Tag Archives: Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi

The Diocese of Dire Straits aka Huron

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The Diocese of Huron has financial problems, its cathedral is starting to fall down and its churches are being closed and sold.

An example from an annual vestry report from St. James Westminster serves to illustrate the aura of doom and pessimism that has settled over the diocese. The rector of the parish at the time of the report was Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi. In 2011 Nicolosi prepared a document called Twelve Steps to Church Growth; in his 2016 vestry report he bemoaned the “state of the church in these times emphasising decreased attendance” and that that the ACoC “will probably have to decrease the number of dioceses in the future”. So much for the twelve steps to church growth – perhaps its readers failed to recognise the existence of a Higher Power.

A vestry report for St. Paul’s, the diocesan cathedral, is equally sombre. The diocese is failing to meet existing financial commitments, still owes $5Million in court costs and the cathedral can’t find the money to fix the roof and doesn’t have enough toilets. The one bright note in all this is that a “gender neutral washroom” is on the horizon; at least that may attract some peeping toms and boost the numbers.

To counter the falling away of parishioners, the financial problems and the wavering faith of the few remaining faithful, the cathedral’s Rev. Deacon Pat Henderson recently led an expedition to a local Mosque to learn about the five pillars of Islam. If that doesn’t reverse the tide, nothing will. Come to think of it, perhaps Henderson is looking to the future when the cathedral finally falls down and the last parishioners still managing to cheat death need to find somewhere compatible to worship.

Lobster loving Anglicans

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From here:

Jesus looked at the book of Leviticus—a confusing tangle of ancient legal codes and taboos, mixing primitive superstitions together with enduring ethical insights—and what did he find there? He found laws in Leviticus forbidding a disabled person from being a priest, branding lepers as outcasts from the community, stigmatizing a woman as unclean during her menstrual period or after giving birth. Leviticus forbids same-sex relations, eating lobster, tattoos, wearing clothes made of two different kinds of fabric, and planting a field with two different kinds of seed.

That settles it: the fact that there are Anglicans who persist in eating lobster and no-one seems to care must mean that no-one should care if they also engage in sodomy. I had no idea it was that simple.

If only it had occurred to Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi to point that out before now, we could have avoided all the recent Anglican unpleasantness.

Anyway, as Rev. Nicolosi goes on to point out, all you really need is love – particularly when you love lobsters.

The Anglican Journal comes to grips with bin Laden’s death

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And, apparently, it’s really all about “overcoming our rage”.

Here:

For most Americans, and for many people in the free world, the death of Osama bin Laden was cause for celebration…….

Feelings of anger, hatred and revenge are not uncommon to people at times of social and religious upheaval. When the foundations begin to shake, when established certainties are put in doubt, when innocent people are cruelly murdered and when a nation is besieged, the natural reaction is to hate those who hurt us, to strike back at those who attack us. We may think of ourselves as tolerant, reasonable people, but in the face of horrific violence we can easily turn into people of rage

Nicolosi goes on to compare the supposed “rage” that Americans feel towards bin Laden to Psalm 137:9, “Happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the rock!”.

He has things backwards. The “rage” that has spawned the indiscriminate murder of innocents is the rage of Islamists; the West has taken extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties.

Another point that Nicolosi makes is this:

Third, unless we are prepared to accept the kind of violence described in Psalm 137, our task today is to enter into dialogue with Islam rather than to demonize it.

Nicolosi obviously takes the view that Islam, rather than radical Islam, is the problem. It remains to be seen whether he is correct or not, but I have little doubt that Nicolosi would be squirming in anguish if he realised that he has placed himself in the same camp as Geert Wilders.

Either way, whether Islam or Islamism is the problem, thinking that “enter[ing] into dialogue” will solve anything is a delusional fantasy.