Anglican Church of Canada: PWRDF slashes 2010-2011 budget by 26%

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From the Journal:

The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) has cut its 2010-2011 operating budget by 26 per cent.

In 2012, another 10 per cent will be cut in a bid to end deficit budgeting  and replenish its monetary reserve.

“As a result of the budget reductions, program delivery costs must be reduced,” said Cheryl Curtis, PWRDF executive director, in an email to staff at the Anglican Church of Canada’s national office in Toronto.

Consequently, several staff have been laid off and a number of positions restructured.

Anglicans have poverty justice, eco-justice, climate justice and now, finally: poetic justice.

Atheists against postage stamps

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Atheists are running out of things to complain about:

An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring “individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the “darker side” of Mother Teresa.

Atheists are keen to present the appearance of being better people than Christians; perhaps they feel they can’t compete with Mother Teresa and having her photo on a stamp will make them look really bad; poor dears:

He said the Foundation’s campaign stems from concern that the abundance of humanitarian work done by believers will overshadow that done by atheists.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation informs us:

The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion. In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery.

This curious concoction of meaningless pap is heartening, in that it reinforces my conviction that those who like to trumpet their freedom from religion are themselves slaves to ignorance and irrationality.

What we really need is a Freedom From Illogical Atheism Foundation.

More priests abandon the Diocese of Niagara for ANiC

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Rev. Vicky Hedelius and Rev. St. Clair Cleveland of Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Hamilton announced to their congregation last Sunday that they will be leaving the Diocese of Niagara to join ANiC; they will be starting services in St. John’s United (an evangelical church) this coming Sunday. Two thirds of the congregation has gone with them. They turned in their licenses on Monday morning and were immediately received by Bishop Don Harvey.

Thank you both for having the integrity and guts to stand up for the Gospel.

Living the vision in Niagara.

No burka ban in Canada

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From the London Free Press:

OTTAWA — The Conservative government will not follow France’s lead to consider banning the burka.

“In an open and democratic society like Canada, individuals are free to make their own decisions regarding their personal apparel and to adhere to their own customs or traditions of their faith and/or beliefs,” said a spokesperson for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. “We have no plans to introduce justice legislation in this matter.”

The Muslim Canadian Congress is calling on the feds to impose limits on the wearing of the full veil, suggesting “political correctness” is preventing politicians from tackling the sensitive subject.

“It’s a control thing, identifying with Muslim brotherhood,” said senior VP Salma Siddiqui. “Basically it is a subserviant tool.”

Her group plans to lobby politicians from all parties in May.

Liberal MP Marlene Jennings said Canada’s charter rights protect religious freedom, and the Supreme Court has consistently ruled not to impose any limits.

“Canadian women have the right, if they want, to wear a burka,” she said. “As a woman, clearly it makes me a little uncomfortable. But then there are other practices that are perfectly legal and acceptable that make people uncomfortable.”

Every person does have the right – within legal limits – to wear what he or she wishes in a democratic society; that is why the government should intervene when women are forced to wear a burka by their husbands. The solution is obvious: the government should do what it always does when it is trying to discourage activities that it disapproves of: tax them. There should be a burka tax; tax the buying of burkas, tax the income of husbands of women who wear burkas; impose annual licensing fees on burkas along with number plates – paid for by the husbands; track burkas with street cameras and impose a burka surcharge tax on burka wearers entering public places where people may be traumatised by second-hand burka claustrophobia.

That should sort it out.

Supersizing the iPhone gets you an iPad

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[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zI21XEo0Q]

The Wall Street Journal noted: “The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it.” Steve Jobs definitely won’t repeat the success of the first tablet; whether he will even repeat the success of the iPhone remains to be seen:

Apple has finally launched its long-awaited portable computer, the iPad. And one more thing: the full version, if it becomes available to Canadians at all, may cost a lot to use.

