Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

Anglican Church of Canada Primate announces she is a racist

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She is a racist, she tells us, because she is white.

Let’s examine this heartfelt confession. The OED defines a racist as:

A person who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized

Linda Nicholls believes, sincerely we must assume, that anyone who has the misfortune of being born with a skin colour that is white, off-white or merely pasty is innately biased against his or her more fortunate brethren who have been endowed with a less pink complexion. She believes that bias against another’s race is itself determined by race. And Linda Nicholls is a member of the benighted race that is cursed with that bias.

That really does make her a racist.

From here:

Last year, in the months before General Synod and the primatial election, an acquaintance told me that she had heard someone publicly share that I am racist. My initial response was to be deeply hurt and to try to find out what I had said or done that would lead to those remarks. How had I acted? What had I said? How could this be when I abhor the thought of racism?

Since then I have recognized that I am racist. I am a white, privileged Canadian who is enmeshed in the cultural expectations and assumptions of the society in which I was raised. I have benefitted because I was born into the class and colour of those who have systemic power. As someone with power I unconsciously participate in and collude with racism and have absorbed attitudes deep within me. I am as enmeshed in racism by the benefits I have received as is the person enmeshed in racism by discrimination. The only aspect of disempowerment I have experienced directly has come from my gender as a woman. Even there, others had begun the battle for rights and recognition over the past one hundred years, and I enjoy the fruit of their hard-won justice.

Anglican Churches in Ontario closed until September

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In Ontario, the Anglican Church of Canada will not be meeting in its churches before September, regardless of government regulations.

I have no idea whether this is the right decision or not but I do wonder how many parishes will have ceased to exist by September.

ANiC has not made any announcement for Ontario yet.

From here:

The past three months have been difficult as we journeyed through a time of wilderness with the closure of our church buildings and as we have creatively adapted our ministries to respond to the emergency situation. Inspired from the witness of scripture, a time of sabbath rest invites our clergy and lay leaders, as well as the whole Church, to take time apart from our usual patterns in order to bring renewed energy and knowledge and skill to the practice of ministry.What this means is that regardless of where the Government of Ontario is with its reopening plan, our churches will not be reopening for in-person worship until at least September. This decision was made in consultation with public health experts as well as our diocesan executive officers and chancellors, with the well-being and safety of all our parishioners and the communities we serve uppermost in our hearts and minds

Anglican Church signs Just Recovery document

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The Anglican Church of Canada has signed a document that suggests that, since we are busy trying to sort out how to get back to work in the middle of a pandemic, while we are at it we might as well also fix the “climate emergency”, redistribute wealth, eliminate all inequality, get rid of fossil fuels, allow unrestricted immigration, provide free healthcare for all, and bring back the rainbow coloured unicorns and flying pigs.

After all, isn’t that what the church is really all about?

From here:

The other principles of Just Recovery include a paramount focus on people’s health and well-being, a stronger safety net and direct relief, prioritizing the needs of workers and communities, and building resilience to face future crises.

The Just Recovery document has been signed by the Canadian Labour Congress, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Toronto Environmental Alliance, the Canadian Federation of Students and many more.

Anglicans and politics

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The Anglican Church of Canada’s Primate, Linda Nicholls has written an article explaining how the church decides to align itself with a particular social or political cause. She says:

Let me share how our church approaches that discernment and share a recent example in the life of our church. The general secretary and I are sometimes approached to add our signatures to a public letter on a significant public issue. Deliberation on the issue requires careful listening to a variety of sources. It is governed first by statements and resolutions of General Synod. Then we turn to Church House staff with knowledge of the issue and to our archivist, Laurel Parson. We also explore where our current partnerships and working relationships are implicated by what we might say.

We explore the theological questions embedded in the issue. What gospel principles are at the core of this matter? Where does our baptismal covenant intersect with it? Is this an issue of justice; dignity of human persons; care for creation or love of neighbour?

One might be tempted to leap recklessly to the conclusion that “gospel principles” would nudge the church into questioning why, during the pandemic, Canada’s health care system finds the time to continue murdering babies in abortion mills but has to postpone almost all elective surgery. Or, if it wants to look farther afield, condemn China’s crushing of freedom in Hong Kong or, indeed, of its own people.

But why bother with these peccadilloes when another chance to condemn Israel presents itself?

From here:

We write to you with great concern about Canada’s silence regarding the plans of the current coalition government of Israel to propose a vote in the Knesset (likely July 1st) on annexing a significant part of the occupied Palestinian territories. These plans constitute a grave breach of Canadian and international law, specifically Article 147 of the IV Geneva Convention, prohibiting the appropriation of property. This silence of the Canadian government is puzzling in light of the recent vote at the UN affirming the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, Canada’s policy position on Palestine-Israel, and its staunch support for the rule of law.

Anglican bishops want a guaranteed basic income

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Canadian bishops from the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have written an open letter insisting that the government pay everyone a ‘basic income’ whether they work or not.

Where is the money going to come from? They don’t say: presumably from people who are working. Why work if you are paid not to work? They don’t say, although they are probably suffering from the woolly liberal delusion that people are innately good and will naturally want to work to support those who find laziness too tempting to resist – like me.

