Tag Archives: Anglican

An Anglican Entmoot

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The Anglican Consultative Council is meeting in Jamaica in early May.

At the last meeting, the ACoC and TEC were not allowed to play because they had been naughty boys; this time, however, after all the “gracious restraint” that has been exercised by both provinces – in the form of court battles, the continued blessing of same-sex unions and lack of censure of gay bishops and clergy –  the provinces are being welcomed back into the sand pit for a romp with the other primates. Which goes to show that the ACoC and TEC are not so daft after all: if you waffle incomprehensibly for a long enough time, everyone will forget why you were booted out in the first place and you will be welcomed back as one of the boys again; or girls; or hermaphrodites.

The last time the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) met, in 2005, Canadian and American delegates sat on the sidelines. They were there to “attend but not participate” after their churches were censured for their more-liberal stand on the contentious issue of homosexuality.

At this year’s meeting, scheduled May 1 to 13 in Kingston, Jamaica, Canadian and American delegates are joining representatives from 36 other provinces of the Anglican Communion, but the issue that brought about their exclusion in 2005 remains very much on the radar

Once the delegates have all arrived, each on a separate aeroplane, they will be engaged in vital discussions on Anglicanism in the 21st century – such has global warming, continued listening on human sexuality (I understand there will be microphones in the bedrooms) and  relieving poverty – in between Island tours, visits with the Governor-General and the catered dining.

The document I found particularly interesting was The Bible in the Life of the Church.

The essential question that needs to be addressed by ‘The Bible in the Life of the Church’ project is, ‘What do we mean when we say that we are a Church that lives under Scripture?’

The document goes on to describe a 3 year project by a 10 – 12 member steering committee and 5 – 6 regional groups.

The really essential questions are actually: what has the church being doing for the last 500 years and why has it taken this long to discover that the Anglican Church has no idea how to use the Bible?

I think the answers are obvious: for the last 500 years the Anglican Church has been using the bible as the guidebook for how to live. This study is intended to find a way out of that narrow perspective in order to embrace all that the 21st century has to offer – like gay sex – without being noticed.

George Pitcher bids a cheery farewell to Bishop Nazir-Ali

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George Pitcher’s pitch:

Dr Nazir-Ali’s departure signals the end of Anglicanism’s damaging schism, says George Pitcher.
Again, it’s important not to read too much in to Dr Nazir-Ali’s resignation itself. He has had the See of Rochester for 15 years; at not yet 60, he has another career in him yet. But can anyone seriously suggest that, had those biblical traditionalists of the southern hemisphere, known collectively as the Global South, prevailed last year in overthrowing the authority of Canterbury in favour of an African-led Communion, he would have abandoned his important foothold in the English Church?

No. Dr Nazir-Ali, scourge of homosexual liberalism and what he sees as the Muslim threat to Christendom, pitched his tent with the African rebels, under the flag of the unfortunately named Gafcon, but now finds that army dispersed and demoralised.

In the upside-down world of liberalism, a rebel and schismatic is someone who holds to 2000 years of established Christian doctrine, while a crumbling colonial edifice entrenched in an old boy network of back-slapping bishops that boast about making up their own rules is the standard-bearer of all that is proper and decent.

In fact, it is the largely decadent western expression of Anglicanism that is rebellious and schismatic; it is the one that has departed from received doctrine.

Once Pitcher has established that it is “important not to read too much in to Dr Nazir-Ali’s resignation”, he does just that. I have no idea why Dr Nazir-Ali’s has decided to change careers and neither does Pitcher, I imagine. One thing that Pitcher’s article does reveal, though is that a liberal finds the idea of eschewing ecclesiastical power – which is not much different to secular power – impossible to understand unless it is because the power has failed to achieve its ends. What seems to beyond Pitcher’s grasp is that God may have called Nazir-Ali to do something else and Nazir-Ali is more interested in what God wants than a pointed hat.

As for Gafcon’s army being dispersed and demoralised, there are millions of Gafcon/Foca Anglicans who are completely unaware of that – because it isn’t true.

