The Anglican Church of Canada has its way with the Athabasca oil sands

Posted on March 22, 2015 by David

One of the most elegant punishments God visits on his rebellious people is to allow them to have what they want. The Anglican Church of Canada loves nothing better than to fulminate against the evil of fossil fuels, in particular the Athabasca oil sands. The collapse of oil prices has made oil extraction from the sands less attractive, leading to the loss of around a 1000 jobs.

From here:

While the dramatic downturn in oil prices that has occurred over the past six months has had a wide-ranging impact on economic prospects across Canada, those who have been hit hardest are people who were already on the margins, according to the Rev. Dale Neufeld, priest-in-charge of the parish of Fort McMurray, Alta.

[……]

Some of these layoffs have been quite dramatic. Last week the Financial Post reported that 1,000 construction workers had been laid off from Husky Energy’s Sunrise oil sands project near Fort McMurray. Suncor Energy said earlier this year that they, too, would be laying off around 1,000 workers, and Royal Dutch Shell is cutting around 300.

[……]

The church’s response has largely been pastoral.

Since the church has worked so tirelessly to undermine the oil sands, the only pastoral response that has any integrity would be for it to financially support those laid off. Assuming, of course, that the Anglican Church of Canada has any remaining vestige of integrity.

Anglican Church of Canada discovers what is preventing peace in the Middle East

Posted on March 20, 2015 by David

It’s the fault of Evangelical Christians and their misguided support of Christian Zionism. If only we could persuade these benighted fundamentalists to repent, the rockets descending on Israel, the beheading epidemic, extreme Muslims bombing less extreme Muslims, people being burned alive for no particularly good reason would all immediately cease.

Why did no one think of this before?

From here:

Canadian Anglicans are invited to join members of other traditions at an upcoming conference that will explore a belief many see as one of the biggest obstacles to peace in Israel and Palestine.

[….]

A movement rooted in conservative evangelical Protestantism that emerged in the mid-20th century, Christian Zionism holds that the contemporary State of Israel represents the culmination of biblical prophecy and thus merits strong—and often uncritical—moral, financial and political support.

Parishioner wants handshaking abolished at the passing of the peace

Posted on February 25, 2015 by David

But, as an Anglican bishop noted:

Bishop Geoff Peddle of the Anglican Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador said the practice has been discussed many times before in his church.

“We have dealt with it over and over again,” he said. “During SARS, the H1N1, we stopped all physical contact and refrained from drinking from the cup,” he said.

In contrast, the Anglican Church of Canada is quite content to encourage men to have anal sex with one another by blessing the activity; that, after all, is so much more hygienic than shaking hands.

The Anglican Church of Canada: we are the Borg

Posted on February 2, 2015 by David

I recently received this email to which I think it might be interesting to respond publicly:

You know, the ACoC isn’t some monolithic body, right? There are many evangelicals, conservatives, and traditionalists who’ve stayed within the ACoC. Hell, there’s even folks like myself still being ordained there (by “like myself” I mean, young, straight, married, evangelical). How does that fit within your universe?

Contrary to what my correspondent suspects, I don’t have the luxury of inhabiting my own universe; after all, if this were my universe there would be no ACoC.

I dispute that there are “many evangelicals, conservatives, and traditionalists who’ve stayed within the ACoC”. There are some, obviously, but most have already left; the few that remain tend to protest too much and form small, quivering, impotent huddles like the Anglican Communion Alliance; their stated aim may be to staunch the liberal tide but no-one, least of all the ACoC, takes them seriously. There are even some orthodox bishops for whom I have some sympathy: Bishop Bill Anderson, for example; I interviewed him here and here.

No matter how much conservative holdouts might try to convince themselves otherwise, the ACoC is a monolithic body: it is an organization that forces assimilation into the dominant culture. It pretends to be inclusive but clergy who resist the liberal drift in any serious way are isolated, ostracised and generally not hired in the first place. The main purpose of any who stubbornly remain is to bolster the illusion of the ACoC’s tolerance and inclusion when they are conveniently paraded as tame conservatives at ecclesiastical photo ops.

