Will the Anglican Church of Canada get out of the marriage business?

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The Anglican Church of Canada has been considering getting out of the marriage business and, instead, just “blessing” the state version of marriage.

An obvious reason for this is that the state has altered the meaning of marriage from the union of one man and one woman to the joining in a sexual, but otherwise indeterminate fashion, of men with men and women with women. The Anglican Church of Canada, applying its typical reverse-prophetic sycophancy, wants to go along with this, but has to overcome one minor hurdle: the Bible.

The answer to the problem is simple: stop marrying people altogether, just “bless” what has already been done.

From here:

A small group of bishops will lay the groundwork for a discussion of marriage within the life of the church at the November House of Bishops meeting in Niagara Falls.

The impetus for this discussion is a General Synod request to the faith, worship and ministry committee to consider the implications of having Anglican clergy cease to solemnize marriages.

It all makes perfect sense: by devaluing the idea of marriage, the church has rendered it meaningless, so why keep on doing it?

What’s more, there is a efficient replacement:

When Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley get married today, they won’t stand before a gray haired minister holding a Bible.

Instead, they’ll be looking at a 30-inch monitor.

On one half of the screen, they’ll see a virtual minister with an animated, square face with blue eyes and thin, oval glasses.

His voice will be heard over a sound system while the text of what he’s saying will show up on the other half of the screen.

And the sermon would be shorter and make more sense.

Coptic Christians kicking the Toronto Catholic school board where it hurts

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From here:

The Coptic Orthodox Churches in Toronto are threatening to withdraw 4,000 families from the Toronto Catholic District School Board if it does not amend its controversial equity policy to protect Catholic teaching in the schools.  According to one expert in Ontario education, if the threat were carried out, the board could lose upwards of $40,000,000 in annual public funding, and over 150 teachers.

If the board implements its policy, wrote Fr. Jeremiah Attaalla on June 22nd, “we will not hesitate to withdraw our children at once from attending any Catholic school within Toronto or [the Greater Toronto Area].”

The equity policy, passed earlier this year as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping equity and inclusive education strategy, has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of parents who fear that it will give homosexual activists a foothold in order to further subvert already weak Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.

The Canadian separate school system has always been one of – well, inequality. Why should Catholics have a state funded school system when evangelical Christians or Muslims have either to send their children to a secular, increasingly anti-religion school, or pay to send them to a private school in addition to paying taxes to fund public schools?

That isn’t the inequality that could be the undoing of the Catholic school system in Canada, though: it is the hellish “equality” that demands the levelling of human values, particularly sexual values, to the point where copulating with just about anything, animate or otherwise, holds equal significance as raising what used to be thought of as a normal family.

And the Toronto Catholic school board, wishing to protect its government funding, is acquiescing to this.

It seems to be backfiring, though: perhaps the school board should have stuck with its principles and inequalities.

Another reason to like Harry Potter: he upsets atheists

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From here:

This month, the final Harry Potter film had the most successful opening weekend of any movie ever. Among the fans who lined up for the opening midnight showing were Christians, many of whom see striking similarities between the story of Jesus — with its sacrificial death, burial and resurrection — and the story of Harry Potter.

But at least one atheist has also noticed these similarities, and he’s written a book about it. In the newly-released (and blasphemously-titled) Jesus Potter Harry Christ, Derek Murphy makes the case that J. K. Rowling — the author of the Harry Potter series — achieved her success by tapping into some of the deepest and most ancient longings of the human heart. These same longings, Murphy argues, compelled first-century pagans to construct what he calls “the Jesus myth.”

Surprising: Jesus Potter, Harry Christ but no Jesus Murphy.

As Chuck Colson notes, both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien recognised that the truth of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross and subsequent resurrection is so powerful that it permeates the entire universe and ends up finding expression in unexpected places – like Harry Potter:

Well, Murphy is certainly right in recognizing a common thread through pagan religious beliefs. As C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, the heathen religions are full of “…those queer stories…about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.”

But what Murphy misses — and Lewis got — is the fact that the human longings for sacrifice, resurrection and redemption are stamped on our hearts for a reason: They point us straight to the God who stepped into history to fulfill them!

In a letter to a friend, Lewis recounts a conversation he had with J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings — and a close colleague of Lewis.

“The story of Christ,” said Tolkien, “is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened…The Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things.’”

 

 

Belligerent atheists promoting death and misery as usual

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From here:

Wisconsin officials are reviewing a complaint that the official state website links to an anti-abortion group with religious ties.

The organization is called Care Net, a faith-based group that caters to pregnant women.

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation says by linking to the site, the state is advertising evangelical ideals. Group president Annie Laurie Gaylor wants the link removed.

The link in question can be found here, and it points to this site, whose aim is:

As the largest network of pregnancy centers in North America, Care Net is committed to expanding access to the life-saving services and support provided by our local centers and to reaching the hurting and broken with the hope of Jesus Christ.

