Celebrating 25 years of women’s ordination

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When I saw this photo, I thought the Rev. Jane Willis was celebrating the Eucharist. You know, the thing that Christians do because it was commanded by the most important person to enter history to commemorate the most important event to occur in history: God becoming flesh, dwelling among us, taking our sin upon himself, giving his life for us and reconciling us to God the Father.

Then I read the caption, saw the grin and realised it was something of far greater cosmic import: 25 years of lady priests. A silly mistake that anyone could have made.

Anglicans swinging from the rafters

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The Diocese of Montreal is in a state of advanced disintegration. To combat the rot, St. Jax Anglican Church in downtown Montreal has consummated the Anglican Church of Canada’s pilgrimage from Christian denomination to pagan circus by having a troop of acrobats swing from its rafters to the accompaniment of a light show.

The rector, transported from the dark night of penury to a beatific vision of performing elephants (why are Canadian bishops so overweight?), counts it “a fantastic joy to see for the first time, we believe, a circus company permanently installed in an active, consecrated church”.

From here:

An acrobat dangles from the rafters of a 150-year-old church while a lightshow paints the altar in blue, pink and yellow lights.

Call it a leap of faith.

This was the first show of Le Monastère — the monastery, in English — a circus cabaret show held inside a downtown Montreal church.

Le Monastère has partnered with the Anglican church of St. Jax — and it could be the first agreement of its kind.

“It’s been a fantastic joy to see for the first time, we believe, a circus company permanently installed in an active, consecrated church,” said Rev. Graham Singh, incumbent pastor at St. Jax.

With lagging attendance and surging maintenance bills, churches in Quebec and elsewhere have struggled to stay afloat.
Singh’s three-year mission with St. Jax has included not only keeping the old, creaky church standing, but also redefining what it is to be a church in a downtown core.

Niagara Diocese, a safe church

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Christianity isn’t safe.

Early Christians had to look forward to an early unpleasant departure from this vale of tears, a fate that is still in store for many persecuted Christians today. St. Paul was: beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, robbed, imprisoned, hungry, thirsty, betrayed, nearly drowned and five times received forty lashes.

If the early church had concentrated its efforts on becoming safe, I don’t suppose much would have come of it; after all, Aslan is not a tame Lion.

Nevertheless, the Diocese of Niagara is a safe place – for everyone except orthodox Christians.

From here:

Safe Church initiatives within the Diocese of Niagara are dedicated to ensuring that the church is a safe and holy place for all people at all times.

We affirm the dignity and worth of all persons, young or old, male or female, rich or poor.

To that end, our protocols apply to all of the people of the Diocese of Niagara in all of our faith communities, no matter what ministry they partake in, be it volunteer, paid, lay or ordained.

[….]

Truly, the Spirit moves in our midst as we come to terms with what it means to be the Christian Church in the days of #MeToo and #ChurchToo.

What Love is this

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A song I wrote for Lent, recorded at our Sunday service today:

What Love is this     
To come from glory to this world of sin and suffering;
To die upon the cross of shame, to give your life for me:
Oh what love is this whose power can hold the planets in their course.
Oh what love is this that’s strong enough to break upon the cross.
What love is this, oh what love.

To live a life of sacrifice, a King without your crown;
To be punished by the world that through your word was born:
Oh what love is this whose agony will put an end to pain.
Oh what love is this whose blood pours out in suffering for our gain.
What love is this, oh what love.

To know the end before your birth, still you chose to come;
Divinity to live as man: the Father’s only Son.
Oh what love is this that’s overcome the tyranny of sin.
Oh what love is this that broke death’s bonds to free you the third day.
What love is this, oh what love.

Remember That You Are Glitter, And To Glitter You Shall Return

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If, as I did, you attended an Ash Wednesday service, you will have received a sombre reminder that the day will come when mortality’s grip will cause you to breathe your last and your mortal frame will return to the dust from whence it came.

Unless you are gay, in which case you will return to glitter:

What is Glitter+Ash Wednesday?

Ash Wednesday is a day when Christians receive the mark of the cross on their foreheads to begin the 40 days of reflection and repentance in preparation for Easter.

Glitter Ashes lets the world know that we are progressive, queer-positive Christians. We are in the pews, in the pulpits and giving glitter ashes in the street to those who either may not have time to go to a church—or may have been rejected by a church.

