Anglican Apologies R Us

Apologies are the in thing, so the Diocese of Toronto is going to issue another one. This time to the “LGBTQ2S+ community”. I’m not sure what the diocese has to apologise for: they have a homosexual bishop, the clergy regularly cavort in the Toronto Pride Parade and rainbow stoles are ubiquitous.

We’ll find out Friday. I can hardly wait.

From here:

On Friday, June 25 at 10 a.m., Bishop Andrew Asbil will issue an apology to the Diocese’s LGBTQ2S+ community. This comes after months of prayerful reflection, intentional consultation and conversation with various members of our Diocese, and for Bishop Andrew personally, decades of walking alongside this community. He has invited those who have helped to shape the apology to be present with him and the College of Bishops at St. James Cathedral. Only those who have been invited will be admitted.

We hope you will watch the live stream on the diocesan YouTube channel and join Bishop Andrew in this significant moment in our life together as a Diocese.

Diocese of Toronto to start the new year with antiracism and anti-bias training

And listening sessions, we mustn’t forget the listening sessions.

Apparently, bias and racism are the barriers that are preventing the diocese from “reaching all people with the good news of Jesus Christ.” I suppose there is some truth in that: the Anglican Church of Canada has been biased against orthodox Christians for years. I don’t think that’s what the bishops have in mind, though.

From here:

The Diocese of Toronto is embarking on a comprehensive plan to address racism and bias in the Church. The plan, which will be launched in January, will include listening sessions, antiracism and anti-bias training, the formation of a strategy group, and the raising up of volunteers to lead training workshops. Bishop Jenny Andison, the diocese’s Diversity Officer, says the plan will build up capacity in the Church so that it can begin to dismantle the barriers that are preventing it from reaching all people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

[……]

Starting in January and February, groups from across the diocese will take part in listening sessions. Participants will come from different cultural backgrounds and will include members of the LGBTQ2 community. They will be asked to share their experiences of race, racism and bias in the Church.

Toronto clergy to be sent for re-education

I almost feel sorry for them, poor dears. They’ve done their best to keep up with the latest fashions in wokeness, but developing theologies of the impossible – men can become women, two men can marry, a man who has become a woman can marry a woman who has become a man – was not enough. Not even incessant self-flagellation for the Anglican replacement for Original Sin – Original Racism – has been enough.

Bishop Jenny Andison is sending them to re-education camp because, well, she is infected with the sin of racism, so you must be too.

When you come out, you will be a better person for it. If you come out.

From here:

As a white woman of privilege, while I am aware that the sin of racism infects my own heart, I also acknowledge that I cannot fully under-stand the impact and effects of racism on my racialized brothers and sisters. This summer, as part of my own education, I am reading The Cross and the Lynching Tree by the late James H. Cone. If you haven’t read this seminal work, do.

[….]

Lament is not simply the shedding of tears but is crying out to our Heavenly Fa-ther in pain. It is prayer, at the invitation of God, to renew our confidence that in Jesus Christ all things are being made new and the Spirit of God is being poured out on all flesh. As the current Diversity Officer for the Diocese of Toronto, I am working closely with the Intercultural Committee to bring anti-racism and anti-bias training to our diocese this fall. This training will be man-datory for all clergy and leaders of diocesan committees.

Toronto bishop laments the lack of Pride Parade

Bishop Andrew Asbil has sent a Letter to the Diocese expressing his dismay at the absence of a Toronto Pride Parade this year. No bright costumes! No joyful music! No naked men without bright costumes! How will Anglicans cope with this severe deprivation?

Consolation can be found in the new Marriage Policy which promises to marry anyone to anyone no matter what your self-identified gender, choice of pronouns or chromosome arrangement.

From here:

Dear Friends in Christ,

At the beginning of each summer, millions of people gather on the streets of Toronto and other cities and towns across our great Diocese to celebrate Pride. With bright costumes, joyful music and lots of glitter, members of the LGBTQ2S+ community and their allies celebrate the beautiful diversity of God’s creation. For many years, Proud Anglicans have been an important part of this celebration.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the public Pride celebrations have been cancelled or moved online this year. This is a tremendous source of grief for members of the LGBTQ2S+ community, who look forward to being together for mutual support and solidarity. This year is particularly difficult for young people who are isolated at home and also in the closet. We must be vigilant in creating safe spaces for them wherever possible.

