Tag Archives: Bishop Michael Ingham

Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, destroyed by two earthquakes

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From here:

New Zealand’s second biggest city Christchurch has been hit by devastation after a major earthquake struck during the busy lunch break today.

Police said ‘multiple fatalities’ were expected and many people were trapped under the rubble after buildings and homes collapsed in the city centre.

The city was being evacuated amid fears that more buildings would come down and fires were breaking out.

Dozens of buildings have crashed down and roads have broken open as the quake ripped through the stricken city. The famous cathedral in the city centre has been destroyed.

The bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch is Victoria Matthews, a product of Wycliffe College Toronto and, at one time, in line to be Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. Although Matthews is supposedly theologically conservative, at the 2007 synod  she voted in favour of a resolution acknowledging that “the blessing of same-sex unions is not in conflict with the core doctrine of the Anglican Church of Canada”. Yet she voted against permitting same-sex blessings, encouraging a contradiction both within her church and her convictions.

The destruction of Christchurch Cathedral by an earthquake brings to mind another – what we used to call – act of God.

David Jenkins (not me – really), bishop of Durham was infamous for disbelieving in Jesus’ bodily resurrection; he called it “a conjuring trick with bones”. Naturally, he became one of the first clergymen in the Church of England to bless a civil partnership between two homosexual men, one of whom was a vicar. He was consecrated at York Minster; three days later, York Minster was struck by lightning, resulting in a catastrophic fire. Rumour has it that the sky was clear that night, and nobody heard any thunder – but there were reports of  a “sword-like stab of fire” descending from above.

Another act of God? Hard to say, but if I were Michael Ingham, I’d move to the basement.

Transsexual woman names Diocese of New Westminster in Human Rights complaint

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From here (my emphasis):Add an Image

A Vancouver transsexual has filed a human-rights complaint, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex, age, and disability after she was evicted from a downtown social-housing complex. In an interview with the Georgia Straight, Pamela Burge said she was thrown out of the Wellspring, which is at 415 Nelson Street, at the end of June. This came after the society that manages the complex claimed that she owed $1,355 in outstanding rent.

Burge, once a well-known broadcasting executive who went by the name of Tim Burge, has alleged that the real reason she was evicted was that the building administrator, Joanne Graham, did not like her because she is transsexual. Burge, 65, claimed that she did not owe any back rent, and that the society refused to acknowledge receiving her documentation of her income from social assistance and the Canada Pension Plan.

“I could never imagine this happening to me as a middle-class man or even as a regular woman,” she said.

Burge has named Graham, the 127 Society for Housing, and the Diocese of New Westminster as respondents in her complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. The Anglican church has supported the society and its name is on a plaque outside the front door of the building, but Burge said that it has absolved itself of any responsibility for her eviction.


The prospect of seeing Bishop Michael Ingham being hauled before the Human Rights Tribunal for evicting a transsexual from her apartment is an irony more delicious than any that could be concocted by the most fertile imagination. I wonder if the Anglican Journal will cover the story?

The Diocese of New Westminster redefines “mission”

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It now means “dilution”.  Bishop Michael Ingham enlightens the faithful at the 2010 synod of the Diocese of New Westminster:

Mission simply means ‘being sent.’ Put it another way – it’s where God already is and we are sent to help. There is an old view of mission that saw the world outside the church as a godless place, mired in darkness. Christians were to take the light of Christ into the darkness. But we no longer hold that triumphalist view. Many of us would agree with something the Persian poet Rumi wrote eight centuries ago: “we are all different lamps, but the light is the same.” In other words, the light is all around. All light comes from God. We have to find ways to join our light with those of others so we can illuminate the world with a great brightness, a great hope. This is our mission….

But the missional church is about much more than numbers. Alan Roxburgh is trying to teach us to get out of our buildings and find out where the light of God is already shining in our neighbourhoods. The purpose is not to grow the church but to join the light. That can mean forming partnerships with social service agencies, schools, hospitals, community organizations, other Christians, and other people of faith like Jews, Sikhs and Muslims. Mission is first and foremost about imagination. It’s a mindset. It’s about seeing God already in the world and joining in willingly to help.

According to Ingham, the view that Christ has something unique to offer – salvation, for example – is “old” and “triumphalist”. The enlightened Anglican should throw his lot in with those who are outside the church – it doesn’t seem to matter much who – to “join their light”, whatever that means. It’s hard to believe that anyone could fall for such twaddle; why was there no outcry, no mass walkout, no booing? The only explanation I can think of is that the delegates were all sound asleep.