Stephen Sizer, the Evangelical left and Israel

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Some reverend gentlemen find politics irresistible:

“Why have Britain and America become the focus of so much hatred from the Islamic world?” Sizer further asked. “Why are our countries the target for Islamist terrorism – despite our commitment to the rule of international law, democracy and human rights?” For Sizer the reasons are clear: “The answers to these questions remain inexplicable unless we factor in what is now probably the most influential and destructive movement amongst Christians today – Christian Zionism.”

There are a number of problems with Stephan Sizer’s position on what he calls Christian Zionism:

This first is in the article above: he wilfully resists common sense explanations. Thus, he sees the cause of the hatred directed against the West by Islamists as explainable only by a conspiracy of Christian Zionism; for some reason he cannot see the obvious – and true, in my opinion – reason that Islamists hates a free society simply because it is not Islamist. Such a concept should be easy to grasp for an evangelical Christian, since it is a straightforward application of Jeremiah 17:9.

The second is less obvious: it is the couching of left wing political tendentiousness in biblical language in order to give it the weight of theological authority. Simply put, Sizer is saying God is on the side of his politics:

That is why I believe passionately that we must find peaceful, democratic, non-violent, constructive ways to express their anger and frustration at the appalling suffering in Gaza during the recent attacks and the ongoing military occupation of Palestine which denies millions of people their basic human rights. We must not to seek revenge or retaliation as this will only play into the hands of extremists on both sides. Violence breeds violence. Jesus said “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

The above sounds very fine, particularly the last sentence. But the facts are questionable and the implication is that the violence so far has been entirely on the part of Israel, giving Hamas an opportunity to take the high moral ground by not retaliating; once they come out from their hiding places behind babies and civilians.

The alliance between the West and Israel is a political one between democracies that share similar values; it isn’t based on biblical prophesy as Sizer would have us believe:

“Christian Zionism is [essentially] a political movement within Protestant evangelical Christianity that views the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, [mandated by God] thus deserving our unconditional economic, moral, political, and theological support.”

While there is nothing wrong with Christians having political opinions, a minister whose political message overshadows – and is disseminated under the pretence of being inspired by – the gospel damages the gospel, the credibility of the minister and renders the numinous commonplace.

Granny Goosebumps

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This could only happen in the Anglican Church. From the Anglican Journal

Grannies take it off in support of HIV orphansAdd an Image
Calendar sales help African orphans

Meet Ms. June, Jennifer Davis, one of 12 grandmothers who appear in the Quinte Grannies for Africa calendar. The Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign will aid grandmothers in Africa. She wore this veil at her wedding on June 19, 1971 at Holy Trinity (Anglican) Church in Toronto.

Twelve grandmothers from the diocese of Ontario have taken off their clothes for a 2009 calendar to raise funds for the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, which helps support African grandmothers who are taking care of their grandchildren orphaned by HIV-AIDS.

I know its succumbing to bribery, but I am willing to make a donation: if the cavorting naked grannies would put their clothes back on.

Chatting with J. I. Packer

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I first met Dr. Packer about 28 years ago. I was a fairly new Christian with all the naivety, enthusiasm and questions common to this affliction. I was fortunate enough not only to be next to the great man in the lunch line, but to sit opposite him during lunch. Having seen the fate suffered by someone who disagreed with him, I decided for the most part to keep my opinions to myself and simply ask questions. A lot of questions. One was this: the Anglican church appears to be bent on a course of self destruction; why stay in it? Dr. Packer is a gracious man, even to impudent whippersnappers, so he patiently explained to me the richness of the Anglican heritage and worship. So I stayed.

One of the things he said then stuck in my mind: I asked what had gone wrong. He said that, as a result of the Enlightenment, people had ceased to believe in God’s propositional revelation.  I reminded him of this last Friday; he said “hmm, I would probably put it differently now”. Which leads me to last Friday.

I was sitting in the first ever ANiC synod listening to financial statements, when I was asked if I would like to interview Dr. Packer or continue listening to the financial statements. With the enthusiasm of a man who has been reprieved from a tooth extraction without anaesthetic, I chose the interview. There were 3 journalists interviewing Dr. Packer – and me.

