Anglican Church of Canada approves inclusive language Psalter

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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church desperate to fit in with what is left of the civilization it is supposed to be redeeming, is already woefully outdated.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.

Diocese of Niagara’s Dean Peter Wall declares opposing abortion to be un-Christian

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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:

March for Life 2019

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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:

Ontario House of Bishops complains about Lambeth same-sex spouse ban

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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:

Lambeth 2020: Feelings, nothing more than feelings

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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.”

Christchurch, Sri Lanka and lopsided reactions

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From here (page3):

Brantford’s Anglican community stood in solidarity with their Muslim neighbours on Friday, March 15 condemning the mosque attacks in New Zealand. Ven. Tim Dobbin, rector of Brantford’s St. Mark’s Anglican Church, was among religious and community leaders gathered at the Brantford mosque on March 15 at the special prayer service conducted by Imam Aby Noman Tarek.

I wonder, were the prayers directed to Allah or Jesus?

No matter, very soon I expect Imams all over Canada will be attending Christian church services to stand “in solidarity” with their Christian neighbours, condemning the murder of Christians by Islamist terrorists in Sri Lanka. Or perhaps not.

Fred Hiltz, very properly, condemned the Christchurch mosque murders, mentioning that Muslims were the victims and Islamophobia was the cause:

Our hearts are aching for Muslims across our country and around the world in the wake of the massacre of so many faithful Muslims in the midst of their Friday prayers in Christchurch, Aotearoa-New Zealand.

[….]

We encourage members of our church to reach out with love and compassion to their Muslim neighbours in their time of great grief and great fear.

We also encourage Anglicans to attend prayer vigils and to visit a local mosque as a sign of solidarity, knowing that as they go in peace, they will be received in peace.

In this time of international outrage and grief over this crime against humanity rooted in Islamophobia, we reaffirm the Anglican Church of Canada’s commitment, reiterated in 2013, to resolutely oppose Islamophobia.

He also condemned the murder of Christians in Sri Lanka but, for some odd reason, couldn’t bring himself to identify the victims as Christians nor, grope as he might, was he inspired to identify a cause – Islamist hatred of Christianity and Christians must be too obvious, why bother to point it out. He contented himself with calling the whole thing a “hate crime”. Better than ‘Some people did something’:

In the terrible aftermath of bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Day, I ask for your prayers for all affected by these hate crimes.

No Resurrection in the Diocese of Niagara

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Rev. Wayne Fraser thinks the resurrection of Jesus never happened.

Apparently, if we disbelieve in the central tenet of Christianity, “our eyes are opened to see so much more”. We can see that Christianity is essentially political, we can recite tired cliché’s such as speaking truth to power, instead of confronting and repenting of our own sin we can do something much easier: “confront injustice where we find it”, we can stop believing in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, and we can tell each other things we don’t actually believe like “Alleluia! Christ is Risen”.

And people wonder why we fled the Diocese of Niagara.

From here (page 6):

When I became an adult, I realized the Sunday School teacher had been right. A physical resuscitation of a human body is impossible. The heart will not accept what the brain rejects. What do we celebrate on Easter morning? Without insistence on physical resuscitation, our eyes are opened to see so much more. Understanding the political and religious contexts of the execution of Jesus by Rome, we see the injustice of the state and the courage of the Anointed One to speak Truth to Power. “What is Truth?” Pilate asked, unable or unwilling to see it plainly standing before him. Freed from a literal reading of the gospel accounts of a physical Resurrection, we see the growing enlightenment of the disciples and experience the deep symbolism of the Easter story. We become Resurrection people, enabled to confront injustice where we find it, to love our neighbours as ourselves, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and befriend the stranger. No longer having to believe the Crucifixion as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, we can rejoice in the Original Blessings of this life and the At-one-ment of the Indwelling Spirit. Love over and around us lies and we can tap into that source of strength as Jesus did to forgive seventy times seven, to begin anew when we err and to nourish abundant life for all creation. On Easter we can sing together, “Praise with elation, praise every morning, God’s recreation of the new day.” And we can greet one another, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen

The Reverend Dr. Wayne Fraser is Interim Pastor at St.Paul’s (you remember, St. Paul the fellow who said “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” That puts Reverend Dr. Wayne Fraser’s preaching into perspective, at least) Dunnville and can be reached at fraserwayne@gmail.com.

Come to the Diocese of Niagara to have the deep-seated need of who you are confirmed

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Confirming the “deep-seated need” of who I am has, of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is much more interested mere peccadilloes such as saving us from eternal damnation and reconciling us with the Creator of the universe. We are very blessed, then, to have Bishop Susan Bell to set us…… straight.

As it happens, for a while I’ve felt a deep-seated need coming on to be recognised as the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow I plan to self-identify as such and visit my local diocesan parish to have it affirmed.

It will be a huge source of joy and I will finally be equal with my whole family who unanimously self identify as asexual anthozoan coral reefs except for uncle George who, though a process of conversation, prayer, relationship, deep study of the scriptures and theological scholarship has moved through various stages of understanding and grappling to arrive at a place of conviction that he is a jellyfish. Personally, I think he has been seeing too much of Bishop Susan Bell.

This should help you to be more authentically who you are: