Diocese of Algoma will perform same-sex marriages

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With all the excitement about contagion and racism, it almost seemed as if the Anglican church had forgotten that which is most dear to it: sex.

Fear not, the obsession still lives! Archbishop Anne Germond has announced that the Diocese of Algoma will start conducting same-sex marriages.

Things are finally returning to normal.

From here:

I have weighed the matter of same sex marriage in the church carefully and prayerfully, only too aware of the heavy burden that lies on me as the time arrives to make a decision for the Diocese of Algoma. I believe that the decision I have made is the result of my prayerful and attentive listening to Algoma’s corporate discernment over many years and reflects the position and desire of the majority of people in this diocese. I am,therefore,granting permission for duly qualified same sex couples who are part of ecclesial communities and who intend to live in faithful and committed relationships to celebrate the sacrament of marriage in our diocese.

Here is an updated list of dioceses that will marry same-sex couples:
Diocese of Saskatoon
Diocese of Algoma
Diocese of Ontario
Diocese of Central Newfoundland
Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador
Diocese of Western Newfoundland
Diocese of New Westminster
Diocese of Toronto
Diocese of Niagara
Diocese of Montreal
Diocese of Ottawa
Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Diocese of Rupert’s Land
Diocese of Kootenay
Diocese of Edmonton
Diocese of B.C.
Diocese of Huron

The photo that redefined blasphemy and idolatry

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It has upset every right-thinking clergyman in the cosmos; or should I say clergy{Insert Your Gender(s) Here}?

A politician holding a Bible in front of a church!

Oops, sorry, wrong one. No one was upset by that.

This is the photo that caused ripples of angst to reverberate through Christendom:

I, myself, was so traumatised by this that I had to spend the rest of the day alone in a safe space.

Diocese of BC supports Black Lives Matter

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Well, of course they do: black lives do matter:

From the diocesan website:

Let me be clear, I support the Black Lives Matter movement.  My dear beloved friends, in the name of Jesus, the Liberator, let’s do our work.  We are all formed by racism – our psyches are constructed by it from birth.  Let’s free our souls so that we can love as Jesus loved.

The fly in the ointment is that included in the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement are the following gems of the most crypto-Marxist, family destroying, misandrist, anti-civilisation, gender-confused drivel you are ever likely to encounter when out of earshot of an Anglican Church of Canada pulpit:

We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

Taking a knee

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When I first heard of taking a knee, I thought to myself: “whose knee? Take it where?”

And I was reminded of Spike Milligan’s version of, “I left my heart in San Francisco”:

I left my heart in San Francisco,
I left my knees in old Peru.
I left my little wooden leg
Hanging on a metal peg,
And my eyeballs I gave to you.
I left my teeth on Table Mountain,
High on a hill they smile at me.
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
There won’t be much left of me.

I don’t know why the saying irritates me so profoundly, but it does. Why can’t people say, “I knelt”? Is it because “I knelt” evokes echoes of Christianity which today, as everyone knows, is a thinly disguised euphemism for white colonialism?

Like or not, though, those who take their knees are performing an act of religious obeisance to a god: the god of conspicuous righteousness in this case.

Here we have some police men and women who have taken their knees, not to old Peru, but downtown Toronto to show everyone that social distancing isn’t as important as they claimed when they handed out tickets to people getting together for reasons other than demonstrating on behalf of black lives matter.

It’s a lovely image: heads bowed in reverence, cameras clicking, fists raised, CBC microphone at the ready, poised to capture any whispered pieties.

ACNA becomes Politically Correct

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It was probably inevitable: the pull towards surreptitious halo polishing thinly disguised as righteous breast-beating was too strong to resist.

A group of ACNA clergy has published a letter lamenting the lack of diversity within its ranks, a promise to do better and an acknowledgement that Man’s real problem is not sin, it’s racism.

Read the whole thing here:


A Letter to Fellow ACNA Clergy: On Anti-Racism and a More Diverse and Just Anglicanism

[….]
We see and grieve the racism and discrimination that exists and has a deep cultural and structural influence in our society, in our communities, and in our churches. The recent tragedies of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd are simply the latest in a long line of harrowing examples of these deeply embedded systemic realities. We see and grieve that our brothers and sisters of color, including many in our own dioceses and parishes, have been and continue to be profoundly affected by these realities.

Against this backdrop, we offer the following confessions and make the following commitments.

Confessions

We confess that we have failed to see, understand, and address the expressions of racism, both personal and systemic, that plague our society, communities, and churches.

We confess our slowness to listen to the dismay and discouragement of our brothers and sisters of color, especially those in our own province, and have neglected to cultivate hospitable spaces for them to flourish.

We confess that our ignorance, complacency, and silence have undermined our fidelity to the Great Commandment to love God and love our neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40), which fundamentally calls us into disciplines of anti-racism.

