Aug. 31. He made the announcement to the diocesan council, indicating he had already informed the church hierarchy.

Cowan, who is married with two grown sons, said he has no firm plans for his retirement. But he joked to church staff his immediate plans are to rest, perhaps even “sleep for four months.”

In an interview, he said that during his church career, he has always known when it was time to step aside and now seemed like the right time.

“I think it’s time to go,” he said. “There is a need for new leadership, different leadership.”

Due to a decline in attendance, Bishop Cowan has instigated a diocesan “restructuring”, including the closing of eight parishes. He has also approved a liturgy for blessing same sex couples.

Just as he sees no connection between the blessings and the decline, he maintains the stoutly blinkered perspective that, apart from occasional tut-tutting from the few remaining recalcitrant conservatives, the fuss is all but over:

“Now, it’s almost a non-issue in the life of the church,” he said. “Yes, there are people who don’t like it but, by and large, it’s a non-issue.”

Tell that to Justin Welby whose enthronement could be boycotted by bishops representing up to 80% of the communion:

Sources in Africa tell VOL that archbishops from provinces like Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya say that they will continue their policy of not appearing at future primatial meetings if Jefferts Schori is invited and that the Communion will devolve into two distinct Anglican bodies with leaders from the Global South drawing together orthodox Anglicans from across the globe.

Canadian church and Muslim leaders meet to sort out the Middle East

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From here:

Representatives of Canadian churches and church-based groups met on Feb. 4 with Arab and Muslim leaders who are similarly committed to “peace with justice” in Israel and Palestine.

Both sides have been careful to note that the meeting signalled nothing more than a commitment to meet face to face more regularly in order to consult and share information about issues affecting peace in the Middle East.

Hosted by the Canadian Friends of Sabeel, the meeting in Toronto gathered an ecumenical forum on the Middle East which includes representatives from the Anglican Church of Canada, the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Roman Catholic Church and church-based groups such as KAIROS. They were joined by six delegates from the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), which describes itself as “a national, non-partisan, non-profit” umbrella of over 40 member organizations.

The article goes on to note that “[t]he meeting signals a new beginning of intentional conversation”. Churches pontificating on how to achieve peace in the Middle East is hardly new: presumably prior efforts to establish Elysium were thwarted by the conversations being unintentional.

The only tangible action being suggested is a divesting of church interests in companies that do business in Israel; predictably one-sided and hardly new – however intentional.

Ottawa is handing out free condoms

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Ottawa’s Public Health department is handing out free condoms, ostensibly to prevent sexually transmitted diseases:

Not using a condom is the top risk factor among individuals diagnosed with an STI: In 2010, nearly 75% of people diagnosed reported not using one. Condoms, when used correctly and consistently, are an effective method to prevent STIs and unplanned pregnancies.

There is a Condom Locator, an Order Form, Instructions for halfwits and a Resources  page which, strangely enough, concentrates on gay sex.

I was scratching my head as to why Ottawa rather than, say, Toronto or Montreal, has decided to spend taxpayer dollars on condoms. Then it occurred to me that the program will be in full swing in time for the Anglican Church of Canada Synod scheduled from July 3 to 7 in Ottawa.