Tag Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

Why we believe what we do

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In his book Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens makes the point that both atheists and theists believe as they do simply because they choose to do so. In the case of atheism, it is generally a choice made from self-interest: if we admit that God exists we must also admit he might very well require something of us, something we may not wish to give.

Mainline churches have incorporated and refined this whole process, especially when dealing with the gay issue. The Anglican Church has produced endless papers, theological reflections and conversations on why, for 2000 years, the church had it wrong. All a learned smokescreen designed to conceal the real reason: compared to the general population, there is a disproportionately high number of gay clergy who wish not only to continue living with their same-sex partners, but to have their employer’s approval of the arrangement.

The same principle applies vicariously: people like Tony Campolo and Michael Coren who used to oppose gay marriage are now all for it. Not because the arguments have changed, but because condoning the lifestyle of their gay friends affords them feelings of fuzzy comfort – our contemporary substitute for love – whereas disagreement, however truly loving, can be so….. well, unpleasant, intolerant and hurtful.

None of this is new, of course: Peter Hitchens wrote about Aldous Huxley’s view of it here:

The  interesting bit , for this part of the argument, begins at the bottom of page 269, where Huxley is discussing the reality of the ‘meaning’ which we like to give to the world and our actions within it.

‘This is a question’, says Huxley, ‘which, a few years ago, I should not even have posed. For, like so many of my contemporaries, I took it for granted that there was no meaning’…

‘…I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…

‘Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know *because we don’t want to know*(my emphasis). It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless…’

[…..]

‘No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is always mingled to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers, to justify a given form of personal or social behaviour, to rationalize the traditional prejudices of a given class or community.’

Anglican bishop likens global warming to atomic bombing of Hiroshima

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Canadian bishop Mark MacDonald reckons the same forces that were responsible for bombing Hiroshima are now at work wreaking climatic havoc.

To the best of my knowledge, MacDonald is not an expert on the Second World War, a nuclear scientist or a climatologist. Nevertheless, he is a bishop so we can expect – even forgive, perhaps – an unending stream of advice on matters of which he is entirely ignorant; since he is an Anglican bishop that would usually include theology.

From here:

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 revealed the brutality and dangerous logic of war, money and power, according to an Indigenous Anglican bishop from Canada.

“That such a thing can make sense in any universe gives insight into what is happening in the world today,” says Bishop Mark MacDonald of the Anglican Church in Canada. “The forces that led to the bombing of Hiroshima are at work now in the destruction of the climate.”

[…..]

“The role of the church today is to confront the destructive gods of greed and power. We Christians need to return to our roots, proclaim the truth of God and challenge these powers,” the bishop states.

I was under the impression that the role of the church is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Replacing the Gospel with Interfaith Collaboration

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If Jesus is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, the only way to the Father, the propitiation for our sins, God’s only Son, the Logos who is eternally pre-existent, begotten not made – if he is who he claims to be – then all religions other than Christianity fall disastrously short of being true.

The Anglican Church of Canada, an organisation that has been uncomfortable with undiluted truth for decades, is offering $10,000 grants to anyone willing to water down the Gospel with just about anything so long as it bears no resemblance to Christianity.

PicFrom here:

Echoing principles laid out in the Marks of Mission, the Anglican Foundation of Canada (AFC) is offering five one-time grants of $10,000 each for new community service or outreach projects that involve interfaith collaboration. Requests for proposals are due Sept. 1, 2015.

The grants are part of a new tradition for the Foundation, which beginning in 2014 pledged to set aside $50,000 each year to encourage and fund innovative ministry-related projects through a request-for-proposals process.

This year’s interfaith focus is designed to meet human need through loving service. Projects eligible for the grant will be new initiatives undertaken in 2016 that involve collaboration between Anglicans and individuals or groups from at least one religion other than Christianity.

Primate hopes marriage canon debates will be respectful

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The object on which an Anglican bishop rests his hope rarely fails to confirm my low expectations.

Fred Hiltz could be hoping that the outcome of the debate will align with the Biblical understanding of marriage or, to say it another way, with God’s will for a Christian marriage. Instead, he hopes that there will not be too much squabbling.

From here:

Archbishop Fred Hiltz said he is aware that there is anxiety among Anglicans about how the 2016 General Synod will deal with a motion amending the marriage canon (church law) to allow the marriage of same-sex couples.

Hiltz expressed hope that the debates that will precede any decision will be conducted with respect and patience.

