Rather than condemning something that is done routinely, and for no particularly good reason, to unborn babies – killing them – abortion enthusiasts are fretting about something that is less likely to occur than being struck by lightning seven times in a row:  being shot at any time.

That must be why they are recommending defending themselves with deadly force only if  really necessary:

h/t: Jill Stanek

A few days ago I posted an article about a parish meeting at St. John’s Shaughnessy where comments were made that, under the diocesan regime, the parish was losing $20,000 per month and attracting only 13 people to its services. A number of people wondered where I obtained the audio recording of the meeting; it was in plain view on a website owned by the diocese. Since it was, presumably, a private meeting, that seemed a little odd to me and I have been expecting the recording to disappear ever since I published the article.

Well, it’s still there, but a note has been added: “if your name is David Jenkins you are not welcome”. I presume it is referring to me, not the ex-bishop of Durham who undoubtedly would be most welcome in the diocese.

I feel quite hurt; I thought the Diocese of New Westminster was an inclusive diocese.

Here is the cruel and unkind remark that has cut me to the quick:

Update #1: The page you see above has now been taken down. However, the parent directory is still up and contains this admonition:

These files are all copyright (c) 2012 by the Anglican Church of Canada
Posting all or part of any of them on some other website is a copyright violation.
David Jenkins, take note!

I imagine I am still unwelcome, but the  diocese has added some veiled legal threats to emphasise my standing as persona non grata.

Here is a screen shot – just in case it is altered yet again:

I wonder if my posting that is a copyright violation? Either way, I think the diocese needs a new P.R. department.

Update #2: Obviously I really am unwelcome at the Diocese of New Westminster: the diocese has blocked my IP address and I now see this:

You are not authorized to view this page

The Web server you are attempting to reach has a list of IP addresses that are not allowed to access the Web site, and the IP address of your browsing computer is on this list.

Since I subscribe to an encrypted VPN service and can not only make my IP address anything I want but have it appear to come from just about anywhere in the world (Russia is one of my favourites), I can still access the page – which, perversely enough, still says “David Jenkins, take note!”, an odd piece of advice to someone who, supposedly, has been blocked from seeing it.

This is starting to sound like a grade B spy film.

From here:

A Conservative senator has landed in hot water after telling reporters that the worst murderers should be given a rope so they can choose their fate.

Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu told reporters Wednesday the most heinous of criminals and “assassins” with no hope of rehabilitation should “have the right to a rope in his cell and make a decision about his or her life.”

On the other hand, the Right to Die Society of Canada is not in hot water for suggesting much the same thing for anyone except murderers.

This is blatant discrimination against murderers.

From here:

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters disrupted a Right to Life rally and threw condoms on Catholic school girls inside the Rhode Island state capitol building.

Barth Bracy, executive director of Rhode Island Right to Life, said their rally had to be cut short after the Occupiers began screaming and refused to allow a Catholic priest to deliver a prayer.

“This is their idea of civil speech but we believe it’s an outrage,” Bracy told Fox News & Commentary “They started heckling, chanting and blowing whistles. They shouted down a priest.”

The modern condom was an invention of Julius Fromm, a Jew who lived in Germany. His invention was seized by the Nazis: you can read about it in the illuminating book, The Great Rubber Robbery: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis.

There is nothing new under the sun: Nazis have once more seized condoms, this time to use as missiles aimed at Catholics trying to prevent the murdering of unborn babies.

Apparently, TEC has decided it’s raison d’être is to resist fundamentalism. The good news is, at least it’s stopped pretending to be a Christian Church:

h/t Povey Prattle

From here (page 6):

Yoga and Tai Chi for Lent
Two clergy in Niagara Diocese are taking seriously Paul’s (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) statement— do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? So glorify God in your bodies—and applying Tai Chi and Yoga to bringing it into life.

[….]

Rather, we have been gifted with this planet and these bodies because this is where God dwells. All flesh is holy and the ground of all human endeavors is sacred. It is in these bodies that we will work out our salvation. Since the only life we know is earthly and sensual, it follows that this is the stuff of our spirituality.”

It was in this spirit, according to Jones and Ash, that St. Paul’s, Westdale introduced Tai Chi and Yoga as spiritual practices in the Christian context. Since the beginning of Lent last year, approximately 20 – 30 people have been gathering every week to practice and celebrate God in their bodies, they reported, and as a fresh expression of the Church, the practice has gathered new people into the Church community.

Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation for Easter, generally through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial.

Tai Chi and Yoga practiced as merely physical exercise might have some benefit, but, if that’s what the Yoga-priests are after, why not go to the gym for Lent?

The reason, I suspect, lies in the fact that they want to use “Tai Chi and Yoga as spiritual practices in the Christian context”: it’s the spiritual aspects of Tai Chi and Yoga that appeal to the Revs. Owen Ash and Rick Jones. Unfortunately, the spiritual components of Tai Chi and Yoga are rooted in Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, none of which have much to do with Christianity, let alone Lent.

Still, the Diocese of Niagara doesn’t have much to do with Christianity either, so this doesn’t come as much of a surprise, particularly as Tai Chi starts with a meditation on emptiness, or wu chih in Taoism – diocese of Niagara priests are adept at meditating on emptiness. Just listen to one of their sermons.

If a Muslim gave me a Christian-friendly Koran, I would congratulate him on doubting his faith and hand him a New Testament. Why anyone thinks that this would earn anything but contempt from Muslims is beyond me:

now there is a major controversy developing as the latest altered Bibles are being created by organizations that most would think of as being more conservative and reasonable. At the forefront of the controversy are the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Frontiers, all of which are producing Bible translations that remove or modify terms which they have deemed offensive to Muslims.

That’s right: Muslim-friendly Bibles.

Included in the controversial development is the removal of any references to God as “Father,” to Jesus as the “Son” or “the Son of God.” One example of such a change can be seen in an Arabic version of the Gospel of Matthew produced and promoted by Frontiers and SIL. It changes Matthew 28:19 from this:

“baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

to this:

“cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit.”

And I missed it. Drat.

From here:

Jan 29. An annual celebration of the crusty, yet insightful, wags who consistently apply the needle of truth to the balloons of hypocrisy and social norms. Always celebrated on Jan 29, the birthday of W.C. Fields, one of America’s most beloved curmudgeons.

From here:

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church issued the following message at the conclusion of its three-day meeting in Linthicum Heights, Maryland

A Message from Executive Council
January 29, 2012
Linthicum Heights, Maryland

God is awesome
The Good News is not fair
God always acts first

So there you have it: the Anglican Credo circa 2012, the 39 articles in a shrunken trivial trinity, a tertiary triteness, a bromidic banality, a diabolical dephlegmation.

Or perhaps it’s so profound, I missed the point and should repeat it:

God is awesome
The Good News is not fair
God always acts first

I might set it to music to see if that helps.

From here:

A gay air steward for the Russian carrier Aeroflot was forced to marry a woman in order to keep his job, campaigners say.

GayRussia.eu reported that campaigners had filed notice of a demonstration after gay employee Maxim Kupreev suffered unusual kind of discrimination by his employer.

When Kupreev, 25, tried to found a gay support network at the airline, he was seemingly ordered to marry.

The gay steward tied the knot with his school friend Sofia Mikhailova so he could keep his job at the end of last year, reportedly to minimise publicity for his attempted LGBT network.

What did Sofia Mikhailova get out of this arranged marriage, one wonders. Airmiles? An upgrade to Aeroflot first class with unlimited inflight borsch soup (I had it almost every day when I was in Russia; it’s not that bad – really)?

I know: free stock in Aeroflot.