St. Aidan’s rainbow doors vandalised

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Under the tutelage of Rev. Kevin George, the youth group at St. Aidan’s in London has painted some rainbow doors “to display as a sign of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community”.

Someone who is less than enthusiastic about drag queen story hour has vandalised them with the following:

Admittedly, this is a trifle rude, but then Rev. George is not averse to posting scatological incivilities in his twitter feed when it suits him:

That didn’t deter the good Rev from piously tweeting this about his vandalised doors: “To the person or persons who did this last night at St Aidan’s Church, we will not be deterred. Hate will not prevail.” I suspect what he really means by that last sentence is “Hate will not prevail, unless it’s what I hate”.

From here:

Members of St. Aidan’s Anglican Church arrived this morning to find some of their property vandalised.

Overnight, a door they had painted for pride month was spray painted with profanity. The vandalism was referring to “drag queen story time,” an event that has recently sparked controversy.

The Church’s Rector Kevin George told CTV News that young members of the Church created a pride art installation a year ago with multiple doors saying, “God’s doors are open to all.”

The Pride Flag door was left on display on a fence outside the Church Saturday and was vandalized with profanity spray painted over it.

“It was disheartening to see that message,” Rector Kevin George said in response to the “vulgar message” they found on the door.

In a post on social media, George, said, “To the person or persons who did this last night at St Aidan’s Church, we will not be deterred. Hate will not prevail.”

George said members of the Church spent part of the afternoon repainting their doors in Pride colours, which will be on display for next month.

Bishop Cyrus Pitman joins ANiC

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On January 10 2008, Pitman wrote to his clergy demanding their allegiance:

In what could be the start of real schism in the Anglican Church, a Newfoundland bishop is demanding clergy come to the provincial capital to declare whether their loyalties lie with him or his predecessor, the leader of a breakaway conservative movement.

“Attendance at these gatherings is mandatory,” Cyrus Pitman, bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador warns in a Dec. 18 letter to clergy obtained by the Star.

Clergy from Eastern Newfoundland’s 33 parishes are to be in St. John’s on Jan. 21 to restate their ordination vows and to get new licences, with a date for those from the six Labrador parishes yet to be set.

On April 10 2008, Pitman fired one of his priests for upholding Biblical standards:

The Rev. Darrel Critch, Rector at St. Mary the Virgin on Craigmillar Avenue, St John’s, Newfoundland has been removed from his position by Bp. Pitman and Archdeacon Peddle.

This happened on the evening of Thursday the 10th of April at an emergency Vestry Meeting called by Bishop Pitman. Archdeacon Peddle showed up at the meeting and shortly thereafter Rev. Critch was relieved from his duties. Archdeacon Peddle has now been appointed administrator of St. Mary’s.

Why? Well what I have heard is that Rev. Critch made a stand on the Scriptures and removed a couple from choir who were living together in an immoral relationship.

In July 2008, Pitman  made an attempt to compile a register of lay people who had left the Anglican Church of Canada to make sure that none of them exercise any ministry in an ACoC diocese:

LAY RELINQUISHMENTS
Lay people who have also left the Anglican Church of Canada are asked to indicate their intentions to the Bishop who will maintain a register for future information.
It seems clear to us that lay people who leave also relinquish their privilege to be part of any Ministry that they have been allowed to perform.

Not an obvious career path to ANiC, but I presume he has changed his mind. I wonder if he has apologised to those adversely affected by his past actions.

From here:

A retired Newfoundland bishop known for advocating for same-sex marriage has joined the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), a breakaway group of Anglican churches known for its opposition to same-sex marriage. 

Bishop Cyrus Pitman, who was bishop of the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador from 2004 to 2013, has come out of retirement to work for an ANiC member church in Newfoundland, the Anglican Journal has learned. ANiC is in turn part of the Anglican Church in North America, which formed a parallel and independent network of parishes in the late 2000s due to disagreement on issues of sexuality, among other doctrinal divisions. 

In an email to the Anglican Journal, Pitman said he had surrendered his license as a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada so that he could be licensed in ANiC. 

“I have been worshipping for some time at the Church of the Good Samaritan where I am working with young men in our homeless shelter. This ministry to the homeless is what the gospel is all about. I am happy to continue to serve the Lord in this way,” he wrote. 

