Toronto Bishops acknowledge Trans Day of Remembrance

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From here:

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, as Bishops of the Diocese of Toronto, we wish to acknowledge the dignity and inherent worth of all people, including every transgender person, and our opposition to all prejudice, discrimination, or actions that deny the full personhood of any individual based on their gender identity.

Trans people are valued and beloved members of our Church, as clergy and lay leaders, as members of our congregations, as people we serve and by whom we are served.

Now if the bishops would only acknowledge “the dignity and inherent worth of all people” including those still in the womb, their statement might be worth something. As it is, all the bishops are doing is sailing effortlessly along on the tide of our cultural foibles and expecting to be congratulated for it.

Looking on the bright side, since God is no longer Father and, hence, must be transgender, fae must finally feel at home as a “valued and beloved member[s] of our Church.”

God is the only person not allowed to choose his gender

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From here:

God should not be referred to using a gender because ‘our father’ was not male or female, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Most Rev Justin Welby has warned human language is inadequate to describe the Christian deity and that despite the use of words such as ‘king’ and ‘lord’ – he is not male in the human sense.

[…..]

God is not a father in exactly the same way as a human being is a father. God is not male or female. God is not definable.

‘It is extraordinarily important as Christians that we remember that the definitive revelation of who God is was not in words, but in the word of God who we call Jesus Christ. We can’t pin God down.’

Justin Welby says he believes Jesus is God incarnate. God incarnate tells us to address Him in this manner: “Our Father, who art in heaven”. Not having the benefit of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s insight, Jesus omits mentioning how inadequate the language of His prayer is. Someone must have it wrong: I wonder who?

Could the Archbishop of Canterbury’s vision be clouded by contemporary gender befuddlement, viewing divine revelation through a faers darkly?

How to do Anglican Interfaith

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From here:

The largest and oldest interfaith gathering in the world, this year’s parliament took place from Nov. 1-7 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The Toronto-based event brought together an estimated 10,000 people from 80 countries, spanning more than 200 different religions, faiths, and belief systems, for a week of programs, discussions, and interactive experiences.

The Anglican Church of Canada had an official booth in the exhibit hall, where clergy and volunteers were on hand to speak to attendees, and share information about the church national.

The Rev. Dr. Scott Sharman, Animator for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in the Anglican Church of Canada was one of the official representatives on site.

Sharman described Canadian Anglican attendance at PoWR as a “ministry of presence” and a valuable opportunity to converse with people about “where Anglican expressions of Christianity fit within the wider world of inter-religious dialogue, and ways that we can find common ground.”

“Within our history, [there has] always been a tradition that has been able to find ways to live in dialogue across different approaches and different perspectives on theological issues,” Sharman said.

“That’s kind of been hardwired into Anglican DNA within the Anglican family. […] Certainly it’s important just because so many of the economic and political and social and ecological issues of our time deeply involve how people think about the world, and how people structure their communities and think about the meaning of life and make decisions. Religion is part of how that happens.”

Overheard later in the Anglican booth: “whatever you do, don’t mention Jesus. I did once, but I think I got away with it.”

Diocese of Toronto Marriage Canon Dialogue conversations

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Yes, I know ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ mean much the same thing, so one of the words is redundant, but that’s how the diocese has described their latest tête-à-tête on the issue that is eventually going to result in the diocese becoming redundant. When you see ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ not just in the same sentence but contiguously in the same sentence, rest assured, the judgment of Babel has already been visited on the perpetrators.

What succulent fruit has sprung from the dialogue conversations? Weariness, fear, anxiety, pain and polarisation.

The only question left to ask is: this is so wonderful, why has the Anglican church waited so long?

Bishops report on Marriage Canon Dialogue conversations

  • A feeling of weariness
  • Fear of what the vote at General Synod 2019 will mean, both in the diocese and in the rest of the Communion
  • In spite of the fear, we want to stay together.
  • Need to include the insights of youth and children
  • Need to care for those who are feeling left out
  • There is a deep longing and need to talk about scripture and theology
  • There is a need to have resources, and to have pastoral care that is contextualized
  • People feel polarized but they do so within the Big Tent
  • Concerns about our international relationships
  • There is a degree of pain avoidance
  • Anxiety about being labelled
  • We’re already living with diversity and we need to hold up that we’re unified in Jesus Christ
  • While there is weariness and fear, there is a need to move on with courage and hope and faith

Diocese of Huron faces civil lawsuit over sex abuse

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The victims were all boys.