With the support of the College of Bishops, I have recently issued a new Marriage Policy for the Diocese of Toronto. In the life of our Church, we are now celebrating the marriage of two people, regardless of gender. In the same spirit of diversity, the College of Bishops wishes a very Happy Pride to all Anglicans across our Diocese who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, two-spirited, queer and questioning, and also to their families and allies. We stand with you.

Let your yes be maybe and your no maybe not

The Diocese of Toronto has decided that same-sex marriage is both legitimate and not legitimate. In polite company, this is known as an antinomy. Or, in plain language, rubbish.

The good news is, there is almost no one who cares anymore what the Anglican Church of Canada thinks about anything. So the fact that it has decided to stake its reputation – what is left of it – on a statement that raises illogicality to the status of dogma is of little interest to anyone who continues to inhabit objective reality.

From here:

“Marriage in equal measure means that our Diocese chooses to hold in creative tension two views of Holy Matrimony that are, at once, contradictory and yet legitimately supported and honoured by our bishops, clergy and laity. This place of creative tension follows a long season of study, reflection, conflict, revelation and struggle. Clergy and laity in this Diocese will be supported in holding and teaching a theology of marriage as being between a man and a woman or a theology of marriage that does not require the couple to be of opposite gender.”

Diocese of Toronto waves goodbye to objective reality

The Diocese of Toronto has decided to proceed with same-sex marriage even though the vote to change the Marriage Canon to permit such marriages was defeated at general synod.

In a masterstroke of ingenuity, the diocese has found a way to get around this inconvenient obstacle. We don’t have to change the marriage canon; all we must do is reinterpret it to mean something other than what is clearly stated in the canon.

The diocese has entered the murky realm of post-truth ecclesiology.

From here (my emphasis):

From this sharing and listening, we will gather what we’ve heard into our diocese’s message for the Council of General
Synod when it meets on Nov. 23-25, and to General Synod itself.
This is what we are considering:
• Declare that Canon XXI (On Marriage in the Church) applies to all persons who are duly qualified by civil law
to enter into marriage. (This is an interpretation of the Canon, not a change to the Canon.)
• Change wording to be gender neutral (i.e. “the parties to the marriage”).
• Opt-in process. (Noting that no cleric is required to marry anyone.)
• Must be authorized by the diocesan
bishop.

Five Diocese of Toronto clergy want a divorce from the diocese. Except they don’t

The recently published attendance statistics of the Anglican Church of Canada paint a gloomy picture of a dying denomination. The proposed solution is to do more of what is killing the church but do it with more enthusiasm.

Five conservative clergy in the Diocese of Toronto have noticed the flaw in this strategy and are proposing, not a divorce exactly, but at least a separation. They optimistically reckon that a third of the clergy in the diocese would go along with this.

This is nonsense for two reasons:

First, clergy willing to risk their reputation, friendships, buildings and pension for the sake of the Gospel have already done so: they have joined ANiC.

Second, it assumes that liberals in the church are willing to live alongside those who disagree with them. They aren’t. If you want evidence of this, look back at the recent General Synod after the failure of the marriage canon vote. Those who lost the vote were literally rolling on the floor wailing in anguish because their views were not affirmed. Uniformity of thought is the only balm that will ease their suffering.

Some may see this letter from the Anglican Communion Alliance as encouraging. I don’t. Conservative clergy who remain in the ACoC have been in desperate retreat for decades, occasionally throwing up a rearguard action as a squid squirts ink to aid in its getaway. If they really meant what they said, they would no longer be ACoC clergy.

From here:

An Open Letter to the House of Bishops November 14, 2019

A simple question:

If the clergy of Toronto were asked, “How many of you wish to be part of a region where your ministry will be conducted within the boundaries of the doctrine, discipline, liturgy and canons of the church?,” how many would say “yes’? Likely a third. Probably more.

The question is asked because a clear choice now exists. If Toronto’s 2019 Diocesan Synod is the example, the ruling ethos of the diocese, led by a very talented and likable bishop, is demonstrably outside those boundaries.

Using experimental liturgies and hymns that abandon the “common prayer” of the church,

. . . living by the open sexual ethic of the local option,

. . . in public defiance of the church’s canons

. . . according to a faith that is unrecognizable by the received standards of the Christian faith and indistinguishable from the secular mores of Canada’s cultural elite.