In January 2008, Pitman asked clergy in the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador to declare their loyalty to the Anglican Church of Canada at the same time that they renewed their ordination vows and licenses. At the time, the CBC reported he said that while there was room for legitimate disagreement within the church, leaving to join the incipient breakaway organization was going too far. Also at that time, his predecessor as bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, Bishop Donald Harvey, was moderator bishop of ANiC, which was then in its infancy. 

Susan Green is a parishioner in the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland. The daughter of a pastor, she says she can’t remember a life without the church in it. Pitman, whom Green knew through her family’s connection to the church, worked closely with her to advocate for same-sex marriage in the church. She says he was the first person to encourage her, along with her partner, Brenda Halley, to speak out about wanting their family to be affirmed in the church. 

So when she heard he had left the Anglican Church of Canada to join ANiC, she says, she was surprised by the reversal.

Bishop of St Davids to retire

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The last time I visited Wales it was the hottest driest summer for 300 years. It didn’t even rain in the Lake District where every shop displays umbrellas and raincoats in the front window.

The only time it rained was when I was in St. Davids and the cathedral flooded. I like to think it was to protest the bishop of St. Davids, Joanna Penberthy. In an effort to elevate herself from the depths of obscurity that is the natural habitat of Anglican bishops, on March 25th 2021 she tweeted “never, never trust a Tory”.

Not only that, she uses an iPhone.

In June she apologized or, more likely, was made to apologize (for the tweet, not the iPhone).

She has announced that she will retire this year on the 31st of July. I expect the sun will shine on that day.

From here:

Bishop Joanna was elected in November 2016 and made history as the first woman to be consecrated as a Bishop in the Church in Wales in January 2017. She has served as Bishop for six years after a long and well-travelled ministry that took in the dioceses of Durham, Llandaff, St Asaph, Bath and Wells, Swansea and Brecon as well as a spell as Priest in the diocese which she later came to lead.

Announcing the retirement, the Archbishop of Wales, Andrew John, said “I want to thank Bisop Joanna for her ministry in the diocese and province. She has contributed significantly to areas of church life in particular on environmental matters and with our Social Responsibility network.”

Bishop Joanna will retire on 31st July 2023.

William Cliff inhibited three days after being elected bishop of Ontario

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Jeremiah 17:9 strikes again.

To the Anglican Church of Canada’s credit, those in charge acted quickly after as yet unspecified allegations were made against Cliff, in spite of a possible temptation to sweep it under the rug.

No-one is immune. Recently Canon Mike Pilavachi, pastor at an orthodox Anglican church in the UK has stepped down because of allegations of dubious behaviour. And, of course, there was Ravi Zacharias, Jean Vanier and numerous other less illustrious examples, liberal and conservative.

As Psalm 146 advises: Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help

That includes clerical princes.

From here:

Only three days after he was elected as the next Bishop of Ontario, Bishop William Cliff of the Diocese of Brandon has been inhibited in both the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario by Metropolitan Anne Germond and in his home Province of Rupert’s Land by Archbishop Greg Kerr-Wilson.

An allegation has been received by Archbishop Germond, and she reports that “the proper authorities have been informed.” The nature of the allegation has not been made public.

While the allegation is being investigated, Bishop Cliff may not exercise the functions of ordained ministry.

He was to succeed Bishop Michael Oulton, who wrote to the diocese May 2:

Anglican colonialism

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It’s hard to view the determination of Western Anglicanism to impose its obsessive adoration of homosexuality on African churches as anything other than neo-colonialism.

Yet, the enduring talent of liberal clergy to see everything backwards Through the Looking-Glass results in twisting reality such that “colonialism is largely responsible for the negative attitude toward homosexuality”.

Read it all here:

Colonalism’s legacy seen in marriage debate

Raphael Hess is the Bishop of South Africa’s diocese of Saldanha Bay and describes himself as “coloured,” a term used in South Africa which means he has both Black and white ancestry. His diocese is in the minority in South Africa, having come out in favour of same-sex marriage. It’s a stance Hess describes as honouring, respecting and endorsing it while waiting for the rest of the province to do the same.

