It’s reasonably clear that Canadian Primate, Fred Hiltz, marches in lock step with TEC Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts-Schori on same-sex blessings and leftist social justice obsessions.
Here he goes again. Hiltz, in his new-year’s day sermon, said he wants to lobby the Canadian government through a church Secretariat for Government Relations:
Churches need lobby office here.
The government’s recent whack at the social justice group KAIROS has made churches realize that they’re no different than anyone else when it comes to lobbying in Ottawa. If you are not here, you are not heard. Fred Hiltz, head of the Anglican Church in Canada, floated this idea in his New Year’s sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, a stone’s throw from Parliament Hill: “We believe the cut of … funding for KAIROS denies hope for millions of people throughout the world and damages our reputation among the nations. … This crisis highlights the need for the Churches to have a Secretariat for Government Relations here in the nation’s capital. Given the multicultural and multi-religious complexion of our country, such a secretariat could reflect a strong partnership in the interest of human rights, among people of a variety of faith traditions. I believe that a secretariat of this kind would enhance our capacity to have a stronger voice in influencing the shaping of public policy, both domestic and international.”
Funnily enough, TEC has allocated $6.6M in its budget for a government Advocacy Centre:
If you had 6.6 million dollars and wanted to do something good, what would you do?
If your answer is “hire lobbyists to get the government to solve problems for you,” then you might be an Episcopalian.
What in the world does the Episcopal church want to communicate to our elected officials? Those silly resolutions passed by General Conventions of course, and it takes money to get these important messages across.
Another example of imaginative leadership from Fred Hiltz; Fred, apparently, is going to show the world the way out of the same-sex blessings mess. Stop sniggering:
If Canadian Anglicans can find a way to break through the impasse over sexuality “it could well become a vibrant model of the kind of renewed Christian community that has much to teach the wider church,”
My two cents worth (for what it’s worth) is that there are only two ways out of the “impasse over sexuality”.
1. Hiltz and company accept the fact that homosexual behaviour is a sin, anddo an about face on the issue. (Along with about faces on many other issues including the book of alternate services, easy divorce and remarriage, and woman ordination).
or
2. Continue to push the current agenda and sadly watch and wonder why the ACoC is dying, while other Anglican Churches that are Faithful to the Word of God continue to grow and take their glace in the Worldwide Anglican Communion.
Seems to me that option 2 is already well under way with the ACoC planning on closing dozens of Parishes in the very near future while the ACiNA is planning on planting 1,000 new Congregations over the next five years.