We work to accomplish this goal by promoting our network of centers and the Option Line call center, preparing our local centers to effectively serve their communities, and partnering with existing centers or like-minded ministries to plant new pregnancy centers in underserved areas.

As you can see, pretty sinister.

I have little doubt that if today’s coterie of benighted God haters had lived in the 19th Century, they would have vigorously canvassed to prevent William Wilberforce end slavery – because he was an evangelical Christian who had no right imposing his Christian perspectives on a secular parliament.

Kandahar mayor killed by suicide bomber with explosives in turban

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From here:

Afghan insurgents appeared to continue their assassination campaign against key public figures on Wednesday with the killing of the mayor of Kandahar.

Ghulam Haider Hamidi was targeted by a suicide bomber who got into the municipality compound in Kandahar City with explosives concealed under his turban.

Now where did he get that idea?

 

Cross at 9/11 Memorial upsets atheists

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From here:

A group of atheists has filed a lawsuit claiming the display of the World Trade Center cross at the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan is unconstitutional, calling it a “mingling of church and state.”

[…..]

The cross, which consists of two intersecting steel beams that were found intact in the rubble at Ground Zero, was initially constructed on a side of a church in lower Manhattan. The cross was then placed inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum during a ceremony over the weekend.

“The WTC cross has become a Christian icon. It has been blessed by so-called holy men and presented as a reminder that their god, who couldn’t be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross,” the group’s president, Dave Silverman, said in a press release. “It’s a truly ridiculous assertion.”

What is truly ridiculous is David Silverman’s objection to displaying the cross that was formed out of the two beams. If he is right and there is no God, the cross is meaningless and he is free to ignore it. If there is a God, particularly a Christian God, the cross is a symbol of God’s identification with people’s suffering and of the future resurrection; Silverman is free to ignore that, too. Either way, it is nonsense for him to cavil because a God he doesn’t believe in won’t run the universe the way he, Silverman, wants.

It’s amazing how much atheists hate someone they claim doesn’t exist.

 

Catholics to march in Ottawa Gay Pride parade

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I knew Catholics could learn something from Anglicans.

From here:

You are invited to join the Capital Pride Parade on August 28th, 2011, at 1:00PM.

We march every year, because we want to tell the Pride Parade’s participants and viewers that it is possible to live in integrity as a person of faith, who is both gay and deeply spiritual.  We believe that there is a place for everybody at Christ’s table.

Please join us at the Pride Parade and help make this message heard. All people have the same gift of love to share! Following the march, at 2:00PM, the group invites participants to the St. Joe’s Supper Table (151 Laurier Street East) for light snacks and refreshments. This event is sponsored by the University of Ottawa’s Gay Catholics, Christians and Allies Group (GCCA).

 

h/:t Big Blue Wave

 

When should a job be left for an expert?

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Here is one example:

A man stuck a butter knife into his belly in a failed bid at self-surgery to remove a painful hernia, police said Tuesday.

The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called paramedics on Sunday night and told the emergency operator her husband was using a knife to remove a protruding hernia, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

“She said he had impaled himself with a knife,” Lorenz said.

Officers found the man naked on a patio lounge chair outside his apartment with a 6-inch (15-centimeter) butter knife sticking out of his stomach.

The man’s wife told officers that her husband was upset about the hernia and wanted to take it out.

While waiting for paramedics, the sergeant said, the man pulled out the knife and stuffed a cigarette he was smoking into the bleeding, open wound.

Here is another:

Amy Winehouse

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I was planning on ignoring her death, but there is so much chatter about it, I can’t resist adding to it.

First of all, having little interest in contemporary pop music, I may be one of the few people on the planet who has never heard any of her music. I’m sure she was talented, but doubt that she was a successor to J. S. Bach: in 50 years, her music will probably be forgotten.

Second, it is a tragedy that any creature made in the image of God should reach a point where she sees so little value in that gift that she discards it by killing herself.

Third, in the US, about 84 people commit suicide every day; they are no less important than Amy Winehouse, yet she gets all the attention.

Fourth, if she hadn’t got all the attention, she may still be alive.

Anders Behring Breivik is not a Christian

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Nor was his evil, murderous rampage inspired by any form of Christianity, fundamentalist or otherwise.

Nevertheless, media articles repeatedly refer to him as a Christian fundamentalist. For example:
Here:

Anders Behring Breivik, the main suspect in the Norwegian bomb attacks and shootings, has been described by police as a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing views.

Here:

On the Facebook page attributed to him, he describes himself as a Christian and a conservative.

Here:

What has emerged so far paints a disturbing picture: a Christian fundamentalist with a deep hatred of multiculturalism, of the left and of Muslims, who had written disparagingly of prominent Norwegian politicians.

The enthusiasm that the mainstream media has demonstrated in identifying – misidentifying, really – Breivik’s religion is quite absent when it comes to identifying the religion of those responsible for Islamist attacks – around 16,000 since 9/11. Going by media accounts, when it comes to Islamist terrorism there is not a Muslim to be found anywhere – except among the victims.