He says colonialism is largely responsible for the negative attitude toward homosexuality across Africa. “To reduce it to that only would be to simplify the issue. But certainly we inherit our laws from our colonial past because we’ve been taught that that is wrong … In Africa, those laws are still on our statute books. They weren’t invented by us.”

Anglican Church of Canada to bunk with United Church

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The Anglican Church of Canada is in fierce competition with the United Church of Canada to see who can reach extinction point first.

Both are struggling to align themselves with the conceits and foibles of the age and both are sinking fast. Nothing would be more natural for them than to move in together. So they are.

Friends don’t let friends sink alone.

From here:

The office of General Synod may move out of its current office in Toronto into space owned by the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Journal has learned.

Joseph Vecsi, director of Communications and Information Resources, confirmed that talks are underway about a move with the United Church but have not been finalized, and referred the Journal to Archdeacon Alan Perry, general secretary of General Synod for any additional details. But neither Perry nor a spokeswoman for the United Church of Canada were commenting on the talks at the time this article was written.

“The negotiations are ongoing and once we have something to announce, we’ll let you know,” Perry told the Journal. United Church of Canada spokesperson Lori-Ann Livingstone likewise said, “We don’t have anything to share at this point.”

Anglican mammon

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Some years ago I attended what was supposed to be an ecclesiastical pep talk by the then primate, Fred Hiltz. As I listened to him with drooping eyelids, it occurred to me that his delivery, reminiscent of Marvin the Robot, was not amenable to inspiring enthusiasm in others. Eventually, though, the archbishop’s eyes lit up, the voice became almost animated, the arms began gesticulating with excitement. “This is better”, I thought, we are about to hear that revival has broken out against all the odds. Perhaps someone had come back from the dead after prayer.

Alas, no. Someone had donated $160,000 to the church.

Nothing inspires activity and passion in the ACoC so much as the prospect of acquiring or losing money. Hence, with a looming $1.6 million deficit, Archbishop Linda Nicholls has appointed a committee to find radical solutions for accumulating more lovely cash.

From here:

A draft 2022 financial statement initially shared with CoGS, intended to be presented by the financial management committee, shows General Synod with a $1.6-million excess of expenses over revenues. Meanwhile, Nicholls said, statistics show the church’s membership is aging and declining. Cultural shifts in Canadian society and a newly redefined relationship with the Indigenous church, she said, also demand new ideas.

“Every organization needs to ask itself periodically whether the framework for the life of the institution is helping or possibly hindering its professed mission,” she said. The new committee would therefore be tasked with bringing recommendations to CoGS and to General Synod in 2025 to address these needs. Nicholls said it would be composed of theologians, bishops, clergy and laypeople “with a mandate to listen well and offer creative, lifegiving solutions—even radical solutions.”

Archbishop Linda Nicholls sees no major split in the Anglican Communion

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GAFCON, in its February 20th statement responding to the Church of England’s decision to bless same-sex marriages, has declared that the CofE can no longer be considered the “mother church”. It has broken communion with provinces that hold to Biblical views on human sexuality and Justin Welby is no longer the first among equals in the global communion.

In other words, the Anglican Communion is divided, split, rent asunder, fractured, broken.

Linda Nicholls thinks everything is just fine. The problem has been “overblown”. Like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, Nicholls cannot hear the waves of chaos crashing against the foundations of what is left of her church.

The truth is, the Anglican Communion has already split. What we are witnessing now is the external outworking of an inward fracture, an outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible rupture, an unholy sacrament.

Nicholls goes on to complain that according to the GAFCON statement, “the final test of orthodoxy is human sexuality”.

Not so. Orthodoxy requires not only a correct understand of the nature of God – or at least as correct as flawed humans can be – but a correct understanding of the nature of mankind. At the root of the church’s LGBT* mania is the lie that the purpose and nature of man is self-fulfilment, self-gratification and, especially in the “T” case, atheistic existential self-determination, a misreading of the human condition so mixed up, most self-respecting pagans wouldn’t hold to it.

From here:

The significance of a press statement from a grouping of theologically conservative Anglican primates which recommends the withdrawal of “orthodox provinces” from the rest of the Anglican Communion, and which has drawn international headlines, has been overblown, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, tells the Anglican Journal.

[….]

