Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

How to make a muddle of the Resurrection

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All it requires is an Anglican archbishop.

Here is Archbishop Linda Nicholls taking a simple historical fact and miring it in mushy obfuscation.

This starts well but quickly descends in treacly vagueness:

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the event that defines Christian faith. It is the unique event that affirms Jesus’s identity; and confirms, with power, all that Jesus taught about the love of God. It changes everything for the disciples, who must reframe all they expected through the lens that God is acting in life and even through death into new life. Without the resurrection, as St. Paul says in 1 Cor 15:13-14, 19, our faith is useless and we are to be pitied. With the resurrection we enter the lifegiving possibilities that God opens to us through Jesus Christ in every situation and moment of our lives. We share in the resurrection as the principle of God’s life in and through us.

[……..}

The gift of the resurrection of Jesus is the promise that—whether embraced slowly or quickly—the power of God’s love is stronger than the pain, sin and sorrows of what we see. Since Jesus lives, we will too, by entering into the reality that God is both with us now and waiting for us in the future, even if that future looks very different from what we have known in the past.

After emerging coughing from the fog of “entering into the reality that God is both with us now and waiting for us in the future, even if that future looks very different from what we have known in the past”, I consoled myself with the thought that I am a simple soul and, as such, merely cling to the hope that Jesus came back to life along with a real, improved body as evidence that he had overcome sin and death and reconciled us to the Father. Not only that, He a demonstrated that we, too, will rise from death with real bodies to join him. Just like it says in 1 Cor 15:13ff in the bits that Nicholls missed out.

Bishops battling racism

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Bishop Jenny Andison is the Diversity Officer for the Diocese of Toronto – I’m certain there was fierce competition for this position – and, as such, has been given the job of purging racism from the empty pews of the diocesan sanctuaries. As Bishop Kevin Robinson points out, “what about the storm of systemic racism that continues to beat down on our Church and society” What about it indeed. No doubt during the heyday of South African apartheid, racism was as a gossamer web floating on a light summer breeze compared to the remorseless pummeling we are currently experiencing in Canada.

Jenny Andison to the rescue:

In December, Bishop Jenny Andison, the diocese’s Diversity Officer, announced that the diocese would be embarking on anti-racism and anti-bias training for all clergy and staff in the diocese. “We are starting this journey” she says, “so we can build up capacity in the Church to begin to dismantle the barriers that are preventing us from reaching all people with the good news of Jesus Christ.”

[….]

The training will address issues of racism and bias at both a parish level and at the structural level of the diocese. It will help promote gender, racial, sexual and ability diversity and inclusion in parishes and in the leadership of the diocese. It will do so using an intersectional lens and biblically inspired approaches.

If you have time, whip out your intersectional lens to view Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee’s opinion on the subject. Personally, I am very grateful to Bishop Anna for her tireless efforts to make me laugh until I cry. No systemic dismantling for this bishop; she is dismantling systematic racism instead:

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Canadian Anglican archbishops sign anti-conversion therapy declaration

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One day a Canadian Anglican archbishop will do something that surprises me: today is not that day.

Also unsurprising is the fact that the archbishops seem to enjoy antinomy so much that they have not expunged the “T” from “LGBTQ+”. Probably because it is now a hallowed acronym of canonical veracity that has risen to the status of core doctrine and cannot be tampered with without shaking the fundamental heresies that underpin the entire Anglican Church of Canada. Nevertheless, we should remember that the Ts demand conversion therapy, even though it is biologically impossible and has been responsible for ruining the lives of thousands of children and, no doubt, thousands more before our civilization finishes its unravelling.

The archbishops are as spineless as jellyfish when standing up for the fundamentals of the faith they are paid to defend but, to make up for it, their resolve in sacrificing children on the altar of their unhinged ideology is as firm as can be.

From here:

An international interfaith commission has called for an end to violence against and criminalization of LGBTQ+ people and a global ban on conversion therapy.

The declaration by the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives, which launched Dec. 16, 2020, was signed by around 400 religious leaders from more than 35 countries.

Among the launch signatories of the declaration were Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada; Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario Archbishop Anne Germond; and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of BC and Yukon Archbishop Melissa Skelton.

[….]

“Our baptismal covenant calls us to respect the dignity of every human being,” Nicholls said when reached for comment by the Journal.

Among the statements contained in the declaration are: an affirmation “that all human beings of different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions are a precious part of creation and are part of the natural order”; an acknowledgment that religious teachings have perpetuated violence against LGBTQ+ people; a call for all nations to “put an end to criminalization on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity”; and a call “for all attempts to change, suppress or erase a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression—commonly known as ‘conversion therapy’—to end, and for these harmful practices to be banned.”

