Anglican Church of Canada clergy remind me of Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat.
Each year as the ACoC gets a little smaller, its clergy, smiling happily in a delirium of denial, armed with nothing but a fake gospel – a malaise that precedes fake news by far – charge with renewed vigour towards the precipice that augurs their employer’s extinction. Eventually all that will be left will be the silly grins on their faces.
Still, it gives us Anglican bloggers something to write about.
Read it all at VOL:
By any measurable standard, the Anglican Church of Canada is in serious decline with little hope that the numbers can or will be reversed in the foreseeable future.
In one diocese after another the third largest denomination in Canada is declining, its demise now almost certain as it focuses on a host of social justice issues to the neglect of evangelism, discipleship and church planting.
The Anglican Church of Canada which is squeamishly shy about publicizing how many people attend its churches, has published no complete statistics for membership and average Sunday attendance since 2001, although the ACoC did claim a membership of 545,957 in 2007.
Today, by all measurable standards the average Sunday attendance in the Anglican Church of Canada is around 320,000. If this is correct, in 40 years the average attendance will be 19,200 or less. As there is no wave of Millennials aching to fill Anglican pews this figure is probably exaggerated.
A recent academic study of Canadian churches revealed that conservative churches that held to the faith grew, while liberal ones that focused on social issues were dying. They surveyed some 2,200 churches and, based on their sampling found, without exception, the clergy and congregants of the growing mainline Protestant churches held more firmly to traditional Christian beliefs, such as the belief Jesus rose physically from the grave and that God answers prayer. The clergy of the growing churches were the most theologically conservative and the declining church clergy the least.
This news has not filtered down to Anglicans in Canada, who believe that brokering pansexuality into the churches as a justice issue (plus a whole host of other social issues) is more important than bums in pews vs. bums in the bed.
Several dioceses have revealed the dire straits they are in, largely we suspect because if they hadn’t told us, real estate agents would. The list is by no means complete, as most dioceses are reluctant to say or reveal their closures unless a local newspaper runs a story about a church being sold to a Muslim group or an evangelical start-up.
[…..]
Nationally, between 1961 and 2001, the Anglican Church of Canada lost 53 per cent of its membership, declining to 642,000 from 1.36 million. Between 1991 and 2001 alone, it declined by 20 per cent.
According to the report, the dioceses – “like most across Canada” – are in crisis. The report repeats, without qualification or question, the results of a controversial study presented to Anglican bishops five years ago that said that at the present rate of decline – a loss of 13,000 members per year – only one Anglican would be left in Canada by 2061.
As I have stated on several previous comments the ACoC is no longer Christian due mainly to the apostate leadership of the primate and his followers who have come to believe their word or the god – notice the small “g” – of political correctness (a deceptive term itself) or its other term political expediency is superior to THE WORD. The actions by several dioceses including New Westminster and Niagara in legally stealing properties for which they made NO contribution are clear evidence of this fact.
True orthodox Christians need to leave the ACoC and/or cease any and all contributions to this apostate organization. The ACoC can no longer be called a CHURCH but rather a gathering of apostasy – those who worship the gods of political correctness and/or political expediency.
If the Anglican Church of Canada is no longer a Christian body, can we focus on news about Christian bodies only?
It is indeed necessary to become knowledgeable with respect to true Christian churches. Indeed, we need to pray for all orthodox Christians and their leadership. However, we are also called to pray for the apostates within the Christian community. The fact that the apostates have not been brought to task rests in a large part to a misguided loyalty toward those who were given the trust to be true shepherds of the flock but have proven to be ravenous wolves. The situation within the ACoC, the TEC, the United Church of Canada and the so-called Evangelical Lutheran Church is clear evidence of this fact.
As laity we are called to not only pray for the apostates but to hold them to account even to the point of removing them from office. To date it is clear that the apostates have no intention of repenting or turning to the Gospel.
” Eventually all that will be left will be the silly grins on their pudgy, effeminate faces. ”
The adjectives “pudgy” and “effeminate” applied to the faces are a gratuitous indulgence here, and, in my opinion, a degradation in the level of discourse. It may be that there is a correlation between being an apostate Anglican cleric and those aspects of their physiognomy, but I doubt whether it is specific to Anglicans, clerics, or apostasy. Since I agree with the general thrust of the posting, as well as appreciating the use of the Cheshire Cat analogy, I feel, regarding the substance of what was written, that “silly grin on their faces” – the silliness being an attribute of the grin rather than the face – would have sufficed.