He is praying, he added, that people will “know the leading of the Holy Spirit” and that there will be “grace in the midst of what will be a very difficult and challenging conversation.”

[……]

In July 2013, General Synod — the church’s governing body — approved Resolution C003, which asked Council of General Synod (CoGS) to prepare and present a motion to change the church’s Canon 21 on marriage “to allow the marriage of same-sex couples in the same way as opposite-sex couples.”

It also asked that this motion include “a conscience clause so that no member of the clergy, bishop, congregation or diocese should be constrained to participate in our authorize [sic] such marriages against the dictates of their conscience.”

It’s hard to take the prayer “know the leading of the Holy Spirit” seriously, since the “conscience clause” (not that anyone takes that particularly seriously since those that exercise it will be ridiculed, ostracised and eventually driven out) anticipates disunity, something that would not be present if the delegates were more interested in being informed by the Holy Spirit than in using him as rubber stamp for their own opinions.

Anglicans protest biosolids

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From here:

Partially-processed human waste—known in the industry as “biosolids”—are being dumped onto a 320-acre patch of former ranch land not far from where the Spius Creek flows into the Nicola River, and concerns about the safety of the practice have led local First Nations to impose a moratorium on the practice and local concerned citizens to enforce a blockade to keep more waste from entering the valley.

[…]

From the very beginning of the protest, many of the strongest voices have been Anglican.

Due to exposure to the endless indaba-ized conversations indiscriminately inflicted on the attendees of Anglican Church of Canada Synods, many Anglicans possess a unique awareness of the toxic effects of partially-processed human waste.

Anglican Church of Canada has Companion Relationships with African Anglicans

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The Anglican Church of Canada is attempting to quell rumours of division and dissent within the Anglican Communion through something it calls Companion Relationships.

Contrary to what the Primate of the ACoC would like us to believe, though, when convincing African and Western Anglican bishops to merely sit in the same room and discuss anything other than their disagreements is viewed as a triumph of reconciliation, all it does is drive home just how broken the Anglican Communion really is.

Needless to say, it was the ACoC and TEC that did the breaking.

From here:

It was also a manifestation of what Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, had noted about the nature of relationships that exist within the Anglican Communion.

“For some people, when they think of the [Anglican] Communion, they immediately think division, dissension,” but a very different picture was evident in the companion relationships represented at this consultation, Hiltz said. He described these relationships as honest, healthy, vibrant and growing.

Although the bishop of the diocese of Central Buganda did not attend the meeting due to tensions between the church in Uganda and other parts of the Communion, Hiltz said that other clergy within that diocese attended “enthusiastically, really looking forward to the opportunity to be together and to talk across relationships.” Differences over contentious issues such as human sexuality weren’t part of the discussion “or even the subtext,” he told the Anglican Journal in an interview after he returned to Canada.

Anglican Church of Canada: mission and the big picture

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I have two rain barrels fed by the water running into the downspout from my roof. Up until now, I had no idea how to link my rain barrels to the “big picture” of the mission of the church. Come to think of it, I still have no idea but, I’m happy to say, St. James the Apostle Church in Ottawa is going to find out.

I am awaiting the answer with bated breath because I have been labouring under the naïve delusion that the barrels were just handy for supplying water to the garden. I have been blissfully unaware of the cosmic and possibly transcendent significance of a barrel of water with a few leaves floating in it.

From here:

Creation Matters, the environmental working group of the Anglican Church of Canada, has partnered with Greening Sacred Spaces to offer a program subsidizing “green building audits” for parishes.

[…..]

Enthusiastic beneficiaries of the Green Audit program include two Ottawa churches, St. James the Apostle Church and the Church of St. John the Evangelist.

Following the audit recommendations, St. James installed a rain barrel to help cut water consumption, as well as a composter. Meanwhile, a parish team began exploring opportunities to link the “big picture” audit findings to enhancing mission work.

I forget to mention that I also have not one but two composters. Last week, as I was digging a dead rat out of one of them, I thought to myself: this will be the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. I have to stop now; I’m getting all emotional.

Michael Coren still hasn’t found what he’s looking for

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Michael Coren is exercising his newly minted liberalism in the Anglican Church of Canada, a denomination that will probably temporarily suit him well considering his about-face on just about everything he stood for when he wrote “Why Catholics are Right” – or, as he should retitle it, “Why Catholics used to be Right”. I doubt that he’ll be permanently happy in the ACoC: some time ago, when asked why he didn’t become an Anglican he replied, “I’m sick of arguing with atheists in the pulpit”. An exaggeration of the type, as this article will attest, that annoys him when employed to poke fun at the dizzying oscillations of his public persona.

