Tag Archives: Bishop Colin Johnson

The canonisation of ambiguity

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In every profession there are words that become overused to the point of exhaustion. In my profession, words like “interface”, “throughput” and “binary” have escaped from their original technical context and now run amok free from the confines of meaning, to be overused by people who have nothing to say.

That leads me to bishop Colin Johnson who, in gracing us with yet more of his pleonastic rambling on the recent general synod, has come up with a word destined to be overused by Anglican clerics everywhere: “ambiguity”. It is the only concrete belief left to the Anglican Church of Canada – the belief that contradictory beliefs can co-exist in the same belief system.

From here:

“The freedom of conscience in the Anglican experience is not only in superficial matters but even as we approach critical doctrinal issues – how we have understood baptism, the Eucharist, the scriptures, the outward and the inward expression of our faith.  We have a broad and messy tent.  Personally I’d like to clean it up, but I have lived long enough and I have been ordained long enough to know that such a house cleaning is more about me making the church to be what I would be comfortable with.  It usually has little to do with how God wants it to be.  The Anglican Church is an uncomfortable place for those who cannot deal with ambiguity.

Archbishop Colin Johnson to proceed with same-sex marriage

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Toronto bishop, Colin Johnson, states his intention to ignore the synod vote and go ahead with same-sex marriages.

The in-vogue euphemism is “thoughtful pastoral response” – an updated version of “generous pastoral response”.

Here is a transcript:

General Synod has voted by a majority but unfortunately an insufficient majority to change the Marriage Canon at this time.  This news will be devastating to the LGBTQ community, and to the many clergy and Anglicans who support them, including myself.

This “No” vote recognizes that, like Canadian society at large, our Church is not of the same mind on this issue.

As a Christian, a bishop and a Canadian, I believe this is the time to amend our Marriage Canon – and I have spoken about this in today’s debate.  My belief about this has evolved in recent years upon reflection on scripture, prayer and discussions with people across the diocese and the wider church.

Having witnessed discussions, debates and today’s vote, it is my conviction that a thoughtful pastoral response is now required for our LGBTQ  brothers and sisters who are members of the Diocese of Toronto.

The integrity and sanctity of same-sex relationships was affirmed by our church in 2004.  I know there will be some among you who will disagree with me, but I do believe that the logical next step would be to permit same-sex marriages in the Church at the pastoral discretion of the Bishop and with the agreement of local clergy.  This is an option I will be considering in the coming weeks.

I am advised that this option would not contravene the Marriage Canon, and I am confident it would be supported by the majority – even if not all – of our bishops, clergy, laity and the wider community.

I also respect that there are other convictions.  No one will be obligated to act against their conscience.  At my consecration as Bishop, I took a solemn vow to preserve the unity of our church, and that vow is central to my vocation. We are loyal members of a national church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, and in spite of obvious and understandable frustrations and anger, I believe we can and will find a way forward together. If we do this together, it will be far better than if we do it apart.

I want to underline that even if we do not agree on today’s vote, we continue to be united in the most central aspects of our faith – our baptism in Jesus Christ and our commitment to serve His people.  Because we are united at this level, we can continue to work through these important issues together – a challenge I embrace and look forward to.

Change to the centuries-old institution of marriage has come quickly, and all of us are at different points of the journey. We will continue this crucial discussion in the coming weeks, and I will be issuing a further statement at that time.

The Diocese of Toronto is not just about composting

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I thought it was, but apparently, it isn’t. As Bishop Colin Johnson tells us in this address to synod, it’s also about things like Occupy Toronto slogans and living simply.

This is not just about recycling or composting, although that might be a good start for some people. Most of us need to learn to live simply, so that others can simply live. The Occupy movement’s slogan, I think, might be more useful: “A few might be guilty, but all of us are responsible.” And so we spend time at this synod considering our environment, our place in it, our responsibility, how it is part of God’s mission.

Now he has inspired us with his address, I would like to encourage Bishop Colin to simplify his life by moving into a one room tent in St. James’ park where he will be able to continue his “long-standing work of advocacy and direct service regarding poverty, [and] homelessness” unfettered by the constraints of ecclesiastical bureaucracy.

