Tag Archives: Bishop Susan Bell

Mangling the Gospel with Bishops Bell and Cottrell

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The Diocese of Niagara’s bishop Susan Bell recently had a chat with Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York. Cottrell, we are told, is “an engaging and sophisticated leader, theologian, speaker, and writer”. The best that the Church of England has to offer; in which case, at least we now know why the CofE is in drastic decline.

Naturally, Susan Bell asked Stephen Cottrell to give us the benefit of his learning on climate change. Cottrell, we can only assume, is a renowned climatologist in addition to being a sophisticated leader and theologian. Here is part of his reply (my emphasis):

What a good question. Is there a more important question facing the world?

I think I would start by…two things…on the big picture level I think we need to teach much more about this. This needs to be not a kind of add-on to the Gospel; this is the Gospel…how we inhabit the world in the way of Christ…this is the Gospel. So, I’d want to preach and teach about it much more… good to hear that Canada is ahead as usual…it’s even in your Baptismal liturgy. It’s those things that start to impress it into our consciousness. This is what it means to follow Christ.

So there you have it: the good news of Jesus Christ is fixing climate change. This is why Jesus died on the cross. This is the cause for which countless Christians have been martyred. This is what gives meaning and purpose to life. This is incoherent tripe.

And Canada is at the forefront in peddling it.

Diocese of Niagara does have faith after all – in the vaccine

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Here are two different church posters proclaiming the good news. See if you can spot the difference:

Church one, which will remain anonymous because of the outrageous claims of its message:

And church two, the Diocese of Niagara:

Diocese of Niagara closes churches for Christmas

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That’s one way to celebrate Christmas.

From here:

Bishop issues new lockdown ministry guidelines for the city’s parishes
POSTED DECEMBER 15, 2020

Effective December 15, Bishop Susan Bell has suspended all permissions to re-open for in-person worship previously granted to parishes within the City of Hamilton in accordance with the Amber Stage of the ecclesiastical province’s re-opening framework.

“While we have continued confidence in our pandemic protocols, this decision is being made as a sacrificial witness to the wider community that now is a time to stay at home for the love of our neighbours and in order to protect the most vulnerable in our communities,” wrote Archdeacon Bill Mous, diocesan executive officer, in an email message to clergy and lay leaders.

Considering that most Diocese of Niagara churches are half empty at the best of times, I doubt that the “wider community” will even notice this “sacrificial witness”.

Bishop Susan Bell has made another sacrifice: she sacrificed common sense, freedom of choice and freedom of religion on the altar of the god of the age by signing a petition to end gay conversion therapy. At least the diocese is consistent: it opposes converting anyone to anything, including Christianity.

Liberals experience epiphany: suddenly decide to take Bible seriously.

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Theological liberals try not to take the bible too seriously, so they don’t particularly care when, as an art project, someone rips it up and plasters satanic images over an image of Christ. No Anglican bishops denounced this; after all, it’s only a book and there is nothing you can do to it that rises to the level of blasphemy.

Except when Donald Trump uses it as a political prop. Then, suddenly, blasphemy!

This was blasphemy. In the most authentic and repugnant sense, it was blasphemy.

If only Susan Bell and Michael Coren would pay attention to what it says instead of who is holding it.

Bishop of Niagara has the solution to church decline

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In an open letter to her flock, Susan Bell, bishop of the Diocese of Niagara has set a record for the most italicised words ever to appear in a diocesan epistle. She used those italics to emphasis that the prediction that her denomination will cease to exist by 2040 is a call, not to hand-wringing, but to fighting a “climate crisis”. In doing so we will be “working to establish the kingdom of God”.

The message was delivered to the bishop by a beatific vision of St. Greta of Thunberg, patron saint of the church of the immaculate imminent extinction.

From here:

I want to talk to you about the future; and about some intimations about what we might be being called to – and maybe what we’re being called away from.  All of that is much more interesting than the hand-wringing of recent weeks.

Is this a crisis?  Yes.  A holy one, I believe.  The question is, how do we respond?  Well we are Christ-followers and so I’d humbly suggest that we need to do just that:  follow Jesus and listen for God’s voice to guide us.

I am firmly of the belief that God has gifted us with this time.  I am not being Pollyanna.  I mean this.  We have come to the end of a time in which the Church was a dominant force in our culture.  That is an undisputed fact.  And yet not one that should make us despair.  We’ve had a good run.

But I also believe that we are being called to deep engagement with our faith and simultaneously, and our behavior as a culture.  As an example, take the climate crisis.  What does the mission of God look like in the light of that?  If, as N.T. Wright has recently written, New Testament Christians believed that in Jesus the Christ, God was bringing earth and heaven together, “making creation new, restoring the world from all its pathologies,” then working to establish the kingdom of God is rightly the work of all believers.  This sounds to me like a robust mandate for a theology which will support bold and sustained Christian action to address the climate crisis.

