To celebrate Pride Month (yes, it’s a whole month now), Christ Church Deer Park Anglican church in the Diocese of Toronto is putting on a Pride Celebration Service and Drag Show with Vanity a la Mode, Jada Hudson, Carlotta Carlisle and Kyle Miller. I’m not recommending that you click on those links but they are there if you simply must.
Someone asked:
child friendly or adults only?
The answer, lending an entirely new meaning to “child friendly”, was:
Absolutely child friendly.
From here (page 4):
Being a Queer Wife and Fierce Mother
BY ELIZABETH WELCH
Every Saturday, my wife, Danelle, reads my sermon and every Sunday she helps me vest before worship. She is my partner in all things and I could not fully live into either my vocation as a priest or my vocation as a parent without her by my side. I did not grow up dreaming of being a mother, yet unexpectedly becoming the parent of a teenager was a heaven-sent gift. Every day my prayers of thanksgiving begin thus, “Thank you for my wife and daughter; thank you for our family.”
We had the “most churchy” wedding, said one of our friends. We fought long and hard to get here. I’ve been spat on, told to “burn in hell,” called “an abomination,” and informed that I am “unchristian and disgrace to the Church.” The daily micro-aggressions that occur within and outside the world of the Anglican Church include being glared at when I hold my wife’s hand, being asked “what went wrong” that made me the way I am, and having to explain ad infinitum that we are “actually” married and that we are a “real” family.
All these experiences make it painful to watch how much the conversation about marriage has become focused on “safety for traditionalists.” I can only interpret that the safety of my family is irrelevant. In truth, I would like to stop talking about marriage, but I can’t because I am a mother. A mother who would go to the moon and back for her child.
Most days being an ordained priest brings me deep and abiding joy, and I am so blessed to be at St. George. But some days I really wish God would let me leave this vocation and lead me to somewhere where I can do good for the world without feeling like I have to protect my child from this institution to which I’ve made a life-long vow.
I am resigned to our fate. Even if the resolution passes the second reading, those with the power to do so have decided that the Anglican Church of Canada is called to continue to institutionally endorse that it is acceptable to practice and preach that God only approves of marriages between “a man” and “a woman.” Given the incredibly high suicide rates among those youth who do not have accepting homes and communities, I will pray that the LGBTQ2+ children who grow up in these churches will not succumb to despair before finding the support they need to heal from the trauma of all the harmful homophobia that is embedded therein.
If the proposed “Amendment to the Amendment” passes, I ask our Synod delegates to please bring a resolution that requires every church to state explicitly and clearly whether it is affirming of LGBTQ2+ people, including making available to them the sacrament of marriage. Theological ambiguity is dangerous for us – not just uncomfortable, but dangerous. Please put as much effort into ensuring our safety as has been put into ensuring the comfort of “traditionalists.” American activist Glennon Doyle writes that “fear is just love holding its breath.” I hope everyone at Synod takes a lot of deep breaths.
The Rev. Elizabeth Welch is incumbent at St. George, Cadboro Bay.
What I find interesting about this article is mainly in the last paragraph. The “Amendment to the Amendment” mentioned in it is intended to pacify conservatives who hold to the traditional view of marriage or, as Fred Hiltz put it:
offer some protection to those whose views were not reflected in the outcome of the vote. Such an amendment would be worded, he said, to ensure that “people of a conservative view of marriage would feel absolutely free to continue to aspire to that view—teach it, uphold it and practice it.
This seems to upset Rev. Welch who is unhappy that orthodox parishes might choose to remain in the closet; they should be compelled to come out, otherwise we will have “dangerous” “theological ambiguity”. In other words, liberals will not be satisfied until everyone in the Anglican church agrees with same-sex marriages and all clergy are willing to perform them – while smiling; there must be uniformity of thought, action and theology. In Ecclesiastical Newspeak, this is known as “Diversity”.
It’s worth noting that the liberal juggernaut has been gradually whittling down the opposition for decades. First we had to accept homosexual clergy; then partnered homosexual clergy; then same-sex blessings; then same-sex marriage; now we must agree with same-sex marriage or be guilty of Thought Crime. What comes next? I shudder to think.