Bishop Colin astutely notes that Occupy Toronto has managed to achieve something that has eluded the Diocese of Toronto for decades. It has:

touched something real and deep in the psyche of our world today, an anxiety and a disenfranchisement and a sense of huge loss, but what they also touched was really an active hope. That the world as it is, is not the world as it should be. One of the slogans that I saw at one of the tents really struck me. It said: “As you look around the world, does it feel right?”

The slogan was quite true, of course, although it would have been less so had the occupiers made more use of the toilets instead of the grass.

Bishop of Toronto, Colin Johnson says Occupy Toronto “needed to happen”

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According to the speaker and parrots in this video, Bishop Colin Johnson has given his blessing to Occupy Toronto.

Is this a case of the adrift leading the incoherent? Probably, but since the good bishop has taken the spiritual lead, the squatters should consider relocating around the corner from St. James Park to 135 Adelaide Street where there is a nice stretch of firm, dry pavement to camp on; it would bring them much closer to the bishop.

 

Homosexual priest reinstated in Diocese of Toronto

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To coincide with Toronto’s Pride Week, James Ferry has been reinstated as a priest in the Diocese of Toronto: 20 years ago he was dismissed because of his sexual activity with another man.  Nowadays, of course, the only priests in danger of being suspended are evangelicals who are not prepared to compromise their principles – like J. I. Packer. Such is the march of progress in the Anglican Church of Canada.

From here:

‘You Belong’ ― Gay priest Jim Ferry reinstated after 20 years as outcast

On Sunday, June 26th, 2011 the Rev. Jim Ferry’s license as priest was reinstated by Archbishop Colin Johnson of the Diocese of Toronto, and he was appointed Honorary Assistant of Holy Trinity, Trinity Square. It is 20 years since he was made an outcast by the previous Bishop of Toronto, Terence Finlay, for being in a same sex relationship. His outing and subsequent public trial in a Bishop’s Court garnered worldwide media attention.

Jim’s sermon “Pride and Prejudice” marked the opening of Toronto’s Pride Week celebrations at Holy Trinity, and highlighted the Pride 2011 theme: You Belong.

Having approved same-sex blessings, Toronto Bishop Colin Johnson calls for Charity

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Bishop Colin Johnson has sent a letter to the clergy of the Diocese of Toronto explaining his decision to allow the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese.

It contains the expected boilerplate, including this section which exhorts its readers to exercise Christian charity towards one another:

Not all will welcome this development: some because it goes too far, some because it is not nearly enough. You will note that there are strong affirmations in these guidelines assuring a continued and honoured place in all aspects of diocesan life for those who do not agree with this response.

All of us need to extend to each the most generous Christian charity that our Redeemer calls us to exercise as we, together, seek to discern and live out God’s will.

Charity – or agape love –  is explained by St. Paul in 1 Cor 13. It includes this:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

And here we have the problem: charity “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth”. What Johnson means by charity is not what St. Paul meant: charity does not require compromise on revealed truth. How can clergy who oppose same-sex blessings, out of charity, “rejoice in the truth” when they are being compelled to be an accessory to the lie that man can bless something that God has forbidden?

What Johnson means by “charity” is a mushy mealy-mouthed liberal feel-good moral relativism that wants us all to grin and nod inanely at one another as we  sink together into a morass of antinomian depravity. That isn’t charity.

Bishop Colin Johnson eats Kraft Dinner to help the hungry

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When I was young and didn’t want to eat, my grandmother used chide me with the reproach that “children in India are starving”. Being a smartass even then, I suggested she send my parsnips to them. I remain unconvinced that stuffing myself with food I don’t want will be the solution to the problem of world hunger.

Like my grandmother, Anglicans in the Diocese of Toronto – led by the doughty Bishop Colin Johnson – probably mean well, even if their endeavours suffer from the same ignorance of cause and effect as my grandmother’s. They have come up with what appears to be the obverse of my grandmother’s scheme: help hungry people by making yourself hungry too. It’s a bit like throwing yourself in the water next to a drowning man, pretending to drown with him for a while and then getting out and drying yourself off while he sinks. Why simply help someone when you can embark on a noble campaign of Social JusticeAdd an Image and Advocacy instead?

