Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

A Church celebrates Earth Hour by polluting the air

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Parishioners of St. Cuthbert’s in Toronto celebrated Earth hour at their second annual Candlelight Meditation. Here they are:

I can’t help noticing that everyone is holding a paraffin wax candle. Paraffin, when ignited is a rich  source of numerous toxins:

Paraffin is a derivative of petroleum. When burned they release carcinogenic toxins such as benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein and soot into the air. The emissions from paraffin candles contain many of the same toxins produced by burning diesel fuel. It is like starting up a diesel engine inside you home!

St. Cuthbert’s, Toronto, polluting for Jesus.

The Anglican Church of Canada continues its scorched earth policy

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As it loses more and more people, the ACoC is consolidating parishes, selling empty buildings and laying off staff at head office just to stay solvent. Regrettably, this frugality does not extend to negotiating outside the courts with parishes that have left the ACoC. Rather, large sums of money are being paid to lawyers in order to seize buildings for which dioceses have little use – other than to sell – from congregations who are using them for their intended purpose: worship.

The latest salvo is being directed at the Ottawa churches, St. Alban’s and St. George’s; both left the Anglican Church of Canada for ANiC in 2008.

In 2008, the Centertown News published this:

Ross Moulton, executive archdeacon to Bishop John Chapman of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, said the break has brought sadness and sorrow to the Anglican community.

Moulton said it’s too early to tell whether St. Alban’s will be able to keep its church building…..

But Moulton said the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa is adamant about the wish to settle this property dispute in the most cordial manner possible.

“I think it is everybody’s hope that some amicable arrangement could be made,” said Moulton. “To get into long court battles, it consumes a lot of resources, time, and money. And at the end of the day, nobody wins.”

In spite of this welcome intrusion of common sense from Moulton in 2008, the lawsuits are now forging ahead, naming volunteer wardens in the suit – a vindictive, take no prisoners strategy that was also used in Niagara and New Westminster.

In Niagara a clumsy disinformation campaign was also launched to convince parishioners still in ACoC parishes that the lawsuits were instigated by the ANiC parishes. An acquaintance in a local Diocese of Niagara parish walked out of a service when a letter claiming this was read from the pulpit.

Now, as the Hairy Eyeball reports, a similar manoeuvre is being attempted in Ottawa:

Well, it seems that there are rumours circulating around the Diocese of Ottawa about the latest rounds of  lawsuits between the Anglican Church of Canada and ANiC parishes.  Specifically, there’s a rumour circulating that the latest lawsuits involving St. Alban’s Ottawa and St. George’s Ottawa were started by ANiC.  This is absolutely untrue.  The Diocese of Ottawa sued St. Alban’s, not the other way around.

The cliché of the month for the Anglican Church Of Canada is that it is becoming a “missional” church – the word was to be found in every second sentence at the recent Anglican Synod. The precise meaning of “missional” is unclear, but it must have something to do with trying to appeal to those who do not presently attend a church.

Perhaps “missional” means “join now, be sued later.”

There is action in the Anglican Church of Canada. Really

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From here:

The Anglican Church of Canada agreed last week not to take any legislative action in response to differing views on same-sex blessings.

Rather, they chose to have “more conversation,” said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

“That’s an action,” Hiltz insisted, according to the Anglican Journal.

Hiltz also noted other Anglican actions, some quite dramatic:

  • The Archbishop of Canterbury will not trim his eyebrows this year: the indigenous nesting cormorants will not need to find a new home.
  • The Anglican Church will not stop congratulating itself on having discovered the song “Amazing Grace”.
  • Anglicans in the “conversation” will not stop talking even though they ran out of things to say 20 years ago; some will continue to talk after they die.
  • Hiltz will not stop using the phrase “our beloved church” no matter how many people beg him to do so.
  • The church will not stop suing people: it is part of the generous pastoral response to the call for moratoria.
  • Bishop Michael Bird will not stop playing the bagpipes. Not until Rowan Williams trims his eyebrows.

There you have it: a frenzy of activity.

Turning church into a self-help group

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A number of dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada have jumped on the “Back to Church Sunday” bandwagon in the hope of luring the unwary into one of their parishes.

Back to church for what, though? I’ve always been partial to attending church to worship God: as the Westminster Shorter Catechism notes, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That seems good enough for me; but it’s not good enough for Michael Harvey, the developer of Back to Church Sunday. According to him, church should be more about discovering the potential within. Worship is merely a small but important – so far – element of what church should really be.

Anglican Church of Canada: The Me Church.

[flv:https://anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/videos/BackToChurchSunday.flv 600 360]

You can watch the whole thing here.

A comparison of historic Anglican events in Canada

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The Anglican Church of Canada’s synod has sputtered to an end producing little more than a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nevertheless, Fred Hiltz has hailed the synod as “historic”. It’s difficult to imagine a less historic event, although I did trim my toenails this morning and I suppose that might just qualify.

General Synod 2010 full of historic and holy moments.

In a media conference following the closing Eucharist service, Archbishop Hiltz spoke of several, “historic and holy moments in the life of the church” that took place throughout General Synod.

