The Diocese of New Westminster is running out of cash

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The Dioceses of New Westminster, having alienated and driven out its conservative congregations, is hard pressed financially:

One major reason was that in 2002, when some congregations and clergy walked out of our Synod, our Diocesan budget was reduced by 28%.

Consequently, it has hired fund-raising consultants to help replenish its coffers.

Not all the parishes received the news with unmitigated rejoicing:

• A majority saw the case as a diocesan wish list without a solid business plan and for that and a variety of other reasons they did not support it.
• The proposed revenue split between parishes, diocese and national church was not supported.
• The interviewees had a variety of opinions about why they and others did not support a financial campaign at this time.
• A common view was that the church is no longer the place where churchgoers give first. There is constant competition for donor dollars.
• The church must become more efficient in using donor dollars. Regular reporting on how revenue is used and evaluation of programs and initiatives supported by those dollars must be improved. The church can no longer rest on its laurels and just expect to receive gifts.
• 18 of those interviewed believe there are still wounds from the split that happened ten years ago and it is too soon to start a campaign of this magnitude.

It tears at the hearstrings for me to report that:

It was Compton’s finding that there was not sufficient support to launch a 19 million dollar campaign over 4 or 5 years.

Still, I’m sure the consultants were paid handsomely.

Tolerance and inclusion in the Church of Scotland

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The Church of Scotland has succumbed to the spirit of the age and is in the process of deciding to approve the ordination of clergy in same-sex relationships and the blessing of same-sex couples.

Not all agree. Rev. Dr. William Philip doesn’t, so his church is losing its building, Bibles, hymn books and an organ.

What do the liberals want with Bibles?

From here:

The minister of St George’s Tron in Glasgow has preached his last sermon in the building, before the Church of Scotland seizes the premises.

The congregation, which has been meeting in its Buchanan Street venue for more than 70 years, split from the Kirk in June over the ordination of openly homosexual ministers.

Since then St George’s Tron has been embroiled in a legal dispute about its building, which has recently undergone a £2.6 million refurbishment paid for by its members.
Last Wednesday, law officers appeared at the church prayer meeting demanding the return of bibles, hymn books and an organ.

The minister, Rev Dr William Philip, described the Kirk’s actions as “shameful”.

He said: “Having law officers disrupt a church meeting and intimidate a church is something we associate with China or former Soviet dictatorships but is the last thing we expected from the so-called national Church.”

Professor of church history says ANiC really is Anglican

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Something that sticks in the craw of the Anglican Church of Canada’s leadership is what the “A” stands for in “ANiC”. Thus, a group of Diocese of Niagara clergy complained when a local paper, the Burlington Post, referred to a new ANiC church building as “Anglican”.

Canon Alan Hayes, a professor of church history at Wycliffe, has defended ANiC’s claim to be Anglican in the Diocese of Niagara’s paper.

I had a chat over coffee with Alan Hayes a few years back; he was an affable fellow who lamented the diminishment of diversity within the ACoC after the departure of the ANiC parishes. While I’m keen to be able to call the church I belong to Christian, I’m not too concerned about whether it is generally recognised as being Anglican or not. Nevertheless, since it causes the opposition such consternation, I will continue to insist that it is, in fact, Anglican.

I don’t think he was fired for consorting with the enemy.

From here (page3):

I’m still digesting the letter you reprinted from some senior Burlington clergy to the Burlington Post differentiating ACC Anglicans from ANC Anglicans.

I hope that this doesn’t start a pattern where ELCIC Lutherans will write in to distinguish themselves from Missouri Synod Lutherans, PAOC Pentecostals from Four-Square Pentecostals, BCOQ Baptists from Fellowship Baptists, CCC Congregationalists from unaffiliated Congregationalists, Free Methodists from Wesleyan Methodists, Roman Catholics from Old Catholics, MCC Mennonites from Old Order Mennonites, OCA Orthodox from ethnic Orthodox, PCC Presbyterians from RPCNA Presbyterians, CRC Reformed from RCA Reformed —the permutations are almost endless.

