Good Friday
2
Fred Hiltz and his stories
Primate Fred’s Easter message:
“Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen; Tell it with a joyful voice”
Having made our journey through Holy Week, commemorating the events of the Lord’s passion, death and burial we come now to Easter and the joy of His Glorious Resurrection.
Sunday by Sunday throughout the great festival of Easter, we take delight in hearing those stories of how the risen Lord appeared to so many — greeting and calling them by name, opening the scriptures and teaching them, breaking bread in their midst, bestowing his peace, breathing the Holy Spirit into their hearts and then sending them into all the world. Alongside these wonderful stories are accounts of the earliest Christian preaching recorded in The Acts of the Apostles.
The important thing about Easter is that these were events not stories: they actually happened, they have objective reality. At Easter, Christians delight in the fact that Jesus rose physically from the dead, not in hearing those stories. I’m sure Fred realises this – maybe.
Diocese of Niagara gives buildings to ANiC
After a time of discernment, Bishop Michael Bird has realised that the Diocese of Niagara has absolutely no use for the buildings that are presently part of a legal dispute between the diocese and ANiC. In keeping with Living the Vision, prophetic social justice making and pursuing excellence, Bishop Bird has come to understand that the Christian thing to do is to immediately stop all legal proceedings against St. George’s Lowville, St. Hilda’s Oakville and Church of the Good Shepherd St. Catharines.
The diocese will also fulfil the promise made to St. Hilda’s in 1965 and pave its parking lot.
Another Goldfish crime ring busted
In May 2008, the Goldfish Division of the Margate City Council infiltrated an illegal goldfish running ring:
A licensing sting, involving a goldfish, has led to a Margate man being disqualified from keeping a pet shop for three years.
On 22 May 2008, a Licensing Officer again visited the premises and found budgies, cockatiels, gerbils, rabbits and fish on display inside the shop. She told Mr. Curtis that she wanted to buy a goldfish and, after some discussion, was sold one for £3.50. She also enquired about the price of rabbits and was told £15. She left the shop with the goldfish.
In 2010 the distributing of goldfish for other than recreational use has become so serious that city councils are employing schoolboys in sting operations to entrap goldfish peddling grandmas posing as pet shop owners:
But this electronic tag has been fitted on a great grandmother who was hauled before the courts for selling a goldfish to a boy of 14.
Pet shop owner, Joan Higgins, 66, was fined £1,000, put under curfew and warned she could face a year in prison.
She was caught in an undercover sting when the local council sent a schoolboy into her shop to buy a £1.50 goldfish.
More Anglican moaning about funding cuts to Kairos
The editor of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s paper (page 5), Art Babych reckons that government cuts to Kairos were retribution for Kairos’s anti-Israel bias:
But this isn’t about CIDA’s priorities, is it? The denial of 35 years of government funding for KAIROS, coupled with the recent firings amid a politically charged atmosphere at Rights and Democracy over the funding of some groups critical of Israel, suggest that in government quarters, criticism of Israel is the new anti-Semitism. And that should send a shudder through all who value free speech, not only those groups who criticize Israel.
I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if Art is correct; I wouldn’t be particularly upset, either. In fact I’d be rather pleased.
Whatever the reason, though, this is in no way a curtailing of free speech. By not giving taxpayer money to Kairos, the government is not preventing Kairos from saying whatever it wants; it is just not being paid to say it by you and me.
I wonder if Babych’s devotion to free speech would extend to allowing Ann Coulter to speak in his city?
For a Lent study, a Quebec Anglican Church invites imam to speak about Islam
Just what every Anglican needs to meditate on during Lent: the basics of Islam:
Also, on three Tuesday evenings at 7:30, beginning Feb. 23, we welcome Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, the imam of the local mosque, who will teach us some basics about Islam. He will bring several members of his congregation to join us in conversation. Take the time for what interests you; everyone is welcome.
The series was called, “Understanding Islam” and:
Dr. Shafaat’s lectures dealt with the life of the prophet, the roots of Islam, and the prayer recited by the faithful five times daily. It begins, “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, Master of the Day of Recompense.” Everything we have comes from God, Dr. Shafaat said, and our relationship to Creation is based on respect. The nature of God is indescribable but unmistakable, a transcendental reality.
As Anglicans we do need to remember, particularly during Lent, that Jesus died on the cross to help us understand Islam better.
Where are fish more important than babies?
In the UK. A childhood friend of mine used to buy goldfish and feed them to his pet snakes. Couldn’t do that now:
Buying a goldfish at a pet shop used to be an innocent childhood pleasure.
