Tag Archives: KAIROS

Anglican clergy lose their warm blankies

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In their ceaseless quest for relevance, Anglican Church of Canada clergy are once again dismantling racism by standing on blankets and feeling the pain when they are whipped out from under them.

Once the blankets are all gone, they begin the thumb sucking exercise.

From here:

An interactive learning experience to teach the history of Indigenous Peoples in Canada through colonization and the resulting loss of land, the KAIROS Blanket Exercise involves participants standing on a large number of blankets which are gradually removed, allowing them less and less space to stand on. Throughout the exercise, participants read texts that take them through the experience of pre-contact, the making and breaking of treaties by European settlers, colonization, development of reserves, the residential school system, and ongoing Indigenous resistance.

Following the blanket exercise, council members gathered again in a circle and opened up for discussion. Many related personal life experiences sparked by their participation in the blanket exercise. Some non-Indigenous members expressed feelings of shame at their descent from settlers who had gained from the historical subjugation of Indigenous Peoples. Meanwhile, some Indigenous council members recalled the pain that they felt due to racism and the intergenerational trauma rooted in colonial policies such as the residential school system.

March 5th is climate fast day

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On March the fifth, luminaries from Canadian Anglican and Lutheran churches, along with green politicians and assorted Gaia hangers on, will fast for climate change. The fasters include well known climatologists, Bishop Fred Hiltz and Bishop Susan Johnson. I hope they are successful because the climate needs to change: it was -24C in Oakville yesterday. Personally, I have set aside March 5th to have dinner at the local Mandarin where I will eat as much as possible.

The organiser of this worthy venture is Jennifer Henry from Kairos Canada. She reckons that the justice we most desperately need is not justice for the unborn who are routinely murdered in their thousands or for the increasing number of Christians who are being beheaded, tortured or displaced in so many places but climate justice, a incoherence which has no discernible meaning since climate is an inanimate phenomenon to which it is no more possible to act unjustly than to a bowl of porridge.

Still, to look on the bright side, Bishops not eating for a whole day will considerably reduce global flatulence; now if only they could be persuaded to stop talking.

From here:

“Fasting has long roots in our faith tradition,” says Henry. “The fast that God requires is justice and the justice we most desperately need is climate justice for all people who have been impacted, and will be impacted, by the current ecological catastrophe. Fasting for one day is a small gesture of solidarity for the hardship so many now face. Each and every one of our voices is essential to demand of the federal government an effective strategy to meet science-based emissions reductions targets in the lead up to the climate conference in Paris later this year.”

February and March are assigned to North Americans who are hungry for action on climate change. Notable leaders who agreed to fast one day during this period include the Rev. Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (March 6); Rev. Susan Johnson, National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (February 14); Rev. Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Bishop, Anglican Church of Canada (March 16); Mardi Tindal, Immediate Past Moderator, The United Church of Canada (March 19); Joe Gunn, Executive Director, Citizens for Public Justice (February 1); Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada (March 12); and Bill McKibben, author and co-founder of 350.org (March 30). Connie Sorio, KAIROS’ Ecological Justice Partnership Coordinator, will join the fast on February 28.

KAIROS is promoting a “solidarity fast” with Theresa Spence

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KAIROS, the hard-left communist wing of the Anglican Church of Canada, is suggesting a “solidarity fast” with Theresa Spence on January 11th.

KAIROS warns that only those whose health is up to it should follow Spence’s dietary regimen: those who tend towards corpulence should stick to their regular calorific intake to avoid weight gain.

From here:

On Friday, January 4, the Prime Minister announced that he would meet with First Nations leaders on January 11, the one month anniversary of Chief Theresa Spence’s fast to bring attention to the treaty relationship between First Nations and Canada. KAIROS welcomes this meeting as a response to the Chief’s call, and as she prepares for the meeting, we call on our network to join in a Solidarity Fast with Chief Spence on Friday, January 11.

A couple of hymn suggestions for Earth Day

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These come courtesy of links from the Diocese of Niagara:

The Earth is my mother
The earth is my mother
The earth is my mother
She’s good to me
She’s good to me
She gives me everything that I ever need
She gives me everything that I ever need

Food on the table
Food on the table
The clothes I wear
The clothes I wear
The sun and the water…..

The earth is my mother and my best friend, too
The great provider for me and you
The earth is my mother and my best friend, too
The great provider for me and you

Her ways are gentle, her life is strong…..

The earth is my mother and my best friend, too
The great provider for me and you

O Beautiful Gaia
O Beautiful Gaia, O Gaia calling us home,
O beautiful Gaia, calling us on.

Fraîche rosée du matin, O Gaia tu nous appelles
Fraîche rosée du matin, rentrons chez nous.

Soil yielding its harvest, O Gaia calling us home
Soil yielding its harvest, calling us on.

Waves crashing on granite, O Gaia calling us home
Pine bending in windstorm, calling us on.

Loon nesting in marshland, O Gaia calling us home,
Loon nesting in marshland, calling us on.

To consummate the celebration, please place a golden calf on the altar and cavort around the church in abandoned pagan revelry, preferably with no clothes on.

