Order your LGBT vestments here

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I don’t normally put advertisements on my blog but, for this worthy cause, I thought I’d make an exception.

EquallyAnglican, a Facebook page dedicated to individuals who “are your LGBTQ friends and family in the Anglican Church of Canada”, is promoting an LGBT priest’s vestments business.

The question is, how would the business react to an order for a vestment embroidered with this message: “I support traditional marriage between one man and one woman”? Would the order be rejected resulting in howls of “discrimination” from the would-be purchaser? Would there be complaints to the Human Rights Commission? Lawsuits? Probably not.

Friends, we are thrilled to officially announce the arrival of #equallyAnglican vestments! Thanks to the amazing Catherine Comor at “Creative Spirit” for this absolutely stunning embroidered stole!

This design would make a perfect gift for the clergyperson in your life, and just in time for Pride month! 🌈 ⛪️

Bishop of Singapore issues Beauty and the Beast warning

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I didn’t use to pay much attention to what Anglicans are up to in Singapore but since a couple of my grandchildren have moved there, I have developed more of an interest.

To his credit, the Anglican bishop of Singapore, Rennis Ponniah has issued this statement warning parents that Disney’s new version of Beauty and the Beast has “homosexual content”.

Life, of course, has “homosexual content” but whereas in times past it was largely hidden from view – I remember my mother telling me she was unaware of the existence of homosexuality until she was in her 20s – today it is paraded conspicuously at every opportunity and has become the standard by which our tolerance for others is measured. Or, at least our 21st century replacement of what used to be tolerance for others – see how far you are tolerated if you decline to put a statement you disagree with on a cake, for example.

Now, to make sure we don’t have a repeat performance of my mother’s experience, children have to be made aware, not just that homosexuality exists, but that it is a normal part of life. In fact, it’s probably more normal, more fun, more to be aspired to and more cool than run-of-the mill monogamous heterosexuality with all its tedious trappings like bearing, providing for and rearing the fruit of one’s union. At least, that’s what Disney would like children to believe.

Dear Clergy & Deaconesses,

It is needful that you alert your congregation about the homosexual content in Disney’s re-make of Beauty and the Beast – a film scheduled for screening during the March school holidays.

Disney films for children’s entertainment are usually associated with wholesome, mainstream values. But times are changing at a foundational level. In this new live-action remake of the classic film , the character LeFou is portrayed as gay and a ‘gay moment’ is included in the movie by way of a sub-plot.

Parents are therefore strongly advised to provide guidance to their children about this re-make of ‘Beauty & the Beast’ , and indeed to their children’s entertainment choices in a rapidly changing age. Let us pursue Prov 22:6 ” Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

The Diocese and the National Council of Churches are working  on a fuller advisory to our members in the coming week.

With the Lord’s blessing as we shepherd our people.

Bishop Rennis Ponniah
11 Mar 2017

Franklin Graham vs the Anglican Church of Canada

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Franklin Graham’s Vancouver crusade seems to have been a great success.

Mission accomplished: 2,318 people made a commitment to Christ.

Received via email:

What an amazing weekend at the Greater Vancouver Festival of Hope.

Over the three nights, 34,406 people attended in person, with 1929 people going forward to make a commitment to Christ.  On top of that, 65,429 people from seventy-six countries watched the Festival of Hope online, with 389 people making a commitment to Christ online.  We are rejoicing for lives that have been touched for eternity.  It was such a privilege to serve on the Festival of Hope Executive, led by Pastor Guilio Gabeli with the invaluable wisdom of the Festival Director David Ingram.  The Billy Graham family and the Billy Graham team are such quality people.  We are particularly grateful for Dion and Tammy Collins who served on the ground as Assistant Director and Office Manager.  An unexpected treat was to have the grandson of Billy Graham, Will Graham, join his Dad Franklin Graham for the Festival.  This was Will’s third time here, since he helped us kick off the Festival and then led 500 young people to Christ at Vancouver Missions Fest this January.