From here (page 3)
Pride Week at Christ Church Cathedral
The congregation of Christ Church Cathedral is once again looking forward to joining the week long celebrations of Montreal Pride Week in August from 8 to 18 August. This is significant for us both because we have a significant number of members who define themselves as LGBTQ+, but also because we believe that the Gospel commands us to witness to God’s love to all of God’s creation.Supporting Pride and allowing all our members to experience God’s unconditional love is a long standing tradition at Christ Church, and this has been symbolized by the presence of a pride flag at the back of the Cathedral. Times have moved on significantly since the beginning of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s, but we live in a world in turmoil where the rights that have been granted in the last decades could easily be withdrawn. It is therefore as urgent as ever for Christ Church to publicly celebrate the fact that God loves us all without distinction, and that we are not simply following what civil society is doing but instead responding to the call of the Gospel in our lives in doing so.
The annual pride service will take place on Sunday 11 August at 4 pm at the Cathedral, followed by ice creams on the cathedral forecourt. A group from the Cathedral will take part in the Pride parade on 18 August – you are welcome to join us. We will go there from our 10.30 Choral Eucharist. All welcome.
Once again we see the snide insinuation that Christians who are unwilling to celebrate homosexual activity don’t believe that “God loves us all without distinction”. Utter nonsense, of course he does; that doesn’t mean he approves of everything we do, or that he he willing to let us go through life unchanged.
Are any readers gullible enough to believe: “we are not simply following what civil society is doing” when the the Anglican church today does little else?
The article notes that “we have a significant number of members who define themselves as LGBTQ+”, an odd assertion since the Diocese of Montreal has shrunk so catastrophically in recent years that it doesn’t have a significant number of members of any description, although it does have a high percentage of homosexual clergy.
From here:
As the first openly ordained transgender deacon in the Anglican Diocese of Rupert’s Land, Theo Robinson feels called by God to help heal the rift between LGBTTQ*people and the church.
“I want to show people who are afraid to go to church (because of their sexuality) they are welcome,” said Robinson, 40.
“I want to help heal the wounds of those who have been rejected.”
Robinson, who works in spiritual care at Misericordia Place, was ordained May 1 to serve as a transitional deacon — someone on the path to priesthood.
Theo Robinson was born Theresa Jennifer Robinson but now describes herself as a man in spite of the fact that she possesses no Y chromosome.
I don’t doubt her sincerity or wish her anything but God’s blessings. Nevertheless, I find myself wondering why an Anglican Diocese whose task it is to encourage parishioners to find their true identities in Christ, should choose someone so confused about her own identity to help them do it.
The Anglican Church of Canada’s liturgical butchers have been labouring diligently on expunging all traces of Davidic toxic patriarchy from the psalms. Their efforts have been rewarded by the publishing of the Inclusive Language Liturgical Psalter whose crowning achievement is to use “alternative wordings and/or sentence structures to eliminate the use of predominantly masculine language.”
Thus, rather than Psalm 1 beginning:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
We have the limp “they” and “their”:
Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, *nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!
Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on this law they meditate day and night.
God himself is not exempt from neutering. Psalm 23, which should begin:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Has been emasculated into:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
You make me lie down in green pastures and lead me beside still waters.
You revive my soul and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake
This was concocted in 2016 and, as usual with an alleged church desperate to fit in with what is left of the civilization it is supposed to be redeeming, is already woefully outdated. For example, in Psalm 139, we have the deeply problematic:
For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
If the church were truly woke, it would say “my begetter’s womb” in case the womb in question belongs to a they who has chosen to self-identify as a man.
The Cathedral Dean of the Diocese of Niagara thinks those who oppose abortion cannot be Christians:
Here he is reacting to the recently signed Alabama law making aborting unborn babies a felony:
As a Christian myself, it is a shameful embarrassment to see the word Christian attached to those who would support Alabama’s outrageous law. What is Christian about being anti-abortion or maliciously ‘pro-life’?
Here is the tweet:
I am just as much at a loss to understand how being pro-life could be “malicious” as I am to reconcile dismembering babies in the womb with being a follower of the Giver of life. If anything is a “shameful embarrassment”, it is the Dean’s repulsive tweet.
The Canaanites who sacrificed their children to the god Moloch look almost benign in comparison to the contemporary equivalent. At least they thought they were appeasing their god; we sacrifice to appease our sense of convenience.
I agree with Wall about one thing: his Christianity is not mine.
Diocese of Niagara, bow down to your god:
Anglicans for Life in the media.
The National March, from the Ottawa Citizen (I’m on the right in the crumpled brown hat):
Rev. Lars Nowan from Christ the King, Edmonton (from Global News):
We’ve just returned to our hotel having attended the March for Life in Ottawa.
The rain held off and the usual balaclava clad yahoos bent on violence and disruption were mercifully absent. The most vociferous protesters merely chanted, “abortion is legal in Canada, motherf*ers”; none of us knew that until that moment.
Here are some photos.
St. Hilda’s pastor preached at the pre-march service:
Bishop Charlie Masters was there:
So was the National Director for Anglicans for Life Canada:
Gathering:
On the march:
The Ontario House of Bishops claims in the letter below that a “diversity of theological positions” lurks somewhere in its midst, ready to spring out and surprise everyone. To demonstrate this diversity, the bishops are all making the same point by signing a letter complaining that Bishop Kevin Robertson’s husband… wife? let’s stick to the nondescript “spouse” has not been invited to Lambeth 2020.
Here is the diverse bunch, including, on the right, Michael Bird even though he is an ex-bishop. You will notice in the very centre is what appears to be a robotic bishop from whom, I suspect, flow all the deeper nuances of theological diversity that were used to program the drones surrounding it:
And here is the letter:
When Justin Welby sent out the Lambeth 2020 invitations and disinvited the spouses of bishops who are in same-sex marriages, he was attempting a compromise which was typically Anglican: it had nothing to do with right, wrong, truth or lies; what mattered was whose feelings were going to be hurt.
That is because the Anglican church is taking its cues from the society in which it finds itself and the West, having sunk into a slough of aimless post-Christianity, has nothing to rely on but relativism and subjectivity. Equality has emerged from the slime as one of the new gods and, just as socialism’s aim is to make everyone equally impoverished, so the aim of Anglicanism is to make everyone equally aggravated.
Whether same-sex marriage is good, bad, Biblical or unbiblical is not the point; just like the treacly song, what matters is Feelings and not hurting them or, at least, hurting them all equally
From here:
The Archbishop of Canterbury (centre) with the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, the Rt Revd Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, and the chairman of the ACC, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, the Most Revd Paul Kwong
SAME-SEX relationships, the topic that has riven the Anglican Communion for the past two decades, is not officially on the agenda of this week’s meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Hong Kong.
It is not a topic that can be ignored, however, not least because three provinces — Nigeria, Uganda, and Rwanda — have declined to be represented here because of the involvement of provinces with which they profoundly disagree.
At the opening press conference, on Saturday, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke again about his dilemma when issuing invitations to the Lambeth Conference next year. He has been under fire for not inviting the partners of bishops in same-sex marriages to join the rest of the spouses at next year’s gathering (News, 22 February).
There are currently two bishops in this position: the Rt Revd Mary Glasspool, Assistant Bishop of New York, and the Rt Revd Kevin Robertson, Suffragan Bishop of Toronto. Next month, they are due to be joined by a third, when the Revd Thomas Brown is consecrated Bishop of Maine.
“It is worth noting that the controversy is not only one way,” Archbishop Welby said. He had received “a considerable number of letters as well” about the fact that he had extended an invitation to bishops who were in same-sex partnerships: a change from 2008, when the Rt Revd Gene Robinson was barred from attending by the Archbishop’s predecessor.
“How we deal with people of different views, from views that are passionately, deeply against any same-sex relations through to people who believe it is a matter of justice . . . and [that] it is injustice not to accept same-sex marriage . . . whichever you’re dealing with, the first rule is: these are people.
“The most painful part, to me, of the decisions that have to be made, is that I know that, at every moment that I write a letter or make a decision, I am making a decision about people — and that there is no decision that will result in nobody getting hurt.
“If I’d decided differently on the decision about same-sex spouses — and it hurt a lot of people, by the way — I would have hurt a huge number of people elsewhere in the Communion. And there wasn’t a nice solution which I looked and thought, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that, I’ll take the nasty solution.’ It’s not as simple as that.”