Canon lawyer declares Canada’s same-sex marriage local option invalid

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After the defeat of the same-sex marriage vote at the 2019 general synod, the Anglican Church of Canada scrambled desperately to find a way to do the very thing that they had voted not to do. Their ingenious canon lawyer, David Jones, came up with the bright idea that, since the existing marriage canon didn’t prohibit same-sex marriage, there was nothing stopping dioceses performing them. This is known as the local option. The existing canon doesn’t say the ACoC can’t marry someone to a sheep, either, but we won’t go there.

The ever-tenacious Anglican Communion Alliance has enlisted the support of another canon lawyer – Professor Mark Hill from the CofE – to offer his opinion. He says Jones’ memo on the subject is “inaccurate and misleading” and anyone performing same-sex marriages should face disciplinary charges. Duelling canon lawyers.

I admire the ACA for their stamina in resisting the tsunami of heretical tripe erupting from the ACoC but will it make any difference? None whatsoever. If Canadian Anglican clergy admitted that same-sex marriage was not marriage at all, half of them would have to get a divorce.

The document from the canon lawyer can be found here, and a useful summary here.

FOR SOME TIME now several diocesan bishops within the Anglican Church of Canada have been allowing – and even sometimes personally performing – same-sex marriages and have authorized liturgies for such rites. They have based their right to do so on a Memo issued in June 2016 by Chancellor David Jones Q.C., the top legal advisor to the Primate.

Now a top canon lawyer in the global Anglican Communion has filed a 10-page Legal Opinion that not only argues that the Chancellor’s Memo is “inaccurate and misleading” but goes much further, stating that disciplinary charges under Canon XVIII currently could be brought against any cleric who solemnizes a same-sex marriage or any person who purports to authorize a liturgy for such a rite.

The Anglican Church has lost the P

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All Anglicans are familiar with the letters LGBTQ2S+ even if we are hazy as to what they mean.

Clergy, anxious to include every variety of kink known to humanity, add to the letters with monotonous frequency.

In spite of that, the Anglican Church of Canada has, as is so often the case, fallen short on its efforts to be fully inclusive.

Today is Pansexual Pride Day and the ACoC is not celebrating it! Where is the P in LGBTQ2S+? Pansexuals must feel so excluded. I know what it’s like: I was once physically ejected from a Diocese of Niagara service just for pulling out my camera to photograph the miserably small attendance. I was so upset I had to go and find a safe space to curl up in. I cried for days.

 

Dismantling Advent

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Advent is the time in the liturgical calendar when we expectantly wait and prepare for both the celebration of the Nativity of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming.

This year, the Anglican Church of Canada has decided to use Advent as an excuse for jumping on the latest faddish secular bandwagon – what a shock, I hear you mutter – and denounce racism and white supremacy.

They are vowing to “dismantle” racism but, instead, have dismantled Advent, an opening skirmish in their battle to dismantle Christianity. If only someone would dismantle the Anglican Church of Canada. Oh, I forgot, they are dismantling themselves. We don’t have too long to wait.

From here:

This Advent, we feel called to name the truth that the sin of racism and white supremacy is ongoing. People continue to be subjected to and oppressed by these systemic evils, even within our own churches and the ecumenical movement.

For the sake of our common mission and witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we share a commitment to dismantling racism and combating white supremacy, and we actively seek opportunities to engage more deeply. We bind ourselves together in this work, even as we are bound together by a common history of complicity with evil. We look forward to meeting with members from the Black, Indigenous and other communities of color within and beyond our churches to help us develop specific goals and actions. We know this will not be easy, but it is essential. It happens only by moving beyond the borders of the familiar, encountering the truth, trusting God’s grace and being transformed. We have much to learn from and with each other.

Anglican Primate Linda Nicholls urges Government of Canada to ban conversion therapy

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Primate Linda Nicholls has written to Canada’s Minister of Justice to voice her support for Bill C-6, a bill which would criminalise conversion therapy.

If passed, a counsellor who agrees to help someone resist or be free of unwanted same-sex attraction would be committing a criminal act. A person who experiences same-sex attraction should have no choice but to accept his unwanted inclinations. Let me repeat: no choice. The reason for this, the Primate tells us, is because to allow the person a choice would be an affront to his dignity, even abusive.

At the same time, the Primate has, in her multi-letter rainbow spectrum, a letter “T” secreted between the letters “B” and “Q”. “T” stands for “Transgender”, a person who chooses to assert that his sex differs from the category imposed on him by his chromosomes. We are all expected to go along with this choice, this fantasy: to do otherwise would be an affront to his dignity and possibly a criminal act. The Primate fully supports, welcomes, applauds and embraces this choice.

Do you see the problem?

From here:

The Honourable David Lametti
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
Da***********@*****gc.ca

Dear Minister Lametti:

I am writing on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) to express support for Bill C-6 to ban conversion therapy in Canada.

Our faith tradition affirms the dignity of all persons, including those persons across the LGBTQ2SIA+ spectrum. We recognize that members of the LGBTQ2SIA+ communities continue to disproportionately experience marginalization, family estrangement, and exclusion in a predominantly heterosexual and gender-binary culture, negating this dignity which we know God to have given to all. Conversion therapy seeks to change core elements of individuals by attempting to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. The ACC does not support this dangerous and abusive practice.