Coincidentally, an article appeared in the National Post this morning about an insignificant little parish in Oakville full of a peculiar – if not downright eccentric – people who seem to be in the middle of something that really is historic:

Oakville Anglican parish home of profound revolution

There is nothing that hints at revolution on this suburban road in Oakville, where St. Hilda’s Anglican parish has sat for more than 50 years. No wild signs of protest, no warnings of hell and damnation, and no list of Luther-like demands nailed to the main door — just a not-so-extraordinary church building in the midst of a neighbourhood easily forgotten by those driving through.

Nevertheless, a religious revolution has taken place here as profound as anything seen in modern Christian history.

Also sprach Zarathustra – and Peter Elliot

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The remarkably fitting theme music for Peter Elliot’s musing is the tone poem by Richard Strauss, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical novel about the death of God.

It is more widely known, of course, as the music in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; it introduces a bunch of monkeys banging bones on the ground in front of a large black obelisk. Symbolic of a contemporary Anglican synod, perhaps.

I’m not sure which of these ideas is supposed to be the backdrop for Dean Peter’s exhortations, but I suppose either would work.

ACoC Director of Philanthropy “resigns”

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From here:

The executive director of the department of philanthropy for the Anglican Church of Canada has resigned, effectively immediately.

Dr. Holland Hendrix was appointed executive director of General Synod’s new philanthropy department in October 2008.

“…this morning the Primate (Archbishop Fred Hiltz) and I accepted the resignation of Dr. Holland Hendrix as executive director of philanthropy. …,” said Sam Carriere, acting general secretary of General Synod, in a statement. “We wish him well in future endeavours.”

Anyone who has worked in a large organisation knows what the above coded message really means: he was fired. Perhaps it was this less than stellar idea that brought about his premature demise.

Fred Hiltz is to be a missional primate

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From the ACoC:

A missional Primate?
What is the Primate’s role in the Anglican Church of Canada? Over the past three years, the Primatial Role Task Force explored this question through historical research and consultation with active Anglicans.

What does “missional primate” mean? It’s hard to tell, but the ever helpful Wikipedia advises us that:

“Missional living” is a Christian term that describes a missionary lifestyle; adopting the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message. The use of the term missional has gained popularity at the end of the 20th Century due to Tim Keller, Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, the Gospel and Our Culture Network, Allelon, and the Emerging church movement, as well as others to contrast the concept of a select group of “professional” missionaries with the understanding that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission/mission of Jesus Christ.

This seems to imply that to be a “missional primate”, Fred Hiltz would have to cease being a professional clergyman, give up his salary and become a normal Christian – good news indeed.

Christianity Today, thinks that:

A missional theology is not content with mission being a church-based work. Rather, it applies to the whole life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of life. We are all missionaries sent into a non-Christian culture.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God’s purposes in and through his  people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

This is written by Alan Hirsch, who goes by the nails-on-a-blackboard title of “missional activist”. Here we are told to go out, not just reach out – although I am unsure of the distinction.

It is instructive to enter “what is missional” into google; from the results, it seems that the term is sufficiently slippery to appeal to just about anyone who is not allergic to trendy words.

In spite of the fact that I am all for taking the Gospel – the real Gospel – outside the church walls, my unease with what appears to be yet another fruitless attempt to build the Kingdom of God on earth before God is ready to participate is not assuaged by things like this:

More and more evangelical and missional leaders have begun to characterize the gospel of justification by faith alone, penal substitution, and the salvation of souls as a “small gospel.”

Why is that a “small gospel”? What could be larger than the salvation of even a single soul, over which the angels of heaven rejoice?

An Anglican-Lutheran joining

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Anglicans and Lutherans join forces:

The Rev. Brad Mittleholtz has been officially appointed as priest for a newly combined Anglican-Lutheran parish in the Bruce Peninsula. This new expression of the Full Communion relationship between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Anglican Church of Canada was celebrated at a service at Trinity Anglican Church in Wiarton, Ont. on April 26.

Seven Anglican churches, which make up the Anglican Parish of the Bruce Peninsula, and St. Peter’s Lutheran church, will share in a ministry but will maintain their own buildings and identities. At the service in Wiarton, members of the parish proclaimed:

We believe God is calling Lutherans and Anglicans
to witness, and the Holy Spirit will enable us to join
in Ministry on the Bruce Peninsula by
sharing, celebrating, and rejoicing in God’s gifts to us.
We believe that in sharing equal partnership, no congregation
will lose its autonomy, identity, integrity, history or traditions.
We believe in working together as disciples
For the spiritual well-being of the people of the Bruce.
We believe in witnessing to God’s message
By sharing both ordained and lay leadership in ministry.

What does this really mean?

[flv:https://anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/videos/Lemmings4.flv 480 385]

The Anglican Church of Canada wants to have its cake and eat it

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Rev. Michael Thompson from St. Jude’s in Oakville has written a rebuttal to an earlier article in the Journal which plainly stated that, if the ACoC is honest, it cannot sign the Anglican Covenant and continue its present course.

