Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

How does the Anglican Church of Canada plan on attracting people?

Posted on by
7

By lowering the standards for membership. Of course, by doing so, everyone will catch on to the obvious fact that by requiring little from its followers, the church has little of value to offer: the lower the cost, the lower the value, the less the desirability of the merchandise, the fewer people interested.

In its ceaseless striving to become worthless, the Anglican Church of Canada is considering offering Communion to those who don’t believe in it. From here:

Should we invite persons who are not baptized to receive Holy Communion? The church is discussing this question today. Anglicans traditionally have believed that the eucharist is a family meal, reserved for members of the church through baptism. Those who are not baptized are not members of the church; therefore, they cannot participate in the family meal.

This exclusive view of the eucharist has a long history. St. Paul warns against eating and drinking in an “unworthy manner” (I Cor. 11:27), though he seems to leave the decision whether to partake in the meal to each person’s conscience (I Cor. 11:28). Closed communion is standard practice in some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox. However, many Anglican churches throughout the world now practice open communion. There are good reasons, both missional and theological, for doing so.

 

The Fall was really a rejection of stewardship

Posted on by
3

According to the Anglican Church of Canada:

The first crisis of human stewardship came with our first ancestors’ decision to test the sovereignty of God by consuming the only fruit in the garden reserved exclusively to the Creator. Rejecting stewardship and embracing the illusory promise of sovereign possession of the garden, they initiate a continuing pattern of exploitation, entitlement, violence and destruction that plagues human participation in the life of the earth. There is only one essential stewardship question: Will we make use of resources entrusted to us to serve God’s mission, or for purposes that we ourselves devise or that are thrust upon us by an economy that depends absolutely on growing consumption to sustain it?

The ACoC must be really desperate for money if it has resorted to a more literal interpretation of Adam and the apple than the most fervent fundamentalist.

The usual interpretation of the unhappy events in the Garden of Eden is that Adam rebelled against God by disobeying the one thing God asked him not to do: eat the apple from the tree of life. Adam ate because he wanted to become like God and when he did, sin entered the universe, polluting it and us until the end of time.

Not so for the Anglican Church of Canada: for them it’s all about the apple. It’s God’s apple, you see – he really likes apples – and we pinched it from him: thus began the evil of capitalism.

All this reminds me of what my dog must be thinking when he licks yellow snow and I pull him away: “master wants to lick it himself”.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Martin Brokenleg does some more David Kato handwringing

Posted on by
1

From here:

It is not Anglican requiem tradition to eulogize the deceased, although it would be easy to do so in the case of David Kato. He was Anglican, openly gay and worked for human rights for sexual minorities.  Born in Uganda, he lived for some time in South Africa, a safe place for gay and lesbian people.  Then in 1998, the same year that Matthew Shepard, also Anglican, was beaten to death in the United States, David returned to Uganda to work for justice for gay and lesbian people. He founded Sexual Minorities Uganda and was known internationally for his work.

At around 2 pm on Jan. 26, 2011, David was beaten to death with a hammer. He was in his own home in Uganda. No ordained Anglican clergyperson came to bury him. Instead, a lay reader was sent to lead the funeral.  When the lay reader denounced gay persons, some in the crowed cheered. Then a young lesbian named Kasha seized the microphone and spoke about David’s work. Eventually, an Anglican bishop not recognized by the Church of Uganda because of his support for gay folk, spoke a comforting word.

What Brokenleg doesn’t bother to mention is the real reason David Kato was murdered. It wasn’t because someone who hates homosexuals decided to take it out on Kato. Nor was it because Kato was a Christian or a gay Anglican: it was because Kato had promised to pay a criminal to have sex with him and after the deed was done, didn’t pay up.

I can’t help wondering whether the Rev. Canon Dr. Martin Brokenleg has as much sympathy for the thousands of Christians who are being martyred, tortured, arrested and turned out of their homes – usually in Islamic nations – or whether they hold little interest for him since they are being persecuted for their faith not their sexual proclivities. We never hear “requiems” for them, so, presumably not.

The Anglican Church of Canada continues to claim that it isn’t obsessed with deviant sex. Who believes them? Not me.