But today an elderly pet shop owner told how she was ‘entrapped’ into selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old schoolboy, then warned she could face jail.
She had breached a law introduced in 2006 which bans selling live fish to anyone under 16.
After a prosecution estimated to have cost taxpayers £20,0000, Joan Higgins, 66, a great-grandmother who has never been in trouble before, has been forced to wear a tag on her ankle like common criminal and given a seven-week curfew.
But you can do this:
More abortions are carried out in Britain than any other country in Europe, research has shown.
Half of all pregnancies among girls under 18 in Britain end in abortion.
The figures, collated by a European pressure group, showed that the 219,336 abortions carried out in England, Wales and Scotland in 2007 topped the 209,699 in France to put Britain at the top of the abortion count for the first time.
No need to worry, though, as long as we keep the goldfish safe.
Peter Tatchell defends Christian’s right to criticise homosexuality
The law in the UK seems to have abandoned common sense:
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has defended a Christian street preacher fined £1,000 for saying that homosexuality is a sin.
Baptist Shawn Holes was taken from a busy shopping street in a police van and locked in a cell for the night.
He appeared in court the next day charged with ‘uttering homophobic remarks’ in a breach of the peace that prosecutors said was ‘aggravated by religious prejudice’.
Last night Mr Tatchell attacked the fine as ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘totally disproportionate’.
He said: ‘The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive.
‘Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality. Only incitements to violence should be illegal.’
Mr Holes, an American preacher who was travelling around Britain with a dozen colleagues, was arrested in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, on March 18.
After discussing general Christian topics, the married father-of-two, a former wedding photographer, was fielding questions from the crowd.
When asked about his views on gays, Mr Holes, 47, from Lake Placid in New York State, said he told questioners: ‘Homosexuals deserve the wrath of God – and so do all other sinners – and they are going to a place called Hell.’
A spokesman for the Crown Office – the Scottish prosecution service – said: ‘We take all crimes of prejudice extremely seriously.’
When Peter Tatchell’s view of a Christian repeating what the Bible says about homosexuality is more tolerant than that of the police, it seems fairly obvious that something has gone badly wrong with British justice.
The Scottish prosecution service takes all crimes of prejudice extremely seriously except its own.
Vision 2019: the Anglican Church of Canada is in serious decline
At least someone in the ACoC has noticed it is in serious decline:
“The church of Christ in every age, beset by change but Spirit led, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.” (“The Church of Christ in Every Age,” #584, Common Praise)
“Beset by change but Spirit led”—this description of the church could apply to any century and certainly applies today. Media reports confirm what our best demographics tell us, that the Anglican Church of Canada is in serious decline in terms of numbers and influence. It is time to claim our heritage and be open to the leading of the Spirit.
If we reclaim our vocations—as evangelists, storytellers, caregivers, advocates for peace and justice, and stewards of creation—the church can and will find new ways to express service to God and neighbour.
This message is begging for a little translation. When the ACoC says open to the leading of the Spirit, it is not referring to God the Holy Spirit, third member of the Trinity. It is referring to the institutional zeitgeist, a junior demon subject to strict orders from the National Zeitgeist, the senior demon.
In addition, since, by and large, the ACoC no longer believes in the innate sinfulness of man, that he deserves God’s judgement and without redemption will end up in hell, it isn’t aware that there is anything he needs saving from other than global warming. So when evangelism is mentioned the good news that is the subject of the evangelism is nothing more than nice liturgy, nice preaching and nice stories – and who, other than the usual coterie of effete clergy, really cares about that.
As the title says, the Anglican Church of Canada is in serious decline.
What is the Anglican Church of Canada all about?
The April edition of the Anglican Journal provides the clue. Here is a selection of headlines:
Falling in love with Mother Earth
The green wave is sweeping across many Anglican parishes in Canada.Eco-spirit strong in New Westminster
Respond to one of the most urgent issues of our time: care for the earth. (What the hell is an “eco-spirit”?)
Begin with a simple cup of joe
If congregations want to take action on environmental and climate change issues, they can begin with a simple cup of joe.You can go green at home, too!
Even if you can’t go off the power grid, you can buy your electricity from Bullfrog Power, which sources electricity from wind and hydro-electric facilities.Small steps
Look to Greening Sacred Spaces
There you have it: The Anglican Church is getting into the eco-spirit of things by loving Mother Earth while drinking fair-trade coffee heated with Bullfrog Power all in a lush verdant sanctuary. I think I’m turning green; pass the sick-bag.