Chief executive Steve Jobs announced the device — basically a supersized iPod Touch — on Wednesday to a crowd of Apple faithful at an event in San Francisco. The iPad is about the size of a hardcover book, half an inch thick and with a 9.7-inch multi-touch screen, similar to the iPod Touch and iPhone. The device can surf the web using its Safari browser, send emails via an on-screen QWERTY keypad, play music, videos and games, and display e-books.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a magical and revolutionary product today,” Jobs said to a cheering audience.

He said the device has several wireless connectivity options, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and some models will have 3G cellular capability. In the United States, iPad buyers will be able to get a data plan that allows for 250 MB of data usage for $14.99 US, or $29.99 for unlimited usage.

Jobs called the deal with AT&T a “breakthrough” as most U.S. cellphone carriers charge around $60 a month for unlimited data usage. In Canada, cellphone carriers typically charge around $60 (Cdn) for about 3 GB of usage while unlimited plans are rare.

Apple has not yet reached deals with cellphone carriers internationally, which includes Canada, but hopes to be able to announce plans in other countries by June or July.

The 16 GB device without 3G will cost $499 US, ranging up to the full 3G-enabled 64 GB version for $829. The Wi-Fi-only versions will go on sale worldwide in 60 days, Jobs said, with the 3G versions being released in the United States and “selected countries” a month after that, which may or may not include Canada.

The device can run all iPhone apps and boasts up to 10 hours of video battery life.

I doubt that non-nerd people will be prepared to pay over $500 for an “incredible web browsing experience” and with only 10 hours of battery life and an LCD screen, it is not going compete well with dedicated book readers with paper-like e-ink and a battery that will run for 2 weeks.

It runs the iPhone OS which probably means no effective multitasking and no application access to many kernel functions: for example, an application will be unable to set an alarm to wake the device up.

Still, when it first appeared, I didn’t think the iPod touch would work as a PDA either – once Laridian released Pocket Bible for it, though, I bought one and haven’t touched my Palm TX since.

Diocese of BC makes “visionary” changes; closes 13 churches

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The diocese of BC’s Diocesan Transformation Team (DTT) has been at work. This report is at pains to point out that the diocese is not “closing parishes in order to prop up a dying institution or to delay its inevitable collapse”. That is the last thing on Bishop Cowan’s mind: apparently, it’s all about mission, about being “a people on a journey” and, no, not people on a journey to oblivion.

What is this mission? It’s hard to say for sure, but In October last year Cowan, in a CBC interview, declared that he wants to “forge a deeper connection with the culture and engage in more “social justice” and ”spirituality”; in December last year he reversed a policy that prohibits clergy in same-gender relationships from serving in the diocese. It sounds as if the mission is more of the same pseudo-Christian clap-trap that has brought the diocese to where it is today.

On the other hand, Cowan in a recent edition of the diocesan paper said:

We can reduce, reduce, reduce. We can restructure, redefine and try to work smarter. These we must do. But unless we couple reduction and restructuring with spiritual renewal and the reclamation of those aspects of faith which are both central and essential to Christianity the downward trends of Anglican ‘religion’ on these islands will continue.

If, by “spiritual renewal and the reclamation of those aspects of faith which are both central and essential to Christianity” he means what J. I. Packer would mean if  he said it, then perhaps there is some hope for the diocese; I suspect he doesn’t, though. If he did, a letter like this would never have been written:

I believe the Diocese of British Columbia has not dealt with the cause of division in this diocese. This avoidance has caused the Diocese to look like it cares more for buildings than it does for its people, who are so discontented with the situation in the ACoC that they are choosing to leave it. Rather than deal with the theological concerns of conservative Anglicans, the Diocese is more than willing to allow conservatives to “vote with their feet.” Of 395 people on the roll of St Matthias, only 24 (as recorded at the subsequent St Matthias Vestry) remained in the ACoC following the vote to join the Anglican Network in Canada. Of those who voted, 94.5% elected to rejoin the worldwide Anglican Communion, from whom we had been cut off by the actions of the ACoC, which led 22 Provinces to declare broken and impaired communion with the ACoC.

