“Ensuring a safe space for all” trumpets the headline in the Diocese of Toronto’s newspaper. “All” in this case are people who are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, two spirited, and yet to be identified and, we must presume, more murky areas of our contemporary sexual wilderness.
The main concern of a recent meeting between Bishop Kevin Robinson and “150 other religious leaders, academics and lay leaders from 30 countries and a wide range of faith backgrounds” was the banning of conversion therapy. Other than for transgender individuals for whom conversion therapy and bodily mutilation is encouraged; this brand of conversion therapy has even acquired its own liturgy. Such is the nature of ecclesiastical consistency.
Read all about it here:
Empowerment: A key concern of our gathering was the harm done through the practice of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy consists of “any practice or sustained effort that has the effect of denying, repressing, discouraging or changing a person’s non-heterosexual sexual orientation, non-cisgender gender identity or gender expression.”
[….]
We believe all individuals are made in the image of God, whom many call Divine, and should be free to live a life of dignity, consistent with their sexuality and gender identity, within their faith communities without fear or judgement.
Except for empowering those who freely choose to try to resist or change same-sex attractions and who would like prayer, counselling, or non-coercive therapy to help them. No one in that category is afforded any dignity whatsoever; in order to be a certified Anglican, such a person must repress and discourage his wariness of such urges, submit to them even if he would prefer not to and wave a rainbow flag to signify his acquiescence to Anglican doublethink. All because God has made him this way, even the temptations he would rather do without.
I can’t help wondering whether Bishop Kevin Robinson, who is a homosexual married to another man, is more interested in confirming the rightness of his own actions by compelling others to do likewise than in “Ensuring a safe space for all”.
“Although [Christianity] has followed cultural norms about gender wherever it’s been lived and expressed, there is in its theology and its foundation documents in the New Testament a considerable focus on our humanity and not on our gender,” Beardsley said. This focus on humanity rather than gender find reflection in one of the liturgies CoGS commended for trial use, “A Blessing Over the Process of Gender Transition”. This blessing states that according to Scripture, the “first human’s gender is more poetic than clear cut—this first human embodiment included maleness, femaleness, and more than these—all of this was affirmed as very good.” The Rev. Theo Robinson, a transgender priest at Interlake Regional Shared Ministry and consultative body member, called approval of the liturgies for trial use “an amazing step forward into full inclusion.”
There is a video circulating on social media of a group of truckers in Ottawa discussing their plans. They exchange views in a quite heated manner, and then suddenly one of them begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer. In direct obedience and observance, all of the others remove their caps and follow suit. It’s being posted by supporters of the convoy who see the enterprise as God’s work and want to emphasize the piety of all concerned.
Those 12 years old and over must be fully vaccinated (or have an approved medical exemption) and provide proof of the same, in order to attend the gathering.