Here are some highlights:

The change was to a large extent triggered by the gay issue. I couldn’t accept that homosexual relationships were, as the Roman Catholic Church insists on proclaiming, disordered and sinful. Once a single brick in the wall was removed the entire structure began to fall.

I refused to base my entire world view and theology, as so many active Catholics do, around abortion, contraception and sex rather than love, justice and forgiveness.

I am not a Roman Catholic but I am quite sure that Catholic theology does not rest on a foundation of opposing homosexuality, contraception and abortion, nor do active Catholics have that as a basis for their personal – not that there should be any such thing for a Roman Catholic – theology; the fact that Coren refers to “my theology” is in itself suspicious. As I mentioned above, this is an exaggeration so ridiculous, it is laughable – and yet it does appear to be the bedrock upon which Michael Coren has decided to base his denominational allegiance.

Frankly, it was tearing me apart. I wanted to extend the circle of love rather than stand at the corners of a square and repel outsiders. So I quietly and privately drifted over to an Anglican Church that while still working out its own position on many social issues, is far more progressive, open, relevant and willing to admit reality.

“Extending the circle of love” is an Anglican Church of Canada speciality. The motto of the General Synod of 2007 was “Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still”. It goes without saying that the further the circle of love is extended, the fewer people want to be in it. The openness and relevance of the ACoC has driven more people out in less time than any competing crackpot approach in the history of the church.

Michael Coren is obviously restless. As St. Augustine said: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee”; I hope that he finds that rest – I’d be surprised if he finds it in the arms of the ACoC.

Highlights from the Council of General Synod

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The Council of General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada met in May to discuss, among other things, anti-racism, repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, Vision 2019, and how to mangle the Marriage Canon.

The complete highlights can read here, but for those who are reluctant to wade through that ponderous document and would like a summary of how effectively these deliberations will further the Kingdom of Christ in the twenty first century, the following extract will suffice:

Council members took a short coffee break from 10:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

The Anglican Church of Canada’s marriage canon report

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In 2014, the Anglican Church of Canada set up a commission to consider whether the marriage canon should be changed to include marrying same sex couples. The chair of the commission announced that “everyone [in the commission] has an open mind”. It’s hard to believe, I know, but some were suspicious of this declaration of openness; after all, in Angli-speak, an “open mind” is code for “we’ve made up our minds but we want to lull the gullible into a false sense of security”. “Open mind” is just so much more succinct.

To bolster the façade, the commission invited Anglicans to submit their opinions and many have done just that.

Now the report is ready for at least internal consumption, it appears that the sceptics were right. Bishop Linda Nicholls has clearly stated that the commission did not try to determine whether there is any Biblical or theological warrant for marrying same-sex couples. Its task, she says, was to squeeze from the Biblical texts a justification for marrying same sex-couples whether one exists there or not: Anglican sophistry at its finest. Apparently, this revelation is “still not being heard”. This can only mean that the level of deceit has reached such proportions that the few remaining members of the ACoC have turned off their hearing aids in disgust.

My emphasis:

Bishop Linda Nicholls, commission member, spoke about the content of the report and initially about the commission’s mandate. “Our task was to provide the support for a change to the marriage canon. It wasn’t a debate whether a change was necessary or right to do, that will be the determination of General Synod,” she said. “It is a fine point but it is one we have to keep telling people because it is still not being heard.”

The report will include a consideration of the Solemn Declaration of 1893 (which established the Anglican Church of Canada), a consideration of the biblical and theological rationale for same-sex marriage, the wording of an amendment to the marriage canon to permit same-sex marriage, including a conscience clause. “We gathered a legal opinion on the conscience clause and how it might be worded so that it could provide the space for all members of the Anglican Church of Canada if it this were too pass,” said Nicholls. “The largest section will be the biblical and theological rationale,” she added.

Despite protestations that there are more important factors in being an Anglican than sex, Fred Hiltz has finally admitted that sex really is the uppermost thing on the minds of pastorally sensitive clergy. We all knew that. Even Michael Coren knows that.

“What’s churning in my gut and rumbling through my soul is that this matter is one of the most critical and crucial matters before our church”