Tag Archives: Michael Coren

If you want to understand Easter watch The Life of Brian

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Christmas and Easter bring out the worst in Anglican Church of Canada clergy.

The rest of the year they content themselves by waxing eloquent on the evils of climate change, women’s reproductive rights, using correct pronouns, diversity, inclusion and non-binary gender categories.

The major Christian festivals call for major absurdities.

Thus, we have Rev. Michael Coren, currently employed by the Diocese of Niagara a bastion of deranged theology, advising Christians to see the 1979 film The Life of Brian for their Easter edification.

From here:

There’s one film that I highly recommend to anybody who wants to learn something about Easter. I refer to Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Confusion, extremism, religious pedantry, failure to grasp the message and laughter. Humour is big in the Gospels, if only people would understand it. Don’t, whatever you do, opt for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” It’s more medieval caricature than ancient reality.

In case you haven’t seen it, The Life of Brian is a satire on Christianity, Christians, the church and Jesus. The Monty Python crew denied that it satirized Jesus, but it did.

I have nothing against satire directed at Christians – we do some odd things on occasion – but why would a clergyman point to a parody of his alleged beliefs to convince others of their truth?

When, I wonder, will we see a Monty Python film satirizing the life of Mohamed?

Anglican reactions to impending supreme court abortion ruling

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The Episcopal Church has issued the following statement:

Episcopal Church statement on reports concerning Supreme Court case pertaining to abortion

May 3, 2022

Office of Government Relations

Since 1967, The Episcopal Church has maintained its “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them.” In light of the recent report about a pending decision in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, The Episcopal Church reaffirms our commitment to “equitable access to women’s health care, including women’s reproductive health care,” which we view as “an integral part of a woman’s struggle to assert her dignity and worth as a human being.” The Office of Government Relations will continue to advocate at the federal level to protect reproductive rights.

We encourage you to read this overview of The Episcopal Church’s positions on abortion and women’s reproductive health.

Put into simple terms, removing the euphemisms and Newspeak, TEC is endorsing the murder of unborn babies. An organisation promoting such a demonically inspired abomination should not be afforded the dignity of being called a Christian Church.

The Anglican Church of Canada hierarchy, being largely populated with spineless poltroons, has remained silent on the issue. Apart, that is, from the intrepid Rev. Michael Coren who cannot resist coming down on the wrong side of an ethical conundrum whenever he has the opportunity.

Read Coren’s claptrap here:

There is nothing Christian about allowing women to die in illegal back street abortions. Nothing Christian about removing the basic right of a woman to control her own body. Nothing Christian about wanting to criminalize female equality.

[….]

But what of scripture itself? The central point is that any ancient text, even one that is central to a religious faith and certainly crucial to my life and beliefs, has to be understood and interpreted in context and with understanding.

So, for example, when opponents of abortion quote Jeremiah — “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” — they should grasp a few realities. First, this was written around 2,700 years ago. Second, the text is speaking of a single person, “a prophet to the nations” rather than making a sweeping comment about the beginning of life.

Or Psalm 139, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” This is poetry and metaphor, a beautiful testimony to God’s love but not a guide to human biology. The very idea is unbiblical.

The New Testament has Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, meeting Mary, mother of Jesus, and “the child leaped in her womb.” Again, a lyrical description of an event that shaped history, but not scientific and not supposed to be. If we’re to take a literalist approach to the Bible we’re in all sorts of trouble. By the way, it sometimes supports abortion, something the Christian right doesn’t like to mention.

An Anglican cleric comments on the trucker protest

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I’ve been waiting for the Anglican Church of Canada to say something about the protestors congregating in Ottawa. The church has no hesitation lobbing opinions into the ether to support BLM, Indigenous rights, LGBT activities and so on. Even in the face of universal uninterest. Why the reticence here? It can’t be that hard to pick a side since the bishops’ mentor, our illustrious Prime Minister has already blazed the path of righteousness by denouncing the protesters as racists, misogynists, homophobes, Nazis and probably a few other things I’ve forgotten. Surely the church should find itself prophetically harmonising with this wave of heady invective?

At least one clergyman has finally stepped into the fray. The ex-Catholic, ex-Evangelical Rev. Michael Coren.

“At the trucker protests, the political hard right is co-opting Christianity” blazes the headline, omitting the fact that anyone to the right of Joseph Stalin is “hard right” in Rev. Coren’s book.

What seems to upset Coren most is that the protestors recited the Lord’s Prayer. How dare they! They aren’t allowed to because they are not making obeisance to Coren’s idols of inclusion and tolerance – which makes as much sense as the rest of Coren’s analysis.

There is a video circulating on social media of a group of truckers in Ottawa discussing their plans. They exchange views in a quite heated manner, and then suddenly one of them begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer. In direct obedience and observance, all of the others remove their caps and follow suit. It’s being posted by supporters of the convoy who see the enterprise as God’s work and want to emphasize the piety of all concerned.

[…..]

I’ve no idea of what was in the hearts of those men who suddenly turned from bellicose plotting to telling God they “forgive those who trespass against us,” but judging by the ubiquity of vulgar anti-Trudeau signs and images of nooses, I’m a little cynical. I’m a priest – the Lord’s Prayer is central to my very being – but it’s more than just a collection of words. It’s what Jesus taught us to say. Jesus – who owned nothing and lived communally – reserved his harshest words for the wealthy and legalistic, redistributed food and preached tolerance, inclusion and grace. He could be as gentle as a watercolour in his love and compassion, but fierce as a lion of Judah in his demand for social justice.

There’s nothing new of course about the politicization of Christianity; it’s been happening ever since church and state began to mingle 1,700 years ago.

Admittedly, the Anglican Church of Canada does not politicise Christianity. It can’t because it has ceased to be Christian.

Rev. Michael Coren laments possible overturn of Roe v. Wade

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When I was much younger than I am now, bringing up young children, I made the mistake of attending a parenting class. Although I was not a Christian at the time, I still had managed to acquire strong opinions on many things. Abortion was one. It seemed to me then, as it does now, that to abort a foetus was to kill an innocent baby in the early stages of its life. I knew with considerable certainty that it was murder; I didn’t need God to tell me that (although, in retrospect, I presume the certainly did come from him), I just knew.

When the teacher of the course decided she would like to probe the “values” of her students, one of the exercises she asked us to do was to place ourselves on one side of the room if we agreed with abortion and the other if we did not. Of the 30 or so people in the room, my wife and I were the only two people on the anti-abortion side. I was a little startled since I was in a room full of people who supposedly wanted to care for their children, not get rid of them before they arrived. Welcome to Canada, I thought – I was a fairly recent immigrant.

Maybe I imagined it, but the instructor seemed a little chilly towards my wife and I after that.

I’ve grown used to both the Canadian enthusiasm for killing unborn babies and the chill emanating from such enthusiasts when I voice my disagreement.

Even so, surely a church which claims to champion the underdog, to stand for justice, to defend the most vulnerable members of our society, to preach love, love, love would want to defend the unborn. Alas not. The Anglican Church of Canada is dismally silent about the yearly murder 100,000 unborn babies in Canada. It has nothing recent to say about this unregulated industrial (yes, it is an industry) death machine.

And it gets worse. Michael Coren, now Rev Michael Coren, a newly minted ACoC cleric, having shed the last vestiges of common sense that still desperately clung to him, has penned this article lamenting the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade in the US, an outcome which, he says, would be “disastrous”.

God have mercy on us and him:

Taking achievements for granted is one of the greatest errors in the political handbook. Always be on guard, be ever vigilant. Yet activists and elected representatives are constant culprits in this regard, and that partly explains how in the U.S. there is a genuine possibility that abortion rights, women’s reproductive autonomy, could soon be harshly restricted or even curtailed.

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments about abortion around the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This particular conflict concerns a Mississippi law that bans abortion at 15 weeks. Under the iconic Roe v. Wade and the subsequent Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey cases, this law is unconstitutional. But while we won’t know the Dobbs decision for several months, it seems highly likely that the conservative-dominated court is willing to make a ruling that will reverse Roe.

That would have been impossible until recently, but now six of the nine Supreme Court justices are conservative, three of them appointed by Donald Trump. They’ve already heard a Texas case that bans abortion after six weeks, and they allowed it to stand for three months. If the court does reverse Roe, it would be historic. And disastrous. For half-a-century Roe has guided the U.S. on abortion rights and if that changes, the entire template of the discussion will be transformed. It will unleash and empower the anti-abortion movement, which is large, militant, and extremely well-funded.

Good riddance Michael Coren

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Michael Coren is a newly minted priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. He is supporting the current fad of tearing down statues of people who did not live up to contemporary standards of what is acceptable or not acceptable. I’m not using “right” or “wrong” in case it triggers someone.

Naturally, this amounts to whether the person was a racist or a slave trader. Hence we have Coren’s article applauding the casting of Edward Colston’s effigy into the the sea. I confess, although I am indifferent as to whether Edward Colston spends quality time with the fishes, I am uneasy of the impulse to expunge the parts of history that don’t live up to the expectations of contemporary mores.

Still, back to the headline. The Anglican Church of Canada has admitted that it is riddled with systemic racism. Michal Coren has joined the ACoC. That means he is, at the very least, drawn to a racist organisation; he is simpatico with it – it’s no good, I can’t bring myself to call it a church.

And to think he might have joined ANiC. Good riddance Michael Coren

From here:

Good riddance Edward Colston

Bristol, Liverpool and London were the three main slave ports of Britain in the 18th and early 19th century. It was an inconceivably lucrative business, and financial failure was virtually impossible. Ships sailed off to Africa, loaded up on human cargo, exchanged men, women and children in the West Indies for sugar or in America for cash and goods, and then returned home to sell what they had. Countless people made fortunes, and if slaves died on the voyage—and many did—there were plenty more to steal. And rape, beat and torture.

One of those profiteers was Bristol’s Edward Colston, who in the late 1600s as a prominent member of the Royal African Company transported more than 80,000 people, making what today would be tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. He was also a moneylender. When he died in 1721 he left a substantial amount to local charities, perhaps out of a guilty conscience. There were oceans of blood on his hands.

It was the statue of this man that was torn down and thrown into the harbour last week in Bristol, and became a pulsating image throughout the world as those protesting against racial inequality had their long overdue say. Ten thousand people demonstrated in the western city of Bristol in a peaceful show of defiance, and when they disposed of the repugnant Colston the local police not only refused to intervene but also explained that they understood.

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.

Diocese of Niagara ordains Michael Coren

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October 20th was the date of one of the strangest ordinations ever to have taken place in the Diocese of Niagara.

When St. Hilda’s left the diocese to join ANiC, Michael Coren was very supportive. Here are a few snippets from his emails at the time:

“You’re doing great work and I know that you’ll be okay in the end.”

“Glory!!!!!!!!!” (after we won our first court case)

“Unbelievable! They are such self-caricatures. I’ll use it on TV and perhaps radio.” (referring to some of the antics of the Diocese of Niagara)

“All four of us on TV tonight supported you – including Sid Ryan and another former NDP candidate. LeDrew too – former Liberal president. We’re getting somewhere. Again, let me know what I can ever do.” (after St. Hilda’s was sued by the Diocese of Niagara)

“I was in Aylseford two weeks ago and met with some liberal Anglicans. My golly they’re a stupid, nasty lot.”

All that was from 2008. Now, in 2019 he is standing grinning in the midst of a bunch of liberal Anglicans, having just been ordained by the bishop of a diocese full of clerics who are “self-caricatures”.

What is the explanation? Has Coren embarked on a fifth column mission designed to bring down the diocese from the inside? Has he completely lost his marbles? Has the  the real Coren been taken over by an alien pod?

Perhaps he just has a thing for plump female bishops.

Michael Coren starts work at the Church of the Incarnation, Oakville

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In an odd twist of events, Michael Coren has been assigned to work at the Church of the Incarnation in Oakville as part of his M.Div studies.

This parish is part of the Diocese of Niagara, the diocese my parish fled in 2008 over  theological differences. Michael Coren has managed what few who have left their teenage years behind can claim: he has reversed his opinions on just about everything. For example, in 2008 he was a great supporter of St. Hilda’s and the stand we had taken against the Diocese of Niagara. When we were on speaking terms (he has blocked me on twitter), I occasionally fed him tidbits of information on the antics of the diocese as they attempted (successfully in the end) to liberate our building from us. Here is one of his email responses to me about the diocesan leaders:

Unbelievable! They are such self-caricatures. I’ll use it on TV and perhaps radio. Stay strong man – just like Owen Glendower.

Now he has chosen to work for the self-caricatures.

The rector at the Church of the Incarnation is Rev Michael Patterson who used to work for the diocese as the Director of Evangelism and then as the Diocesan Executive Officer.

A few encounters I had with him stick in my mind:

The first was when I was leading worship at a servers’ festival. I had chosen a song about God the Father, a description which, Patterson confided to me in the break, many in his congregation found offensive because of its blatant patriarchy.

The second was when he came to speak at St. Hilda’s during his stint as Director of Evangelism. It was year 10 in the diocese’s Decade of Evangelism: apparently, the diocese was still struggling to define “evangelism”.

The last encounter was a veiled threat of a lawsuit over what I thought were some rather amusing remarks I made in this blog. His boss, who few would accuse of being much given to original thought, picked up the idea and did sue me.

Michael Coren is at the Church of the Incarnation to learn. Learn what? How to define “evangelism”?

Damning Billy Graham with faint praise

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In an age when Christianity and Christians are a preferred object of ridicule, it is almost unprecedented for the secular press to have nothing but good things to say about an evangelical Christian. That seems to be the case for Billy Graham, though, who died yesterday.

Criticism, as is so often the case, has come instead from an Anglican in the form of Michael Coren, an – in chronological order –  ex-Roman Catholic/ex-Evangelical/ex-Roman Catholic who has come to view the cosmos through pink tinted Anglican lenses. His main complaints about Billy Graham are that he regarded homosexual activity as sinful, his theology was not nebulous and flaccid, he held to 2000 years of tradition, he tempered experience with the Bible and was what Coren used to be: conservative.

In other words, he was too Christian.

From here:

Billy Graham brought countless people to a deep Christian faith, and to better lives; and unlike so many other high-profile evangelists, he was not financially corrupt or vainglorious. But his theology was rigid and conservative, and he was unable or unwilling to allow experience to temper his fierce resistance to the new and non-traditional. On issues of sexuality in particular, there are too many broken relationships, too much pain and suffering, too many suicide attempts, and children thrown out of parental Christian homes, for the complete man not to be exposed. He had so much influence, and knew so many world leaders, and could have done so much better. Rest in Peace sir, but let us pray that in the afterlife you think again.

Michael Coren’s Dark Knight of the Soul

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As a result of promoting Catholicism in his books and journalism, Michael Coren became a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre in 1992. In 2013 he joined the Anglican Church of Canada which, short of Molochism, is about as far as you can get from the Roman Catholic Church.

Now the Catholic Church wants its papal knighthood medal back.

From here:

Michael Coren, former Catholic apologist and journalist, has been stripped of his papal knighthood following his reception into the Anglican Church of Canada in 2013. Coren is known for his popular work of Catholic apologetics, Why Catholics Are Right, and for his schism from the Church over her doctrine on homosexuality. He is married with four children.

Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic made Mr Coren a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre in October 1992, for ‘services to Catholic media’. According to an interview with the ultra-liberal Catholic journal, The Tablet, “Coren was stripped of his papal knighthood and asked to return the medal — he has so far refused.”