For many years my own parish maintained a dignified isolation from its home diocese, the Diocese of Niagara. We ignored them and they ignored us – unless they needed more money, of course. Eventually, though, it becomes apparent that this is a dishonest relationship; how can you remain a subsidiary of an organisation with whom you fundamentally disagree? If you wish to retain any integrity, you can’t.

So, to my correspondent: my dear boy, if you, as you say, are “young, straight, married, evangelical”, get out now before you are assimilated.

The Anglican Church of Canada does Interfaith Dialogue

Posted on January 31, 2015 by David

From here:

Interfaith dialogue
Canada is an increasingly pluralistic country, and more and more Canadians are living, working, and socializing side by side with people of other religious traditions. For Christians, there is a growing need not just for dialogue with people of other faiths, but for genuine relationships with them. Increased awareness of religious plurality, the potential role of religion in conflict, and the growing place of religion in public life all present urgent challenges that require greater understanding and cooperation among people of diverse faiths.

The Anglican Church of Canada pursues formal dialogue with people of other faiths together with the other member churches of the Canadian Council of Churches.

I would like to commend the ACoC on this initiative. In fact, Interfaith Dialogue is so important, I feel compelled to make a contribution. So here goes:

Islam is wrong.

Anglican Church “explores the spiritual depths of David Bowie”

Posted on January 19, 2015 by David

What is there to explore, you may be wondering.

For the Anglican Church of Canada, plenty: David Bowie is bisexual, an atheist manqué, and a mocker of Christianity; he fits right in.

From here:

Mike Daley, assistant music director at Church of the Redeemer, has been staging “Rock Eucharist” church services monthly. This Sunday will feature the works of David Bowie.

Mike Daley has a delicate task — selecting the most appropriate David Bowie songs to play during an Anglican church service this Sunday.

[…..]

He has to strike the right balance between songs that people will know and that represent the artist, and pieces of music that are appropriate in a church setting and speak to the Bible readings that day.’

Anglican priest wobbles miserably on Charlie Hebdo

Posted on January 14, 2015 by David

The Anglican Journal published a reasonably good article on the Charlie Hebdo Islamic terrorist murders. Predictably, it rankled with some reverends: here is Rev. Bob Bettson telling us that the nub of the issue is not free speech at all: it is really all about not upsetting people – “Muslim brothers and sisters”, in particular:

I would echo the previous comment and say that this situation is complicated. Free speech carries responsibility with it. I was part of a Muslim Christian dialogue in Calgary representing the Anglican Church when the Danish cartoon came out. We as a group of Muslim and Christian leaders expressed our concern with the degrading and sophomoric cartoons, and expressed the hope they would not be reprinted in Canada. We acted in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. The Charlie Hebdo massacre is deplorable. But lets not make this about free speech, because the kind of free speech exercised by Charlie Hebdo is sometimes like pouring gas on a fire. We condemn the massacre as religious leaders. But we also don’t make the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists into heroes–which they were not in any sense.

You will note that Bettson calls Charlie Hebdo’s humour “sophomoric”; I am flattered that when Michael Bird sued me, Bettson used the same epithet about Anglican Samizdat: an endless stream of ridicule and sophmoric [sic] humour.

But to the point: Bettson reckons that “Free speech carries responsibility with it”. It does: it carries the responsibility to offend. If it never offends, it isn’t free. Liberals, whether political or religious, have a totalitarian temperament that has little use for freedom of any kind: it could lead to people disagreeing with them, disrupting the harmony of their inbred little utopias.

Ethical investment advice from the Church of England

Posted on January 5, 2015 by David

Edward Mason is Chair of the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. He recently visited the national offices of the Anglican Church of Canada.

From here:

Whether it is the Rockefeller family joining a campaign to withdraw $50 billion from fossil fuel investments over the next five years or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement pushing for changes in Israeli policies toward Palestine, many people are thinking and talking about where they don’t want to put their money.

[….]

“We don’t expect perfection,” Mason said, “but we expect a positive direction of travel and a willingness and desire to make that positive journey. So with BP, it was reforming their safety procedures, which they put a huge amount of effort into.”