What is really behind this? I expect they are all afraid of losing their jobs and have an uneasy feeling that they would be unemployable in any other profession.

A Public Letter on Guaranteed Basic Income

By General Synod Communications on May 3, 2020

Dear Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Morneau:

Subject: COVID-19 Pandemic – Guaranteed Basic Income

We write from across our country – from the tundra of the high Arctic, the out-ports of the Atlantic coast, from French and English speaking Canada, from urban to rural, the Prairies, the Rockies and coastal mountains and from the Pacific coast; we write as Indigenous people and as non-Indigenous. We write from across denominational traditions. As bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada we write, compelled by our shared faith convictions and moral obligation to care for the human condition of all.

Although we represent great diversity, we write to you because we are united, and morally bound in a singular message: Canada needs Guaranteed Basic Income for all. We need it today.

Anglican Church of Canada’s income spirals downwards

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The Anglican Church of Canada receives 90% of its income from voluntary donations from dioceses. For the 10 years between 2007 and 2017, this income was quite stable. Since then it has been sinking rapidly:

This graph does not take into account the additional and inevitable loss of income due to the closure of all Canadian church buildings.

The solution, we are told, is not repentance and a change of direction, but more conversations:

In response to the financial presentation, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, told CoGS, “The reality is that we need a conversation…with the Council of General Synod, with the House of Bishops, with dioceses.” Citing, among other things, the trends of decreasing giving and attendance in Anglican churches, Nicholls added the conversation would require “transparency and frankness.”

It’s tempting to speculate on whether the ACoC will survive the year of the virus. I suspect some dioceses won’t.

Ontario house of bishops suspends celebrating the Eucharist

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I suspected this was coming. Even though churches are holding online services, it would look pretty silly – elitist even – to have an online display of a priest receiving communion alone. I hope ANiC doesn’t do the same but I fear it will.

What I would like to see is an online Eucharist where each household watching has bread and wine or juice that is consecrated liturgically as usual – except the elements are not all local to the priest. An extraordinary solution to fit the extraordinary times.

From here:

Therefore, the bishops of our province have agreed together that our virtual worship through Holy Week and the season of Easter, or until such time that we can gather in community together, will not include the liturgy of the Eucharist. Sacramental celebrations are the work of the whole People of God and require a gathering of people who can be physically present to one another. That is impossible for most of us at this time. The Great Three Days of Easter, and through the 50 days of the season, we will be fasting from the Eucharist but feasting on the Word. We believe that the Risen One, the Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is present and active with us as we hear and receive him in the word of the scriptures, in that word interpreted and proclaimed in preaching, and in the word inwardly digested, by faith, in each person.

Repelling COVID-19 the Anglican way

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Anglican Primate Linda Nicholls has the following admonition to those of her flock worried about the prospect of contracting the COVID-19 virus: whatever you do, don’t call it the Wuhan virus. That would be racist, the only sin left in the Anglican Church of Canada.

We urge our member churches to reflect a compassionate, peace-seeking response to COVID-19 by:

….. Actively repudiating the racism and xenophobia that has shaped certain reactions to COVID-19;

So, wash your hands and watch you mouth.

Even worse, if you really slip up and call it the Chinese virus, your bigotry will probably invite heavenly retribution; just writing that had me sneezing faster than I could say “xenophobia”.

Anglican Foundation of Canada to spend $50,000 to make the earth cooler

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If you have any ideas that have not yet occurred to any of the 85,000 environmental scientists working on reversing anthropogenic global warming, then the Anglican Church of Canada will give you – 20 of you – $2500 each.

My submission is to ban Anglican Church of Canada sermons: the reduction in hot air would probably catapult us into the next ice age.

When I saw the submission date, the obvious thought occurred to me. I quickly came to my senses and discarded it, since the Anglican Foundation of Canada has no sense of humour or of the ridiculous and is blissfully oblivious of the irony that, even though it can’t solve its own problems, it thinks it can solve everybody else’s.

Anglicans for freezing to death in the dark

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Canadian Anglican bishops like nothing better than to protest oil and gas pipelines in spite of the fact that the fossil fuel carried in the pipelines is the only thing stopping their heads freezing to their mitres.

The latest protest against the Coastal GasLink Pipeline has a new twist. It introduces the 2SLGBTQQIA element. Yes, I know this is a few more letters than we are used to but the Anglican Church of Canada prides itself on its inclusion, so the effect of a pipeline on 2SLGBTQQIA people (you know who you are) is a real concern.

My worry in all this is, why is there no “N” in 2SLGBTQQIA? For the necrophiliac community. Surely Anglicans should include those who are in a stable monogamous relationship and given to such affections: “till decomposition us do part” has a distinct liturgical ring to it.

Our ongoing concern is for the safety of all involved in this conflict, and particularly the unarmed, peaceful Wet’suwet’en land and water protectors and their allies. We share the concern that the MMIWG Final Report Calls for Justice 13.1-13.5 have not been addressed in the planning and implementation of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline. We call on the governments of Canada and British Columbia, along with Coastal Gaslink to “complete gender-based socio-economic impact assessments on” this project and “include provisions that address the impacts of projects on the safety and security of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.”