Anglican Church of Canada: Vision 2019

Posted on by
1

It seems to be disappearing more rapidly than I anticipated. The main page, which on December 15th yielded:

Now shows:

One can only assume that the Anglican Church of Canada has decided to bury the corpse before it begins to stink.

All is not lost, however: the Vision 2019 report lives on – for now.

Among my favourite sections is the timeline appendix where the plan for promoting the Five Marks of Mission can be found. The ambitious scheme suggests that by 2019:

“Most Anglicans know of the Marks, and half can name three.”

Very much like Moses and the 10 commandments. Moses presents his plan to God:

“In 10 years most Israelites will know of the commandments and half of them will be able to name 6”

The Anglican Church of Canada and its $600 million

Posted on by
1

From here:

State Street has been appointed by the General Synod Pension Plan of the Anglican Church of Canada to provide custody, securities lending and other services for CAD $600 million in assets.

  • Services include custody, fund accounting, securities lending, foreign exchange
  • CAD $600 million in assets to be serviced

State Street has been chosen by the General Synod Pension Plan of the Anglican Church of Canada to provide custody, fund accounting, securities lending and foreign exchange services for CAD $600 million in assets.

The Plan, registered with the province of Ontario and was started in 1946, provides benefits to clergy and lay employees of the Church and related organisations.

A match not made in heaven, perhaps, since State Street has had legal action taken against it for, among other things, misleading investors over sub-prime investments, highly risky illiquid investments, failures to disclose risks to investors and “unconscionable fraud”.

As this article notes,

Over the past two years the US custodian has lost money and reputation. The search is on for new fee revenue to support the industry colossus that the bank has become.

I expect State Street is gratified to have found a church to bolster its fee revenue – if not its reputation.

In Anglican Church of Canada, the Gospel is part of a Sacred Circle

Posted on by
Reply

From here:

The Gospel in the Centre of our Sacred Circle has become an important and dynamic part of the growing spiritual movement among Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island.

The Gathering Prayer
Creator, we give you thanks for all you are and all you bring to us for our visit within your creation. In Jesus, you place the Gospel in the centre of this Sacred Circle through which all of creation is related. You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life. Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your Spirit, for you are God, now and forever. Amen.

Why does the Gospel of Jesus Christ need a “Sacred Circle”? There are a sufficient number of unappetising “Sacred Circles” to make any association – even if just in name, although it appears to be more than that – between them and a church a thing to be assiduously avoided.

Here are some examples: The Wiccan Sacred Circle,  The Shamanic Sacred Circle, the Tarot Sacred Circle and, my favourite, the Canada Goose Sacred Circle (also Shamanic).

The Anglican version appears to be based upon the First Nations Sacred Circle which has nothing at all to do with the Gospel and has probably only been adopted by the ACoC out of a misplaced sense of guilt.

The Anglican Church of Canada sings Silent Night

Posted on by
2

From here:

This Sunday, Nov. 28, is the time to act. Everyone is encouraged to sing “Silent Night” and to send in videos to General Synod as part of the Silent Night Project.

Regrettably, Bishop Michael Ingham and half the other bishops in the ACoC  succumbed to choking fits when they sang the line “Round yon Virgin Mother and Child’. Luckily, there were no fatalities since the bishops, having recited the Creeds every Sunday, are well-practised in spouting what they have long ceased to believe.

Anglican Church of Canada to spend $360,000 on fund raising campaign

Posted on by
7

From here:

1. That the Philanthropy department be authorized to initiate and facilitate a nation-wide diocesan-centred fundraising initiative to benefit parishes, dioceses and General Synod.

2. That dioceses not involved in a similar campaign be encouraged to engage in this initiative, with the understanding that the “case for support” will include aspects of the case for [support of] General Synod.

3. That a feasibility study for this initiative be conducted in up to 10 dioceses. The results will be shared with the participating dioceses and the CoGS.

4. That the Council of General Synod approve $200,000 to invest in the nationwide fundraising initiative being undertaken by the Philanthropy department.

With CoGS approval of the additional $200,000 for the initiative, its budget for the year is $360,000.

As the article goes on to observe: “there are pools of generosity in the life of our church that have not yet been fully tapped.” I expect the average Anglican parishioner will be excited to be thought of as a pool of generosity ripe for tapping.

