The Anglican Church of Canada hopes to become an abuse-free church

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Does that mean “welcome back ANiC, you can stay in your buildings”? Probably not.

From here:

In June, the second international conference of the Anglican Communion Safe Church Consultation will ask some hard questions about social and religious structures that perpetuate abuse. Partnering for Prevention: Addressing Abuse in Our Communion & in Our Communities, scheduled to take place at the University of Victoria, June 24 to 26, will explore the legacy of church abuse and how to prevent it and foster healing.

“Abuse happens in the church because we perpetuate structures of clericalism that place clergy in unrealistic positions of power and adulation among the faithful,” said Rev. Mary Louise Meadow, past canon pastor of the diocese of British Columbia and a conference co-coordinator.

I must admit, I am well past the stage of adulating clergy. Come to think of it, for most ACoC clergy, I seem to have passed rapidly from indifference to contempt with no intervening period of adulation.



Boxcutters on a plane

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A few years back I found myself about to wander through airport security in Paris with a Swiss army knife in my pocket. I had meant to put it in my checked luggage, but had forgotten; groaning inwardly, I stuck it in a pocket of my carry-on bag.

After a ritual removing of my shoes, losing my pants through having to undo  my belt and being prodded in undignified places, I sailed through security – so did my Swiss army knife.

Sadly, a year or so later, I lost it to a paranoid Russian ex-commissar at the entrance to a museum in St. Petersburg.

The moral of the story is that you are more likely to be stabbed by a Swiss army knife on a plane than in a Russian museum.

From here:

Boxcutters on Flight From JFK — No, We’re Not Safer Than Before 9/11.

Recently a passenger brought box cutters through a passenger screening point and on to an airliner. In response to this, the Transportation Security Administration announced that the screeners responsible would get “remedial training.”

There’s been a lot of coverage of this event, including legitimate outrage that the sloppy TSA employees weren’t fired. What most people don’t realize is that tolerating failure and outright sloppy work has been a hallmark of U.S. aviation security from the beginning. The truth is nobody has ever been held accountable for aviation security failures – nobody. From top to bottom, the TSA arrogantly claims it does nothing wrong.

BBC uses an atheist to present the Bible

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From here:

The BBC’s new face of religion is an atheist who claims that God had a wife and Eve was “unfairly maligned” by sexist scholars.

Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou has been given a primetime BBC Two series, The Bible’s Buried Secrets, in which she makes a number of startling suggestions.

She argues in the programme that Eve was not responsible for the Fall of Man and was not even the first woman, as the story of the Garden of Eden did not belong in the first book of the Old Testament.

“Eve, particularly in the Christian tradition, has been very unfairly maligned as the troublesome wife who brought about the Fall,” Dr Stavrakopoulou said. “Don’t forget that the biblical writers are male and it’s a very male-dominated world. Women were second-class citizens, seen as property.”

The idea that God had a wife is based on Biblical texts that refer to “asherah”. According to Dr Stavrakopoulou, Asherah was the name of a fertility goddess in lands now covered by modern-day Syria, and was half of a “divine pair” with God.

Dr Stavrakopoulou is a senior lecturer in the Hebrew Bible at the University of Exeter, and gained a doctorate in theology from Oxford. Born in London to an English mother and Greek father, Dr Stavrakopoulou was raised “in no particular religion” and does not believe in God.

Atheism is itself a religion, one which is gradually gaining ground in the West. Stavrakopoulou, like most atheists, exhibits tedious political correctness – even worse, though, is the BBC’s use of a member of one religion to ridicule the beliefs of another. If the BBC wanted to be fair – an unlikely turn of events – it would air a second program, hosted by a Christian, poking holes in atheism; too easy, perhaps.

How does the Anglican Church of Canada plan on attracting people?

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By lowering the standards for membership. Of course, by doing so, everyone will catch on to the obvious fact that by requiring little from its followers, the church has little of value to offer: the lower the cost, the lower the value, the less the desirability of the merchandise, the fewer people interested.

In its ceaseless striving to become worthless, the Anglican Church of Canada is considering offering Communion to those who don’t believe in it. From here:

Should we invite persons who are not baptized to receive Holy Communion? The church is discussing this question today. Anglicans traditionally have believed that the eucharist is a family meal, reserved for members of the church through baptism. Those who are not baptized are not members of the church; therefore, they cannot participate in the family meal.

