Anglican Church of Canada’s 7 eastern dioceses may be condensed to 3

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In order to save costs, the dioceses of Montreal, Quebec, Fredericton, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Western Newfoundland, Central Newfoundland, and Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador may be reduced to just three dioceses, the synod of the ecclesiastical province of Canada has announced.

Such is the desperation of the ecclesiastical province of Canada, that its metropolitan, Archbishop Claude Miller, sees no point in denying the inevitable comparison to deckchairs aboard the Titanic. Rather, he is portraying the Titanic’s maiden voyage as one of promise and opportunity because a remnant was saved. I expect the Titanic’s passengers would have derived considerable consolation from that thought had it been shared with them as they boarded. Small wonder things are falling apart in the Anglican Church of Canada, considering the tenuous grip on reality of those at the helm.

From here:

Archbishop Miller admitted that some critics compare the church’s discussions about change to “just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” However, in his presidential address to synod members, the metropolitan noted that the doomed ship’s story isn’t entirely about unredeemed loss.

The Titanic’s maiden voyage was “a journey with a promise and opportunity for a new life for most of the passengers on board,” the archbishop said. “Not all died in that tragedy. Sometimes we forget that a remnant was saved and realized that hope. Amid the tragedies and tests of this life there is much hope and reason to give thanks.”

Anglican Church of Canada $900,000 in the red mid 2012

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From here:

MONTREAL-Despite efforts to balance its budget the national synod of the Anglican Church of Canada was running about $900,000 in the red at the end of the second quarter of 2012, the primate of the church, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, says.

He told representatives of eastern Canada dioceses Friday that the shortfall was due mainly to revenues lower than anticipated from dioceses. This was despite impressive efforts by some diocese to grapple with their own financial challenges and the decision of some diocese able to do so to voluntarily increase their contributions to the national church.

“The General Synod is struggling financially and if the truth be known we have been on this trajectory for a long time,” he told the synod of the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada, made up of seven dioceses in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. After slipping into “a dangerous tendency of deficit budgeting” it had been seeking to balance its budget through austerities including a 25 per cent reduction in national staff in the last three years, while at the same time seeking to re-focus its activities on mission.

Archbishop Claude Miller of Fredericton seems to have cottoned on to the idea that the financial plight of the Anglican Church of Canada is a result of following false gods. I think he has missed the mark on which false gods and who is following them, though. In his view, they are governments, money, possessions, knowledge, industry, commerce, even entertainment and sports. But they are the false gods of the unsaved; there is no real surprise in that. While it’s hard to keep up with the ever broadening plethora of false gods that the church has taken into its bosom, it seems clear that an, admittedly, non-exhaustive list would include: utopianism, socialism, homosexuality, gender ambiguity, inclusion, temporality rather than transcendence, diversity, eco-religion, aboriginal superstition and general new-age mumbo-jumbo.

 “We have put our faith in other gods for our security and salvation: governments, money, possessions, knowledge, industry, commerce, even entertainment and sports. Witness the Sabbath day and the parking lots of churches versus the parking lots of the shopping malls. Where our treasure is, we find our hearts.”

Fortunately, Primate Fred Hiltz has the situation under control and has issued a memo to calm nervous staff: apparently, the remedy for the church’s financial embarrassment is enshrined in “pruning” and “Vision 2019”.

I want to assure you that in my remarks I said nothing about cuts to programs or staff. I simply made reference to our obligation for careful attention to “pruning” that may need to be considered. In reality we find ourselves in a deficit position and the worry that comes with it at this time each year.

In my remarks I also said that by 2016 the structures of the General Synod will look “very different”. That friends is not breaking news! The need to do this work is enshrined in Vision 2019 (practice #1-Creating Structures that work now for God’s mission) General Synod Resolution A111, the resolution of the November 2011 meeting of CoGS and the focus of conversations at the Spring 2012 meeting of CoGS and those we will have at the upcoming meeting in November.

Welcome to Pakistan Railways

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Where the trains are run by “professional management and competent staff ” whose leader, Ghulam Ahmad Balor, is using the money he earns by making the trains run “strictly in accordance to time table“, to offer a $100,000 reward for the murder of an American citizen.

It’s not the first time that someone has been mentally derailed by the strain of keeping the trains running on time.