Liberals experience epiphany: suddenly decide to take Bible seriously.

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Theological liberals try not to take the bible too seriously, so they don’t particularly care when, as an art project, someone rips it up and plasters satanic images over an image of Christ. No Anglican bishops denounced this; after all, it’s only a book and there is nothing you can do to it that rises to the level of blasphemy.

Except when Donald Trump uses it as a political prop. Then, suddenly, blasphemy!

This was blasphemy. In the most authentic and repugnant sense, it was blasphemy.

If only Susan Bell and Michael Coren would pay attention to what it says instead of who is holding it.

Anglican Church of Canada Primate announces she is a racist

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She is a racist, she tells us, because she is white.

Let’s examine this heartfelt confession. The OED defines a racist as:

A person who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized

Linda Nicholls believes, sincerely we must assume, that anyone who has the misfortune of being born with a skin colour that is white, off-white or merely pasty is innately biased against his or her more fortunate brethren who have been endowed with a less pink complexion. She believes that bias against another’s race is itself determined by race. And Linda Nicholls is a member of the benighted race that is cursed with that bias.

That really does make her a racist.

From here:

Last year, in the months before General Synod and the primatial election, an acquaintance told me that she had heard someone publicly share that I am racist. My initial response was to be deeply hurt and to try to find out what I had said or done that would lead to those remarks. How had I acted? What had I said? How could this be when I abhor the thought of racism?

Since then I have recognized that I am racist. I am a white, privileged Canadian who is enmeshed in the cultural expectations and assumptions of the society in which I was raised. I have benefitted because I was born into the class and colour of those who have systemic power. As someone with power I unconsciously participate in and collude with racism and have absorbed attitudes deep within me. I am as enmeshed in racism by the benefits I have received as is the person enmeshed in racism by discrimination. The only aspect of disempowerment I have experienced directly has come from my gender as a woman. Even there, others had begun the battle for rights and recognition over the past one hundred years, and I enjoy the fruit of their hard-won justice.

Diocese of Huron has a Pride Pentecost

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From here:

Celebrating Pentecost with Pride

Pentecost will be celebrated on Sunday, May 31, but the season of Pentecost will continue for the next several months.

[….]

One could easily say that the Holy Spirit came down upon the people at the Stonewall Inn, lighting a fire within them to advocate for change. Still today, we see many examples of homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism and cissexism running rampant within the world and our society. This time of quarantine and isolation has empowered certain people to speak out against inclusive sex education, to call for the repeal of laws that protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, and claim that gender-confirmation surgery and other transition-related procedures for trans* people “should be outlawed altogether”. People are being empowered through social media to commit “Zoom-bombing” and other acts of hate crime with little repercussion.

I only have a few questions: what is the asterisk for in “trans* people”? Is it a wildcard? What is cissexism and would I break out in a rash if I had it?

If your curiosity is piqued enough to want to see what a Pride Pentecost looks like and you are not worried that it might trigger your phobias, you can view it here.

Anglican Churches in Ontario closed until September

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In Ontario, the Anglican Church of Canada will not be meeting in its churches before September, regardless of government regulations.

I have no idea whether this is the right decision or not but I do wonder how many parishes will have ceased to exist by September.

ANiC has not made any announcement for Ontario yet.

From here:

The past three months have been difficult as we journeyed through a time of wilderness with the closure of our church buildings and as we have creatively adapted our ministries to respond to the emergency situation. Inspired from the witness of scripture, a time of sabbath rest invites our clergy and lay leaders, as well as the whole Church, to take time apart from our usual patterns in order to bring renewed energy and knowledge and skill to the practice of ministry.What this means is that regardless of where the Government of Ontario is with its reopening plan, our churches will not be reopening for in-person worship until at least September. This decision was made in consultation with public health experts as well as our diocesan executive officers and chancellors, with the well-being and safety of all our parishioners and the communities we serve uppermost in our hearts and minds

Let your yes be maybe and your no maybe not

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The Diocese of Toronto has decided that same-sex marriage is both legitimate and not legitimate. In polite company, this is known as an antinomy. Or, in plain language, rubbish.

The good news is, there is almost no one who cares anymore what the Anglican Church of Canada thinks about anything. So the fact that it has decided to stake its reputation – what is left of it – on a statement that raises illogicality to the status of dogma is of little interest to anyone who continues to inhabit objective reality.

From here:

“Marriage in equal measure means that our Diocese chooses to hold in creative tension two views of Holy Matrimony that are, at once, contradictory and yet legitimately supported and honoured by our bishops, clergy and laity. This place of creative tension follows a long season of study, reflection, conflict, revelation and struggle. Clergy and laity in this Diocese will be supported in holding and teaching a theology of marriage as being between a man and a woman or a theology of marriage that does not require the couple to be of opposite gender.”