And, not insignificantly, having failed completely regarding one of its most cherished dreams – diversity! In the time that membership in the ACC fell from 1.3 million to 350,000, down to less than 100,000 in average Sunday attendance, Canada’s population doubled. Where the ACC once represented 7% of the population, that number has now dropped to 1%. There are two ways forward. The first is the status quo. If you choose 1960 as the starting point, it has 60 years of decline behind it. It was a time when that which was held in common – doctrine, discipline, canons and liturgy – shrank dramatically, and the outer boundaries grew apart, to the extent that they are no longer recognizable to each other.

The second is to recognize that the outer limits cannot, at present, be contained in the same body because the resulting tension is both destructive and fatal. It is to declare a 20-year ceasefire and to give what has become two distinct realms the freedom to conduct their ministries according to their truest lights and to show the fruit of their ministry. Call it the Gamaliel experiment. Keep it simple. For the sake of the unity of the church, limit the division to bishops and clergy. Parishes would retain a certain independence and remain able, as they now are, to seek and request a change in direction when a successor is appointed.

Let the experimental party be guided by their self-declared bishops.

And let that party seeking to live within the boundaries of the received doctrine, discipline, liturgy and canons of the church fall under the oversight of bishops publicly committed to upholding the received teaching of the Church. Communion Partners and Communion Partner bishops is one example ready to hand. They are a body already active in Canada, recognized communion wide and capable of maintaining order and oversight according to the received faith of the church.

Why 20 years? Because the best prediction says 2040 is when we close up shop, anyway. If this is the last leg of the journey, would it not be better to have the two realms in a state of peaceful co-existence, serving at full strength, to be judged by the fruit of their ministry for the sake of Christ and his Church?

We place this proposal — our own — before the whole House of Bishops to consider.

Ajit John+, Murray Henderson+, Dean Mercer+, Ephraim Radner+, Catherine Sider-Hamilton+

Climate striking Anglicans

Assorted bishops and other clergy participated in the recent climate strike demonstration in Toronto. What were they striking from? Will they stop doing whatever it is Anglican Church of Canada bishops do to earn their stipends? If so, this would be good news for the ACoC: it could mark the beginning of a resurgence in attendance, even a revival.

That is too optimistic. I fear it was just another vacuous genuflection to the latest societal fad.

There is good news in this, though. If, as the sign below suggests, fossil fuels are kept in the ground, the bishops’ dentures will all fall out because denture adhesive is made from petroleum byproducts. And they will all wear dentures because there will be no toothpaste since it, too, is made from petroleum. Eyeglasses have polycarbonate lenses, so they will be no more resulting in the clergy being unable to read their sermons. This is looking better all the time.

I was going to say something about petroleum jelly but, after seeing Bishop Kevin Robertson smiling in the foreground, decided against it.

How to write LGBTQ hymns

If you’ve always wanted to do that, Dr. Lydia Pedersen will teach you how in her workshop on hymn writing. If, like me, you think having a root canal without freezing is more appealing, read no further:

Dr. Lydia Pedersen, a United Church member and a church musician for more than 50 years, is offering a workshop on  hymn writing. Anyone can attend and no experience is necessary.

“Most people think that writing a hymn is a terribly esoteric thing to do and only clergy ever think of doing it, but I want to debunk that myth by showing that regular people can do it, too,” she says.

Ms. Pedersen, who teaches hymn writing to seminary students at Emmanuel College in Toronto, says people want to write hymns for all sorts of different reasons. Some simply want to express their love of God, while others want to mark special occasions or use language and imagery that are more relevant to their context.

“Things are changing in society,” she explains. “We need hymns for the LGBTQ community. We need hymns about the ecological crisis. Things that we didn’t worry about thirty years ago have become crucial issues, and people need to sing about them in church.”

Bishop of Toronto pontificates on same sex marriage

Since General Synod failed to pass a motion approving same-sex marriage, Bishop Andrew Asbil is advocating taking a pastoral rather than legislative approach to marrying same-sex couples. In other words, full steam ahead with same-sex marriage, legislation be damned. Had the reverse been the case, I doubt that he would be advising a pastoral approach to prohibiting same-sex marriages.

Naturally, he takes great pains to reassure recalcitrants who stubbornly cling to a Biblical version of marriage that they will still be welcome in the Anglican organisation. But does anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex believe him? Do you really think that when Harry and Jim show up on a conservative priest’s doorstep, demand that he marry them, and sue him because he refuses that the Diocese of Toronto will pay his punitive legal fees? No, me neither.

Is that an earring in Asbil’s lower left auricle?