From here:

ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani Cabinet minister Saturday offered a $100,000 reward for the death of the person behind the anti-Islam video made in the United States that has roiled Muslims around the world, even suggesting that Taliban and al-Qaida militants could carry out the killing.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Balor said at a news conference in Peshawar that he would personally finance a bounty aimed at the maker of the crude, low-budget video that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad.

Balor acknowledged that incitement to murder was illegal but said he was “ready to be hanged in the name of the Prophet Muhammad.” And he invited the Taliban and al-Qaida to be “partners in this noble deed,” according to news reports.

 

The blasphemy game

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The National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the US Federal Government, helped to pay for Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, one of his creations that will be on display at the Body and Spirit exhibition at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery on September 27th. I’ve included the link for those who would like to arrive early and beat the rush.

Andres Serrano is obsessed with putting photographs of his bodily fluids on display, along with the occasional corpse garnished with human excrement. In saner times, Serrano, would be recognised for what he is: someone who is mentally ill. In the twenty first century, however, he is an artist.

The same government that paid for Serrano to pee into a jam jar containing a crucifix, has piously intoned: “The U.S. deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” I suppose the key to understanding this is in the word “others”: denigrating the religious beliefs one’s own citizens is a federally funded obligation.

From here:

Religious groups are blasting President Obama for not condemning am anti-Christian art display set to appear in New York City and one Republican lawmaker said he is “fed up with the administration’s double standard and religious hypocrisy.

“Piss Christ,” once branded as a “deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity,” will be displayed at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan on Thursday. The artwork features a “photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine.”

The artwork debuted in 1989 and was funded through prize money provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The art gallery hosting the retrospective salute to Andres Serrano is privately owned.

Muslim prayer room opens in Catholic high school

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The Principal wants to ensure that all our students feel welcome. Fair enough, but will the inclusive, tolerant Principal go for maximum diversity and hold her gay-straight alliance club meetings in the same room? They could share the prayer mats.

From here:

LONDON, ONT. – Mother Teresa Catholic secondary school is turning a second-floor office into an Islamic prayer room — the first high school in the city, private or public, to do so.

Carpet will soon cover the tile flooring, speakers will be installed and prayer mats purchased to provide the school’s Muslim students, estimated at around two dozen, with a quiet and private place to pray.

The idea has been in the works since the end of the last school year after a group of Muslim students lobbied administration to create the space.

“They’re members of our school community. We want to ensure that all our students feel welcome, that they feel that they belong,” said Principal Ana Paula Fernandes.

 

Emmanuel College, University of Toronto offers new degree in Muslim pastoral care

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Emmanuel College is associated with the United Church of Canada. This becomes obvious when you enter the grounds and are greeted by a statue of a crucified woman.

What does an ostensibly Christian Theological College know about Muslim pastoral care? It’s pretty simple: whatever you do, don’t speak about Mohammed. If you are careless about the context of your remarks, fail to say “peace be upon him”, use poor inflexion, bad diction, stutter, giggle at the wrong moment or, Allah forbid, absent-mindedly doodle a Mohammed, the object of you pastoral care may decide to behead you.

Having learned that, you have earned your degree.

From here:

Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto has enlarged its Muslim Studies certificate program to prepare people for pastoral care in social agencies that serve Canada’s growing population of Muslims.

The new two-year program, offered through the Master of Pastoral Studies degree stream, grew out of the United Church of Canada theological college’s three-year certificate program, launched in 2010 to enhance interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

The new program will train students from various religious communities to specialize in pastoral care and serve as chaplains in facilities with clients of the Islamic faith.

 

The fall of America

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My apologies to Nero for the comparison, but it begs to be made: Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Obama golfed while embassies burned.

The Roman Empire took about four centuries to fully disintegrate: the second sack of Rome occurred in AD 455 and Nero fiddled in AD 64.

I don’t think we have that long to wait before America falls: it is spending and aborting itself to death far too enthusiastically to totter on for another 400 years.

What both Rome and the USA have in common at the beginning of their disintegration is leaders who were callously indifferent to their citizens. Obama and his admirers go one step further: they blame the values of their own country – free speech in this case – for the vile deeds of their country’s enemies.

How long before the barbarian hordes are sacking North American cities? No-one knows, of course, but it can’t be too long: Islamists are strenuously testing the resolve of America – and they are finding that there isn’t any.

