It’s encouraging to know I have the attention of the Diocese of Niagara, but it appears they have absolutely no sense of humour and want to shut me up. I don’t have the details yet, but they are threatening a defamation of character suit, apparently. The pursuit of excellence through compulsive suing.
And all because I just happened to mention the fact that M—–l P——-n has been telling l–s.
Read it all here while you still can.
The Anglican Consultative Council is meeting in Jamaica in early May.
At the last meeting, the ACoC and TEC were not allowed to play because they had been naughty boys; this time, however, after all the “gracious restraint” that has been exercised by both provinces – in the form of court battles, the continued blessing of same-sex unions and lack of censure of gay bishops and clergy – the provinces are being welcomed back into the sand pit for a romp with the other primates. Which goes to show that the ACoC and TEC are not so daft after all: if you waffle incomprehensibly for a long enough time, everyone will forget why you were booted out in the first place and you will be welcomed back as one of the boys again; or girls; or hermaphrodites.
The last time the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) met, in 2005, Canadian and American delegates sat on the sidelines. They were there to “attend but not participate” after their churches were censured for their more-liberal stand on the contentious issue of homosexuality.
At this year’s meeting, scheduled May 1 to 13 in Kingston, Jamaica, Canadian and American delegates are joining representatives from 36 other provinces of the Anglican Communion, but the issue that brought about their exclusion in 2005 remains very much on the radar
Once the delegates have all arrived, each on a separate aeroplane, they will be engaged in vital discussions on Anglicanism in the 21st century – such has global warming, continued listening on human sexuality (I understand there will be microphones in the bedrooms) and relieving poverty – in between Island tours, visits with the Governor-General and the catered dining.
The document I found particularly interesting was The Bible in the Life of the Church.
The essential question that needs to be addressed by ‘The Bible in the Life of the Church’ project is, ‘What do we mean when we say that we are a Church that lives under Scripture?’
The document goes on to describe a 3 year project by a 10 – 12 member steering committee and 5 – 6 regional groups.
The really essential questions are actually: what has the church being doing for the last 500 years and why has it taken this long to discover that the Anglican Church has no idea how to use the Bible?
I think the answers are obvious: for the last 500 years the Anglican Church has been using the bible as the guidebook for how to live. This study is intended to find a way out of that narrow perspective in order to embrace all that the 21st century has to offer – like gay sex – without being noticed.
There was some disagreement on Stand Firm about the legitimacy of my excursion into a diocesan service at St. Hilda’s building to take photos of the inside of the church while the service was in progress. Many people supported my action and some didn’t. I subscribe to a devotional called Every Day With Jesus, and by one of those interesting God-coincidences that occur from time to time, I found this in my inbox this morning:
The next quality of our Lord we consider is His courage. His was not the excited, desperate courage of a battlefield, but the quiet courage He displayed when He confronted difficult issues. Take the matter we have read about today – the cleansing of the Temple. It took great courage on our Lord’s part to walk into the Temple, drive out the money-changers, and insist that His Father’s house be kept as a house of prayer, as the comparable accounts in Matthew and Mark tell us. But He didn’t hesitate to do so. He was angry, of course, but His anger was righteous, not unrighteous, anger. What’s the difference?
Righteous anger arises from grief at what is happening to another; unrighteous anger arises from a grudge at what is happening to oneself. I don’t know about you, but I feel righteously angry at some things that are happening in parts of the Church today – such as the ordination to the ministry of practising homosexuals, the performance of civil partnership ceremonies for people of the same sex and the presentation of discourses based on mere personal opinion and focus group ideas rather than the Word of God.
What do you think our Lord would do if He were here in the flesh today? I think He would make His way into these churches and would say: ‘Get these out of here!’ As followers of Christ, we must have the same kind of righteous anger – an anger that causes us to stand up and say: ‘Such things ought not to be happening.’ Let us be clear, I am not advocating a harsh lovelessness towards those involved in any of the situations mentioned in the previous paragraph. I am simply saying that we should be like Jesus and not compromise on clear moral and spiritual issues.
I don’t usually set too much store by this kind of apparent coincidence, but it did tickle my fancy.
Having recovered from my exciting adventures at the Diocese of Niagara’s Easter Sunday service, I thought I would take a look at how the diocese likes to portray itself:
St. Hilda’s is an Anglican Church in the Diocese of Niagara. To be an Anglican in Niagara is to love Jesus, it is to love the Word of God in Scripture and through them to learn to love not only our neighbours, but our enemies as well. In Christ we learn that we really have no enemies, only brothers and sisters. Together we are called to live like Him, as God’s children, striving to serve goodness in our hearts in our homes and in the world. All are welcome as we learn and grow together in this journey of faith.
