Monthly Archives: November 2012

Muslim Public Affairs Council to hold convention in TEC church

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The Muslim Public Affairs Council is taking the “next step in its mission” by holding its 12th annual convention in an Episcopal church: All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. An obvious choice really: something needs to fill the faith void in TEC.

MPAC’s founders were active in the Muslim Brotherhood – the organisation which has been so instrumental in bringing democracy to Egypt – it sponsors anti-Israel rallies, surreptitiously promotes jihad against the West, and supports Hezbollah and Hamas.

Apparently, MPAC is looking for allies; where better to look than among a bunch of witless Episcopalians:

MPAC explains that the holding of its convention at the All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena is a reflection of its focus on winning allies among other faiths. It boasts of establishing partnerships with the National Association of Evangelicals, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Catholic Archdiocese, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Union of Reform Judaism and other faith groups. MPAC and similar groups like the Islamic Society of North America have created an interfaith bloc willing to defend them against Rep. Michele Bachmann and other opponents.

Extirpating God from Western civilisation

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Atheists are continuing their crusade to expunge God from public life:

From here:

An atheist group is going to court to protest the presence of a six-foot tall statue of Jesus Christ on federal land, erected as a memorial for soldiers who died in World War II.

The lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin based Freedom From Religion Foundation, seeking to remove the religious memorial from a Montana ski resort, has been given a green light by U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to move forward to trial.

What is still permitted is the displaying of images that are likely to offend Christians. This crucified Obama painting is on display at Bunker Hill Community College – partially funded by the government – and no-one has complained:

Liberals love form without substance

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During the heyday of the Charismatic renewal in the Anglican Church, staunch liberals turned their collective noses up at the idea of the Holy Spirit being alive, well and active in the church. Now, scarcely a paragraph emerges from a liberal mainline denomination without some reference to being guided by the “Spirit”. This is a convenient means of sanctifying any hare-brained scheme that pops into the homoerotically overheated minds of the clergy, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the third person of the Trinity.

In the same way, most Christian terminology has been drained of useful content: “Gospel”, “mission”, “disciple” are all bandied about indiscriminately – to the frustration of those who still think they have objective meaning.

The liberals have stolen our words.

That is not enough, it seems. There was a time when no self-respecting liberal would be caught dead with his arms in the air during worship. Now they have stolen our gestures, too.

Here are Rev. Gary Paterson the new moderator of the United Church of Canada – who happens to be gay, a poet and a clergyman, in that order –  and former moderator, Mardi Tindal, putting on a display that appears to be a carefully posed invitation for us to admire their uninhibited enthusiasm for – uninhibited enthusiasm.

I find the image eerily disturbing:

 

Back to Church Sunday reaches out to guys – BYOG

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Bring your own gun.

From here:

In an effort to increase membership, a number of U.S. churches — including the Church of Christ congregation in this rural village 30 miles north of Columbus — are offering an unconventional public service: Concealed weapons training.

“Church has done a good job with coffee klatsches or whatever, but we haven’t really reached out to guys,” said Jeff Copley, a preacher at the church. “And guys in Morrow Country, they shoot and they hunt.”

Hundreds of students have enrolled in the 10-hour course, which meets the state requirements for earning a concealed weapons permit. The training includes two hours on a church member’s private shooting range.

“I grew up going to church, but hadn’t attended in a number of years,” said David Freeman, 52, a local engineering manager who attended a firearm safety class at the church. “Always considered myself a Christian. I came for the gun classes and have been coming back for two years.”

Unsurprisingly, the National Council of Churches disapproves, making the whole enterprise seem much more appealing:

[T]he National Council of Churches of Christ, which represents about 100,000 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Evangelical churches comprising 45 million members nationwide, endorsed strict gun control in a 2010 position paper.

Conceding the need for an armed police force, the council wrote that “to allow assault weapons in the hands of the general public can scarcely be justified on Christian grounds. The stark reality is that such weapons end up taking more lives than they defend, and the reckless sale or use of these weapons refutes the gospel’s prohibition against violence.”

Is carrying a gun with the intent to defend oneself and family contrary to Christian principles? If it isn’t, is there any reason that a church should not hold classes to teach people how to do it properly?

If it is contrary to Christianity to defend oneself, then outright pacifism might be the only coherent response.

Of course, Anglican clergy would have little hesitation resorting to the ruse employed by 19-20th Century homosexual satirist and pacifist, Lytton Strachey who, when asked: “If a German soldier tried to rape your sister, what would you do”, replied: “I would try to interpose my own body.”

