Anglican Church of Canada attendance dropping 10% per year

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The decline was 10% per year for 2020 and 2021. 2022 may not be much better since the two dioceses (Kootenay and Fredericton) that have produced data show an attendance decline of 32% and 37% from 2019 to 2022.

Christmas and Easter attendance for those two dioceses was down almost 50%.

It’s just as well the bishops are concentrating all their efforts on reversing this trend by authorising transgender liturgies.

The report is here and the Journal article is here.

Data for 2021 confirm attendance in the Anglican Church of Canada declined by about 10 per cent that year, after a similar drop in 2020, the church’s statistics officer says, while preliminary findings from 2022 suggest it continued in a steep decline into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

In 2019, statistics officer Canon Neil Elliot released a report that described a downward trend of 2.5 per cent per year—a rate that would see the church’s membership depleted entirely by 2040 if it continued. An update with data from 2020 showed the downward trend had accelerated to about 10 per cent that year, with data that was preliminary at the time suggesting a similar rate of decline for 2021. The latest numbers confirm the latter, Elliot says. 

The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund exporting LGBTQIA+ and abortion propaganda

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The Anglican Church of Canada’s PWRDF’s is evangelising El Salvador.

Conversion in this case is not so much to salvation through Jesus Christ but to salaciousness through homoeroticism.

Not only that, it is promoting ”sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)” which, stripped of euphemisms, by the government of Canada’s own definition, includes murdering unborn babies by aborting them.

And you still think the ACoC is a Christian Church?

From here:

All around the world, members of the LGBTIQA+ community face discrimination, threats, harassment, and violence, just because of their identity. In many areas, hateful views and attitudes are on the rise. Many things are to blame for this, but one of the major contributing factors is a lack of education and awareness of LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences. UNESCO suggests the inclusion of sexual diversity in educational programming as one method to prevent hateful attitudes and attacks on LGBTQIA+ people.

To combat discrimination and attempt to secure safer futures for LGBTQIA+ communities, PWRDF has partnered with long-time partner, Association CoCoSI, on a project to promote education and awareness surrounding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in El Salvador. PWRDF will support this year-long project with $30,000. It will seek to reduce violence, harassment and prejudice against LGBTQIA+ people in six rural communities within three El Salvadorian municipalities.

Anglican Trans-Porting to Uganda

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Rev. Theo Robinson, a transgender priest in the Diocese of Rupert’s Land, is one of the people responsible for producing the newly adopted liturgies for gender transition and affirmation.

Robinson is delighted that it reaffirms we are an inclusive church.

The bishop of Rupert’s Land, Geoff Woodcroft, is also excited by the prospect of using the liturgy for what, undoubtedly, will be a flood of candidates eager to fill his church’s deserted pews to partake of the new offering.

Woodcroft is so enamoured of his progressive openminded omnierudite pieties (poop™ for short), he is bent on exporting them to those whom he regards as less enlightened than himself, specifically Ugandans.

From here:

At the same time Woodcroft commended the new liturgy for use by churches in the Diocese, he sent a letter to Stephen Kaziimba, Primate of Uganda, condemning his recent decision to champion that government’s new law criminalizing homosexuality.

“We are outraged that a member church of the Anglican communion could recklessly betray Christ’s teaching to love, and blatantly violate The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Woodcroft wrote in the letter, which was also sent to Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican Church.

“We are deeply saddened and disturbed to know that Ugandan LGBTTQ+ people, their families and allies must live in prisons of isolation formed by fear,” he said, adding “the disciples of the Diocese of Rupert’s Land hear God’s call to care for God’s children in every time and place.”

Diocese of the Arctic: in the Anglican Church of Canada but not of it

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The Diocese of the Arctic is unusual.

First, its bishop, David Parsons, is a member of a species all but extinct in the Anglican Church of Canada: he is a Christian bishop.

Second, the diocese is in communion with ANiC and is open to licensing its priests.

Third, the diocese does not support the recently adopted liturgies for Gender Transition and Affirmation or any of the other LGBT+ claptrap that obsesses other ACoC clergy.

Fourth, the diocese sees itself as the Anglican Church of Canada and the rest of the organisation as – something else. By implication, not a church.

Lastly, Parsons thinks, “that the great and terrible day of the Lord is coming, and many bishops are going to have a stark wake up as they stand before God and are asked why they have not stood against the doctrines of demons and devils. My fear is, that day will not be a day of repentance but just justice and judgment because the day of grace will be over.”

Read more in this interview at VOL:

The majority of our denomination is solid. The Diocese of the Arctic is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. People fail to remember that the revisionists in Canada and the USA are the minority in the Anglican Communion. They just have a loud voice and often use that voice to monopolize, or bully. As an Anglican, I’ve grown up reciting psalm 95 to warn me about not having a hard heart. I’ve read the book of Judges, when the people often turned back to the world, and I’ve read the prophets, who warn us to not follow the gods of this age or past ages.

Two of the saddest parts that I have read in the New Testament are found in John 6:66 (“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”) and 2 Timothy 4:10. In John chapter 6 Jesus tells us He is the Bread of life and many of Jesus’ disciples turn back, and no longer follow him after hearing Jesus’ declaration. St. Paul speaks of Demas, who left him because of Demas’ love for the world.

It seems to me that the revisionists do not love the word of God, nor do they receive it as the bread of life, and so rather than living under the authority of Jesus Christ, and His word, they choose to be an authority unto themselves.

More on the Anglican Church of Canada’s transgender liturgies

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Some clergy and lay delegates at synod spoke against adopting the liturgies, the majority spoke in favour.