This exclusive view of the eucharist has a long history. St. Paul warns against eating and drinking in an “unworthy manner” (I Cor. 11:27), though he seems to leave the decision whether to partake in the meal to each person’s conscience (I Cor. 11:28). Closed communion is standard practice in some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox. However, many Anglican churches throughout the world now practice open communion. There are good reasons, both missional and theological, for doing so.

 

Diocese of New Westminster demonstrates ADS – ANiC Derangement Syndrome

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The diocese continues to try and make a case that it has a vibrant and emerging congregation at St. Matthew’s, Abbotsford, a parish that left the diocese for ANiC  because of its heretical drift. Here is a photo of the emerging congregation:

Funnily enough, while occupying St. Matthews with fifteen squatters, the diocese has been busy closing what it sees as non-viable parishes with a far higher number of parishioners.

Here is the fond farewell from St. John’s, Burnaby:

 

And here, from St. Peter’s:

Notice the difference? It’s hard not to conclude that the Diocese of New Westminster is only prepared to maintain a small – minuscule, actually – parish when, by doing so, it furthers its plan to deprive a thriving ANiC parish of a building .

 

 

 

Fr. Raymond Gravel, the suing priest

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Every time I sink into a slough of despond produced by the certain knowledge that the Anglican Church has a monopoly on batty priests, something turns up to give me a helping hand out of the mire. This time it’s in the form of Roman Catholic priest, Raymond Gravel, a man who is not only just as daft as the dottiest Anglican prelate but exceeds most in native deviousness.

Gravel was forced by the Vatican to relinquish his seat in parliament as a member of the Bloc Québécois; the Vatican does not allow priests to serve in public office – a restriction that can hardly have been news to Gravel when he first stood for the Bloc Québécois, even though he received a dispensation from his bishop to do so.

While an MP, he distinguished himself as a politician-priest chimera by opposing Bill C-484, which would have recognized injury of a foetus during a crime as a separate offence from an injury to the mother, and by supporting  abortionist Henry Morgentaler’s receiving the Order of Canada – all of this while claiming to be pro-life. He also supports same-sex marriage and homosexual priests; he used to be a homosexual prostitute but all that is now behind him – as it were.

Lifesite News has done its best to expose the duplicitous Gavel and, since he has now been booted out of his position as a catechist in the Quebec Diocese of Joliette, he has decided to sue someone. After astutely assessing his options, he decided that Lifesite News is an easier target than the Vatican, so he is suing them for $500,000 in damages.

If he wins, Lifesite News will be shut down: a loss for Christianity, the pro-life movement, free speech and the Catholic Church.

Read more here.

 

 

Church where scumbags are welcome

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From here:

It shines out in the night like a beacon of light, attracting the attention of all passers by.

Of course, if you are going to put a gigantic sign screaming ‘Scumbags Welcome!’ on the road side you probably didn’t intend it to do much else.

The pastor of Lake County church, Florida, hopes that the controversial billboard will help bring people closer to God.

Moses Robbins, of the Saturday Night Live (SNL) church, put the billboard up along Highway 441 between Tavares and Leesburg.

In less than a week, he said the phone has been ringing off the hook – not from Scumbags wanting to be welcomed – but from people criticising it and its message.

But Robbins said there is nothing vulgar about the sign and he doesn’t care if it offends people, assuring this was not his goal.

He said that for people to understand they must read the Bible verse Mark 2:13-17, in which Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors, to realise what inspired the billboard.

The SNL church’s novel approach to advertising makes a refreshing contrast to that of the typical inclusive church; let’s hope that, unlike liberal churches who love to include everyone except committed Christians, those who attend are encouraged to become less scummy.

 

 

Anglican priest gets PhD in snowboarding

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Anglican priest, Rev. Neil Elliot is celebrating the completion of his PhD in snowboarding, from Kingston University in London.

He discusses the minutiae of the spirituality of snowboarding here, where he observes:

One thing that came out very clearly in my research is that people in contemporary society are talking about spirituality without God and they are looking for spiritual growth and development without necessarily including God. We need to understand why that’s the case.

Understanding why people prefer spirituality to God isn’t that difficult: God makes demands of us, spirituality, in its all you need is love mushiness doesn’t.