Diocese of Huron votes Todd Townshend as its new bishop

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Since 2001, the average Sunday attendance in the Diocese of Huron has been declining at a rate of 3.13% per year, so the new bishop has an interesting time ahead of him.

It will come as no surprise that his sympathies align with his predecessor, Linda Nicholls. On his Facebook page we find this:

You can read all about his views and vision for the future here. Those with the stamina to wade through the clichés and boilerplate will discover that Townshend thinks he has too many white English-speaking people among his parishioners. Imagine the outrage if he had said “black” instead of “white”.  He is himself white and speaks English – well, Canadian, at least so unless his first act is to resign, it seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle white.

I would go so far as to say that the “flock that is Huron” suffers from a painful lack of diversity when compared to the Anglican Communion world-wide. In terms of language and ethnicity, most churches in our diocese are more “white” and “english” than the Church of England! We can cherish parts of that heritage but we’ll be much better off if we can insist on transforming our communities, wherever possible, so that the proportion of “white” and “english” is better balanced by a more prominent place for the presence of our indigenous sisters and brothers and, generally, if we make a strong move towards a rainbow of colours and the sound of many languages (and music!) in our churches. This would better reflect the genius of God’s human population and the creative potential of “difference” in the Christian body.

Diocese of Niagara ordains Michael Coren

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October 20th was the date of one of the strangest ordinations ever to have taken place in the Diocese of Niagara.

When St. Hilda’s left the diocese to join ANiC, Michael Coren was very supportive. Here are a few snippets from his emails at the time:

“You’re doing great work and I know that you’ll be okay in the end.”

“Glory!!!!!!!!!” (after we won our first court case)

“Unbelievable! They are such self-caricatures. I’ll use it on TV and perhaps radio.” (referring to some of the antics of the Diocese of Niagara)

“All four of us on TV tonight supported you – including Sid Ryan and another former NDP candidate. LeDrew too – former Liberal president. We’re getting somewhere. Again, let me know what I can ever do.” (after St. Hilda’s was sued by the Diocese of Niagara)

“I was in Aylseford two weeks ago and met with some liberal Anglicans. My golly they’re a stupid, nasty lot.”

All that was from 2008. Now, in 2019 he is standing grinning in the midst of a bunch of liberal Anglicans, having just been ordained by the bishop of a diocese full of clerics who are “self-caricatures”.

What is the explanation? Has Coren embarked on a fifth column mission designed to bring down the diocese from the inside? Has he completely lost his marbles? Has the  the real Coren been taken over by an alien pod?

Perhaps he just has a thing for plump female bishops.

St. John’s Shaughnessy hosts a Halloween Spooktacular

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St. John’s evicted a thriving congregation in 2011, resulting in a church that resembled a mausoleum and a massive loss of revenue. It’s an expensive church to maintain so, in 2018, the diocese rented the church to a film crew making a TV program called, aptly enough, Imposters.

Now in a further attempt to fill the pews, St. John’s has decided to appeal to the occult by hosting a “Halloween Spooktacular”.

St. John’s belief in the reality of the occult is on much the same level as its belief in Christianity: close to non-existent.

Halloween Organ Spooktacular

When: Oct. 25, 7:30-9 p.m.

Where: St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church

Tickets and info: by donation, vancouver.anglican.ca

As part of its 50th anniversary revitalization campaign, the grand pipe organ of St John’s Shaughnessy has been undergoing a major technological overhaul. To give the instrument a proper workout, the Royal Canadian College of Organists is holding its annual Halloween Spooktacular concert at SJS rather than St Andrew’s-Wesley (which is closed for renovations anyway).  Dressed in Halloween attire, nine organists will perform spooky selections from the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor (used in the 1962 movie Phantom of the Opera, for one), Chopin’s Funeral March, Berloiz’ March to the Scaffold, and Grieg’s Death of Ase. Audience members are encouraged to dress up, and there will be treats for the kids.

Bishop of Toronto pontificates on same sex marriage

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Since General Synod failed to pass a motion approving same-sex marriage, Bishop Andrew Asbil is advocating taking a pastoral rather than legislative approach to marrying same-sex couples. In other words, full steam ahead with same-sex marriage, legislation be damned. Had the reverse been the case, I doubt that he would be advising a pastoral approach to prohibiting same-sex marriages.

Naturally, he takes great pains to reassure recalcitrants who stubbornly cling to a Biblical version of marriage that they will still be welcome in the Anglican organisation. But does anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex believe him? Do you really think that when Harry and Jim show up on a conservative priest’s doorstep, demand that he marry them, and sue him because he refuses that the Diocese of Toronto will pay his punitive legal fees? No, me neither.

Is that an earring in Asbil’s lower left auricle?

Latest Anglican Church of Canada membership and attendance statistics

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Up until today, the last official statistics from the Anglican Church of Canada that I had seen were published 2001.

A new report has just been presented to the House of Bishops with statistics gathered from 2017.

A few highlights:

  • The average Sunday attendance has dropped to 97,421.
  • A previous report published in 2006 predicted the last Anglican would leave the church in 2061. That number is now 2040.
  • The rate of decline is increasing.
  • New programs adopted by the church have done nothing to reverse the decline.
  • The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Province other than TEC, which has an even greater rate of decline.
  • The slowest decline is in the number of priests.

The entire report can be read here and the raw data is here.

Statistics report for House of Bishops

Rev Dr. Neil Elliot PhD

0) Précis

In 2018 General Synod was able to collect a complete and mostly reliable set of data for from the dioceses for the first time since 2001. The data is for the year 2017 and it shows that the decline observed in earlier data has continued.  Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040.