A lot was said; so much that there was a concern that it might be too much for Dr. Packer. He said, no, a professor likes talking to his students. Although physically a lot more frail than the last time I saw him, he has lost none of his mental acuity, nor his sense of humour, nor his graciousness. I referred to one of his arguments as “compelling”, something which, apparently, was kind of me.

Time passed and dinner arrived; we ate together. Dr. Packer was pretty insistent on procuring chairs for everyone, but he was persuaded to sit down and let others do it. Eventually, the other journalists left and I had him all to myself.

Nevertheless, so many questions, so little time.

I reminded Dr. Packer of his ‘propositional revelation’ remark of 28 years ago. Here is the argument today: Jesus is God in the flesh; did he use words to communicate? Yes, therefore, God uses words to communicate; can that be extended to Scripture? Yes, because Jesus did. How do liberals wriggle out of this? They refuse to engage the argument at all. They are implicitly Unitarian.

How can liberals keep referring to the Holy Spirit and yet get everything so wrong? Because they do not view the Holy Spirit as a person: to a liberal, the Holy Spirit is another way of saying “God in action”. Therefore, once consensus is reached, the liberal declares it to be a work of the Holy Spirit.

Theologians today tend to suffer from parochialism: they know more and  more about less and less. Their minds have been narrowed.

I have a habit of referring to the ACoC as an organisation that is no longer Christian. What does Dr. Packer think? He puts it like this: many dioceses and the ACoC itself have leaders that are sub-Christian. As a result, many of those they lead are also sub-Christian.

What about Tom Wright? It seems to me, I said, that he has placed church hierarchy above the gospel. You are not the first to say that, said Dr. Packer; nevertheless, he is a brilliant man. His large books are better than his short ones, apparently. He said more that I would rather not go into, but it included the words: ‘ego’ ‘blog’ and ‘Tom Wright’. And had Rowan not been given the ABC job, Tom Wright would probably have been next in line. Power corrupts – that’s my comment, not Dr. Packer’s.

Every week, Malcolm Muggeridge used to declare that Western Civilisation was about to collapse; what does Dr. Packer think? He agrees. We are living in a post-Christian era whose roots have been destroyed. We used to believe in the validity of Christianising an institution because we believed in the truth of Christianity; no more.

Does Dr. Packer really think that Rowan Williams should resign? He was not happy with David Virtue’s headline “J. I. Packer calls on Rowan Williams to resign”, later to be picked up by every other miscreant in blogger land. What he actually said was “he is not qualified to lead the Anglican Communion and enforce the rules laid down at the Lambeth Conference in 1998”. The reason for this is that he is attempting to publicly uphold the 1998 Lambeth ruling while privately disagreeing with it. At the very least, said Dr. Packer, on this issue he should defer to someone who is not subject to that dichotomy.

Another journalist asked Dr. Packer if he believes in demons. Yes, in the same way that C. S. Lewis did. And does he believe in spiritual warfare? There was an interesting answer: he does not believe that demonic forces engineer cultural trends, but that they take advantage of them. Dr. Packer thinks that a lot of damage has been done by those that believe otherwise. We didn’t have time to probe this further.

A lot more was said; I was the only person there without a tape recorder – an omission that led to a lot of self kicking.

J. I. Packer is now Theologian Emeritus to ANiC. We are in good hands.

No swinging vicars in the CofE. Exclusion!

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They are such killjoys.

From Here

Church of England bans swinging, drinking vicar from practising

A female vicar who told colleagues that she went on swinging holidays in the South of France and who turned up drunk to church services has been banned from practising for 12 years by the Church of England.

The Rev Teresa Davies, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, was found guilty of inappropriate conduct at a tribunal in London yesterday.

Mrs Davies was said to have told two church colleagues at a Christmas lunch in 2006 that she and her husband had spent holidays without their children in the South of France, in an area that she said was noted for “the casual exchange of sexual partners”.

The tribunal also heard that Mrs Davies, 37, and her husband had posted under the name “Tess and Mick, Daventry” on swinging websites.

My dear Tess, you should have claimed to be out of touch with your inner lesbian and only got up to these naughty pranks to compensate; then you would have been fine.

Still, you can swing away for 12 years and then come back, it seems.

The Invasion of St. Hilda’s.