This would not have happened:

Parishioners of St Mary of the Incarnation (Metchosin) in Victoria were locked out of their church by Bishop James Cowan of the Diocese of British Columbia on April 4th. A court ordered the Diocese to return the church building to the parishioners the following day and ordered the parties to return to court before May 3 to consider a longer interim order.

And neither would this:

Today, Thursday February 26th, 2009, I accepted on behalf of the Bishop the following resignations:

♦ The Reverend Canon Ronald Corcoran, as Rector of St. Matthias, Victoria, and as a Diocesan Canon and priest of the Diocese of British Columbia.

♦ The Reverend Rodney May as Priest Associate of St. Matthias, Victoria and priest of the Diocese of British Columbia.

♦ The Reverend Glenn Sim as priest of the Diocese of British Columbia. As well, I have withdrawn the Permission to Officiate of the Reverend Michael Pountney, a retired priest of the Diocese of Toronto living in Victoria. All four have indicated that they could no longer give their obedience to the authority over them, namely, the Bishop of British Columbia. They have stated their intention to receive licenses from Donald Harvey and the Anglican Network in Canada. While they have said that their resignations became effective on March 8th, 2009, I have exercised the Bishop’s prerogatives as bishop and employer to withdraw Licences and Permissions to Officiate effective today, with payout of compensation due. The clergy have all been informed that they must depart from the premises of St. Matthias, and may only return with the permission of the Bishop or his designate

So what is so important that James Cowan is desperate enough to use the language of evangelicals? The DDT report has the answer: “The DTT concluded: If it is to survive, the Diocese is going to look different.”

The diocese isn’t restructuring to win souls for Christ, it is restructuring to survive.

Google fixes its Islam "bug"

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After someone noticed that Google helpfully completes searches for “Christianity is” but mysteriously does not do Islam the same favour, Google confessed that they had a bug. It had nothing to do with Google executives being gutless poltroons quaking in fear at the prospect of being decapitated by a maniacal Muslim. Nothing at all.

It only took 3 weeks for the executives to install new security systems and fix the “bug”:

Canada cuts off funds to UNWRA

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From the National Post:

Since last fall, the federal Conservative government has been withdrawing taxpayer funding from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that use their grants to take sides against Israel in the Middle East conflict. Now comes word that last week, Ottawa told the United Nations it would no longer fund the world body’s Palestinian refugee agency. From now on, Canadian aid to Palestinians will be directed to specific projects. We will no longer give lump-sum aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), since most of that money simply goes straight into the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) general treasury, where it might be used for humanitarian projects or might be used to arm and train terrorists.

This is a bold move for Ottawa, which is the first Western government to cut off funding for UNWRA.

Although UNWRA has long been a biased player in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is seldom criticized for its incitement of anti-Israeli hatred and violence by Palestinians. It has funded textbooks that deny the right of Israel to exist and paid teachers who call on Palestinian children to push the Jewish state into the sea. It harbours radical Islamists and anti-Semites on its payroll and was even caught in 2004 using its own ambulances to ferry terrorists away from Israeli sites they had just attacked.

First KAIROS and now UNWRA. I await the keening howls of woe from Fred Hiltz and his groupies with considerable anticipation.

Not much discernment from an Anglican in discernment for Holy Orders

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Geoff from The Rose Maniple made this observation:

One article I read in the aftermath of the new papal bull included a quote from an Anglican layman who said that he was attracted to the RCC’s strong stance on abortion and homosexuality, but didn’t think he could join if it meant signing off on the stuff about transubstantiation or the Virgin Mary (hint: it does). As a gay man who reluctantly swam the Thames in spite of my assent to those doctrines, I was astonished that he would seek out a church on such narrow grounds while sweeping away central Catholic dogmas.

I couldn’t believe that he was so offended at the thought of sharing a church with gays and lesbians that any church with a more conservative line thereon than the Anglican Church of Canada was preferable to him, regardless of whether or not he agreed with its central tenets.