Such stark Kierkegaardian either/or propositions tend not to sit well with Western Anglicans; they much prefer interminable Hegelian dialectic garnished with Rowanesque waffle-sauce. Rev. Michael is no exception. Unfortunately, he also seems to inhabit an insular suburban world that has little access to news outside Oakville; he hasn’t noticed that the vast majority of the Anglican Communion are seriously considering – many already have – breaking communion with the ACoC and TEC whether the ACoC likes it or not. The whole article is below, but to summarise, Rev. Michael is saying that the ACoC can sign the covenant, go its merry way, hide behind the ludicrous canard that it is contributing to “diversity”, ignore the protests of 70 million Anglicans – whose priests are wicked interventionists anyway – and pretend everything is just fine. The truly grotesque thing is, he appears to believe it.

In the work that bears his name, Gilbert and Sullivan’s wonderfully imagined Mikado purports “To let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime.” In their guest opinion column in the Anglican Journal (May 2010, p. 5), Catherine Sider-Hamilton and Dean Mercer have, on the other hand, already decided the punishment– “a second-tier status in the larger Anglican Communion.” It remains only to conjure up the requisite crime.

Their opening gambit is to accuse our church of a “willingness to walk apart from the universal church.” Never mind the long list of Canadian Anglicans who have served and are now serving the life of the Communion. The Anglican Indigenous Network (Donna Bomberry), The Compass Rose Society (Bishop Philip Poole), Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (Archbishop Colin Johnson), the Anglican Covenant Working Group (Dr. Eileen Scully) and Unity, Faith and Order (Alyson Barnett-Cowan) don’t count. And never mind those bishops who have abandoned almost 2,000 years of Catholic ecclesiology to interfere with the integrity of the local church in this and other provinces because they and they alone know how to receive and interpret God’s word revealed in scripture.

In 2004, General Synod heard both the Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Gregory Cameron, and the Bishop of Colombo, Duleep de Chickera. While Canon Cameron counseled caution, Bishop Duleep reminded us that not all voices in the wider Communion spoke as one and encouraged Canadian Anglicans to cherish our contributions to Anglican diversity. In 2007, the General Synod heard both Archbishop of York, John Sentamu and General Secretary of the Anglican Communion, Kenneth Kearon. Last year, Canon Isaac Kawuki-Mukasa of the Faith, Worship and Ministry Department of General Synod established personal contact among bishops and theologians in Canada and Africa, including a February gathering of Canadian and African bishops to build respect and mutual understanding. This is not a church as unable to embrace “a primary commitment to the universal and apostolic church” or as inimical to “the wider voice of the church.”

Next, the writers imply that the current conflict pits those who love and faithfully receive scripture against those who despise it, who find its teaching “oppressive and outdated.” But we know that those who support the blessing of committed monogamous same-sex relationships include many who know and love the Bible as living witness to the living God. And we know that as we receive and interpret scripture, the truth that emerges is often contested truth–as for example, we come to divergent conclusions about the response that the God revealed in scripture invites to a question of sexual ethics and Kingdom ethos in the 21st century. Conflict and contested truth are not unfamiliar to Jesus’ disciples, and need not tear apart the foundational covenant of our common baptism into one body. We could renew a healthier and more faithful discourse by acknowledging contested truth and engaging in honest and charitable conversation about the practices, values and contextual realities that shape our reception and interpretation of scripture.

In the communiqué issued from their 2000 meeting in Portugal, the Primates of the Anglican Communion said this:

We are conscious that we all stand together at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ, so we know that to turn away from each other would be to turn away from the Cross.

They went on to draw a bright line distinction as the only basis for a province or diocese being excluded from the Communion:

…the unity of the Communion as a whole still rests on the Lambeth Quadrilateral: the Holy Scriptures as the rule and standard of faith; the creeds of the undivided Church; the two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself and the historic episcopate. Only a formal and public repudiation of this would place a diocese or Province outside the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Church of Canada has not turned away, either from those provinces whose leadership is visibly, even angrily, distressed by the divergence apparent in the current conflict, or from the Lambeth Quadrilateral. And we have not turned away from those among us whose lives of commitment we experience as vessels of God’s blessing.

Ms. Sider-Hamilton and Mr. Mercer argue that if we won’t turn away from those among us whose lives of intimate fidelity are shared with a person of the same sex, we must turn away from covenant revelation with those with whom we disagree on this singular issue. But in the Anglican Church of Canada, we turn away, not from covenant relationship, but from the sin that binds and blinds us, from the structures that impair justice and right relationship, and from the Adversary who resists the inbreaking kingdom of God. And as we turn to Jesus, we find him standing in the midst of the very community one part of which Mr. Mercer and Ms Sider-Hamilton insist we must abandon. There Jesus stands, in a community of divergent truths, worried suspicion, and fear, and begs us not to turn away from any of his sisters and brothers, but to accept the unity he offers up out of his own breath and blood.

One wonders why Thompson even wants the ACoC to sign the Covenant; it couldn’t be because the ACoC enjoys temporal power too much to be willing to let it go for its principles, could it? Surely not.