I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle

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An extraordinary tale of diocesan avarice:

We have all your stuff now, but we think you owe us more!

I’d like to share with you a letter from the Bishop and Diocesan Council of The Episcopal Church’s (TEC) Diocese of the Rio Grande. But first, a little background so that you can appreciate the letter in all its fullness.

This time two years ago, approximately 80% of the parishioners of St. Mark’s on-the-Mesa (TEC) left the parish and formed Christ the King Anglican, Albuquerque, NM (Anglican Church in North America). When those parishioners left the parish, the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and the Episcopal Church, they left everything. They left the property, building, endowments, bank accounts – even paperclips and pencils. They did so in good conscience, with generosity, and with love for those who in good conscience could not leave The Episcopal Church. Based on their reading of scripture, these parishioners did not want to fight over buildings and property in civil courts. Instead, they walked away and began a new life together as Anglican followers of Jesus Christ at Christ the King Anglican Church. Not only did the new parish draw former Episcopalians, but also Christians from other denominations who wanted to worship and serve at Christ the King Anglican.

Fast forward two years to August 31, 2011 (about three weeks ago). The congregation’s rector, the Rev. Roger Weber, former priest at St. Mark’s, received this letter from TEC Bishop Michael Vono of the Diocese of the Rio Grande:

Bishop Michael Vono

August 31, 2011
Dear Father Weber,

RE: St. Mark’s on the Mesa, Albuquerque
Fair Share Obligation, Third Quarter 2009

I pray that this finds you well in the Lord! Summer is always such a gift in the ministry, a time for reflection, refreshment and anticipation for the end of the liturgical year.

On July 12 of this year, the Diocesan Council had a meeting here a [sic] Diocesan House. At that time, a group from St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa, Albuquerque came before the Council to request forgiveness for their Fair Share obligation from the third quarter of 2009. As I am sure you are well aware, it was during this time that a good number of the clergy and congregation at St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa left to form a new congregation, leaving the remaining members with quite a financial and emotional burden to carry. What follows is the motion as it was amended and passed that afternoon.

Motion, that the -$25,000 Fair Share obligation for St. Mark’s on-the-Mesa, Albuquerque for the third quarter of 2009 be forgiven. Moved and seconded to amend the motion by replacing it with the following: that the -$25,000 Fair Share obligation for St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa, Albuquerque for the third quarter of 2009 be adjusted to $5,000 and that the Diocesan Council write a pastoral letter to the leadership of Christ the King Anglican Church appealing to them to cover $20,000 of the original Fair Share obligation for St. Mark’s on-the-Mesa, Albuquerque for the third quarter of 2009.

The amendment passed. The amended motion passed.

As you can see, it was the decision of Council to hold St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa responsible for the entire Fair Share payment for the third quarter in 2009, requesting that the burden be split between the members that left and the members that stayed, dividing the responsibility roughly along the lines of how the congregation self-selected.

I would ask that you would prayerfully consider accepting the responsibility of paying the portion of the Fair Share that was required by the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande.
If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact me here at Diocesan House, or in my absence, Mr. Fred Winter or Ms. Lisa Katz-Ricker, 505-881-0636.

Your brother in Christ,
The Right Rev’d Michael L. Vono
IX Bishop, Diocese of the Rio Grande

[….]

They have no shame.
The people who left St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa willingly surrendered their property. They literally turned the other cheek. In response, the Diocese of the Rio Grande basically said, “we have all your stuff now, but we think you owe us more.”

What does this remind me of; oh, right the title:

Whatever you do, don’t offend non-Christians

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Offending Christians has become a national sport while offending non-Christians has become illegal.

What about equality? Why not offend everyone?

From here:

Police have threatened a Christian cafe owner with arrest –for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen.

[…..]

Lancashire Police said they had received a complaint on Saturday afternoon from a female customer who was ‘deeply offended’ by the words she had seen on the screen.

And here:

The BBC has been accused of ‘absurd political correctness’ after dropping the terms BC and AD in case they offend non-Christians.

 

 

Canadian youth favour traditional roles for men and women

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Or, to put it in Newspeak “old-fashion gender roles”.

From here:

Young Canadians are carrying around some gender stereotypes that seem more in line with what their parents or grandparents might have thought, a new global study suggests.

The report, released Thursday by the development agency Plan International, found 31 per cent of Canadian boys aged 12 to 17 believe a woman’s most important role is feeding her family and taking care of the home.

That compared to 15 per cent of boys in the United Kingdom, but well short of 73 per cent in India and 68 per cent in Rwanda, who answered the same way.

When the question was asked of Canadian adults, 24 per cent agreed that a woman’s primary role should be in the home.

Almost half — 48 per cent — of the Canadian adolescents polled said men should be responsible for earning an income and providing for their families. Among Canadian adults, 43 per cent felt the same way.

[….]

Joan Simalchik, a professor of gender studies at the University of Toronto, also expressed surprise over the results.