As an antidote to Franklin Graham’s blatant promotion of Christianity, Anglicans sponsored a multi-faith event to celebrate diversity.

Mission accomplished: 0 people made a commitment to Christ.

From here:

People from many faiths met twice early in March in Vancouver to show support for one another at two well-attended public meetings that celebrated diversity and took a stand against acts of hatred.

Both gatherings were in reaction to concerns about an upsurge in anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of social conflict that seem to have accompanied the inauguration of the new administration in the United States.

That American political problems have spilled into Canada was suggested by a bomb threat the previous week which resulted in the evacuation of Vancouver’s Jewish Community Centre (no bomb was found), and by controversy surrounding a three-day campaign in Vancouver led by Franklin Graham, an American evangelist who once called Islam “a very evil, a very wicked religion” and supported a ban on Muslim immigration in the U.S.

Anglicans were involved in sponsoring both gatherings. The first took place on March 7 at Vancouver’s Or Shalom Synagogue. It was sponsored by the synagogue and the diocese of New Westminster and featured talks, chants, songs, meditation, and even dancing, from a wide variety of faith traditions.

It was followed two days later by a presentation  at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church involving a rabbi, an imam, and a bishop entitled “Hope Amidst the Politics of Fear: Conversations for Creative Resistance.” This event was organized by St. Andrew’s and Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver.

Another scandal strikes at the heart of the Church of England

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I am almost starting to feel sorry for Archbishop Justin Welby.

Recently he has had to deal with a child abuse scandal in which his detractors suggested he could be implicated, the rejection by his clergy of a report on human sexuality written at great expense by his bishops – in reality, the average British schoolboy knows more about sex than any bishop and could have produced something similar for nothing – and has squandered countless carbon credits flying all over Africa trying to drum up support for his bishop’s opinions about sex – the ones his own clergy just rejected.

And now, we have the last straw, the coup de grâce, the final assault on Canterbury’s mission to reconcile refined, effete, public school cultivated homosexuality with the raw condemnations one unavoidably stumbles across in Scripture.

Someone has placed plastic furniture in a 12th Century Church.

Various theories have been suggested as to the reason for this clear act of sabotage. The most plausible is that by placing a by-product of the demon fossil fuel, oil, in a sacred space, Welby’s enemies are making a subtle reference to his time as an oil executive, thereby calling into question his credentials as a green bishop, a true devotee of Gaia, the fourth person of our 21st century augmented Trinity.

Kevin Sims, the person who first spotted this outrage, has his own explanation: it’s a deliberate attempt to create an aesthetic aberration. And, apparently, the change was made without going through the proper procedures. As he says: “that means effectively anyone could change anything”. Like marrying people of the same sex, for example. It’s a slippery slope.

From here:

A vicar faces an official complaint for installing a childrens’ plastic table and chairs in a 12th century church.

Rector Lynda Klimas introduced the pint-sized white furniture set as a way to keep young children entertained during services.

But a disgruntled churchgoer has made an official complaint as he feels it has no place in the “historically sensitive and sacred” Lady Chapel.

The matter will now be investigated and, if taken to a tribunal, Rev Kilmas could be given a “lifelong prohibition from exercising any ministerial functions”.

Kevin Sims, 67, who has been attending the St Mary the Virgin Church for 20 years, said: “I definitely do not feel the number of children warrants it. My main issues are for aesthetic reasons and reasons of demand.

“There are procedures in place that anyone who makes changes in church has to go through.

“My concern is that if nothing is done it means effectively anyone could change anything.”

The Episcopal Church finally does something useful

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I know I tend to be a trifle negative about the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church, implying, at times, that they are nothing but the sub-Christian, desiccated remains of once influential denominations that do little more than give Christianity a bad name, make a laughing stock of their congregants and bring grief and misery to anyone who questions what they see as their divinely appointed mission to empty Christianity of metaphysical coherence.

But today, all that has changed!

