Inhibition of Bishop Lincoln McKoen redux

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Bishop Lincoln McKoen was fired for reasons unspecified, an action that invites all manner of lurid speculation since it is so difficult to be declared persona non grata in the Anglican Church of Canada. Other than for being too orthodox, of course.

Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee has not helped by announcing that McKoen was inhibited for “sexual misconduct”. Now the ACoC is renowned for its tolerance – admiration even – of every possible sexual gratification known to man or beast; the ecclesiastical enthusiasm for the LGBT2QIA+ alphabet soup concoction is undiminished by its ever-increasing diversity or scope-creep as we like to say in the business world. McKoen could not, for example, be fired for having sex with a goat. That would be covered by the “+”. Or is it the “A”; I’m not sure but it must be covered somewhere.

Surely it would be best for everyone if the ACoC boldly announced what arcane province of sexual gratification McKoen explored to satisfy his appetites. That way we could at least add another letter to the acronymic community of LGBT… well, you know the rest. And avoid future embarrassment.

From here:

On Tuesday, June 3, 2021 I received notice that Archbishop Lynne McNaughton has, pursuant to canon law, formally inhibited Bishop Lincoln Mckoen from performing any of the duties of his office as bishop of the Territory of the People while allegations of sexual misconduct are being investigated. There is due process in the church, and he will have the support he needs to answer these charges. There are no criminal charges in this case.

Bishop Lincoln McKoen inhibited

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Lincoln McKoen, bishop of the Territory of the People, was consecrated on September 19, 2020 and fired on June 1st 2021. If nothing else, he can congratulate himself on holding the record for the shortest time between consecration and inhibition.

From here:

Announcement from the Primate
In 2001 the General Synod of The Anglican Church of Canada adopted A Call to Human Dignity: A Statement of Principles for the Anglican Church of Canada on Dignity, Inclusion and Fair Treatment.
In keeping with A Call to Human Dignity, the Council of the General Synod of The Anglican Church of Canada expressed a commitment to ensuring that those who hold positions of trust or power in the church do not take advantage of, or abuse, that trust or power. It is with this commitment in mind that I share with you the difficult decision made today by Archbishop Lynne McNaughton to inhibit Bishop Lincoln McKoen from his duties as diocesan bishop of the Territory of the People, effective immediately.

I am painfully aware of the impact this action will have on the Territory and parishes and I can assure you that the pastoral needs of the community will be a priority for the church over the coming months. Our calling is to prepare the way of the Lord by embracing truth, promoting healing and acting in love.

Whatever his transgression, it was not one of deviating from the unorthodoxy of the Anglican Church of Canada. McKoen resides proudly in the Camp of the Non-Saints. In response to an external legal opinion scolding the ACoC on its flouting of canon law by marrying same-sex couples, he recently wrote this:

I want to make this perfectly clear: I will not be closing the marriage canon. The Territory prides itself on being open, and inclusive for all people. I will not exclude members of the LGBTQ2SI+ community from the life of the Church. I will not consider Same Sex Marriage as “provisional” or “temporary” as the ACA wishes. I have found this document written by the ACA to be offensive and deeply insulting, regardless of whom wrote the legal opinion. I am terribly saddened this is one more attempt at relegating members of the Church, followers of Jesus Christ, as second class citizens of the kingdom of God because of their sexual orientation.

Sing Spirit

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Another song for Pentecost.

Sing Spirit                                                                               David Jenkins
Streams of living water flowing from the throne, bringing joy to the city of God.
Rushing like a river through your church today, bringing life to all who are yours.
Chorus
Come Spirit, come Spirit, Fire burning bright, drive the darkness out with your light,
Sing Spirit, sing Spirit, in this heart of mine.
Sing your songs of love, divine.

The breath of God is a mighty wind, blowing through this tired old world.
A whispered song, a still small voice; for all who can hear His words.

Falling from heaven, the fire of God, brings life to a heart of stone;
to re-awaken the people of God; revive your Church, O Lord.
© 2005 David Jenkins

Sitting on my Garden Wall

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A song for Pentecost. Either a song of deep and profound theological significance or one of irredeemably silly shallowness.

Sitting on my Garden Wall                               David Jenkins
Waiting for Messiah to come, sitting on my garden wall,
Balancing: try not to fall down.
Looking at the world today, listen to what people say,
Dancing to the tune that they play.
Chorus
Rushing wind and tongues of fire,
Knock me down, spoil my composure.
Jesus lives and the church is born;
I’m falling off my garden wall.