Come on, Burlington Post! Pay attention to our schisms! Can it have escaped you how important they are?

But, wait. Is it such good strategy for Christians to stomp into the public forum shouting at the top of their lungs, “WE’RE not the same as THEM!”? Have we thought what this sounds like to the world?

Or, more scripturally, can we find spiritual health in rushing to draw lines of separation between ourselves and “the other”? Jesus used the parable of the righteous pharisee to answer that one, and Paul taught that we’re all one in Christ Jesus.

They say that one reason the early Church grew so explosively was that outsiders looked in with awe and said, “See how the Christians love each other!” Now we’re prompting the public to declare, “See how the Christians really, really don’t get along!”

How’s that working for us?

Canon Alan L. Hayes, Oakville

Occupy the garden shed

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If you do, make sure you don’t pay anyone for the privilege because, if you do, he will be fined and you will be kicked out.

From here:

A B.C. woman has been fined $500 for renting out a garden shed to a homeless couple and their three dogs.

A power cord that ran from the woman’s house in Kelowna, B.C., supplied electricity to the small metal building, for which she was charging rent of $200 per month.

It’s not clear how long the people and pets had been living in the shed. Bylaw officers warned the owner two weeks ago it was not suitable accommodation, but the advice was ignored, said city spokesman Stephen Fleming.

The mistake the homeless couple and their dogs made was they weren’t making a political statement. Had they been occupying the shed illegally and put up a sign to the effect that they were the 99%, no-one would have touched them, Anglican clergy would have preached sermons about them and celebrities would have paid them a visit for a photo-op.

Lacking that foresight, they are now not only homeless but shedless – although the Kelowna Gospel Mission has generously offered them a place at its shelter.

Abortion in Canada

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Here are Canada’s 2009 abortion statistics published by the National Post in graph form – click on it for a full sized image.

As Peter Hitches noted:

Those who wonder what they would have done if they had lived at the time of some terrible injustice now know the answer. We do live in such a time. And we do nothing.

Nowhere does this apply more than Canada. Canada has no law limiting abortion no matter how well developed the baby or how flimsy the excuse. Abortion is used as birth control, girls are aborted because they are not boys, a twin is aborted because two babies are too many; babies are aborted because they cost money to bring up, because they interfere with careers and because they just get in the way.

All political parties are afraid to discuss abortion; other than the Roman Catholic church, mainline denominations are too dominated by feminists and their wimpish male sympathisers to protest and, apart from a few stalwart exceptions, Canada’s citizens follow the zeitgeist like mindless, bleating sheep.

 

Dean Peter Elliot appointed to TEC special task force for church structural reform

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It seems that The Episcopal Church, in the name of diversity, wants to “include some persons with critical distance from the Church’s institutional leadership” on its task force. Other than Michael Ingham, I can’t think of anyone less distanced from TEC’s leadership. Peter Elliot is extremely liberal, a partnered homosexual and at the forefront of the Anglican Church of Canada’s rush to become an exclusive church for the alphabet soup community.

From here:

In addition, two partners from other Anglican Communion provinces have been appointed: the Very Rev. Peter Elliott of the Anglican Church of Canada, dean of the Diocese of New Westminster and rector of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver; and the Rev. Sathianathan Clarke, Th.D., of the Church of South India, who is the Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity and professor of theology, culture and mission at Wesley Theological Seminary.
Resolution C095
According to resolution C095, “The membership of the Task Force shall reflect the diversity of the Church, and shall include some persons with critical distance from the Church’s institutional leadership.”

More on MPAC at All Saints Episcopal Church

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Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Church, the church that has rented its facilities to the Muslim organization, MPAC, is astonished at the negative reaction to his cosying up to Islam, a religion that has as much in common with Christianity as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does with the Pope.