This is a recovery of a strong Christology, which leads to a renewed sense of both Christ’s work among humanity and a template for our own Christian vocations.

Diocese of Niagara sings a new song

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The theme of the 2019 diocesan synod was “Sing A New Song”. Most of the items in the bishop’s charge fell rather short of being either new or worth singing about. For example, ever eager to jump on the latest thinly disguised vacuous Gaia worship bandwagon, the diocese has declared:

a climate emergency and [is] urging advocacy and action to address it

If that doesn’t stimulate your vocal cords, perhaps this will:

expressing a steadfast solidarity with the local and global LGBTQ2S+ community, affirming the prophetic witness of Bishop Michael Bird and Bishop Susan Bell, and receiving the affirmations contained with the “Word to the Church”

Susan Bell doesn’t have much of a prophetic witness act to follow, since Michael Bird’s prophetic abilities didn’t manage rise to the level of dismal failure represented by CNN’s attempt to predict the outcome of the 2016 US election.

I expect what the article meant to say was: “affirming the woke witness of Bishop Michael Bird and Bishop Susan Bell”.

Bishop Susan Bell is doing more to respond to climate crisis

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That means she is throwing away her iPhone which is made in China, the most profusive polluter on the planet.

Just joking, that would be going too far.

From here:

Although the climate crisis is not news, nor our lack of a speedy and effective response, the rising voices of our young people demanding that we take action on the most pressing issue of our time is striking.  I cannot help but respond to the urgency that is being expressed in the climate strikes, inspired by Greta Thunberg, happening around the world this week, including here in our own diocese.

[…]

The Anglican Church of Canada recognizes that there is a climate emergency and we are called to do more to live up to our responsibility as the protectors and of God’s earth.

Anglicans describing their own reality

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Popular culture would have it that Truth is relative and subjective: you have your Truth, I have mine and we can all get along.

Now Reality itself has suffered the same fate in the Anglican Church of Canada. According to Bishop Susan Bell, there is no objective Reality. Each diocese “describes its own reality”.

From here:

The bishop of Diocese of Niagara says she isn’t surprised the Anglican Church of Canada voted against recognizing same-sex marriage.

[….]

“I really lament the pain for our LGBTQ2S+ community,” says Bell,  “and for everybody who desired this change.”

But she says that, “We went into the vote with something in our back pockets.”

She’s talking about a document that was drafted before the vote, that allows each diocese to decide individually if it wants to recognize same-sex marriage.

The Niagara diocese already recognized same-sex marriage, before the vote, but Bell says she understands that there are some dioceses and bishops that have not gone ahead with that.

She says the document allows each diocese to describe their own reality.

Diocese of Niagara will ignore Marriage Canon vote

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Bishop Susan Bell has announced that, in spite of the fact that the synod motion to amend the Marriage Canon was defeated, she will continue to marry same-sex couples.

If bishops are free to do this, why bother with a vote? Why bother with a synod?

More here:

A Message from the Bishop of Niagara
The Right Reverend Susan Bell

My heart aches with lament and my soul is filled with anguish knowing all the pain and hurt caused by the General Synod’s failure to ratify a change to the national marriage canon that would have explicitly expanded the meaning of marriage to include same-sex couples.

To the members of the LGBTQ2S community especially, I want to say that I stand with you and I share in your tears. I deeply value the person God beautifully created and called you to be and your contributions to the life of our Church.  Your faithful witness has been long, difficult, prophetic, and sacrificial, and I give thanks to God for it.

While I am deeply disappointed, the General Synod did also overwhelmingly vote to affirm the prayerful integrity of the diverse understandings and teachings about marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada. This includes the inclusive understanding of marriage affirmed by the Report on the Marriage Commission, This Holy Estate, that we hold in Niagara.

As a result, nothing about this decision will change our practice in Niagara; I remain steadfast in exercising my episcopal prerogative to authorize the marriage of all persons who are duly qualified by civil law to be married, thereby responding to the pastoral needs present within our diocese. Two rites of The Episcopal Church, The Witnessing and Blessing of a Marriage and The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage 2 continue to be authorized for use in our diocese, in accordance with our established episcopal guidelines.

There will be more to say in the coming days but for now I ask your prayers and solidarity for and with the LGBTQ2S community, globally and locally, in the wake of this decision and in the face of persistent discrimination, oppression, and violence. Pray also for the members of General Synod that in the days to come the Holy Spirit will help us discern a way forward that upholds the dignity of every human being and boldly proclaims God’s Way of radically inclusive love.