Michael Curry, presiding Bishop of TEC, has truly seen into the mind of God and is forging a new path to a future glowing brightly with the transcendent luminosity of harmony, truth and justice. He has signed an amicus brief urging the high court to allow men to use women’s toilets and vice versa. The New Jerusalem is upon is.

Read it all here:

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and House of Deputies President the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings are the lead signers on an amicus brief filed March 2 by 1,800 clergy and religious leaders in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving transgender-bathroom use policies.

The “friend of the court” brief comes in the case of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, which the American Civil Liberties Union and its Virginia chapter filed on behalf of Gavin Grimm and his mother, Deirdre Grimm, in June 2015.

The signers urge the high court to see that the ability to live in a country that guarantees transgender equality is a religious freedom issue. They said their faith communities have approached issues related to gender identity in different ways, but are “united in believing that the fundamental human dignity shared by all persons requires treating transgender students like Respondent Gavin Grimm in a manner consistent with their gender identity.”

Archbishops Peter Jensen and Peter Akinola in Burlington

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Archbishops Peter Jensen and Peter Akinola in were in Burlington Ontario this evening to talk about GAFCON.

Here are some photos:

Bishop Charlie Masters

Archbishop Peter Jensen

Archbishops Peter Jensen and Peter Akinola

Archbishop Peter Akinola

The gathering

Here is a video of the talk:

There wasn’t a time of questions and answers but I did briefly chat with Peter Jensen afterwards and had a chance to ask a couple of questions.

I asked if the GAFCON Primates were going to attend the Primates Gathering in Lambeth that Justin Welby has planned, given the fact that conservatives were bamboozled at the last Primates Gathering in 2016. He agreed that they were bamboozled and that it would probably be a repeat performance in 2017 but that it would be an individual choice for each Primate. Apparently, the English Church is very adept at exerting subtle pressure on the Primates.

The other question I had time to ask was whether a complete break with Lambeth was coming. He thought it was inevitable but when I asked, “soon?”, the reply was “not necessarily”.

A safe space for Trumpophobics

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The Diocese of New Westminster along with St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church, representatives of the fastest declining denominations in North America, are banding together “to offer an antidote to the fear and despair” resulting from democracy in action in the USA.

Franklin Graham seems to have been the catalyst for this but honourable mention is given to “right-wing groups” in Europe, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duerte. “The list goes on” as the article below notes, but it doesn’t go on to include Iran, Syria, North Korea, China, Iraq or any of the other countries that concentrate much of their national energy on persecuting Christians.

The featured speakers include an imam, a Zen Buddhist and Michael Ingham, one of the most divisive Anglican bishops of the 20th Century.  Anglicans should feel quite at home.

The event is called: Hope Amidst the Politics of Fear: Conversations for Creative Resistance. Even though Franklin Graham will be in Vancouver, he hasn’t been invited to state his side of the story; liberals generally can’t cope when both sides of an argument are presented. Their brains shut down in self-defensive panic. These days, I think it’s called “triggering”.

From here:

People have been confiding in Vancouver Rev. Gary Paterson that they’re having trouble feeling hopeful.

In a political era characterized by U.S. President Donald Trump, growing immigrant-skeptic movements in Europe and the murder of six Quebec Muslims, the minister at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church wanted to offer an antidote to the fear and despair he’s hearing from members of his church and the public.

So Paterson, past moderator of the United Church of Canada, teamed up with another downtown Vancouver clergyman, Rev. Peter Elliot of Christ Church (Anglican) Cathedral, to have a multi-faith group of speakers lead a four-part series in March titled Hope Amidst the Politics of Fear: Conversations for Creative Resistance.

“It’s partly a reaction to what’s happening in the United States. But the U.S. has such an influence on the world, especially Canada,” Paterson said, noting the city has been divided by the Vancouver crusade of American evangelist Franklin Graham, a major Trump supporter, to be held March 3-5.

“It’s also a reaction to reports from Europe about right-wing groups gaining traction … and to the aplomb with which (Russian President Vladimir) Putin seems to be acting these days and to (strongman Rodrigo) Duerte in the Philippines. The list goes on.”

