Rowan’s hell

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One of Jean-Paul Sartre’s bon mots was Hell is other people (No Exit); Rowan Williams takes the opposite view:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has described hell as being stuck by himself for ever.

Dr Rowan Williams said that although his vision was not that of the traditional inferno, being alone with his “selfish little ego” for all eternity would be torment enough.

This view fits well with one biblical metaphor for hell: being cast into outer darkness (Matt 22:13).

According to C. S. Lewis, people choose hell for themselves on the principle, better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven (The Great Divorce).

Another type of hell might be having to spend eternity with no-one to talk to except Rowan Williams.

The Anglican Church of Canada and gaseous emissions

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If there’s one thing that gets Anglicans excited it’s global warming: apparently there isn’t much time left:

Climate change, caused by increasing greenhouse gases, has become the defining environmental, economic and social issue of the 21st century. It has now been established that the safe threshold of carbon dioxide concentration (350 parts per million, ppm) has been exceeded, with the current value of 390 ppm and rising. Unless halted through dramatic action,  ‘runaway’ climate change will threaten the well-being and possibly the survival of our planet.

Global warming may be the only sin left in Anglican dogma, but not all scientists agree that it is man-made:

Ian Plimer has outraged the ayatollahs of purist environmentalism, the Torquemadas of the doctrine of global warming, and he seems to relish the damnation they heap on him.

Plimer is a geologist, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, and he may well be Australia’s best-known and most notorious academic.

Plimer, you see, is an unremitting critic of “anthropogenic global warming” — man-made climate change to you and me — and the current environmental orthodoxy that if we change our polluting ways, global warming can be reversed.

There is no problem with global warming, Plimer says repeatedly. He points out that for humans periods of global warming have been times of abundance when civilization made leaps forward. Ice ages, in contrast, have been times when human development slowed or even declined.

So global warming, says Plimer, is something humans should welcome and embrace as a harbinger of good times to come.

Some scientists, on the other hand, are not swayed by Plimer and put much of the blame for global warming on cow flatulence:

Livestock-rearing generates more greenhouse gases than transportation according to a new report from the United Nations (U.N.), which adds that improved production methods could go a long way towards cutting emissions of gases responsible for global warming.

This marginalising of the bovine community must be countered by humanity acknowledging its own culpability in the over-production of methane; I am looking forward to our bishops taking the lead in repenting of their unrelenting turgidity.

Which brings me to what I truly believe would be an appropriate theme song for the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod in 2010; it could be led by the 3 cantors:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gonYvy53-6g]

Gaiety in the Anglican Church

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How many of the Church of England’s clergy are homosexual? It appears that we may find out:

A national survey is set to take place to reveal the number of gay clergy within the Church of England, the Guardian newspaper has reported.

The survey is being backed by the Inclusive Church network, which aims to prove that homosexuals perform an important role in the regular running of the Church body.

Canon Giles Goddard, Chair of the Inclusive Church told the Guardian: “It’s very early days but we need realistic information on how many LGBT clergy there are. It’s about demonstrating to people that we’re here and we need to be respected and recognised. We want to play our full role in the life of the church.

What will be even more interesting is what the ratio of homosexuals to heterosexuals in the clergy is. If it is considerably higher than in the general population – and I have a suspicion that it is – it would go a long way to explain why the Anglican church leadership is so determined to legitimise gay sexual activity and allow – even encourage – more senior homosexual ordinations: they have an axe to grind.

The dawning of the age of braless United Church Ladies

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The United Church, in its zeal for punishing Israel’s commitment to democracy and protecting its own people, is calling for a boycott of the following products (page 78):

