Anglican Samizdat

From here:

 There was a time when being a charity meant doing something real, something tangible.

Operating a soup kitchen.

Providing medical help to those in need overseas.

Helping orphans here in Canada.

Providing valuable goods or services.

That’s real charity work.

No longer.

Now it appears that hyper-political lobbying can count as charitable work too.

Yes, you can be a full-time whiner, and that counts as charity work!

This isn’t intended to be a description of the Anglican Church of Canada, but it is an apt characterisation:

The Social Justice and Advocacy Committee is organizing groups of Anglicans to meet with their newly elected and re-elected MPPs in the next few months to build positive relationships and discuss ways of advancing progress on the critical issues of poverty, hunger and affordable housing facing our society.

From here:

Atop his head is, what he calls, North America’s biggest comb-over. In his wallet is a Memphis sheriff’s badge, an honour bestowed upon him by the city where he preaches and performs several times a year. In the palm of his hand is a congregation that really does love him tender.

Elvis Priestley isn’t just in the building; he’s filling it with charisma, boundless joy and a heartfelt, deep-knee-bending rendition of “How Great Thou Art,” a gospel number once recorded by some other guy named Elvis.

It’s Sunday morning at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 426 in Newmarket. It’s where Priestley — a.k.a. Archbishop Dorian Baxter — has been holding services since 2003 when he founded Christ the King, Graceland, Independent Anglican Church of Canada.

But this day is special. For the first time since Baxter was forced out of the mainstream Anglican Church for the Elvisian spin he put on his sermons, the birthday of the real Elvis Presley falls on the anniversary of his church. Presley would have been 77 on Sunday.

Fancy that: forced out of the Anglican Church of Canada for his “Elvisian spin”. So much for inclusion.

From here:

Going to church at Christmas may have been good for the soul, but scientists have discovered that it may also be good for the body.

Researchers found that attending services lowers blood pressure – and the more often you go the lower it becomes.

Unless, that is, you belong to the Anglican Church of Canada and are an unwitting recipient of the Anglican Journal, in which case, if you are a Christian, articles like this will undoubtedly increase your blood pressure:

As for the New Testament, Spong rejects the 4th-century Augustinian interpretation of Christ the Redeemer of sinners. Christ should be reconstrued not as “the divine invader but as the human life who broke through consciousness to a new level of understanding, and people perceive that as the presence of God in him. A hundred years from now I’m quite sure that view will be almost universal.”

In his non-theistic universe, Christianity is about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. “I am tired of seeing the Bible being used, as it has been throughout history, to legitimize slavery and segregation, to subdue women, to punish homosexuals, to justify war and to oppose family planning and birth control.” For him, that is a perversion and travesty that must be challenged and changed.

From here:

Lutheran-Anglican-Episcopal meeting a sign of hope for the church.
Lutheran, Anglican and Episcopal leaders from the United States and Canada met in December to explore new possibilities for working together and to deepen their sense of unity for doing God’s work in the world. In a report issued from their meeting, the leaders stated that their conversation and work together “are hopeful signs for the church.”

“There was truly a spirit of Advent expectant hope as we met to pray and plan for greater cooperation in ministry and mission,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the meeting.

North American Anglican and Lutheran denominations have largely abandoned historic Christianity and, consequently, are spiralling rapidly into oblivion as their congregations flee the transparently bogus religion of inclusivity that is now marketed by both organisations.

Thus, in a last ditch effort to create an illusion of vitality, they have decided to join forces in a koinonia of the wishy-washy hoping, presumably, that by increasing the volume of lemmings hurtling off the cliff, the meaningless squealing of those yet to hit the water will be sustained a little longer.

The Anglican Church of Canada, in the form of Archdeacon Paul Feheley, has waded into the controversy over an Aukland church’s depiction of the Annunciation on a billboard.

From here:

The church has said the billboard is intended to provoke debate, a goal that Archdeacon Paul Feheley, principal secretary to the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, supports.

“Getting people to think about the real and deeper meaning of these events is a really good thing,” Feheley said. “Will it make some uncomfortable? Of course it will. But any thought-provoking ad does that.

Christians believe that Mary was a virgin, was impregnated by the Holy Spirit and gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God: a virgin gave birth to baby who was 100% human and 100% God. The question I have for Paul Feheley is: “what meaning could he possibly ascribe to the event that would be more ‘real’ or ‘deeper’ than that?”

EC68 4869 877U S

Can be found here.