From here:

A woman flees an abusive situation and is left with nothing, not even a can opener. A disabled couple cannot work, have trouble getting around, and can barely afford to pay their bills. A boy comes to school hungry, because his father cannot afford to give him breakfast.

These are the people Ted Glover, a member of the diocese’s Social Justice and Advocacy Committee and a parishioner at St. George Memorial in Oshawa, will have in mind in October, when he lives for three days on food that would typically be handed out in a food bank hamper. They are all people he has met through his extensive volunteer work with social service organizations and his job as a teacher. The three-day diet is part of the Do the Math Challenge, a campaign that will see Anglicans, along with community leaders and other concerned citizens, calling on the government to bring about an immediate increase of $100 a month in social assistance rates, and in the longer term, revise social assistance rates based on actual local living costs….

Archbishop Colin Johnson, area bishops, and Evangelical Lutheran bishop Michael Pryse will also participate in the poverty diet.

A letter to Bishop Colin Johnson from a parishioner concerned about diocesan participation in the Toronto Pride Parade

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The letter:

Dear Bishop,

I am writing as a concerned Anglican who would like to bring to your attention a float that was present at this past Sunday’s Gay Pride Parade, a painted up double-decker bus with a banner from end to end which read PROUD ANGLICANS and which featured a great number of people semi-attired waving the gay flag about. To see this float for yourself, assuming you weren’t in attendance, please visit the youtube posting at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOnefx4zg8A&

First of all, I would like to know if this float met with Diocesan approval, and if so, why? I am aware that our church is struggling with the issue of the blessings of same sex marriage and the consecrating of gay and lesbian bishops and that a lot of people within the church are struggling in earnest with these questions. But I would suggest that most would have no problems with their reservations on either issue after seeing this display of licensed exhibitionism and decadence and I for one would like to both see and hear the Bishop of my Diocese stand up and say so publicly in order to protect the church from further embarrassment.

Secondly, I have noticed since my return from Prague, Czech Republic, (where I have spent the last 15 years) that a lot of Anglican Churches in the Toronto Diocese have the gay rainbow insignia either on their church doors or sign fronts. I would like to know if this practice too has met with Diocesan approval and the reasons, if so, why? Surely the only insignia or iconography that belongs on either a church door or sign front should be that of the particular Saint to which the church is dedicated?

From my year back in Canada I am very disappointed at all of this, and after what I witnessed this weekend my fear is that the Anglican Church is preoccupied with sharing the gospel of Church Street and not with the gospel of the Church.

Respectfully,
John McKillop

Bishop Colin’s response:

Dear John,

The focus for the diocese of Toronto is building Christian communities of hope and compassion through healthy, vibrant and life-giving congregations.  We believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is at the heart of that.  We are fully engaged in being a missional church, strengthening both the traditional ways of being church that have nurtured countless people through the centuries as well as seeking to respond where God’s Spirit is leading us in mission to those who are not in church in creative new ways.  At Synod last year, we recognised that our focus needs to be missional, and that while issues of sexuality were important, they were secondary.  We agreed by consensus that issues of same sex blessings, etc. were better dealt with pastorally than legislatively.  The diocese of Toronto is a richly diverse body representing the wide spectrum of theological, spiritual and liturgical expressions that lie within the Anglican tradition.  Some people are more intensely engaged in the sexuality issues (on the many sides of the discussion) than others or than I am.  I can think of other things that offend me more.  I said in my sermon at my installation that I wish all of us would expend as much energy on alleviating poverty and injustice as fighting about sex.

In answer to some of your comments: the float (which I did not see and to which your link did not connect me – although my children attended the Pride parade) was not diocesan sponsored, and I have no comment to make about it; the official policy of the Anglican Church is that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are welcome; those parishes which choose to use the rainbow on the sign to signify they are specifically gay-friendly can do so by their own decision processes – I could not dictate otherwise in any case, even of I were so inclined.

Welcome home from Prague.  I’m looking forward to my first visit there this summer.

The Most Rev’d Colin R. Johnson,

Archbishop of Toronto
and Metropolitan of Ontario
Anglican Diocese of Toronto
135 Adelaide St., E.,
Toronto, ON  Canada  M5C 1L8