In between dinner-time phone calls peddling windows and duct cleaning, brace yourself for a new one from the Anglican Church of Canada trying to raise money to pay for its litigation lawyers.

The Anglican Church of Canada’s Christmas evangelism

Posted on by
5

This whole article is worth reading if only to reinforce the suspicion that when the ACoC uses the word “evangelism”, what it means has absolutely nothing to do with saving people from hell through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Instead, it is about market share: how do you entice more people into the church building.

Several years ago, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente wrote about how much she enjoyed attending Christmas Eve worship. She was raised an Anglican.

She also said she didn’t believe a word of what was said.

What struck me was not that she didn’t believe the Christmas story, but that she still attended church on Christmas Eve. In fact, she even received communion.

As you can see, Margaret Wente doesn’t believe a word of what was said – just like many Anglican priests.

More on the BC court of appeal ruling

Posted on by
1

On Monday November 15th, the legal wrangling between the Diocese of New Westminster and parishes that have left the diocese because of theological disagreements reached another milestone.

The highest court in British Columbia ruled not to overturn an earlier court decision that said the parishes could not continue to use their buildings for non-diocesan purposes: the buildings remain with the diocese and the departing congregations must vacate them. No decision has yet been made to pursue one more possible appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ostensibly, this Anglican squabble began with the Diocese of New Westminster’s decision to proceed with the blessing of same-sex civil marriages in selected parishes. The disagreements run far deeper than that, though. Liberal Anglican dioceses – New Westminster is one of the most liberal – have been slowly eroding the basic Christian faith for decades. Bishop Michael Ingham, in interviews and his book “Mansions of the Spirit”, has questioned the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, his Virgin birth, his divinity and his uniqueness. What, as a bishop, he should defend, he has undermined.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, sought to calm the storm created by the vehemence of such disagreements by trying to find an Hegelian middle ground between the diametrically opposed positions taken by Anglican liberals and conservatives. At the Lambeth conference he used indaba groups – small groups where everyone has a chance to speak – to accomplish this. Although his technique made everyone moderately unhappy, it at least held things together, so it was hailed as a success and adopted by the Anglican Church of Canada at its recent synod.

The result was a statement on human sexuality which declares that the Canadian national church has not officially approved the blessing of same-sex civil marriages, but dioceses are free to make their own decision. It’s an Anglican version of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Dioceses are proceeding apace with same-sex blessings while the national church quietly averts its gaze: the dioceses that are performing same-sex blessings are doing so in the closet.

Although the Anglican Church delights in trying to find doctrinal middle ground, when it comes to who owns church property, the quest for compromise is strangely absent. As one of the trial judges noted: “I could not help but feel that counsel’s respective submissions were like two ships passing in the night, as were the legal authorities on which they relied.” There were no courtroom indaba groups; when it comes to buildings, winner takes all.

The judges perceptively noted that: “[p]resumably the Bishop and the Synod have chosen to take the risk that the policy allowing same-sex blessings will indeed prove to be ‘schismatic’; or that clergy in the Diocese will for the foreseeable future find themselves ministering to vastly reduced or non-existent congregations.”  As the number of people attending an Anglican Church declines, many dioceses, including New Westminster, are busy merging parishes and closing unused buildings. If there is a final legal victory for the diocese, it will be a pyrrhic victory won at the cost of taking fellow Christians to court to obtain possession of buildings for which they have no real use – other than to sell to the highest bidder.

In former times, a sustained decline in church attendance would have been cause for self examination, a time to ask the question “are we doing something wrong?” – particularly when evangelical churches who have a less fluid view of what constitutes Christian doctrine are growing. Not so here. In a move that in business would be seen as a sign of mental instability, the strategy appears to be to win the hearts of potential parishioners by suing the largest congregation in Canada, evicting them from the building for which they have a legitimate use and proceeding full steam ahead with the agenda that caused the rift in the first place.

There are numerous similar court cases in progress with other dioceses. This decision by the BC court of appeal does not bode well for parishes that have left their diocese. The consolation that these parishes have, though, is that a church is a community of people whose allegiance cannot be dictated by a court. A church building can change hands but, when standing empty, it will be nothing more than a rather sad reminder of the folly of a church hierarchy that has lost its way.