The United Church of Canada is even dafter than the Anglican Church

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Question: is there a dafter church than the Anglican Church of Canada?

Answer: you bet – it’s the United Church of Canada.

In many ways, the United Church has paved the way for Anglicans: it has pioneered absurd political correctness by expunging “Father” from it’s hymnbooks, embraced gayness with the enthusiasm of a bear finding a jar of honey, and championed every potty left-wing ignis fatuus  known to man.

And now, out of the plethora of demonically evil nations to select from, it has, instead, chosen Israel for special approbation while ignoring models of utopian harmony such as Iran and North Korea.

The United Church of Canada is back in the news this week for having its head trapped in its fundament, as attendees of its upcoming general council will be asked to vote on a resolution boycotting Israeli academic and cultural institutions for tiresomely familiar reasons. The language of the resolution suggests that Israel stands out amongst the nations of the world as a uniquely horrible monster: it is said to operate what is described as a “regime of exclusion, violence and dehumanization directed against Palestinians.”

As if there weren’t 50 other boycottable countries that routinely and intentionally inflict these things on their citizens in a wholly undifferentiated way, without the mitigating features of Israeli rule — democratic checks and balances, a code and ethos of individual rights, rules of engagement for the military and the police, a free press, economic freedom and an independent judiciary.

It looks like Fred Hiltz has some catching up to do.

Four men and a baby

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A sacrifice to Moloch:

Two gay policemen who became the first British same-sex couple to have a baby through a relative are both married – to other men.

Stephen Ponder, 28, a special constable, and his partner Ivan Sigston, 43, a Hampshire police dog handler, are now fathers to William who was born three weeks ago.

It was Mr Ponder’s sister, Lorna Bradley, who gave birth to the child having conceived using PC Sigston’s sperm.

So, to summarise, two homosexual policemen wanted to have a baby. One of them persuaded his sister to have a baby using his paramour’s sperm and give the baby to them. They are both actually “married” to other people – both men. They met while still “married” and became sexually involved because they were both interested in dogs; I don’t think the dogs were married to anyone.

Now they both want to divorce their man-wives so that they can “marry” each other and adopt the baby.

The only thing that is clear about all this is that absolutely no one is giving any thought whatsoever to the welfare of the baby.

Science and Magic

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The other evening I watched the new Harry Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince; it isn’t as good as the book. But it did get me thinking about the hypothetical existence of magic and its relationship to the material and supernatural. According to Arthur C. Clarke, magic cannot exist and, if it seems to, that is merely because any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; magic, in Clarke’s view, is simply science in disguise. David Bentley Hart makes an interestingly similar – but considerably more subtle – point: magic is preoccupied with the manipulation of the material world and, as such, has more in common with science than the transcendent:

In truth, the rise of modem science and the early modern obsession with sorcery were not merely contemporaneous currents within Western society but were two closely allied manifestations of the development of a new post-Christian sense of human mastery over the world. There is nothing especially outrageous in such a claim. After all, magic is essentially a species of materialism; if it invokes any agencies beyond the visible sphere, they are not supernatural—in the theological sense of “transcendent”—but at most preternatural: they are merely, that is to say, subtler, more potent aspects of the physical cosmos. Hermetic magic and modem science (in its most Baconian form at least) are both concerned with hidden forces within the material order, forces that are largely impersonal and morally neutral, which one can learn to manipulate, and which may be turned to ends fair or foul; both, that is to say, are concerned with domination of the physical cosmos, the instrumental subjection of nature to humanity, and the constant increase of human power. Hence, there was not really any late modem triumph of science over magic, so much as there was a natural dissolution of the latter into the former, as the power of science to accomplish what magic could only adumbrate became progressively more obvious. Or, rather, “magic” and “science” in the modern period are distinguishable only retrospectively, according to relative degrees of efficacy. There never was, however, an antagonism between the two: metaphysically, morally, and conceptually, they belonged to a single continuum.

I’m not sure what Albus Dumbledore would make of that but, for any atheist who might be eager to comment, please use your God-given grey cells to understand the point before using them to animate your fingers at the keyboard.

Anglicanism: why bother?

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The reputation of the Western Anglican church is hovering between irrelevant and international laughingstock.