Ambi Pur, AOL Time Warner, Aoste, Apax Partners & Co. Ltd., Aramis, Arsenal FC, Auchan, Bali, Ball Park, Biotherm, Banana Republic, Bryan, Buitoni, Café Pilāo, Calvin Klein, Carnation, Carrefour, Caterpillar, Champion, Clinique, CNN, Coca-Cola, Danone, Delta Galil, Dim, Disney, Donna Karan, DYNK, Estée Lauder, Express, Expo Design Center, Evian, Fruitopia, Gap, Garnier, General Electric, Georgia Lighting, Giorgio Armani, Gossard, HarperCollins, Hanes, Helen Rubinstein, Henri Bendel, Hema, Hillshire Farms, The Home Depot, Huggies, Hugo Boss, ICQ, IBM, Intel, Intimate brands, J. Crew, JC Penney, Jimmy Dean, Johnson & Johnson, Jo Malone, Just My Size, Kimberley-Clark, Kia Ora, Kiwi, Kleenex, Kotex, Lancôme, La Roche-Posay, Lea-Perrin, L’eggs, Lerner New York, Lewis Trust Group Ltd., Libby’s, Lilt, The Limited Inc., Lindex, L’Oreal, Loveable, MAC Cosmetics, Maggi, Maison Café, Marks & Spencer, MAST Industries, Inc., Matrix, Maybelline, McDonald’s, Nestlé, News Corporation, News of the World, New York & Company, New York Post, Nokia, Nur Die, Nursery World, Outerbanks, Origins, Perrier, Pickwick, Playtex, Prescriptives, Pryca, Ralph Lauren, Redken, Revlon, River Island, Santex, Sara Lee, Schweppes, Selfridges, Sky, Starbucks, Structure, The Sun, Sunkist, Superior Coffee, Tchibo, Timberland, Time, Tommy Hilfiger, Twentieth Century Fox, Vichy Laboratories, Victoria’s Secret, Villager’s Hardware, Vittel, The White Barn Candle Co., and Wonderbra.

I think this is an excellent move since United Church ladies will not only be braless, but also without computers, McDonald’s hamburgers, Starbucks and – the real crippler – Victoria’s Secret. In fact, what’s left of the entire United Church might as well move to a cave in Afghanistan, clear their consciences and leave the rest of us to enjoy our hamburgers while reading News of the World.

I used to think that Polly was the name of a parrot

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Oh, sorry, it’s “poly” for polyamorous – what used to be called fornication. It would appear that it’s the next Big Thing, meaning that the poor old Anglican Church – in its never ending pursuit of trendy cultural decadence – has some catching up to do.

Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who’s also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren’t pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO’s Big Love; they aren’t religious, and they don’t have multiple wives. But they do believe in “ethical nonmonogamy,” or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn’t want to live any other way.

The idea of “ethical nonmonogamy,” or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person” is begging for liturgical enshrinement by heretical bishops like Michael Bird. I am looking forward to the inevitable densely impenetrable theological reflections that explain why being poly is not contrary to the machinations of contemporary biblical deconstructionism. Rowan Williams is half way there already:

Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt. Gay partnerships pose the same ethical questions as those between men and women, and the key issue for Christians is that they are faithful and lifelong, he believes.

… “definitely come to the conclusion” that the Bible did not denounce faithful relationships between people who happened to be gay.

Substitute poly for gay and the Anglican church can take another confident step towards oblivion.

Bill 34 threatens Morgentaler abortion clinic

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Anything that has the potential for closing down a Morgentaler abattoir  is a good thing:

MONTREAL – Opened illegally in Montreal in 1969, Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s first abortion clinic could shut down as early as next month. The threat of closing is not coming from anti-abortion protesters, who have targeted the clinic for 40 years, but from a Quebec law that will govern how special medical clinics provide services.

“It’s terribly sad. We still have to fight,” physician Francine Léger, the clinic’s interim director, said Monday.

Bill 34, which was adopted by the National Assembly in the spring, says abortion clinics must adhere to the same guidelines as specialized medical clinics that provide such procedures as cataract and knee surgery.

That means they have to set up separate sterile operating rooms as opposed to simply sterilizing surgical equipment.

Two other abortion clinics – Fémina and Alternative – face the same fate when Bill 34 goes into effect Sept. 30.

About 30,000 women seek abortions annually in Quebec – 15,000 in Montreal – and about one-third are performed in private clinics, which bill the government.

The closings will affect about 100 women a week, who will need to find a new place to terminate their pregnancies.

It will also affect 100 babies a week: they won’t be murdered in the Morgentaler abortion factory.