Henriette Thompson, director of public witness for social and ecological justice for the Anglican Church of Canada, noted that there is a renewed focus on investment issues for the Canadian church because the joint declaration on responsible resource extraction made with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) at the 2013 Joint Assembly commits the churches to “advocate for responsible and ethical investment and actions by individuals, faith communities, corporations, and governments both in Canada and around the world.”

Mason is working hard to “disincentivise” the use of fossil fuels:

From here:

While engagement with companies is an important component of an ethical investment response to climate change, it is not sufficient. We believe that engagement with policy makers is even more important: only policy makers can put the price on carbon that is needed to disincentivise the use of fossil fuels.

Doubtless he would have visited Canada earlier had it not been for the fact that he paddled himself across the Atlantic in a sustainable canoe constructed from renewable bark harvested from an organically grown Amazonian Hymenaea tree lovingly cultivated from a seed in his own back garden.

One would think that Western Anglicanism, having largely replaced the hope of heaven later with the illusion of utopia now, would be enthusiastically supporting the use of fossil fuel. No other technology has benefited billions of people as fossil fuel has. Even the lenses in Edward Mason’s glasses are probably made of polycarbonate, derived from the demon petroleum; let’s see how well the disincentivising goes without your glasses, Edward.

Fred Hiltz plumbing the depths of understatement on the marriage canon

Posted on December 23, 2014 by David

Apparently, the ACoC’s impending change to the marriage canon is causing “a bit of anxiety.”

Fred Hiltz visited Justin Welby recently to talk about the proposed marriage canon changes; and reconciliation – an odd juxtaposition since adoption of the former will eliminate the possibility of the latter. Funnily enough, during his last visit, Hiltz cautioned Welby about recognising ACNA; we wouldn’t want to overdo the reconciliation charade, would we.

From here:

“The archbishop was interested in where we are with the marriage canon matter, and in the interests of transparency I took a copy of the resolution from General Synod, the resolution from Council of General Synod giving the commission a mandate,” said Hiltz, who met with Welby on Dec. 17. “I gave him an update in terms of where the commission was at this particular moment, and that was as much as I could do. I think he appreciated that.” The commission is looking at a proposed change to Canon XXI to allow for same-sex marriage.
[…….]
Hiltz also met with officers at the Anglican Communion Office and at Lambeth Palace, and noted that the question of the marriage canon came up more than once. “There’s a bit of anxiety in the Communion about what might happen here and the fallout that might come from that.”

Anglican Standing Commission urges the Anglican Church of Canada not to amend the marriage canon

Posted on December 20, 2014 by David

From here:

The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) has urged the Anglican Church of Canada not to amend its marriage canon (church law) to allow the marriage of same-sex couples, saying such a move would “cause great distress for the Communion as a whole, and for its ecumenical relationships.”

The IASCUFO’s statement came in response to a request from the Canadian church’s Commission on the Marriage Canon for an opinion about proposed changes to Canon 21 that would allow for same-sex marriages. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, decided IASCUFO would be the “most appropriate” body within the Communion to deal with such a question.

The Anglican Church of Canada has the prerogative “to address issues appropriate to its context,” the IASCUFO said, but it noted the ramifications of “a change of this magnitude” for the Communion and its ecumenical partners. In a letter addressed to Canon Robert Falby, chair of the marriage canon commission, IASCUFO members said they were unanimous “in urging you not to move beyond your present policy of ‘local option,’ ” which allows dioceses to choose whether or not they will offer same-sex blessings. They noted that the absence of a General Synod decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or same-sex marriages “has given space for the rebuilding of fragile relationships across the Communion.”

When deciding whether to allow the blessing of same-sex civil marriages, the ACoC delegated downwards: the ever slippery national church has made no statement that unequivocally gives its approval for same-sex blessings, yet it doesn’t censure individual dioceses that do. In this way, the ACoC nurtures the hope that it will not be held accountable for the chaos created by its sexual agenda.

I’ll be interested to see how the ACoC attempts to wriggle out of accepting responsibility for continuing with the marriage canon discussions; there aren’t enough conservatives left in the dwindling denomination to prevent the almost inevitable marriage canon change, yet there can’t be a local option marriage canon.

Perhaps the church will abdicate its responsibility by exiting the marriage business altogether.