A little like this convulsive capering from Christ Anglican Church, London, Ontario. They still had their clothes on in this bit; God is merciful.

Kairos wants more transparency

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From here:

The revelation that cabinet minister Bev Oda ordered the doctoring of a document on foreign-aid funding “raises pretty serious concerns” about the transparency and accountability of the federal government’s government decision-making, the ecumenical justice group, Kairos, has said.

Oda, the Minister for International Cooperation, admitted on Feb. 7 that she had instructed the word “not” be inserted in a 2009 recommendation by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) officials that approved a $7.1 million grant for Kairos.  Last December, Oda told the House of Commons that when she signed the document, it had not contained the word “not.” She said that she did not add the word, nor did she know who did.

The problem that Bev Oda has is not so much the “not” but that she lied about the “not”. A bit like Bill Clinton lying about having sex with his intern, not to mention his innovative interpretation of “sex” and “is”. Bill Clinton got away with it; I doubt that Oda will – which just goes to show that it’s easier for a man to redefine “is” than a woman to redefine “not”.

Of course, if every politician who lied had to resign, we would be left without politicians – a state that might not be so bad. As it is, only politicians caught lying have to resign – other than Bill Clinton – which does have the advantage of weeding out the irredeemably stupid specimens.

Kairos likes to demand transparency but is more hesitant about adopting for itself what it wishes to thrust upon others. In December 2009 Kairos, removed the anti-Israel remarks and links from its website – and then lied about it.

So it’s one rule for a sex-crazed Clinton and a crypto-anti-Semitic, faux-Christian aid group grasping for more tax dollars, and an entirely different one for the rest of us.

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda had Kairos document altered

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From here:

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda told Parliament Monday that she was the person who directed that a recommendation from her staff be altered to deny funding to a church-backed aid group.

The minister was backtracking on previous statements in which she said Kairos had lost its funding because the group’s work no longer fit with the Canadian International Development Agency’s objectives — suggesting she was acting on her department’s recommendation.

What can one say?

Bev Oda for Prime Minister – after a decent interval of ritual shaming.

The Kairos conspiracy

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The Anglican Church of Canada is convinced that a mysterious unnamed party put the kibosh on further taxpayer funding for Kairos. The church may well be wrong, of course, but just in case it isn’t, I would like to say “Thank You” to the unknown party: may all your Earth Days be brightly illuminated with incandescent bulbs.

From here:

The ecumenical justice group, Kairos, has questioned the “transparency and accountability” of the Canadian International Development’s granting process after it was recently revealed in the House of Commons that an unknown party had intervened to have its funding cut.

CIDA initially said in November 2009 that Kairos’ grant application of $7.1 million had been rejected because it “no longer fits CIDA priorities.”

But a parliamentary committee was told on Dec. 9 that CIDA  had actually approved the Kairos application. Minister for International Cooperation and CIDA president, Bev Oda, told the Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development that it was her decision to discontinue Kairos’ funding…..

Minister Oda testified that when she signed the document, it had not contained the word “not.” She said that she did not add the word, “not,” nor did she know who did. Still, Oda said that she stood by the decision to deny funding to Kairos, which lobbies for peace and human rights in Canada and around the world…..

The Anglican Church of Canada, which is a member of Kairos, has been urging the restoration of the organization’s funding.

The Anglican Church of Canada in the bosom of Mother Earth

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Well, the armpit, at least. In the “News From our Partners” section of its web site, the Anglican Church of Canada has a pointer – actually, like so much else in the ACoC, the pointer is screwed up – to a document called Cochabamba – Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. In it you will find a Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, including:

Article 1. Mother Earth
(1) Mother Earth is a living being.
(2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.
(3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth……

Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth
(1) Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:
(a) the right to life and to exist;
(b) the right to be respected;
(c) the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;
(d) the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being…….

Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth
(1) Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth…..
(d) ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;

The ACoC is a member church of Kairos, the organisation peddling this twaddle; I was surprised not to see “I am Fred Hiltz and I approve this message” at the end of the document.

More Anglican moaning about funding cuts to Kairos

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The editor of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s paper (page 5), Art Babych reckons that government cuts to Kairos were retribution for Kairos’s anti-Israel bias:

But this isn’t about CIDA’s priorities, is it? The denial of 35 years of government funding for KAIROS, coupled with the recent firings amid a politically charged atmosphere at Rights and Democracy over the funding of some groups critical of Israel, suggest that in government quarters, criticism of Israel is the new anti-Semitism. And that should send a shudder through all who value free speech, not only those groups who criticize Israel.

I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if Art is correct; I wouldn’t be particularly upset, either. In fact I’d be rather pleased.

Whatever the reason, though, this is in no way a curtailing of free speech. By not giving taxpayer money to Kairos, the government is not preventing Kairos from saying whatever it wants; it is just not being paid to say it by you and me.

I wonder if Babych’s devotion to free speech would extend to allowing Ann Coulter to speak in his city?

KAIROS: duelling petitions

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The Diocese of Niagara’s web site has a pointer to a petition imploring the government of Canada to reverse its decision to cut funding for KAIROS.

I don’t think online petitions achieve much, but in the spirit of diversity, I put up my own petition applauding the cutting off of funds to KAIROS.