Now I don’t regard the diocesan bouncer as my enemy, I really don’t. But, even though I have been accused of being a socially maladroit misfit unable to pick up and adapt to the subtle niceties of acceptable behaviour, I have this funny feeling that when someone shoves you hard, they don’t like you very much. So I fear the bouncer saw me as an enemy.
Perhaps the diocese should revise its description to include: “See how these Christians shove one another!”
The Diocese of Niagara has a rigorous training program for greeters in diocesan parishes. After scouring the civilised world for an archetype upon which to model diocesan greeters, they found this:
For those who feel they have the stamina needed for the necessary education and genetic modifications please apply here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEABN5yejpc]
A lesson for any of us who have ever complained about a church service:
‘Our Father’
Praying like you have never prayed before.By Leo Thorsness
Sunday morning at the Hanoi Hilton was church time. To gather our “congregation,” the Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) tapped “cc,” quietly on his wall. Each cell in turn tapped “cc,” and soon all have been alerted to Church Call. The service was a prayer and a reciting of Bible verses. If I was lucky, I was in a cell with one or two other POWs, and we could pool our knowledge of the Bible.
A failed rescue attempt led to the most memorable of our church experiences. It happened on November 20, 1970, when U.S. Special Forces staged a mission to rescue the POWs believed to be at Son Tay, one of the small prisons the North Vietnamese maintained outside Hanoi. The raid was brilliantly planned and executed perfectly. Our men landed at the prison in helicopters and came home without the loss of a single American. There was only one problem: All the POWs had been moved out of Son Tay about four months before the rescue effort so none of us went back with our rescuers. The mission still turned out to be a huge success for us, however.
Realizing that such rescue attempts could happen again, the North Vietnamese brought us in from outlying prison camps into the main Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi: the Hanoi Hilton. Within hours of the raid, we were moved into large cells — 43 of us in my cell. It was the greatest day of our prison life. For the first time, we were meeting POWs whose names we had memorized years earlier. Many of us had formed intense friendships through the tap code with men we’d never seen. As we met that night, “So this is what you look like” was heard over and over throughout the cell.
We compared our treatment, and it seemed important to each of us to tell one another of our torture experiences. I’ve never seen more empathy in anyone’s eyes than when telling a fellow POW about being tortured. We each needed to tell our torture story — once. We never told them again to the same POW.
The handshakes, back slapping, and bear hugs went on and on. Some of us had been tortured for the protection or benefit of a “tap-code buddy.” Now there was love and respect to be repaid. No one slept that first night; too much joy, excitement, and talk. The next morning, we needed to determine the SRO. The highest rank in our cell was O-4, which is a major. (“O” stands for officer, so O-1 is second lieutenant or ensign, O-2 first lieutenant, O-3 captain, O-4 major, O-5 lieutenant colonel, O-6 colonel, O-7 brigadier general, and on up to O-10 for a four-star general.) We put all the O-4s together and then compared the date when the rank was attained and arrived at a hierarchy. We did the same with the O-3s, the O-2s, and the O-1s. When we were done, all 43 of us knew exactly where we stood in the command structure.
Our SRO turned out to be Ned Shuman — a really good Naval aviator. The first Sunday in the large cell, someone said, “Let’s have church service.” Good idea, we all agreed. One POW volunteered to lead the service, and we started gathering in the other end of the long rectangular cell from the cell door. No sooner had we gathered than an English-speaking Vietnamese officer who worked as an interrogator burst into the cell with a dozen armed guards. Ned Shuman went to the officer and said there wouldn’t be a problem; we were just going to have a short church service.
The response was unyielding: We were not allowed to gather into groups larger than three persons and we absolutely could not have a church service.
During the next few days we all grumbled that we should not have backed down in our intention to have a church service and ought to do it the coming Sunday. Toward the end of the week, Ned stepped forward and said, “Are we really committed to having church Sunday?”
There was a murmuring of assent throughout the cell. Ned said, “No, I want to know person by person if you are really committed to holding church.”
We all knew the implications of our answer: If we went ahead with the plan, some would pay the price — starting with Ned himself because he was the SRO. He went around the cell pointing to each of us individually. “Leo, are you committed?” “Yes.” Ned then moved to Jim and asked the same question. “Yes,” Jim responded. And so on until he had asked each of us by name.
When the 42nd man said yes, it was unanimous. We had 100-percent commitment to hold church next Sunday. At that instant, Ned knew he would end up in the torture cells at Heartbreak. It was different from the previous Sunday. We now had a goal, and we were committed. We only needed to develop a plan.
Sunday morning came, and we knew they would be watching us again. Once more, we gathered in the far end of the cell. As soon as we moved together, the interrogator and guards burst through the door. Ned stepped forward and said there wouldn’t be a problem: We were just going to hold a quiet ten-minute church service and then we would spread back out in the cell. As expected, they grabbed Ned and hauled him off to Heartbreak for torture.