From here:

Last week, after issuing a statement at the White House about the murder of the American ambassador in Libya, President Barack Obama hopped aboard Air Force One and headed for Vegas. At a campaign rally to cap off his day, he spoke about the murdered ambassador and went on to say, “We are the one indispensable power in the world. And if we are going to see peace and security for our children and our grandchildren, then that means that this generation of Americans has to lead.”

As embassy after embassy is attacked, the United States does not look like an indispensable power. And it does not look like it because it has largely dispensed with its leadership in the Middle East.

[…]

The ability of protesters to attack with impunity American embassies, and for it to be taken in campaign stride by America’s leaders, is a sign of a new day in the Middle East. At the end of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France extended their influence as custodians of the region. After the Second World War and the creation of the State of Israel, the United States took over as the protector — of Israel, and later of Egypt, of Kuwait, of Turkey and even of Afghanistan against the Soviets. That period is over, and a new era is being born. At the moment it is only a post-American order. Will it become an era dominated by militant Islam?

A new day begins with the dawn’s early light. It is already past dawn, but what the day will bring is unknown, and fearfully so.

Same-sex couples on the increase, Anglican Church of Canada rejoices

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The Anglican Church of Canada has ruptured itself over the issue of blessing same-sex couples and, by doing so, has staked its future on attracting some of them to replace the conventional families who have fled its heretical clutches.

The ACoC is in luck: Statistics Canada has reported a 42% increase in same-sex couples over the last five years.

Unhappily for the ACoC, the percentage of same-sex couples is still only at 0.69% of the total number of couples. How many of them attend an Anglican church I wonder? Not many, and most of those who do are employed by the church as priests.

From here:

The face of the Canadian family is changing.

There are more common-law couples, single parents and same-sex couples heading households than ever before, according to the latest data released Sept. 19 from Statistics Canada’s 2011 Census of Population.

And while the traditional family structure—mother, father and children—still accounts for two-thirds of all Canadian families, the number of traditional families as a proportion of all families declined from 2006 to 2011.

The census counted a total of 9,389,700 families in 2011. Of these, 67 per cent consisted of married couples, down from 70.5 per cent a decade ago. In contrast, common-law couples increased by 13.9 per cent in 2011 and single-parent families rose by 8.0 per cent that same year.

The number of same-sex married couples “nearly tripled” between 2006 and 2011—the five year period following the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada. The census counted 64,575 same-sex couple families in 2011, an increase of 42.4 per cent from 2006. (Statistics Canada later stated that the number of same-sex married couples may have been overestimated by as many as 4,500.)

Anglican Churches in Iran, Pakistan and Persian Gulf condemn anti-Islam film

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They couldn’t find it in themselves to condemn the death and possible rape and torture of U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, though. Funny, that.

From here:

TEHRAN – Members of the Anglican Church in Iran, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf issued a statement on Wednesday condemning production and showing of an anti-Islam film on the internet or on any other media outlets anywhere.
“Christians strongly believe in harmonious existence and understanding among people of all faiths especially among the people of Abrahamic faiths with their roots in believing in one God revealed in their Holy Scriptures,” said the statement a copy of which was sent to IRNA news agency.

It added, “In concordance with our Muslim neighbors in Iran, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf, we demand that international media leaders to develop a code of conduct which will stop hateful anti-religious views to be promoted, provoking the sentiments of millions of people across the globe.”

The statement also demanded that international bodies like the United Nations and the World Council of Church, “to expedite the formation of international laws prohibiting such moves and declaring them illegal and punishable crimes in the future.”

Update: The Episcopal News Service has joined in the chorus of those excoriating the makers of the inane little film while completely ignoring the murder of J. Christopher Stevens.:

Leaders across the Anglican Communion have spoken out about The Innocence of Muslims, a film containing anti-Islam content that has so far triggered protests, violence and death in countries like Libya and Egypt.

Both Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishops in New Zealand have condemned the film, its message and its promotion, alongside the Federation of Islamic Associations president and the city of Wellington’s Regional Jewish Council chairperson, Race Relations commissioner and local bishops.

In the Anglican world of indaba, Hegelian middle ground, compromise, a metaphysic without hell overseen by a mushy-love god who appears to be stoned most of the time, it’s remarkable just how judgemental bishop Pierre Whalon becomes when it suits him:

According to Whalon, those who planned and created the film would have much to answer for when they came before the judgment seat of God.