From here:

A storm cloud has swept over us and is raining down fear and intolerance. On Dec. 15, an American Muslim organization, MPAC, will hold its 12th annual convention at All Saints Church. This has caused some to vilify our community and has brought out the Islamophobes.

At All Saints, we believe that to be religious in the 21st century is to be interreligious. And to be a member of this church is to be a member of the peacemaking community. MPAC is one of our integral partners in interfaith peacemaking.

It is in the DNA of All Saints Church to stand up for justice and provide a voice for the marginalized in society.

The theme of this year’s MPAC convention is “Our Future in the Making.” Salam al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, said, “at this moment, as we convene at All Saints Church, the future is now, where we all can take hope and encouragement from this opportunity, where we come together to glimpse what is possible and can visualize what a future of peace could look like.”

It is time to end the toxic narrative that too many of our religions have promulgated that says that in order to become a part of my religion you have to hate somebody else in another religion. We can change that dynamic. We can make the decision to stop sleepwalking, to wake up to reality, to embrace the inter-connectedness that binds us all, no matter what religion or race.

Salam al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, is renowned for his interfaith peacemaking by endearing himself to Jews when he suggested, a few hours after the 9/11 attacks, that Israel might be to blame:

”If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.”

Also, while not busy “embrac[ing] the inter-connectedness that binds us all” he spends his time defending Hezbollah and Hamas and complaining that people will keep reminding him about the Holocaust:

For this administration to appoint to an august human rights organization Salam Al-Marayati, who has openly supported Hizbollah, claimed that the FBI has illegally incited Muslims on terrorism charges because of FBI sanctioned policies of “racial profiling,” has defended as innocent the most notorious members of Hamas who were found guilty of laundering millions of dollars to a terrorist group, and someone who has complained of ‘having the Holocaust shoved down [his] throat,’ is an outrage.

I do hope that my next comment won’t be interpreted as Islamophobic or part of a toxic narrative, let alone a reluctance to come together to glimpse what is possible, but Salam, old boy, are you sure you want to rent a building from a person whose surname is Bacon?

Bishop Dennis Drainville has an ingenious scheme to resuscitate the Diocese of Quebec

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According to Bishop Dennis Drainville his diocese, the Diocese of Quebec, is dying:

The Rt. Rev. Dennis Drainville said his diocese was “teetering on the verge of extinction” according to an account given by the church’s official newspaper.

Of the diocese’s 82 congregations, 50 were childless and 35 congregations had an average age of 75. These graying congregations often had no more than 10 people in church on Sundays, he said. “The critical mass isn’t there, there’s no money anymore,” he said.

In a flash of brilliance rarely seen illuminating the dimly sputtering synapses of a Canadian Anglican bishop, Drainville has decided that the answer to replenishing his childless congregations is to start blessing homosexual couples. Because their couplings produce so many offspring.

Same-sex couples in the diocese of Quebec will soon be able to receive a blessing of their civil union, according to the Anglican diocese’s newspaper, the Gazette.

[….]

In his charge to synod, Drainville expressed his intention to provide a rite of blessing and pastoral support for persons living in “committed, same-gender relationships.” This blessing is not a marriage, he emphasized, but rather “the blessing of civil union that has already taken place.”

All Saints Church creates ruckus by hosting Muslim Public Affairs Council Convention

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From here:

For the first time in its history, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is holding its annual convention at a Christian church. But now the council’s host, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., is facing vitriolic backlash.

The church has received over 25 hate emails and threats since Friday, Rev. Susan Russell, senior associate for communications at All Saints, told The Huffington Post Wednesday. She blogged about the MPAC event for HuffPost Tuesday, and spoke to the negative reception the church has faced so far.

The delicious irony in this is that Rev. Susan Russell is a former president of Integrity USA, an organisation that lobbies for the normalisation of homosexual behaviour. It does not appear to have occurred to Susan Russell that the religion of the group she wants to accommodate in her church tends, when given free rein, to support the summary hanging of homosexuals.