This one in favour is interesting because it illustrates the delusion that has bedevilled the ACoC for decades: that doing more of what has brought it to the verge of extinction will, for some incomprehensible reason, reverse the decline. (my bold):

Alex McPhee, lay member from the diocese of Qu’Appelle, spoke in favour. McPhee described how in preparing to attend his first General Synod, he had sent the text of the pastoral liturgies to some transgender friends—all of whom, he said, “not by their own choice, have been hounded out of their birth church communities.”

He continued, “The response I got was, ‘This is so powerful … I can’t believe someone out there wrote something like this. I can’t believe there is a church somewhere in the world that is actually like this.’”

“In my life as an adult convert, I have seen very few documents that have such an immediate attractive power on the unchurched, with the sole exception of the gospels themselves,” McPhee added. “In my opinion, we are being asked to ratify something that is not just wise and discerning, but actually has the power to grow the body of Christ.”

According to Statistics Canada, in 2021 0.19% of the population were transgender. That’s 59,460 people.

If they are the candidates that will grow the church, they must all be latent Anglicans.

The Anglican Church of Canada has Transformational Aspirations

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In order to convince itself that it still has a future, the ACoC’s general synod has passed a resolution to adopt five transformational aspirations. They are to be a church that:

  1. invites and deepens life in Christ;
  2. champions the dignity of every human being;
  3. works to dismantle racism and colonialism;
  4. embraces mutual interdependence with the Indigenous church (Sacred Circle);
    nurtures right relationships among people of faith in local, national and global communities and networks;
  5. stewards and renews God’s creation; protects and sustains the earth; pursues justice for all.

Notably absent is a plan to lead the unsaved to salvation through Jesus Christ. I’m quite sure that is missing because the majority of ACoC clergy no longer recognize the categories “saved” and “unsaved”.

The other notable thing about these aspirations is that there is nothing whatsoever transformational about them. They are the same unimaginative anodyne cliches that have been at work in the church for decades and have brought it to where it is today.

The resolution had overwhelming support.

Read it all here:

General Synod has overwhelmingly approved five priorities or “transformational aspirations” prepared by the Strategic Planning Working Group (SPWG) to serve as the basis for the Anglican Church of Canada’s new strategic plan.

Members voted June 29 in favour of an amended version of Resolution A102, by which General Synod received with gratitude the SPWG’s report and adopted the five transformational aspirations as “transformational commitments to guide planning, priority-setting, resource allocation and collaboration with provinces and dioceses in the 2023-25 biennium.” The resolution also directed Council of General Synod to establish a group for implementation.

As adopted by General Synod, the five transformational aspirations call for the Anglican Church of Canada to be a church that “invites and deepens life in Christ”; “champions the dignity of every human being; works to dismantle racism and colonialism”; “embraces mutual interdependence with the Indigenous church (Sacred Circle)”; nurtures right relationships among people of faith in local, national and global communities and networks”; and “stewards and renews God’s creation; protects and sustains the earth; pursues justice for all.”

Anglican Church of Canada adds gender transition liturgies to prayer book

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Up until 2021 they had been for trial use but now Synod has decided that they will be added to the Book of Alternative Services as official liturgies. You can find the complete versions here.

An included free bonus is a liturgy for those with “a newfound awareness of a
particular identity location on the gender spectrum”, but who have no taste for mutilating themselves.

I can’t help noticing that there is no liturgy for people who identify and are transitioning to Furries. Not very inclusive.

The Sparkle Creed

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Every time I think it is impossible to outdo the incoherent fog that has taken up residence in the minds of Anglican Church of Canada clergy, the United Church comes to the rescue. Here is Rev. Rachel Small Stokes from Immanuel United Church of Christ in Louisville inviting the congregation to join her in reciting The Sparkle Creed.

Why does the Anglican Church of Canada loath Israel?

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In April, bishops from the ACoC and ELCIC met with Members of Parliament to persuade them to “hold Israeli authorities accountable for human rights abuses under international law.”

Since no one listens to them or cares what they think, the bishops are just as powerless to influence MPs as the MPs are to punish another country for its alleged abuses. That doesn’t stop them trying, though.

The puzzling thing is, why does the ACoC reserve all its pious outrage for Israel? Just like any other country, Israel does things it shouldn’t, but it is still the most humane and democratic country in the Middle East.

Far worse human rights abuses occur in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Korea – and so on. We never hear a squeak from our bishops about them.

Are the bishops antisemitic?

Admittedly, the bishops do denounce Uganda because it hasn’t gone full-bore LGBT+. But that is just ugly neocolonialism oozing out from behind a veneer of inclusive, affirming, tolerant diversity.

From here:

Leaders of Canadian Anglican, Lutheran, United and Presbyterian churches, including Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, met with MPs from the Liberal and Conservative parties April 27 to “advocate for a just and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel,” according to a news release issued on a shared Anglican-Lutheran website the same day.

Among other policies, the church leaders requested the government create a special envoy to monitor and report on how children are treated in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to hold Israeli authorities accountable for human rights abuses under international law. They also urged Ottawa to publicly condemn what they called Israel’s attack on Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations.

Nicholls and ELCIC National Bishop Susan Johnson had previously sent a series of letters to the government expressing concerns about violence on the part of the Israeli government and its citizens. In addition to the nation’s treatment of Palestinians, Nicholls has expressed concern over growing anti-Christian sentiment in the wake of the Jan. 13 desecration of the Christian Mount Zion Cemetery. Many of the Christians living in Israel and Palestine are ethnic Palestinians.

The group included Nicholls, along with Johnson; the Rev. Carmen Lansdowne, moderator of the United Church of Canada; and the Rev. Dorcas Gordon, principal emerita of the University of Toronto’s Knox College.