From here:

Disgraced ex-cleric David Norton’s legal troubles appear to go way beyond the criminal courts.

The former Anglican priest who was convicted Tuesday of four counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault of boys from Chippewas of the Thames First Nation already is facing civil action from another victim in London and a counter-claim from the Diocese of Huron.

The plaintiff in a $4.9-million lawsuit against Norton and the Diocese of Huron is the victim in Norton’s sexual interference conviction registered earlier this year. He was abused by the priest at St. Mark’s parish in the 1990s.

Norton, 72, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced in August to four years in prison.

Just like the rest of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Diocese of Huron likes to trumpet its virtue by participating in Truth and Reconciliation blanket exercises, walks, bicycle rides or, as the Diocese of Niagara so charmingly puts it by: “live[ing] into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action and confront the ways in which it has embodied colonial attitudes.”

Of course, extirpating colonial attitudes is a lot cheaper than $4.9-million, so the Diocese of Huron has decided not to live into taking any responsibility for the abuse, let alone reconciling with the victims. Instead, we have a litany of denials:

In a statement of defence, the diocese denied “each and every allegation in the statement of claim.”

They deny Norton was an employee and they deny they knew about his activities. They also deny the boy was injured.

The diocese has issued a cross-claim against Norton, holding him solely responsible for any liability.

Tanya Phibbs, Archdeacon of the Diocese of Huron, told Global News that the Diocese was “deeply saddened” by the allegations. Not $4.9 million worth of saddened, though.

Diocese of Niagara appoints an Honorary Lay Canon of Church Closures

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That is not the euphemism used in Bishop Susan Bell’s charge to synod, of course; nevertheless, that’s what it is. Or it could be Church Closures, Sales and Demolitions.

From here (my emphasis):

I think I am also beginning to see a general loosening of our love affair with bricks and mortar:  The property we own as a Diocese is a strategic asset, it’s true.  But perhaps not in the ways we used to think about it.  The fact is, churches have life cycles.  They were and are planted according to key demographics, they have a beginning to their life, a middle and an end.  The truth is, very few churches live for a century and fewer still live to see two – unless it is this venerable and beautiful cathedral that we are meeting in today.  Parishes and church buildings are meant to spring up where the mission fields are. And when it is very clear that they have come to the end of their life cycle it is incumbent on us – the stewards of those resources – to redeploy those assets as needed for a new mission field – as intended by their founders: Christians who gave money to the church to be the church.

This is an important thing for us to understand.  It is not good Christian practice for us to hold buildings hostage to our desires to hold on to worldly things.  It is good Christian practice to make disciples and to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation.  So, we are called to go where the mission field is.  We will become a planting church once again.  And what does that look like in this time?  It looks like understanding the needs of new housing surveys; of underserviced inner-city neighbourhoods; strategic small-town locations.  These are some of the contexts that we are learning about and planning to engage.

And to better ascertain how best to deploy our precious building resources I have asked Mr. Terry Charters to lead a new committee that will work with our Secretary of Synod and Treasurer on our property portfolio to best and most strategically maintain, sell, re-purpose, rent or restore property based on the best analysis we have available of demographics.  This will also include a focus on our continuing plans for the revitalization of Cathedral Place – on which he’ll report later in the course of Synod. This group will also have the aim of searching for reliable community partnerships and for income generation plans to support sustainability but also to underwrite future mission and ministry in this diocese. This is the job of tilling the soil and planting seeds for the next season of our beloved church.

And to go with this new committee, I’ve also conferred on Terry the title of Honorary Lay Canon of Christ’s Church Cathedral.  We are greatly indebted to him for his many hours of specialized and valuable ministry among us and look forward to all that he has to share with us in the coming years.  We’ll have a service of installation for him and Canon Jody early in the New Year.

The problem of AR-15 sentience

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The Anglican Journal has an article on the Pittsburgh synagogue murders that contains this odd sentence:

The AR-15 and its non-patented variants have been behind most of the mass-shootings in the U.S. in recent history.

A church that has ceased to believe that “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” still has to pin the blame for evil on something, so what could be better than a semi-automatic rifle – “in sin did my gunsmith conceive me.”