Our plan unfolded. The second ranking man, the new SRO, stood, walked to the center of the cell and in a clear firm voice said, “Gentlemen,” our signal to stand, “the Lord’s Prayer.” We got perhaps halfway through the prayer, when the guards grabbed the SRO and hauled him out the door toward Heartbreak.
As planned, the number three SRO stood, walked to the center of the cell, and said, “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.” We had gotten about to “Thy Kingdom come” before the guards grabbed him. Immediately, the number four SRO stood: “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.”
I have never heard five or six words of the Lord’s Prayer — as far as we got before they seized him — recited so loudly, or so reverently. The interrogator was shouting, “Stop, stop,” but we drowned him out. The guards were now hitting POWs with gun butts and the cell was in chaos.
The number five ranking officer was way back in the corner and took his time moving toward the center of the cell. (I was number seven, and not particularly anxious for him to hurry.) But just before he got to the center of the area, the cell became pin-drop quiet.
In Vietnamese, the interrogator spat out something to the guards, they grabbed number five SRO and they all left, locking the cell door behind them. The number six SRO began: “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.” This time we finished it.
Five courageous officers were tortured, but I think they believed it was worth it. From that Sunday on until we came home, we held a church service. We won. They lost. Forty-two men in prison pajamas followed Ned’s lead. I know I will never see a better example of pure raw leadership or ever pray with a better sense of the meaning of the words.
Those of us in ANiC who have made very minor sacrifices in order to continue worshipping the one true God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – can be thankful for our freedoms and the inspiration provided by the actions of men like Leo Thorsness. Easter day, tomorrow, I hope to say with a thankful heart, “Christ is Risen!” at sunrise in a local park, at 10:00 a.m. in our Sunday service in a local school, and in the afternoon at a local prison – a more comfortable prison than the Hanoi Hilton.
Ian Sample discusses John Polkinghorne’s transformation from quantum physicist to Anglican priest here:
Earlier this year, a former Cambridge physicist, John Polkinghorne, published a book called Questions of Truth: God, science and belief. I interviewed John shortly after it came out, and as Easter is now upon us, it seemed as good a time as any to post the whole interview.
There was plenty in Polkinghorne’s book I found offensive. In one passage, he says that God hides from us because if we ever clapped eyes on an infinite being, we’d be unable to carry on as we are. We’d be overwhelmed to the point of hopelessness. As John says in the interview: “We’d sort of shrivel up.”
It’s extraordinary stuff. And surely a bit patronising. My reaction to superbeings in comics has always been excitement and mild envy (great powers, but not sure I could go with the outfits). If I was to see the ultimate superbeing, I’d be very excited for a long time. I might even get a poster and go around praising them. But I think I could carry on a life of human mediocrity.
We have clapped eyes on an infinite being: Jesus. He was incarnate in order that, knowing him, we would know the Father: if we have seen Jesus, we have seen Father.
Jesus emptied himself and became human (Phil 2:7) for the specific purpose of offending Ian Sample; not really, but it does illustrate how foolish and arrogant in a 21st C. idiomatic way it is to be “offended” by the idea that a personal encounter with the undisguised infinite could be anything less than shrivelling.
I wonder how far we have come in our perspective of the universe: Aristotle had the earth at the centre of the universe; Copernicus, the sun; Fred Hoyle had no centre; Stephen Hawking has decentralised multiverses and now – Ian Sample is the centre of the universe and will be offended if told otherwise.
When a child of our new age of reason finally meets his maker, what will be his response to God and reason for not believing in him? It seems as if it will be “don’t patronise me”. At least Bertrand Russell had prepared the marginally more modest – if no more helpful – “there was not enough evidence”.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK-bPccxLME]
From the Journal
Two Anglicans who attended the Third World Forum on Theology and Liberation in January said they emerged from the meeting with a greater sense of looking at mission and transformation from within their Canadian context.
Ms. Maybee and Ms. Ratcliffe also noted an address delivered by Steve de Gruchy of the University of KwaZulu-Natal which drew a connection between the sewage system and ecological accountability.
“Our thinking about sustainability must deal with sewage because we have to live with our waste. It cannot leave the globe. It hangs around and it comes back to haunt us,” said Mr. de Guchy in his speech. “Previous civilizations may have got away with flushing the problem downstream, but in a globalized world there is no downstream, or more correctly, we all live downstream.”
Every organisation eventually finds its niche in life; it’s taken the ACoC almost 500 years, but it has finally discovered its calling: sewage.
During the last 50 years the ACoC has worked diligently at generating and distributing sewage: feculence falls from on high to be shovelled and distributed evenly by diligent parish priests and wardens. After experiential discernment, conversation and prophetic posturing, congregations Canada wide repackage the gift, whereupon it floats, once more, gracefully to the surface at local and general synods – for recycling.
And thus, the circle of life continues in the ACoC; for a while, at least.