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The latest Niagara Anglican has an article on the Niagara diocesan squatters . To read it all, go here and scroll down to page 9; there is a similar article by Martha Tatarnic on page 1. Here is some of it:

St. Hilda’s, Oakville: A church that is just a church
LUCINDA LANDAU
In the midst of a break-up, something new is being born. A church community without a budget, committees, staff or even an altar guild is beginning to grow at St. Hilda’s in Oakville. “A church that is just a church,” is the approach of the newly appointed Priest-in-charge, Reverend Martha Tatarnic. “At this moment in time,” said Rev. Martha, “we have the unique opportunity of gathering simply as Church to worship and to be a community.”

When Lucinda tells us that the diocese has not allocated a budget for this political occupation masquerading as a church, she is correct. Poor Rev. Martha has not been given a cent by the diocese; but then, neither have we (the real ANiC St. Hilda’s) even though the court has ordered the diocese to share the cost of running the building. Now, to be fair, the diocese, in a moment of what I can only assume was feeble-minded magnanimity, offered to cover one seventh – 14.29% – of the cost.

Since the diocese is occupying the building when we would normally have our Sunday service and is there for no particular reason at other times of the week, we said, no, you should pay more. The diocese refused; in the case of such disagreement, the court ruled that an arbitrator should be appointed; the diocese refused. So the diocese is in contempt of court and we are paying all the bills. This is chronicled here and here. Since that was posted, the furnace that heats the sanctuary broke (we no longer use the sanctuary). Guess who leapt in like a flash to offer to pay and fix it? Correct, not the diocese; we couldn’t let Martha’s poor lambs freeze, so we paid (well, my teeth were gritted somewhat).

The invitation to attend Sunday worship at St. Hilda’s 8:30 a.m. service is open to everyone, with a particular invitation to those who are members of St. Hilda’s but have not agreed, or felt comfortable, with the decision to split. Right now the service is also supported by parishioners from St. Jude’s, Oakville.

I’ll say it again: the vote at St. Hilda’s to join ANiC was unanimous; there was no-one who disagreed with the decision to realign. None; zero; nil; zip; zilch; naught; zippo; n/infinity. Got it yet?

This paragraph does clear up one little mystery, though. During the tenure of the adorable Rev. Dr. Brian Ruttan, there were actually no people attending the diocesan service; none; zero; nil…. Well, you get the point. Martha on the other hand pulls in around 15 cars each Sunday. Who are these people? I have always suspected that this massive influx was not a result of the New Evangelism . The more likely explanation was that Martha brought people with her from St. Jude’s (her last parish) a few miles away in downtown Oakville. And this, it seems is indeed the case.

Which leads me to the obvious question: what is it that these stalwart St. Jude’s parishioners do in St. Hilda’s – by now – musty, damp, faux-50s, threadbare-orange-carpeted sanctuary that they cannot do in the plush, warm and handsome St. Jude’s? Why, make a political statement, of course! I am sure that, at the next court appearance – which could be as early as December –  the diocese will want to point to something that has the appearance of a viable congregation even though this was said by one of their own.

We are compelled to do the majority of our community building outside the church walls – ironically,the limitations imposed by the court on our access to the church buildings may turn out to be our finest asset.

I have a way of enhancing your finest asset; stop occupying the building and leave it for those who paid for it – and continue to pay for it.

We gather in a building that is at the centre of intense legal scrutiny and unchristian argument.

That quote is from Martha’s article. Martha, the ‘unchristian argument’ is taking place in the courts; it is your employer, the Diocese of Niagara who initiated the court proceedings. Moreover, your diocese has repeatedly rejected requests by ANiC to negotiate outside the courts.

So, if you find the idea of church without bureaucracy appealing, if you are looking for “eckleisa” in its simplest form, come out and experience a fresh approach to worship at St. Hilda’s in Oakville.

This is a Diocese of Niagara church, right? The diocese has no bureaucracy? They’ve all been fired? They must be more broke than I thought.

c/p Essentials blog

Rowan vs the House of Lords

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From the Guardian

The House of Lords today drew stark attention to the conflict between sharia and UK law, calling the Islamic legal code “wholly incompatible” with human rights legislation.