Some interesting tidbits:

1959
A new distribution concept benefitting dioceses and the national church is forged. All identifiable givers to the church receive the newspaper along with their diocesan publication. Circulation skyrockets to more than 200,000.

Since I still receive the Journal, I must be viewed as an “identifiable giver”: believe it or not, I don’t actually give the Anglican Church of Canada any money, so my identifiable giving must be all  the free publicity the ACoC receives on this blog. It’s gratifying to be appreciated.

Come to think of it, though, the Journal receives a yearly subsidy of $596,627 from Canadian Heritage, so, as a taxpayer, I am still contributing to the Anglican Church of Canada. Very reluctantly.

1968-1975
Hugh McCullum, a well-respected journalist and activist, is the first editor to hire professional reporters rather than clergy to produce stories on poverty, aboriginal land claims, pollution, abortion law reform and apartheid. A fierce advocate of editorial independence, he believes that an open, transparent church is a stronger church.

And now, 40 years later, the ACoC is such an “open, transparent” church that its membership has strengthened from around 1.36 million to 320,000, many of whom are septuagenarians.

1977
The newspaper’s editorial policy is revised. While the Canadian Churchman remains the national newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada, its’ [sic] position as an independent voice rather than the official voice of the church, is made clear.

The supposed editorial independence of the Journal is frequently reiterated, largely to avoid losing its substantial grant from Heritage Canada. In reality, it has about the same amount of independence as Pravda had from the U.S.S.R.

Even with the yearly grant, the Journal has been shrinking – it must be getting stronger – and has had to appeal to members for money:

1994
With funding from General Synod slashed by 38 per cent, the Journal seeks donations from readers for the first time. Proceeds from the Anglican Journal Appeal are shared 50/50 with the diocesan newspapers.

Rest assured, though, that it has not abandoned its liberal blinkers: instead it now oozes reader friendliness:

2010
A re-design of the Anglican Journal, the first in a decade, is launched with the April issue, offering a bold new reader-friendly look.

According to the WHO:

• HIV/AIDS kills 1.78 million people per year.
• Diarrhoeal disease kills 2.46 million people per year, many of them children and is easily treatable.

Guess which gets a day dedicated to it? The former: World Aids Day is coming up on December 1^st.

Guess which disease the Anglican Church of Canada has taken upon itself to enshrine in liturgy? I know, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: Aids.

Guess the reason for this – choose one of the following:

• The Anglican Church of Canada is more interested in sexually transmitted diseases than other diseases that kill more people, especially if the other diseases involve diarrhoea. That is because sex is a part of the Anglican spiritual journey and diarrhoea is just yucky.
• The Anglican Church of Canada is obsessed with the Anglican spiritual journey, therefore it is obsessed with sex. At the outer reaches of the Anglican spiritual journey we find homosexual sex. So it is particularly obsessed with that.
• The Anglican Church of Canada has so many homosexual priests that their interest in Aids is really the expression of a desire for self-preservation: homosexual sex is still the preferred way to contract Aids.
• All of the above.

From here:

Hitchhiking priests are common in Cuba. Cars are expensive and hard to acquire, so ministers must get creative with parish visits. Some spend hours on local transit. Some spend precious pesos on taxis. Others hitch rides and some just walk.

[….]

Motorcycles are a great help to these travelling ministers. That’s why the outgoing General Secretary, Archdeacon Michael Pollesel, decided to raise money to buy one  instead of accepting a retirement gift when he left General Synod this fall.

That was very decent of Archdeacon Michael Pollesel. It’s a shame, though, that it probably won’t make him ponder the question why, in the Cuban socialist paradise, most people can’t afford to buy a car and why the Anglican Church of Canada is working so strenuously to turn Canada into an equally impoverished Arcadian collective.

And who will buy Fred Hiltz a motorbike if they succeed?

From here:

The Anglican Church of Canada is making progress toward overcoming a longstanding negative stereotype and becoming an effective partner in preventing suicide.

It’s about time the ACoC did something to reduce the existential angst afflicting the ranks of Canadian Anglicans.

Unfortunately, the article fails to mention exactly when the ACoC will be firing its bishops, closing its doors and turning the lights out.

The Journal calls ANiC parishioners Anglicans. It has to be a typo.

A group of Anglicans from St. John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver, the largest of four dissident parishes in the diocese of New Westminster, will begin Sunday services at Oakridge Adventist Church beginning  Sept. 25.