You may have a point.
The blogger writing this trash left any pretense of honor, let alone high discourse, well well behind his hatred, a long long time ago.
HE WAS FORCED BY THE COURTS TO PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE TO BISHOP MICHAEL BIRD FOR SLANDER. He does not say the things he believes anymore about the Bishop because he is a coward and he knows this would put his gospel radical bum in jail.
I am afraid that as he writes he is actually throwing up inside his mouth. Hatred has truly gotten the best out of him.
Thank you for that delicious slice of foam-flecked hysteria.
The civil courts might well have demanded an apology but there is no doubt that Michael Bird is NOT a Christian and worships the god(s) of political expediency and political correctness — both terms are clearly designed to mislead people from the truth of the Gospel.
Michael Bird cannot be considered as a bishop or even a priest within the genuine Christian community. He definitely does not worship the GOD of the Scriptures.
Let it be noted that your own discourse on honour and cowardice for hiding beliefs was written anonymously. (Unless your full name really is L, in which case I apologize)
I didn’t know the matter dealt with slander. I thought it involved some online publications. But I admit I don’t know much about it. In any event, I thought the matter was settled out of court, and I don’t know how “the courts” could have forced anyone to do anything if the matter was settled by the parties.
An inaccuracy wrapped in an accusation of moral deficiency, wrapped in vulgar descriptions of alleged multi-directional hatred.
Your post is so absurd – consisting as it does of pseudo-omniscient “insights” into another man’s heart and mind – that it does not even invite the irritation or annoyance that might arise from an argument that was more rational.
Bishop Bird’s actions were beneath contempt. Only in an age where sin has severely corroded the moral and intellectual capacities of people could it be seen as anything else. I must bite my fingers from writing more, for nothing I write would be charitable about Bird.
Nonetheless, you must find it gratifying to possess an instinctive cruelty that seeks out people’s difficult moments, their public sorrows, and their vulnerabilities, and then wields them like weapons even when they have no bearing on an issue at all. The naked intention is to inflict as much hurt as possible merely because you happen to dislike another man’s opinions.
Moral derangement is eloquently told in your accusations of “hatred” when nothing could be more bitter, angry, and hostile than the hatchet job you have attempted to pull here. But I rest in this: a man shall give an account for every word.
I seriously doubt the ACoC is anywhere near being the third largest denomination now in Canada. By meaningless, inaccurate, membership rolls maybe. In fact, counting adherents and attendees at various churches, no way.
Actually, on reconsideration, the ACoC may be the third largest, if you consider that a lot of the evangelical and other such churches are not affiliated with each other.
This news has not filtered down to Anglicans in Canada, who believe that brokering pansexuality into the churches as a justice issue (plus a whole host of other social issues) is more important than bums in pews vs. bums in the bed.
I suspect that the ACoC is quite aware that their policies and their clergy are eroding attendance and membership. Church officials and clergy have done the math and realized that the real estate is worth more than the monthly offerings, and hence wish to steadily close the parishes and sell the properties every year until they reach retirement age.
The number put in the quotation from VirtueOnline for average Sunday attendance of 320,000 is wrong and high. The numbers have been kept secret since 2001, but then the ASA was 162,138. The 2007 number slipped out and was reported on VirtueOnline as 141,827. That’s a 2.1% per annum decline. Assuming that continued, 2017 would see an ASA of under 115,000.
Imagine, if my preacher were to preach that God used Assyria (in 722 B.C.) and Babylon (in 586 B.C.) to punish His disobedient people every Sunday, I would not find his sermons edifying. Likewise, it is not edifying to continue to report the decline of the Anglican Church of Canada. Can we have more good news about growing Christian congregations? Can we have more testimonies given by born-again believers? Christians need to be encouraged by the good news of the Kingdom of God, not bad news of declining institutions.
Perhaps you should attend this, then.
Many thanks! But a five-hour-drive will be too far for me to attend this event.
Michael, you keep making this point, but surely you recognise that this blog is a running commentary on contemporary Anglicanism. One can hardly do honest justice to the material without mentioning the Church of Canada’s ruin and degradation.