The remarks came as the Lords considered the case of a woman who, if she was sent back to Lebanon, would be obliged under sharia law to hand over custody of her 12-year-old son to a man who beat her, threw her off a balcony and, on one occasion, attempted to strangle her.

The woman was seeking asylum in the UK to avoid the provisions of sharia law that give fathers or other male family members the exclusive custody of children over seven.

In the most high-profile UK criticism of the family law provisions of sharia law so far, the Lords stated that these provisions breached the mother’s rights to family life and the right against discrimination and were severely disruptive to the child.

Contrast this reasonable and clear-sighted view of reality on planet earth to that of Rowan Williams, the Mr. Bean of the Anglican church:

From the BBC:

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

Not only does Rowan think parts of Sharia might be a Good Thing, he picks the bits that would allow a demented Muslim husband to abuse his wife and child.

The new Anglislam

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The Archbishop of Canterbury says theological differences separate Islam from Christianity. Here

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, admitted yesterday that the Christian and Muslim faiths are so fundamentally different that both sides are still unable to understand each other properly.
Dr Williams, speaking at an interfaith conference in Cambridge, said that it was possible for Islam and Christianity, two of the three Abrahamic faiths, to agree around the imperatives to love God and “love your neighbour”. Muslims and Christians agree about the need to alleviate both poverty and suffering, he said.

Is anyone particularly surprised that ‘theological differences separate Islam from Christianity’? Rowan Williams appears to be struggling to find similarities – a requirement of the new style of Politically Correct Evangelism, I expect. Pretty soon he will probably be declaring that Anglicanism and Islam are essentially equivalent. That, of course, is because an Anglican can believe just about anything he likes – except that Jesus is the Son of God, rose physically from the dead and was born of a virgin: believing that make you a fundamentalist.

The process has already started: Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest, converted to Islam over a year ago – while remaining an Episcopal priest – and apparently sees no conflict between the two belief systems.

Happy-Clappy or Effete Aesthete

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A few years ago when I was in Salisbury, my wife and I attended an evensong in Salisbury Cathedral. The choir was exquisite and the acoustics perfect. In the bulletin was a notice to the effect that the congregation should not join in with the choir since it would almost certainly ruin the whole performance.

What the comment revealed was that the evensong was primarily an aesthetic rather than a religious experience: the choir were the performers and the congregation the audience. The performance made the paltry efforts of the average congregational singing sound like the caterwauling of tormented hyenas. The choir’s singing, on the other hand, conveyed a sense of God’s majesty and perfection. What it was not, however, was an act of congregational worship, since an expression of worship takes participation.

Sadly, in liturgical churches aesthetics are frequently mistaken for worship: when we worship, God is the audience, the congregation are the performers and, if their hearts are right with him, the apparent aesthetic value is of little consequence.

That is why this article by Damian Thompson is thoroughly mixed up:

Graham Kendrick, composer of the most loathed of all happy-clappy hymns, “Shine Jesus Shine”, has been named by Quentin Letts in a new book as one of the 50 People Who B*ggered up Britain. I can hear cheers emanating from pews up and down the country.

But Quentin is an old friend of mine, and I want to tell him: be careful. Kendrick is not one of the useless, drippy mediocrities who have ruined Catholic music with their folk Masses. He is – and I’m not making this up – a leading practitioner of what he calls “spiritual warfare”, and he may well conclude that Letts’s attack is demonic.

Letts certainly pitches into Kendrick with devilish glee, describing him as “the nation’s preeminent churner-outer of evangelical bilge, king of the happy-clappy banalities … Pam Ayres without the humour”. And he adds: “The jazzy chorus of ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ is particular agony, accompanied, as it often is, by a couple of emotionally incontinent show-offs in the front pews raising their arms and swinging them from side to side.”

What will Kendrick make of that? I dread to think. For he is not just a hymn-writer, but a leading proponent of a scarily hard-edged theology of spiritual warfare in which the earth is crawling with demons. Or, as he once wrote: “Satan has the real estate of villages, towns and cities overshadowed by ruling spirits which work untiringly to bring about his malevolent will.”

As for the proposition that demons are at work in the world: does anyone who has recently picked up a newspaper have any doubts?

The photo of the raised arms is there just for Damian and Quentin.