Author Archives: David

Glory to the gender bending God

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When I was a student at university most of my attention was occupied by drinking, chasing girls and playing the guitar. I wasn’t a Christian at that point, although I did live next door to a couple of Christians with whom I became friends in spite of the fact that I diligently tried to scandalise and upset them whenever I had the chance. They must have forgiven me; one of them used to ask my advice on dating.

Evidently student Christianity has changed a little over the years. It is now a different century and, for me, a different country. And, it would appear, a different religion. I wasn’t convinced that the beliefs of my Christian friends were true, but at least I didn’t think them risibly preposterous. This, on the other hand, is:

Student Christian Movement of Canada

Glory to the Gender-Bending God – This is a devotional explores common experiences of trans people and how they correlate to themes appearing in the Bible. Through this devotional, we hope to affirm the lived experiences of trans people and celebrate trans folks as people of faith. Do name changes, chosen family, and struggling against institutions sound familiar? They should, because all these experiences echo throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. (Full Devotional/Mini Devotional)

The devotional has two accompanying resources:

Tips for a Trans-Affirming Church

Trans Terms & Definitions

Reimagining people of faith

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Here is a tweet by the Archbishop of Canterbury where he informs us he has been meeting people to discuss “peace and reconciliation as people of faith.” Not, you will note “as Christians” but “as people of faith”, a designation so devoid of meaning its use can only be attributed to a severe case of pathological platitude syndrome. After all, there is no such thing as a person with no faith: atheists have faith in their own rationality – usually misplaced in my experience – Druids have faith in animism and contemporary Anglicans have faith in dogma-free homoerotic subjectivism.

True peace and reconciliation can only be found through Christ; perhaps that has just temporarily slipped Justin Welby’s mind.

It must be an afternoon for irritating Canterbury tweets. Here is another one where Welby is reimagining religious leadership for the greater good of the world. Surely you can only reimagine something if it was imaginary in the first place? I suppose that does make sense if Welby is applying it to his leadership of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Terry Buckle joins ANiC

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Bishop Terry Buckle has joined the Anglican Network in Canada, following in the footsteps of Bishop William Anderson who left the ACoC for ANiC in November last year.

In 2003 Bishop Terry offered alternative episcopal oversight to New Westminster parishes unwilling to continue under Bishop Michael Ingham after he approved same-sex blessings. The offer did not fill Ingham with unalloyed joy and was later retracted.

In 2005 he was elected metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon and he also served as chaplain to the Zacchaeus Fellowship, a group of Christian believers who have struggled with same-sex attraction.

From here:

Bishop Charlie Masters has just welcomed Bishop Terry Buckle and his wife Blanche into the Anglican Network in Canada.

They continue to reside in Whitehorse, Yukon. Bishop Terry is a retired Bishop of the Diocese of Yukon and a Metropolitan within the Anglican Church of Canada.

As of June 14th, 2018, Bishop Terry has relinquished the exercise of ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada and was welcomed to the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) by Bishop Charlie early in July.

As a retired bishop in ANiC, he will be given a General Permission from Bishop Charlie to exercise all the priestly functions such as preaching, teaching, and celebrating communion.

Bishop Charlie stated, “We are delighted to welcome such a godly, orthodox bishop, whom we have known for many years, into our midst. His partnership in the Gospel, his passion for the Gospel, his supportive friendship and his many years of experience in Christian service, and now his excitement about continuing to serve the Lord Jesus, will be a blessing to the future of the Anglican Network in Canada.”

Screwtape’s Bible Study

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The Diocese of Edmonton is advertising a course on “God, Christianity and the Bible”.

Regrettably, the title of the course is the preamble to the serpent’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The one that precipitated the Fall and was the start of all our problems.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1

Perhaps it is a Freudian slip or perhaps they have persuaded Satan to lead the course.

To find out which it is, you will have to attend.

An Archbishop, a Queen and an Imam

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Didn’t walk into a bar but they did find themselves together at Windsor Castle in this rather odd juxtaposition:

The Queen is flanked by Justin Welby who believes – although he is slippery about admitting it – in same sex-marriage and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar who believes homosexuality is “completely strange to eastern men… who are naturally disgusted with such deviance”.

By rights Welby should regard the imam as a homophobe – except that would make Welby an Islamophobe. What a conundrum.

My sympathy is with the Queen who was stuck in the middle.

Suicide prevention in the Anglican Church of Canada

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The church has hired two new suicide prevention workers. You might suppose that their focus would be on the recovery of those unfortunate enough to have accidentally overdosed on ACoC sermons. But no, they will be working on Indigenous suicide prevention, a worthy endeavour, without doubt.