In 2010 the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada passed a resolution calling on the church at all levels to “embrace the outcast and stand against the abuse and torment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons.” It is in the spirit of this resolution that today we stand against the harmful practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ2SIA+ persons in Canada. Such practices are hostile to a person’s identity and an affront to their dignity.

I recognize the proposed Bill C-6 as an important step in protecting Canadians from the damaging effects of conversion therapy and strongly encourage the passing of this important legislation.

Yours in Christ,

The Most Rev. Linda Nicholls
Primate, The Anglican Church of Canada

The Anglican Church of Canada has some new priorities

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Well, they’re not really new, and the ACoC isn’t really a church, it’s a left-wing political agitation organization – an ecclesiastical ANTIFA – but here they are anyway, straight from the latest deliberations of the she/hers, he/hims and they/hes that occupy the Council of General Synod:

Finally, the five areas CoGS thought it was most important for the SPWG (Strategic Planning Working Group) to consider in-depth were:

  1. Self-determining Indigenous church;

  2. Dismantling racism and colonialism;

  3. Public advocacy for social, economic and environmental causes;

  4. Governance and decision-making (General Synod, CoGS); and

  5. Communication with and among Canadian Anglicans.

They all seem to be palefaces, so they have a lot of racist dismantling to do.

Saving souls was number 439 on the list. I’m joking, it didn’t make the list.

New Anglican anti-racism task force

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The Anglican Church of Canada has formed a task force that is supposed to dismantle racism within the church. Having already dismantled Christianity, the clerics have decided to take a break and try something a little easier.

Naturally, there are some new acronyms to learn and inwardly digest: BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), ACIP (Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples) and BlAC (Black Anglicans of Canada). This will be bad news for those of you still struggling with LGBTQQIP2SAA. To avoid confusion, it might be worth lumping them all together to form LGBTQQIP2SAABlACACIPBIPOC.

Incidentally, any children reading this who want to find out more about LGBTQQIP2SAA can go to Kids Help Phone. It’s a Canadian registered charity that will explain more than your parents want you to know.

But back to our topic. In spite of the reservations of some, CoGS (Council of General Synod) will be employing certain aspects of Critical Race Theory. This, in a nutshell, tells us that all white people are racist. It’s innate: we are born that way. A pale person who claims otherwise is doubly racist for not recognising it, confessing, donning sackcloth and ashes and self-flagellating over her white racist privilege. There is no way out.

Unfortunately for CoGS, most of its members are non-BIPOCs, and thus riddled with racist bias, so the whole project is a bit of a non-starter.

Still, it’s good to see that in this time of contagion, the clergy are hard at work trying to entice congregations back to church by telling them they are loathsome racists in dire need of anti-racism training. That should work.

From here:

In a virtual meeting held July 25, the Council of General Synod (CoGS) voted to approve the creation of a task force charged with dismantling racism within the Anglican Church of Canada.

[……]

The motion called for CoGS to establish a dismantling racism task force that would:
“Review policies and processes to identify systemic barriers to full participation for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) in the structures and governance of General Synod and make recommendations for redress”;• Update and promote the Anglican Church of Canada’s Charter for Racial Justice;• “Recommend a process of anti-racism education and training for the Council of General Synod as well as Coordinating Committees, Councils, Commissions and employees of General Synod”;• Develop “a plan to engage the whole church in the work of dismantling racism, including identifying and/or developing resources and training to be offered to Provinces and dioceses”; and• Report the results of its work, at the latest, to the meeting of General Synod in 2022, “including recommendations for ongoing work to dismantle racism within the Church.”

Bishops rejoice at the possibility of life on Venus

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The discovery of phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus means there could be life there, since phosphine gas on earth is made by microorganisms that live in oxygen-free environments. This has excited Anglican Primate Linda Nicholls and Archbishop Mark MacDonald. Regrettably, no phosphine gas whatsoever has been detected in the Anglican Church of Canada, a similar oxygen-free environment.

Mark MacDonald, overcome with joy at the discovery, made this ecstatic, if incoherent, pronouncement: “It is in concert with an Indigenous-informed, Christ- and Spirit-infused view of this universe.” The Indigenous microbes of Venus have not welcomed the comment yet because they are still trying to find out what it means.

Linda Nicholls, not one to waste an opportunity provided by the discovery of galactic microbes, sees this as an excuse to promote her green crusade:

“She did, however, see the discovery announced Monday as one more cause for humans to be mindful of their place in creation and of their responsibility to it.

Nicholls goes on to muse that galactic microbes might be more important than humans made in the image of God. And they wonder why the Anglican church is in decline:

“It should also remind us that human beings are a part of that creation—with particular capacity to create and destroy—but we are not the only or best part!

Read it all here.