This report presents the headline data and includes diocesan decline data based on the statistics from 2001 and 2017. The report goes on to look briefly at a few of the implications of the data.  The report then suggests further work which needs to be done.  The work identified here can be done without substantial additional resources.  If there is hope in these numbers, it is the hope that some data gathering and analysis in the next few years will enable us to plan for the future and not react to it.  Through paying attention to these statistics we may discern God’s call to our beloved church in these challenging times. We believe that this could be a critical part of the work of reviewing of the church’s mission and ministry which the Primate has identified.

1) Background – Statistical projections of ACC membership previous to the 2017 data

There have been previous reports to the House of Bishops which have been identified the extent of our decline, for example the McKerracher report in 2006.   While  McKerracher predicted the last Anglican would leave in 2061, the current evidence projects that the church will run out of members in around 2040. There is no sign of any stabilisation in our numbers; if anything the decline is increasing. Some had hoped that our decline had bottomed out, or that programs had been effective in reversing the trends.  This is now demonstrably not the case.  The decline will not be a surprise to many congregations who see this happening week by week, but what the data confirms is that this decline is happening consistently across the country from BC to Newfoundland.  International comparisons suggest that the decline in the Anglican Church of Canada is faster than in any other Anglican church, although the 2018 data from the Episcopal church shows an even greater rate of decline on attendance than ours.

There are two main sources of data which show us the past trajectory:

  1. i) Historical ACC statistics from 1961-2001

1962-4 were apogee of Anglican Church of Canada membership

Membership Decline 1961-2001 = 50%  in 40 years

BUT if you compare with overall Canadian population, it’s more alarming!

Membership       1961 = 1,358,459 members / 18 million Canadians = 7% of Canadians

2001 = 641,845 members / 31 million Canadians = 2% of Canadians

(2017 =  357,123 members /35 million Canadians = 1% of Canadians)

  1. ii) Circulation data of Anglican Journal give figures for more recent decline. AJ circulation statistics are available for diocesan and parish levels. They have been collected through a consistent methodology of parochial data collection with the intention of distributing the diocesan newspapers.  The overall numbers are as follows:

June 1991 – 273,000 subscriber households

June 2015 – 135,500 subscriber households

Decline 1991-2015 =  50% in 25 years

Both i) and ii) project that we will run out of members in around 2040. 

Queer hymns for a peculiar people

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The mission of the The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada “is to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational singing.”

Not content to remain in an obscure, irrelevant corner of unambiguous heterosexuality, the society has produced a volume containing hymns “affirming the LGBTQIA2S+ Community”.

If you choose to download it, you will find such timeless titles as: “Queerly Beloved”, “Quirky Queer and Wonderful”, “We Are a Rainbow”, “Who Is the Alien” and, my favourite, “God of Queer Trangressive Spaces” in which you will find the gem: “God’s own deviance is Jesus, born of virgin, Word made flesh”.

I don’t know how we’ve managed to do without this for so long.

From here:

Queer hymn collection offers ‘much-needed’ resource for LGBTQ+ Anglicans and allies

On July 16, three days after the vote at General Synod, the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada released a new hymn collection, Songs for the Holy Other: Hymns Affirming the LGBTQIA2S+ Community. Produced by a volunteer committee from the Hymn Society, an ecumenical non-profit association that seeks to promote congregational singing, Songs for the Holy Other includes almost 50 “queer hymns” by and for individuals who identify with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.

Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador to ignore marriage canon vote

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At its latest synod, the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador has voted to marry same-sex couples or, as the article below would have it “has voted in favor of marriage equality.”

The Anglican Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador has voted in favor of marriage equality.

Last July, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada voted against marriage equality within the Anglican marriage canon. However, the motion can be voted on at the provincial level as well.

The vote happened during NL Synod 2019 at the Sheraton Hotel in St. John’s earlier today.

In total 88 per cent of Anglican delegates in attendance voted in favor of affirming marriage equality.

127 votes were cast, with 112 people in favor and 15 against.

Reverend Dr. Geoffrey Peddle, Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland & Labrador, says that in voting for marriage equality they have made the church bigger and inclusive for everyone.

He says the Diocese has made it very clear that this is who they are now and how they want to move forward.

At least Peddle is clear that “this is who they now are”. They are not the Bride of Christ, not the Body of Christ, not the ecclesia – a called out assembly, not members of the church universal. They are a group of people who marry same-sex couples: this is who they are now.

Here is an updated list of dioceses that will marry same-sex couples:
Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador
Diocese of Western Newfoundland
Diocese of New Westminster
Diocese of Toronto
Diocese of Niagara
Diocese of Montreal
Diocese of Ottawa
Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Diocese of Rupert’s Land
Diocese of Kootenay
Diocese of Edmonton
Diocese of B.C.
Diocese of Huron

Church climate strikes

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Here are some Anglican Church of Canada climate strikes.

Diocese of Niagara:

Diocese of Toronto – bishops galore:

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this was just a photo op for bishops to show off their new dentures.

Any resemblance to King Canute is purely accidental.

Bishop Susan Bell is doing more to respond to climate crisis

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That means she is throwing away her iPhone which is made in China, the most profusive polluter on the planet.

Just joking, that would be going too far.

From here:

Although the climate crisis is not news, nor our lack of a speedy and effective response, the rising voices of our young people demanding that we take action on the most pressing issue of our time is striking.  I cannot help but respond to the urgency that is being expressed in the climate strikes, inspired by Greta Thunberg, happening around the world this week, including here in our own diocese.

[…]

The Anglican Church of Canada recognizes that there is a climate emergency and we are called to do more to live up to our responsibility as the protectors and of God’s earth.