The irony is that while these new hires will be working to prevent suicide among Indigenous people, as indeed they should, many of the rest of the clergy are perfectly happy to go along with, and even attend, bless and sanctify, state assisted suicide simply because it is now legal in Canada.

For example, the new bishop of Toronto, Andrew Asbil was present at a recent joint euthanizing.

From here:

The Anglican Church of Canada has hired two new suicide prevention workers as part of its Indigenous ministry.

Jeffery Stanley, a master of divinity student at the Vancouver School of Theology, began work June 25; Yolanda Bird, a former member of Council of General Synod (CoGS) with extensive experience working with children and youth, began July 3.

Each will be responsible for helping deliver existing suicide prevention programs in the dioceses in their areas, as well as helping develop new ones, said Indigenous ministries co-ordinator Canon Ginny Doctor. Their work will also include developing teams of volunteers in dioceses where the need for suicide prevention is especially high, she said.

Bishop of Toronto declares that the Holy Spirit is male

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Here is the homosexual bishop of Toronto, Kevin Robertson, clearly exhibiting a spasm of unrepentant patriarchy by holding up an offensive sign in the Toronto Pride Parade.

This is a slippery slope: if, today, a bishop can get away with saying the Holy Spirit is male, before long he’ll be calling God “Father”.

Where is the outrage from our feminist clergy? Has anyone reported this as a hate crime?

Drag queens recruiting children

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Central Children’s Library in London, Ontario is having Drag Queen Story Time.

DATE: Saturday, July 21st, 2018 from 2:30 PM to 3:15 PM

LOCATION: Spriet Family Children’s Library, Central Library, 251 Dundas Street

COST: FREE (Drop In Event)

DRAG QUEEN STORYTIME

Back by popular demand is our 2nd Annual Drag Queen Storytime at London Public Library!

Talk, read & sing with London’s fabulous Drag Queens as we hear stories about diversity & self-empowerment. Wear your favourite dress or costume!

Make sure to stay after storytime & enjoy the activites in the Spriet Family Children’s Library!

The event is intended for children so, until someone comes up with the bright idea that drag queens are born not made, it is transparently clear that the event is recruiting children by peddling the notion that men pretending to be women – albeit the ugliest women you’ve ever seen – is not just normal but a vocation to which junior could aspire.

Here they are in action. As you can see, all perfectly normal:

Church of England responds to pre-Synod satirical blog

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The blog that has caused all the confusion can be found here.

And here is the church’s statement

We are aware of a blog entitled ‘Church of England’s Synod may abolish Holy Trinity to include Muslims’.

Apparently some commentators appear not to have realised the author intended it to be a joke. For the avoidance of doubt, this article is entirely without basis of fact, and is published marked as ‘satire’.

The agenda for the July 2018 General Synod can be found here, including details of all Private Member Motions listed for debate.

The Church of England remains fully committed to the doctrine of the Trinity.

As soon as I read this, I realised we had entered murky water: is the church’s statement itself satire? Who can tell anymore? If people thought Jules Gomes was being serious, it is only because what he said seems increasingly plausible.

Even the Church of England thinks it is sufficiently plausible that they are obliged to deny it.

Sometimes I think we are trapped in an ecclesiastical Matrix where nothing is real. In this Faustian simulation, rather than saving souls the church busies itself with fussing over gender fluidity, sexual deviancy of every variety, global warming, fossil fuels, buildings, status, armchair socialism, secular power and, most important, clergy pensions.

I am waiting for someone to pull the plug on the connection to the computer so that the church can reintroduce itself to reality.

TEC questions God’s gender

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After decades of diligent searching, The Episcopal Church has finally found a sentient being who is not entitled to self-identify as the gender of his choice: God. Even though God repeatedly refers to himself as “Father” in his autobiography, TEC is having none of it.

If we let God have its way in this, “our work toward equity will not just be incomplete, I honestly think it won’t matter in some ways”, said Rev. Wil Gafney, a Hebrew Bible professor who currently self-identifies as a woman.

When Gafney preaches ne sometimes refers to God as “She” rather than “He”; pretty offensive, since ne should be using the gender neutral “Ne” “Ze” or “Ve”.

I like to do my bit for the work toward equity.

From here:

The terms for God, in the poetic language of the prayers written for centuries, have almost always been male: Father. King. Lord.

And in the Episcopal Church, the language of prayer matters. The Book of Common Prayer, the text used in every Episcopal congregation, is cherished as a core element of Episcopal identity.

This week, the church is debating whether to overhaul that prayer book — in large part  to make clear that God doesn’t have a gender.

“As long as ‘men’ and ‘God’ are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete. I honestly think it won’t matter in some ways,” said the Rev. Wil Gafney, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Texas who is on the committee recommending a change to the gendered language in the prayer book.