The Guardian conducted a poll on whether holding the Anglican Communion together matters:

The Anglican communion’s foundations are looking shaky in the wake of a controversial Episcopal vote. But does it really matter if this church fragments? Is it time to ditch the idea of a coherent, single Anglican communion? In short, is the Anglican communion worth it?

guardian poll

Incalescence in the Anglican Church of Canada

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The Anglican Church in the West, having largely abandoned the gospel of the bible, has settled on Global Warming and same-gender copulation as worthy replacements. So much attention has been given to the latter, that global warming tends to receive short shrift.

To set the record straight: there are protests (ironically, this one begins “Braving gusty winds, Anglicans….”), sections on web sites,  and gruesome  Eco-Justice camps. Not to mention excruciating liturgies,  green worship,  how to have a relationship with the earth,  and green cleaning,  grounds and meetings.

The Anglican Church, where you can’t get no calefaction:

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites

Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists

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.

The Anglican Church of Canada has noticed that it is getting hotter: but it’s the flames of hell licking its foundations, not global warming.

An example of critical thinking à la Dawkins

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Camp Quest is the atheist summer camp for children. The camp prides itself on teaching children to think critically. Hence we have the invisible unicorns:

Astronomy, critical thinking, philosophy and pseudo-science are covered at Camp Quest.

One of the most popular exercises is the invisible unicorn challenge. The children are told there are two invisible unicorns who live at Camp Quest but that they cannot be seen, heard, felt or smelt, and do not leave a trace. A book about them has been handed down through the ages but it is too precious for anyone to see.

All counsellors – as the adults are called – are said to be staunch believers in these unicorns.

Any child who can successfully prove that the invisible unicorns do not exist is rewarded with a prize: a £10 note with a picture of Charles Darwin on it signed by Richard Dawkins, or a “godless” $100 bill, printed before 1957 when “In God We Trust” was added to paper currency in the US.

Clearly, the unicorns are supposed to represent God. The purpose of the exercise appears to be to show that the burden of proof lies with the unicorn-believers. The problem is, the councillors don’t actually believe in the unicorns so they obviously can’t give reasons for their pretend belief, the book – the unicorn bible – is not something that can be read and the unicorns have no discernible effect on reality.

None of this corresponds to Christianity where God does act, the bible is not only read but has been the inspiration for all that is best in our culture, and people actually do believe and can explain why they do. While this does not offer proof of God’s existence, it does illustrate that a belief in God is no less rational than a disbelief in him; the believer is under no more burden to provide iron-clad proof of his belief than the atheist of his non-belief.

The unicorn exercise is not one of critical thinking but of constructing and demolishing a straw man: very rational.

Diocese of Niagara in competition with New Westminster

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The Diocese of Niagara has declared that it is pressing ahead with same-sex blessings:

Effective September 1, 2009, permission will be granted by Bishop Michael Bird for the use of the Niagara Rite as outlined in the protocols that are included.

In a moment of mincingly understated candour Fred Hiltz admitted that this might “create some tension”:

The decision by the diocese of Niagara to offer same-sex blessings as of Sept. 1 is bound to create some tension among bishops, says Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

In contrast, Michael Ingham in New Westminster is paying advanced lip-service to the pretence of pacifying conservatives by limiting parishes that conduct same-sex blessings to a mere 8: Bird makes no such promise:

No more parishes may bless same sex couples for forseeable [sic] future

For the foreseeable future, the blessing of the union of gay and lesbian Anglicans will continue to be limited to eight parishes in the diocese.

One can only assume that Michael Bird is eager to thrust Ingham out of the limelight and grab some well-deserved notoriety for himself. When the death of the Anglican Church of Canada is chronicled by a church historian in the not too distant future, Bird will take his rightful place as the Michael who assisted with the coup de gras by putting the boot in at the level which befits his stature.

Rowan Williams: extreme waffle

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Rowan Williams has made a statement on TEC’s GC2009. It is classic Rowan, dangling tempting titbits before the noses of both sides in the hope of bringing them within sniffing distance of each other and thus maintain the illusion of unity:

It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both ‘tracks’ should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage. And if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely.

When Rowan declares that “it helps to be clear” one suspects that he must be about to quote from someone else; but no. Apparently we have now “two styles of being Anglican” each proceeding along its own track: perhaps the track idea was inspired by N. T. Wright’s train wreck article.

What is sadly missing in Rowan’s attempt to put a brave face on things is the apparent absence of any understanding that, if a church persistently denies doctrines that are necessary for it to be called Christian, it should no longer be called that. For Rowan, the important thing is that Anglican provinces can hold radically different views on the centrality of Christ, the importance of the bible, the meaning of individual salvation and still be called “Anglican” – even if one has ceased to be Christian.