Thank heaven for little androgynes

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You could never get away with that today.

In Sweden you can’t even depict boys holding toy guns and girls dressed up as princesses; it is gender discrimination.

From here:

Sweden’s largest toy chain has been forced to become ‘gender neutral’ by picturing boys holding baby dolls and girls brandishing toy guns in the pages of its Christmas catalogue.

Top Toy – which holds the franchise for Toys R Us – made the move after being reprimanded by the country’s advertising watchdog for ‘gender discrimination’ in a previous catalogue, which featured boys dressed as superheroes and girls playing princess.

 

Atheists against Charlie Brown

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Well, not exactly: atheists don’t want to be that offensive. It’s more like: atheists against the Christ who is represented in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

Unhappily for the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers though, Charlie Brown’s creator, Charles Schulz, was a Christian so it is no more possible to get Christ out of Charlie Brown than it is to get him out of Christmas.

Face it, atheists: you really are Charlie Brown haters.

From here:

An atheist group is accusing an Arkansas grade school of violating students’ constitutional rights by inviting them to a performance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” at a local church.

Students at Terry Elementary School in Little Rock were invited to a performance of the show at Agape Church. Teachers informed parents in letters home that a school bus would shuttle children to and from the show, which would be performed on a school day, KARK 4 News reported.

According to the station, the letter the teachers sent home indicates the play will be held on Friday, Dec. 14, at 10 a.m. at the church. Children attending will be taken on a school bus and will need to pay $2 to cover the expense of the bus rides, the letter states. Students are not required to attend the production, according to the school district.

One parent contacted the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers after receiving the letter.

“We’re not saying anything bad about Charlie Brown,” Anne Orsi, a Little Rock attorney and vice president of the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, told KARK 4 News. “The problem is that it’s got religious content and it’s being performed in a religious venue and that doesn’t just blur the line between church and state, it oversteps it entirely.”

 

Are there any big deals left in the Anglican Church of Canada?

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A bishop announcing that he believes in the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Christ would stretch my credulity; a lesbian priest married to another woman would merely be par for the course.

From here:

Football star’s mom, a lesbian priest, no big deal in Anglicanism.

Sports reporters preparing for the Grey Cup game on Sunday could hardly believe it this week when Calgary Stampeders star Jon Cornish revealed his mother, a veteran Anglican priest, has a “wife.”

But stories like that of Rev. Margaret Cornish, who has been vicar of St. Alban’s Church in Richmond for almost seven years, are becoming commonplace in liberal Christian churches in Canada and the United States.

There are hundreds of women in the ministry in the Anglican Church and United Church of Canada who have either always been in lesbian relationships or have moved into them in their middle years.

As of this writing, St. Alban’s website is down, but the cached version of its welcome page contains the words “inclusive” and “diversity” – enough to confirm a lingering suspicion that the fictitious bishop of the first paragraph would not feel at home there.

Radical inclusion in Southern Ontario

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We spent a weekend away in Kingsville:

 

Amherstburg, a little further west on the Detroit River boasts an inclusive playground:

 

I have no idea what makes this particular playground more inclusive than any other playground; perhaps adults are allowed to use it. Or, more likely, the inclusivity virus has now infected everything, even playgrounds.

Amherstburg  has not quite reached the pinnacle of euphoric inclusion that would induce it not to continue pointing its cannons across the Detroit river at the U.S. in commemoration of the war of 1812 – a war which even US historians now reluctantly concede, Canada won.

 

The trip even included snow:

 

Microsoft: running on flatulence

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If you are frustrated by quirks in Windows, you will now be able to console yourself with the thought that the next blue screen crash dump you see was brought to you courtesy of – a human dump.

From here:

Data center Microsoft researcher Sean James used to think that a sewage treatment plant would be an inhospitable place for a data center professional. Now when he smells methane at a wastewater plant, he smells free energy.

Microsoft today said it has gotten approval to test a modular data center run from a biogas-powered fuel cell located at a wastewater treatment plant in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Local officials approved a 18-month trial of Microsoft’s Data Plant research program at the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility in a $5.5 million project funded by Microsoft, FuelCell Energy, and the state of Wyoming.

[….]

“A person is consuming data and that person’s waste is going to power the data center,” says James, who is a research program manager with advanced data center development at Microsoft.