Morgentaler believes he deserved the order of Canada because he worked tirelessly for women’s reproductive rights:

“I can think of no one who has worked harder on behalf of women’s reproductive choice and women’s reproductive rights than Dr. Henry Morgentaler since the … late 1960s,” she said.

Reproductive rights – a concept now enshrined in a UN declaration – on the face of it, appears to be a statement of support for women to have babies – as many as they would like without state interference or disapprobation from eco-nuts who believe that it is un-green to reproduce. But no, in the never ending crusade to conceal  diablerie in the innocuous, the meaning of reproductive rights is just the opposite: it’s the right to kill babies.

Sadly, in our cultural climate of obeisance to Moloch, it is probably too much to hope that Bill 34 will actually make much difference.

The problem in the ACoC is that male bishops don’t know what it’s like to be a woman – yet

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The ACoC is run by a bunch of mealy-mouthed spoilsports, so it doesn’t let me post to its Vision 2019 discussion; this comment from a female Anglican priest contains too much promise to overlook, though:

My church is lost in childish arguments and tantrums, in upholstering the pews, in excluding those who are different, in protecting the status quo.  The male bishops of the church have no clue what it is like to be a woman, either lay or ordained, in the church today. They are afraid of change, of losing their power and of letting the Gospel of love lose in the world.  I weep for the church which is so far from where Jesus calls us to be.

in excluding those who are different. So true.

The male bishops of the church have no clue what it is like to be a woman. My dear lady priest, give it time; once we are over the homosexual bishop hurdle, I’m sure a few of the more enterprising pointy hats will start having sex change operations, then they will know.

They are afraid of change, of losing their power and of letting the Gospel of love lose in the world. The ACoC has given up on the real Gospel, preferring to concentrate on sexual perversion and leftist politics instead. The ACoC – far from being afraid – has caused their “gospel of love” to lose: to the world – which, oddly enough, has a clearer view of reality than the average bishop – this false “gospel” is spotted immediately for an imposter – an abject loser.

We will simplify our church buildings.  Get rid of the buildings that drag us down and use up our resources.  We don’t need them.

I agree, you don’t need them: please forward your opinion to Michaels Bird and Ingham.

A new strategy for dealing with litigious dioceses

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From the Ohio Anglican Blog:

St. Lawrence (or Laurence) was chief of the seven deacons of the congregation at Rome, the seven men who, like Stephen and his companions (Acts 6:1-6), were in charge of administering the church budget, particularly with regard to the care of the poor.

In 257, the emperor Valerian began a persecution aimed chiefly at the clergy and the laity of the upper classes. All Church property was confiscated and meetings of Christians were forbidden. The bishop of Rome, Sixtus II, and most of his clergy were executed on 7 August 258, and Laurence on the 10th. This much from the near-contemporary records of the Church.

The accounts recorded about a century later by Ambrose (see 7 Dec) and the poet Prudentius say that, as Sixtus was being led to his death, Laurence followed him, saying, “Will you go to heaven and leave me behind?” and that the bishop replied, “Be comforted, you will follow me in three days.” They go on to say that the Roman prefect, knowing that Laurence was the principal financial officer, promised to set him free if he would surrender the wealth of the Church. Laurence agreed, but said that it would take him three days to gather it. During those three days, he placed all the money at his disposal in the hands of trustworthy stewards, and then assembled the sick, the aged, and the poor, the widows and orphans of the congregation, presented them to the prefect, and said, “These are the treasures of the Church.” The enraged prefect ordered him to be roasted alive on a gridiron. Laurence bore the torture with great calmness, saying to his executioners at one time, “You may turn me over; I am done on this side.” The spectacle of his courage made a great impression on the people of Rome, and made many converts, while greatly reducing among pagans the belief that Christianity was a socially undesirable movement that should be stamped out.

This presents an interesting solution to ANiC parishes that are being sued by their former dioceses; in the above account, substitute Fred Hiltz for the emperor Valerian, Michael Bird for the Roman prefect and church wardens for Lawrence. The only minor problem is the part about the roasting.