The interview that Geoff regales us with above bears an uncanny resemblance to an interview I had with the Toronto Star a few months ago:

David Jenkins of Oakville said he likes the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and homosexual rights.

“From that point of view, being Catholic is pretty tempting to me,” he said.

He would not switch, however, if it meant agreeing to Catholic tenets of the infallibility of the pope, the role of the Virgin Mary and transubstantiation, or the Catholic belief that the bread and wine of communion become the body and blood of Jesus.

A reporter’s account of an interview never quite captures what the interviewee actually says, of course, particularly when the interviewer relies on scribbles in a notebook rather than a voice recorder.

So I didn’t quite say what was reported in the Star. I did say that I respect and agree with the clear position the RC church holds on abortion and homosexuality, but the fact that I disagree with the RC doctrines mentioned makes the offer less than tempting. And I would have tried to swallow my own tongue before using “opposition” and “homosexual rights” in the same sentence.

Contrary to Geoff’s assumption, I would not be in the least bit offended by the presence of gays or lesbians in my congregation; I’m not offended by anything much – which is not to say I don’t disagree with some things and agree with others. The important question is, is the church in question Christian, a criterion that Geoff overlooked and which the ACoC is increasingly unable to satisfy.

Not that I suppose I am the actual “Anglican layman” in question.

As an aside, I have come to loath the phrases “swim the Tiber” and “swim the Thames”.

Anglican vicar complains to police to shut down blogger

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Rev. Stephen Sizer is an evangelical Anglican vicar who can’t – and, considering he is an Anglican vicar, this is such a surprise – help getting tangled up in politics. He is opposed to Christian Zionism, believing that it plays a negative part in the politics of the Middle East; having read some of what he has written, I am unconvinced. Rev. Sizer sounds like a relatively typical Anglican leftist politician-manqué who has the expected knee-jerk bias in favour of Palestine and against Israel.

I have little doubt that the using of his calling as an Anglican priest to dabble in politics – for that is what this is – does little for the Gospel, angers Jews and provides ammunition to Islamists who, given half a chance would destroy the West, including Rev. Sizer.

Seismic Shock is a blog  that regularly criticises Rev. Sizer. The particular accusation that has resulted in Sizer’s complaining to the police, is that Sizer has knowingly associated with Islamic terrorists and Holocaust deniers. The police paid the blogger a visit for a “friendly chat” about his blog.

Rev. Sizer, by resorting to bullying instead of publicising facts that exonerate him of Seismic Shock’s accusations, has reinforced the suspicion that there are no facts that exonerate him.

From Harry’s Place:

As some people have noticed, I’ve been rather quiet in blogging about the Reverend Stephen Sizer’s activities of late.

After all, what more can be said of a man who forwards emails from Holocaust deniers, shares platforms with Holocaust deniers, and shamelessly flaunts his anti-Zionist theology before Iran’s apocalyptic Holocaust-denying regime? As Iranian pastors are arrested and house churches closed down, why is the Khomeinist regime translating Sizer’s book on Christian Zionism into Farsi? How many more times can I point all this out?

Yet there’s another reason why I’ve been quiet, and whilst I’ve held my tongue and my pen for a while, now is time to speak.

At 10am on Sunday 29th November 2009, I received a visit from two policemen regarding my activities in running the Seismic Shock blog. (Does exposing a vicar’s associations with extremists make me a criminal?, I wondered initially). A sergeant from the Horsforth Police related to me that he had received complaints via Surrey Police from Rev Sizer and from Dr Anthony McRoy – a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology – who both objected to being associated with terrorists and Holocaust deniers.

(Context: Sizer has associated with some very nasty terrorists and Holocaust deniers; McRoy has delivered a paper at a Khomeinist theological conference in Iran comparing Hezbollah’s struggle against Israel via suicide bombing with the Christian’s struggle against sin via the atoning death of Jesus, and describes the world’s most prominent Holocaust denier as an “intelligent, humble, charismatic, and charming” man who “gives quick, extensive and intelligent answers to any question, mixed with genial humour”).