“That’s not what we see at universities, and it’s not quite what we see in the real world,” she said of the idea that so many young Canadians are holding out-of-date views on the sexes.

Obviously, the prodigious efforts that schools make at indoctrinating their charges out of “out-of-date views on the sexes” isn’t working too well.

Sometimes I love a backlash.

 

The Anglican Church wants to know what Anglicans think of the Bible

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From here:

As part of the Bible in the Life of the Church project we are undertaking a Communion-wide survey of the way Anglicans understand and engage with the Bible. We rightly say the Bible is central to our life together but we also engage with it and interpret it in different ways. What are those differences? Why might there be differences? What can we learn from those who differ from us?

Naturally, instead of the starting position being that the Bible is God’s propositional revelation to man, making it the main way to find out what God is like and what he expects of us, the assumption is that the Bible is to be engaged with – whatever that means.

To that end, the survey asks such engaging questions as whether the following are true:

The Bible contains some human errors

Science shows that some things in the Bible cannot have happened

Christians can learn about God from the writings of other faiths

Some parts of the Bible are more true than others [what does “more true” mean? Is Anglican truth a mark on a sliding scale between Absolutely True and Absolutely False. Perhaps my view of truth has been conditioned by spending too long with computers – I thought true/false was a binary condition]

Jesus rose from the dead in bodily form

Jesus ascended into heaven

If I were an optimist, I would conclude that the survey is a surreptitious attempt to discover how far heretical rot has penetrated into the laity in order that drastic remedial steps could be taken. As it is, I’m not an optimist.

Particles travelling faster than light

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From here:

An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light — a finding that could overturn one of Einstein’s long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

“We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing,” he said. “We now want colleagues to check them independently.”

Goodbye Einstein, welcome Star Trek warp drive, time travel and really fast Internet speeds.

Science is always changing: some things remain constant:

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? Ps 8

 

 

At the execution of Troy Davis

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Lesbian Unitarian ministers wept, Alec Baldwin called those who disagree with him “blood-thirsty right wing trash” and Michael Moore declared Georgia a “murderous state”, adding:

“I encourage everyone I know to never travel to Georgia, never buy anything made in Georgia, to never do business in Georgia,”

Which is odd, since he has just made plans to travel to Iran which, in 1988, executed 30,000 people without any trial at all – and Iran continues to administer its version of justice with undiminished vigour.

That must be OK because, like Michael Moore, Iran hates America.

So go the arguments against the death penalty.

Richard Dawkins promotes his new devotional

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Further evidence that the atheism of Richard Dawkins is a religion: he wants his book to be read as a family devotional.

 

Amongst the condescending smarm, at around 1:42, Dawkins intones this:

Among the myths in several of the chapters, you’ll find the Judeo-Christian myth – not given any special privileged position, but just tucked in there somewhere……

What I want to know is, if some nincompoop invented Christianity, why didn’t he make it easier to be an adherent of it?

After all, the aim of contemporary new age religions is to make everyone just feel good, often with the assistance of the inhalation of illegal substances. Who in his right mind would invent a religion whose incentive to join was imminent death and torture?

 

According to the Diocese of Niagara, God loves Muslims more than ANiC Christians

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Until now I had laboured under the impression that God loves everyone equally: sinners, saints, Christians, Muslims – and so on. Not so, according to the Niagara Anglican, the newspaper of the Diocese of Niagara.

Apparently he loves Muslims more than dissenters; and by dissenters, our author is referring to ANiC parishioners who departed the Anglican Church of Canada because it blesses same-sex marriages – although this is merely the tip of the heretical iceberg.

Were it not for the absence of an editorial comment distancing the paper from the remark, one might be tempted to dismiss it as yet another crackpot notion from Michael Burslem, a regular contributor to the paper. As it is, it obviously meets editorial and diocesan standards – and probably approval (the article is not online yet):

I’m equally convinced that God loves Muslims more than dissenters; those who cause bitter dissent and even schism in congregations and dioceses that a portion should up and leave. Since God loves us all, there is nothing that should cause us to love one another less than He does, even such subjects as the same-sex debate. Paul condemned settling matters in court as he did homosexual relations. He preferred all to be celibate as himself. However, Paul is not the Law, any more than the Bible is, and thanks be to God no one is saved by obeying the law, Paul’s the Bible or any other.

 

 

 

St Barnabas, Pierrefonds, Quebec reaches out to the community

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The Rev’d Canon Alan T. Perry is the rector at St Barnabas Church, Pierrefonds, Quebec. He tells us that:

We are an active, multi-cultural parish of the Anglican Church of Canada in the Diocese of Montreal, seeking to share the love of Christ in our midst

One of the many ways Alan T. Perry has found to share the love of Christ in our midst is to rent church land to Rogers for them to build a cell tower. Whether the hazards of living close to a cell tower are real or imagined doesn’t make much difference to the fact that those who are unhappy about it feel more radio waves than love emanating from the church.

Love is a part of this, of course: the love of raking some cash into an impecunious diocese.

It’s all part of being a mission shaped church.