In 2018 a secret cabal of AR-15s became self-aware, precipitating judgment day: it could be the theme of a movie.

In fairness to the article, other comments made by clergy do recognise that “Human beings have moral agency”, a sentiment not strengthened further down by Bishops Against Gun Violence who, we can only assume, are entirely comfortable with knife violence.

Nor are the calls to end anti-Semitism made more convincing by the repeated Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions motions – none of which have yet passed – presented in TEC synods.

The article ends with:

Most of all, we offer ourselves, our ministry, and our own prayerful witness to those who have endured the horror of gun violence in all of our communities so that together, we can drive away the spectre of hate with light and life.”

It sounds good but the problem isn’t hate, it’s sin and that is something Anglican clergy don’t like to talk about.

Deconsecration and Transgender Remembrance

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Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church in the Diocese of Huron is inclusive:

Bishop Cronyn Memorial’s core values speak to inclusivity. The church treats all as made in God’s image, regardless of race, gender, orientation, age, ability, nationality or economic class.

It is so inclusive that on November 7th it is being deconsecrated due to a lack of attendees. Shortly after that, on November 19th a Transgender Day of Remembrance will be held in the building. I don’t suppose the two are connected.

The church was named after Benjamin Cronyn, London’s first resident Anglican clergyman and the first bishop in the Huron Diocese. Cronyn had an eventful and colourful life but I don’t suppose that even his most fevered nightmares could have conjured up the antics that would be embraced by a church that was to bear his name.

For those attending, be warned, the bathrooms are:

That means the you must relieve yourself in a location determined by your chromosomes, not your whimsy. Pretty upsetting, I know.

Making the way less straight

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The Anglican Church, having given up on being “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord”, has opted instead for an alliance between the straight and less than straight:

This began at St. Paul’s when the teacher promoting it couldn’t drum up any support from students at her school. She knew Anglicans are willing to try anything so long as it is not Biblical.

From here:

Uxbridge church starts Gay/Straight Alliance

WHEN Kathleen Caroll, a member of St. Paul, Uxbridge and a teacher at a local school, proposed that the students at the school form a rainbow by wearing different coloured t-shirts in honour of Pride Week, she was met with a negative response. Out of that experience came the creation of the Uxbridge Gay/Straight Alliance, which meets at the church.

Toronto bishop Kevin Robertson leant his support:

Canadian government budgets over half a billion dollars to regulate cannabis

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There will, of course, be “cost recovery”, although that doesn’t include health care cost increases – psychiatric and physical – which will be borne mainly by non-imbibing tax-payers.

I strongly suspect “organized crime” mentioned here will be rubbing its collective hands in glee since its unregulated prices will ensure a continuing or, more likely, increased stream of customers as dope addiction tightens its grip on a growing number of witless Canadians.

OTTAWA, Oct. 5, 2018 /CNW/ – The Cannabis Act will come into force on October 17, 2018. The Act aims to keep cannabis out of the hands of Canadian youth and the profits away from criminals and organized crime.

[……]

  • In the Fall Economic Statement 2017, the Government announced $546 million over five years to ensure appropriate capacity to license, inspect and enforce all aspects of the Cannabis Act and to undertake robust public education and awareness activities.
  • The cost-recovery approach is guided by the principle that fees should allow for both larger and smaller players in a diverse market. Through this approach, Health Canada will collect no more than the cost of delivering the regulatory program.
  • Cost recovery for the regulation of cannabis includes four fees:
  • Application screening fee: recovers the costs associated with screening new licence applications ($3,277 for standard licence applicants and $1,638 for micro and nursery licence applicants);
  • Security clearance fee: recovers the costs associated with screening, processing, and issuing or refusing security clearances ($1,654);
  • Import/export permit fee: recovers the costs associated with screening, processing, and issuing or refusing to issue an import or export permit for medical or scientific purposes ($610); and,
  • Annual regulatory fee: recovers the aggregate costs of administering the cannabis regulatory program that are not covered under any of the other fees (2.3% of cannabis revenue for standard licence holders, or $23,000 if cannabis revenue is less than $1 million, and 1% on the first $1 million of cannabis revenue for micro and nursery licence holders or $2,500 in cases where cannabis revenue is less than $250,000).
  • Licence holders who produce cannabis exclusively for medical purposes are exempt from the annual regulatory fee.