To complete the illusion, you can bury your glittering remains in a glitter coffin supplied by the Glitter Coffin Company. Here is a tasteful example:

It’s glitter all the way to the glitter encrusted pearly gates.

Affirming homosexuality for Lent

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If you are looking for something to give up for Lent, Generous Space Ministries has a suggestion:

This Lent we are inviting church people to give up the comfort of silence and speak up in support of their LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ. The challenge is to tell your pastor that you affirm LGBTQ+ people in the church!

For those who might be a little unclear as to the exact meaning of this, let me explain: it is not enough to affirm the presence of an LGBTQ+ person in your church, something I presume we would all do.

We have to understand that Christianity has left behind outdated ideas like denying yourself, laying aside your old self, crucifying the flesh, putting off your former way of life, and being dead to immorality, impurity, passion and evil desires. We are far too enlightened to fall for that medieval self-flagellating claptrap – unless, of course, you are a BDSM+ person, in which case, we affirm your pain.

Now we affirm everything a person is, does and thinks. Otherwise ze will feel excluded. And since exclusion is the only sin left to the church, the full measure of the church’s wrath is visited on its practitioners.

If you are wondering what all this has to do with repentance, it’s really quite simple: this Lent you must repent of your odious, outdated and, quite frankly, phobic view of homosexuality and all its scintillating and inspiring variations, expressions and activities.

Wrestling in the Canadian house of bishops

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Considering the Anglican Church of Canada has become a repository for most of the nation’s gay clergy, for those old enough to remember it, this headline may bring to mind the notorious nude wrestling scene in Ken Russell’s film “Women in Love”. If that’s what the bishops were up to, no one is admitting to it.

What is being admitted to is a “currency of grace”, a reference to the fact that the bishops are desperate not to lose the currency derived from conservative parishes who might leave the denomination when the marriage canon is officially changed to permit same sex marriage later this year. At least, I think that’s what they are getting at.

From here:

“The National House of Bishops has worked very hard since General Synod 2016—not only on the issues from General Synod 2016 and the ministry of the whole church, but on how we work and live together,” said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. “We left this January meeting having wrestled with how we are the church and how we will remain united in Christ whatever the outcomes  at General Synod 2019.”

“One bishop commented that in our work there was a ‘currency of grace,’ a statement that resonated with members of the House. This is not to say there isn’t diversity and there aren’t differences among us, but there was space, respect and grace-filled conversation in how we went about our discussions, and for each other.”

The bishops spent a full day in retreat with Hiltz, reflecting on the nature of primatial ministry within Canada and across the Anglican Communion. This day was in preparation for the beginning of the nomination process for the primacy.

They also spent two days focused on issues that will come before General Synod when it meets in July 2019. These included the proposed replacement of the Book of Common Prayer’s collect for the conversion of the Jews with a collect for reconciliation with the Jews; the second reading of the proposed amendment to the marriage canon (Resolution A051-R2); and changes to Canon XXII in response to the evolving self-determining Indigenous church within the Anglican Church of Canada.

Drive through repentance

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As Kierkegaard noted:

A passionate tumultuous age will overthrow everything, pull everything down; but a revolutionary age, that is at the same time reflective and passionless, transforms that expression of strength into a feat of dialectics: it leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance.  Instead of culminating in a rebellion it reduces the inward reality of all relationships to a reflective tension which leaves everything standing but makes the whole of life ambiguous: so that everything continues to exist factually whilst by a dialectical deceit, privatissime, it supplies a secret interpretation — that it does not exist.

A perfect description of today’s mainline churches who pay careful attention to their symbols, liturgies and traditions but have meticulously emptied them of meaning.

Thus we have drive-through ashes, ashes to go and ashes to joke about.

God is Love

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A song I wrote a few years ago, recorded at our service yesterday:

God is Love     
Love is patient, love is kind;
Love forgives time after time.
Never proud or envious,
Forgetting wrongs, love always trusts.
Chorus
For God is love, who took our sin
Upon a cross of pain so grim.
A gift of love so great and pure:
To live in Love for evermore

Love is constant, love always hopes;
Slow to anger, love never boasts.
Greatest gift of the Father’s heart,
Fulfilled one day, now seen in part.

Love must guide us on our way,
As we love those we meet each day.
Loving Him who first loved us;
Forgiving all as he forgives.