I do not see it as “bad news” that a God-dishonouring, sin-promoting, damnation-selling organisation is going to pieces. If our moral quality is right then like the prophets, like Christ, like St. Paul such behaviour will make us angry with a holy anger.
It outrages me that these people have taken the name of Christ and applied it to their perversion of anything resembling godly religion. It outrages me that these people pander and pet; coddle and give succour to attitudes, lifestyles, and belief systems that warp people’s minds and lead them to engage in the supremely dangerous act of living against God’s will in his universe.
I am nearly speechless in anger at how this “church” prostitutes God’s blood-bought grace and patience for its zeal to be part of the trendy zeitgeist. It has ceased to point to the way of salvation, and actually shepherds tens of thousands of people to their eternal ruin – to a torment that never ends.
The only reason people can be so ambivalent about this is that we have lost sight in this generation of the awesomeness of the judgement seat of Christ.
The Anglican Church of Canada’s ruin, when seen in the light of eternity with a love for God’s truth and a heart for the salvation of poor lost sinners, is not “bad news”. It is not bad news at all. For an agency of the devil is closing shop. Not for want of trying, mind you, to damn the maximum number of people to hell as possible, but rather because it has come to be despised even by the godless pagans it has sought to emulate. They can spot fellow wolves, and they find it contemptible that the wolves should wear the clothing of sheep, this being a perfectly unnecessary pretence.
This year my family and I left our church. We have been Anglicans for many generations, possibly from the start. But when I found out about gay marriage allowed at the Anglican alter I left. Since, we have been attending the local Presbyterian church (they have not yet desecrated their alter and still keep faith with God). While it is good to be among fellow Christians again, I am still very angry that my family had to leave our church. Is there no way traditional Anglicans can break away from the new’ socially conscious’ church who promotes the new and improved profane Christianity and re-establish our faith? Surely not all the Anglican clergy support the gay marriage turn. There must be some leadership willing to break off. Does the church belong only to unelected clerics or the people?
We have experienced the deceitful actions of the Anglican Church of Canada as the Diocese of New Westminster used the civil courts to legally steal our property and I am convinced the apostates within the ACoC will and have continued in the same vein. Their sole interest is in retaining property and the Gospel has and continues to be placed in the recycling bin. Tragically we have witnessed and continue to witness the belief by the Primate and his apostate colleagues that their word supersedes the WORD and any genuine Christianity has and continued to be discarded. Fortunately there has been some genuine Christian bishops and other clergy that have formed the Anglican Network in Canada.
Crucially, by abdication of Reformed/Bibilical doctrine and faithful practice The PCC has desecrated the Altar by desecration of Christ’s Pulpit: since their 2012 General Assembly when a formal, public “apology” was extended to an apostate Minister in Montreal Presbytery who had been disciplined by the 1996 GA. Only six Clergy Dissented and none since(2013-2018); all in violation of Ordination Vows both as Ministers and Elders; these anti-Scriptural forces grew since by the online publication of anon. letter:its prime mover a PCC Minister; since issuing in a ‘Rainbow Communion’ of alleged grievances with remedy; thus the 2018 GA suspending the third mark of “the true Kirk”, spiritual discipline, for all offending.
The 2012 “apology” was printed in the then official PCC’s ‘The Presbyterian Record’ under the pen of its (2002-2016) ACC Priest and Editor; said ‘Record’ also discontinued by him in 2016 (supplanted by the Cultural Marxist ‘Connections’) just after the May 11, 2016, ‘Open Lettter’ by the late Reverend Dr. William Klempa.(v. online). Now The PCC is on the verge a civil war:v. nominees for Moderator, a Cultural Marxist vs. an Orthodox Ecclesiastic;both Scribes, in the Biblical sense of the word.
The PCC has its Biblical roots in the selfless labours of Pictou, Nova Scotia’s immigrant Minister, The Reverend Dr. James MacGregor, who laboured ceaselessy in all weathers to bring The Gospel of Jesus Christ to pioneer Maritime Canada. It was the ACC ‘Record’ Editor, who upon his appointment in 2002, planned to venture to that place:
“I hope to soak up some Presbyterian history there”:
he must have failed to absorb Dr MacGregor’s own motivation for Ministry, “He (or she) has a soul to be saved!”