Waiting ’till the time is right: do not want to die of fright,
Balancing: try not to fall down.
Seeking through the light so dim, opening my heart to Him.
Dancing to the tune that He sings.

Waiting for felicitous signs from the Omnipotent,
Balancing: try not to fall down.
Timing is everything, now I know I must give in,
Dancing to the tune from within.

Waiting so long is for chumps, sending you into the dumps,
Balancing, try not to fall down.
The Spirit’s here among us now,
Flowing from the Father’s throne,
Dancing to the tune that They play.
© 2007 David Jenkins

Primate Linda Nicholls prays for the peace of Jerusalem…. sort of

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The Primate starts out with this:

To seek the prosperity of Jerusalem is to seek a just and lasting peace that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis—Christians, Jews and Muslims—in this land.

A statement that is designed to sound high-minded, right thinking – virtuous. Who, after all, doesn’t want lasting peace and justice in the Middle East?

Regrettably, it doesn’t end there. Nicholls goes on to prove a point that I’ve thought for a while: it is impossible not to take a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The difference between those who take sides is this:

Those who side with Israel admit it. I am one of them because Israel, the only democratic, free, civilised country in the region, is in a conflict with a group of people who will not stop attacking it until it ceases to exist. It has an obligation to protect its citizens and it is doing so.

Those who side against Israel pretend to be impartial, but they are not. This is a deceit that becomes transparently obvious as soon as they voice their opinions. Or, if they are clerics, threaten to pray for justice.

This is the duplicitous camp into which Nicholls has placed herself. She would like us to believe she is above the conflict, an impartial ecclesiastical arbiter unmoved by bias or irrational animus: in other words, a typical liberal. But her words betray her:

Request the implementation of UN resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 194 (1948)

Call for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and the end of illegal Israeli settlements

Call Israel, as an occupying power, to respect the 4th Geneva Convention

Request measures by the Palestinian Authority to reduce poverty and unemployment, and to improve services to Palestinians

Recognize the city of Jerusalem as a shared holy place for Christians, Muslims and Jews

Recognize the need for trade between Palestine and Canada

The unbearable incoherence of the Church of England

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The Church of England is cheering on the UK’s banning of conversion therapy:

The General Synod has voted overwhelmingly to reject coercive Conversion Therapies so we welcome the Government’s commitment to explore these matters further with a view to enshrining that position in law.

Notice that the word “coercive” has been slipped in, whereas the Queen’s speech left it out:

Measures will be brought forward to address racial and ethnic disparities and ban conversion therapy.

I’m sure that no one is under any illusion that, once the law has passed, the banning of conversion therapy will be confined to the coercive variety. If that were so, there would be no need for a new law: it is already illegal to coerce someone into being something she is not by kidnapping her, confining her and subjecting her to uninvited brainwashing.

Come to think of it, that is a moderately accurate description of what we are doing to our children in school: brainwashing them into believing that boys can be girls and vice-versa. This non-binary conversion therapy is a heinous corruption of innocence that the church should be denouncing but isn’t.

Once the law is passed it will be illegal for a person who experiences unwanted same-sex attraction to seek help in combatting it. The best she can hope for from the Anglican church is to have it affirmed.

The church’s incoherence intensifies on reading the motion agreed by General Synod in July 2017:

That this Synod: (a) endorse the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK of November 2015, signed by The Royal College of Psychiatrists and others, that the practice of gay conversion therapy has no place in the modern world, is unethical, potentially harmful and not supported by evidence; and 3 (b) call upon the Church to be sensitive to, and to listen to, contemporary expressions of gender identity; (c) and call on the government to ban the practice of Conversion Therapy.

Note that there is no mention of coercion. Moreover, the church is going to listen to contemporary expressions of gender identity. That means the church will nod sympathetically when a man comes to a priest to declare he is a woman, is taking hormones to grow breasts and will soon have surgery to remove the parts God gave him but are now unwanted. In short, the church will approve his conversion therapy.

No wonder no one takes the church seriously.

Anglicans on the trailing edge

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The Anglican Church of Canada has largely abandoned thousands of years of Biblical wisdom, tradition and theology in favour of the latest secular fads.

