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What Anglican bishops do on Good Friday
Pontificate on oil pipelines:
From here:
Six Anglican bishops from across British Columbia and Yukon came together on Good Friday in a call for the environ-mental review hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to remain fair and free from political pressure.
“There’s some concern that the decision’s already been made and that the review process is just a rubber stamp,” said Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Diocese of New West-minster. “I think what we’re trying to do is call upon the panel itself to resist pressure – political pressure, industry pressure – and to come to a fair, balanced and thorough set of recommendations.”
Ingham signed the statement, which he said was prompted by bishops being inundated with concern for the process from members of their dioceses.
Rather than build a pipeline in Canada, I am quite sure that the six bishops would prefer oil revenues continue to flow to Middle Eastern countries who subjugate women, hang homosexuals and persecute Christians – much less environmental damage.
He is Risen!
A blessed Easter to all.
Selling a kidney to buy an iPad
Not a joke: a teenager in China actually did it. The siren call of technological toys is hard to resist; it’s a shame that it didn’t occur to the teenager that his kidney has more advanced and useful technology than even an iPad.
Five people have been arrested in southern China after a teenager sold his kidney so he could buy an iPhone and iPad, state media have reported.
Those detained include the surgeon who removed the kidney from the boy in April last year.
State-run Xinhua news agency says the group received around $35,000 (£22,000) for the transplant.
The student is said to be suffering renal failure, according to prosecutors in Hunan province quoted by Xinhua.
Only identified by his surname Wang, he is said to have received about $3,000 for his kidney.
Church of England vicar suggests celebrating Easter with sex and chocolate
To celebrate Easter, Father Phil Ritchie recommends staying in bed, eating chocolate and copulating – because going to church isn’t “cool and funky”; whether this has to be done simultaneously is unclear.
I must have missed something: that’s what I used to do before I was a Christian. I am completely indifferent to the “funkiness” of Christianity and its institutions: what I care about is whether it is true or not. If it is, no other reason for attending church is needed; if it isn’t, no amount of “funkiness” could persuade me to attend.
To be fair to Father Phil, this does have one redeeming feature: if at some point I need a self-caricaturing vicar to illustrate how the Church of England submersed itself beneath a morass of trendy irrelevance, I need look no further.
From here:
This could be one religious commandment that a congregation might find very easy to follow.
Father Phil Ritchie from All Saints Church in Hove, East Sussex, has said Easter Sunday is the perfect time for staying in bed, eating chocolate and having sex.
The vicar gave the alternative suggestion for a way to celebrate the resurrection of Christ after admitting that church just isn’t ‘cool and funky’.
Father Ritchie said: ‘The problem with the church is that we stay inside our building and occasionally come out and say “Why don’t you come to our church, it’s cool and funky”.
‘To be honest, it’s not.
‘I would love more people to come at 10am on Sunday and I would welcome them to All Saints.
‘For Christians this is the most important day of the year.All life and all hope flows from it.
‘But there are plenty of ways to celebrate without coming to a draughty Victorian building. So why not stay at home, have a lie in, have sex and eat some chocolate.’
St. Paul’s Cathedral, London to hold U2charist
St. Paul’s Cathedral will hold its fourth U2charist on May the 4th.
A U2charist is “a communion service, or Eucharist, accompanied by U2 songs” designed to encourage people “to rally around the Millennium Development Goals”.
It appears to make no pretence to having much to do with Christ’s body and blood and, since I think the Millennium Development Goals are a thoroughly odious substitute, I will probably not attend.
Add to this the fact that Bono sees no hypocrisy in tirelessly championing the taxpayer funded Millennium Development Goals while having just made $1 billion from his Facebook shares on which he will, no doubt, pay no tax and I can’t see why anyone would want to attend.
Nevertheless, a prior effort managed to fill the cathedral; it adheres to the received Anglican dogma that it doesn’t matter what you do with people who attend church, as long as you get them there.
Bono does allow churches to use his songs without paying a copyright fee, though: very sacrificial.
Here you will see one of my biggest fans, Rev. Keith Nethery interviewing the organiser:
Rowan Williams on how to assert yourself
Wear a veil!
In preparation for his new job as Master of Magdalene College Cambridge, Rowan Williams continues to hone his prodigious talent for saying daft things by declaring that wearing a veil helps Muslim women assert themselves. As everyone knows, Muslim men delight in having assertive wives; that’s why they force them to wear a veil.
From here:
THE OUTGOING Archbishop of Canterbury has shown he will not leave quietly after he reopened the debate over the veil by insisting that the controversial garment can help Muslim women “assert themselves”.
Dr Rowan Williams has questioned the view that women hide behind their veils and warned against “what we sometimes think of wrongly as stereotypes”.
Lawyers awarded the Order of the Diocese of New Westminster
The lawyers who conducted the litigation for the Diocese of New Westminster against the ANiC parishes which left the diocese, received an honorary Order of the Diocese of New Westminster.
Otherwise known as DOOM: Diabolic Order Of Mephistopheles.
From here:
In a ceremony on October 21, 2011, the Order of the Diocese of New Westminster (honorary) was conferred upon each of George Macintosh, Q.C., Ludmila Herbst and Tim Dickson in recognition of their work in defending the Anglican Diocese and the Bishop of New Westminster in property-related claims brought against those parties by the Anglican Network in Canada. The Diocese and the Bishop were successful at trial in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, on appeal in the British Columbia Court of Appeal, and in opposing an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Little Mosque on the Prairie to be put out of its misery
There is a time and a place for mercy killing and this one is long overdue:
CBC’s ground-breaking show Little Mosque on the Prairie draws to a close Monday night, remaining true to the “ordinary folks” portrayal of Muslims it has practised from the outset.
When the show debuted in 2007, it drew attention to the then-radical idea of showing Muslims living in a Western society in a TV sitcom. The show was created by a Muslim woman, Zarqa Nawaz, who spoke to the New York Times, the BBC and media outlets around the world about her concept for the show.
Little Mosque never managed to extricate itself from the mire of cringingly humourless political correctness and would not have been aired at all were not for the yearly $1.5 billion the CBC receives from taxpayers.
I understand that most of Little Mosque’s fan mail comes from Anglican clergy.
No preaching to a captive audience in the US
I’m not particularly convinced that reading the Bible to people who don’t want to hear it is an effective way to spread the Gospel, but it’s hard to see how it was “impeding an open business”. I bet this would not have happened to someone reading from the Koran.