The motion passed in the Church of England’s General Synod allows clergy to use their conscience in deciding whether to use the prayers of blessing, meaning that they can opt in or out of blessing same-sex unions on an individual basis. So no church or individual will be required to give blessings that they disagree with, Nicholls says. In fact, she adds, since the Church of England motion extends only to blessings, it does not actually make any changes to its policy on marriage itself. For comparison, some dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada, after extensive discernment, have provided same-sex marriage as a pastoral response, Nicholls says.

In that context, she says, it makes little sense to break up the Communion over such a small change.

Anglican Church of Canada is looking for radical solutions

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The problem is the church is running out of money. The solution is a new committee.

During the years I’ve been attending an Anglican church, committees have come and gone leaving little behind them but a disagreeable whiff of empty posturing, very similar to IBM committee meetings that I attended during what passes for my career. The ecclesiastical version will, no doubt, be far more effective in inducing crippling ennui, since it will be populated by a gaggle of theologians, bishops and clergy whose tenuous grip on reality is summed up by this sentence in the article below: “The Communion has not split.”

Archbishop Linda Nicholls is suggesting “finding potentially radical solutions”. Before anyone rashly jumps to the conclusion that the Anglican Church of Canada is about to try Christianity to halt its dramatic decline, I refer you to another article, published at the same time, where Nicholls affirm[s] the dignity of LGBTQ+ people and their place in the church – which, in translation, means she affirms same-sex activity. And there is nothing less radical than that.

From here:

The church may soon have a new commission tasked with finding potentially “radical solutions” to the demographic and financial challenges that now face it, according to a proposal introduced by Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, in her opening statement to the Council of General Synod (CoGS) March 2.

Nicholls said a new strategy would be needed for the church to go forward into the post-pandemic world. It will need to respond to challenges including financial pressure “as parishes struggle to sustain full-time or part-time stipendiary ministry and dioceses struggle to meet multiple responsibilities at local, regional and national levels.” The national church, on the other hand, is facing the challenge of supporting ministry in regions where donations do not cover expenses, she said. Meanwhile, statistics show the church’s membership is aging and declining. Cultural shifts in Canadian society and a newly redefined relationship with the Indigenous church, she said, also demand new ideas.

[…….]

But in fact, Nicholls said, “the Communion remains committed to walking together—some at a great distance, others working more closely together.

“The Communion has not split.”

Queer Evensong at Holy Trinity Anglican Church Winnipeg

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The Queer Evensong is being organised by Pastor Theo Robinson, who is transgender and Rev Andrew Rampton, a homosexual.

During the COVID panic we were introduced to a new expression – which I rapidly came to loath – The New Normal. The New Normal for ACoC parishes is a Queer Evensong run by a transgender and a homosexual.

From here:

Creating a safe place to worship for LGBTTQ+ people is the goal of a service Sunday in downtown Winnipeg.

The service — possibly the first of its kind in the province — is being organized by Theo Robinson, a transgender male and regional pastor for the Interlake Shared Ministry, and Andrew Rampton, rector at Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

Queer Evensong starts at 5 p.m. at Holy Trinity (256 Smith St.).

Robinson serves churches in Selkirk, Teulon, Arborg, Lundar and Riverton through the ministry, which is operated jointly by the Anglican Diocese of Rupert’s Land and the Manitoba and Northwest Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. He came up with the idea because queer people often “don’t feel safe” in a church context.

For those of you whose wokeness remains unsated by a Queer Evensong, Holy Trinity is also offering “From the Religion of Whiteness to Religion Otherwise”, a balm to sooth the nerves of all who wallow in guilty whiteness. In case you didn’t know, whiteness is a religion:

This Newcombe Lecture (presented by the department of Religion and Culture at the University of Winnipeg) engages cultural theorist W.E.B. Du Bois’ idea that Whiteness (another word for which is “settlerism”) is a religion–indeed, that it is apocalyptic cosmology. Du Bois’ creative writing will be considered for the understanding it advances of Blackness as postapocalyptic poetic living–an alternate, even fugitive way of being with the earth that hosts new relationalities, new socialities after Whiteness, or religion otherwise.

Why, I wonder, is the Anglican Church of Canada headed for extinction by 2040? It’s a mystery.