So far, we have galloped through gay equality, global warming, fossil fuel divestment, Indigenous rights, transgender mayhem, obsessive/compulsive pronoun selection disorder, ancestor condemnation, Israel excoriation, to arrive finally, panting with exhaustion, at Dismantling Systemic Racism. This week, at least. Next week a new fad will undoubtedly assault the malleable affections of our senior Anglican clerics.

One of the problems with all this is the puzzling question of why the keepers of our moral boundaries do not notice all these abject ethical failures before the secular world points them out? Could it be because, having abandoned the faith once handed down, the Anglican Church of Canada finds itself wandering aimlessly in a wasteland of witless ideas, staggering helplessly from one stupidity to the next? Yes.

Thus, we have the Council of General Synod busily engaged in Dismantling Racism:

In its latest meeting, the general secretary said, CoGS had been challenged to learn how to see something that is very obvious for people not in the dominant culture, but which may be less so for those in the dominant culture: the reality of racism. “We had some very moving revelations of those realities,” Perry said of Saturday’s panel discussion on dismantling racism. “I hope that we will all learn how to see those very difficult realities so that we can address them effectively.”

CoGS has also been invited to see what God has been doing in the pandemic, he added, “in ways that perhaps we’ve not been open to seeing because we’ve been tied up just trying to get through it.” Perry described Surprised by the Spirit as an invitation to the Anglican Church of Canada “to see what God is doing and will be doing.”

I think I have seen what God is doing: He is dismantling the Anglican Church of Canada.

St. Alban’s Ottawa is too inclusive

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St. Alban’s Anglican Church in Ottawa used to house a thriving orthodox congregation that left the Anglican Church of Canada to join ANiC in 2008. A small, less than entirely orthodox ACoC congregation now meets in the building. Naturally, they pride themselves on their commitment to inclusion:

It is the policy of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa that no one be excluded from any ministry or leadership position, including ordination, on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. All are welcome in our Spirit-Led, Christ-Centred, Contemporary Urban Church.

It is, therefore, a source of considerable embarrassment to have to admit that the notorious racist, colonizer and misogynist Sir John A. Macdonald used to attend the church. To make atonement, the parish is displaying a page of self-flagellation, Uriah Heep humility, and faux remorse on behalf of their ancestors’ flagrantly wicked wrong-inclusion.

Read all about it here:

Sir John A. Macdonald and his wife, Agnes Bernard of Jamaica, were early parishioners of St. Albans. While Sir John A. Macdonald is rightly remembered as the first Prime Minister of Canada, he is also remembered by First Nations as an architect of the residential schools, and by Métis for the execution of Louis Riel. Many decisions integral to Canadian nation building undermined the rights and needs of Indigenous peoples, who were the first to make this land their home.

[…..]

St. Albans is the oldest Anglican church building in downtown Ottawa, and we are proud of our Church’s longstanding commitment to inclusion. As Ottawa’s first free church, parishioners of St. Albans did not have to pay for the right to sit in a pew; Sir John A. Macdonald and other government leaders and officials worshipped alongside carpenters and labourers. However, we are not proud of the dispossession, mistreatment and exclusion of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and we acknowledge and repent of our sins in that regard. Through our prayers and our actions, we are working towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. We invite you to join us on this journey.

Pastor arrested for inciting church attendance

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No, not in China, in Alberta.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski has been arrested for inciting people to attend church.

It took a heavily armed squad of brave police officers to subdue the dangerous ecclesiastical criminal who can be seen in the video below in his Sunday best being made to kneel on a wet motorway.

Luckily, the constabulary was fully masked up – as North Americans like to say just to irritate me – to protect themselves from any deadly projectile sneezing that the unmasked pastor may have secretly weaponised. It goes without saying that if the pastor had had the forethought to wield a Black Lives Matter placard, it would be the police who would be kneeling on the wet tarmac.

Prior to this, Pastor Artur had not endeared himself to the local constabulary. He tossed them out of his church, hurling the epithet “gestapo” at them. Not at all inclusive but, then, they were trying to shut down his church service and only the most intrepid or foolhardy will interrupt a preacher when he is in full swing.

I make no claim that the Pastor was right to continue church services in person – my church isn’t – but the police cannot imagine that this episode will do anything but heap ridicule and derision on any attempt to maintain the illusion that their job is to serve and protect. As PR people like to say: “the optics are bad.”