The Diocese of Dire Straits aka Huron

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The Diocese of Huron has financial problems, its cathedral is starting to fall down and its churches are being closed and sold.

An example from an annual vestry report from St. James Westminster serves to illustrate the aura of doom and pessimism that has settled over the diocese. The rector of the parish at the time of the report was Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi. In 2011 Nicolosi prepared a document called Twelve Steps to Church Growth; in his 2016 vestry report he bemoaned the “state of the church in these times emphasising decreased attendance” and that that the ACoC “will probably have to decrease the number of dioceses in the future”. So much for the twelve steps to church growth – perhaps its readers failed to recognise the existence of a Higher Power.

A vestry report for St. Paul’s, the diocesan cathedral, is equally sombre. The diocese is failing to meet existing financial commitments, still owes $5Million in court costs and the cathedral can’t find the money to fix the roof and doesn’t have enough toilets. The one bright note in all this is that a “gender neutral washroom” is on the horizon; at least that may attract some peeping toms and boost the numbers.

To counter the falling away of parishioners, the financial problems and the wavering faith of the few remaining faithful, the cathedral’s Rev. Deacon Pat Henderson recently led an expedition to a local Mosque to learn about the five pillars of Islam. If that doesn’t reverse the tide, nothing will. Come to think of it, perhaps Henderson is looking to the future when the cathedral finally falls down and the last parishioners still managing to cheat death need to find somewhere compatible to worship.

Women’s March Anglicans

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For those who just can’t get enough of Anglican clergy mixed up in politics condemning Franklin Graham for being too mixed up in politics, here is another choice selection of assorted reverends demonstrating in support of the Women’s March on Washington – you remember, the one where the alleged singer, Madonna, lovingly intoned that she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House”

From here:


The Rev. Canon Mark Kinghan of St. George on Yonge, Toronto, the Rev. Joanne Davies, chaplain at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Rev. Dawn Leger, pastor of First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Toronto, were among tens of thousands who attended the Toronto Women’s March on Jan. 21 at Queen’s Park. The three-hour demonstration for justice, equity and social change was one of hundreds held worldwide in support of the Women’s March on Washington following the American Presidential inauguration.

Politics and the Bishop

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Bishop Kevin Robertson, in this case, the newly minted Bishop in the Diocese of Toronto who happens to be a practising homosexual.

Here, he uses Lent to lecture us about the evil of walls:

Lent is an invitation to tear down walls

It is vital that this work of tearing down walls continues. Over the past few months, the world has witnessed an increase of suspicion and mistrust of “the other.” The proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico threatens the further separation of two peoples that, though divided by citizenship, are united in so many other ways. In a speech in Berlin 30 years ago, American President Ronald Reagan famously challenged his Russian counterpart, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” But now, a new president is threatening to erect new walls with the aim of keeping people apart. The recent executive order to restrict entry into the U.S for people of seven Muslim-majority countries is another kind of wall. It paints entire nations and peoples with a single brush, and heightens a sense of xenophobia around the world. Even here in our own country, we were shocked and saddened by the murder of six Muslim men at a Quebec City mosque in late January. Again, a reminder of the wall s that divide us.

None of this is surprising, of course. It is worth pointing out that the Mexico wall is designed to keep illegal immigrants out of the US while the Berlin Wall was used to imprison East Berliners in their communist paradise by their own government; that doesn’t matter much to Robertson. Robertson’s article is quite clearly one that aligns with a liberal-left view of immigration and national sovereignty; it has nothing to do with the Gospel and is likely to alienate people whose politics don’t match Roberson’s.

Now, had Robertson been in favour of the US-Mexico wall, he probably wouldn’t have got his new job in the first place, but if by some miracle he had, I’m sure there would be howls of righteous indignation from our clerical elite denouncing his opinions and demanding that he be prevented from speaking from any pulpit in Canada. Just as they have done for Franklin Graham.

Here is the bishop smiling happily within the walls of one of his churches: