The mental anguish of Bishop Melissa Skelton at Trump’s victory

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Although I am not an avid fan of Donald Trump, I am very much enjoying the reaction of elitist liberals whose disdain for and aloofness from the common herd helped propel Trump to victory.

Such is the “shock, grief and confusion” of Bishop Melissa Skelton, that she felt moved to write a pastoral letter to calm the disquiet of her flock over the results of democracy in action in her homeland:

Dear People of the Diocese of New Westminster

I awoke this morning, as many of you did, in shock, grief and confusion as the elections in the US concluded. While, as a person born in the US, I could offer my own analysis of what happened, I’m more interested in saying just a few things to you in the face of these events in the life of our neighbour to the south, a neighbour who deeply influences us and the rest of the world.

Stay a while with your uncomfortable feelings and the things you may now be curious about. One piece I read this morning talked about our own urge to get past the uncomfortable feelings that many of us may be feeling today. I encourage you to stay in touch with both the feelings and the questions that are coming up for you out of what has occurred over these many months.  It may be that God is working in you as you experience your own response and as you discern how you may wish to respond.

St. George’s Church Walkerville to be demolished

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The battle to save St. George’s church in  Walkerville is over and, in what has become a familiar pattern, the diocese of Huron will be tearing it down and selling the land for residential development.

The Anglican Church of Canada seems to be waking up to the fact that its buildings, many of which stand empty, are becoming unmanageable burdens. Other than those which are maintained and displayed as paradigms of tolerance and inclusion after being seized from ANiC, of course.

The church in question here has become physically derelict, mimicking the spiritual state of its owners.

From here:

Historic St. George’s Church no longer has a prayer.

City council on Monday voted to allow the owner — the Anglican Diocese of Huron — to demolish the buildings, which date to 1921 and 1955.

The Anglican Church had wanted to tear down the church and neighbouring hall 18 months ago, but council blocked the demolition to see if anybody wanted to buy the property to repurpose the neglected structures.

But church representatives say they did not receive any serious offers for the property, which is listed for $225,000. The Anglican Church plans to tear down the buildings on Devonshire Court at Kildare Road and create three lots for residential development.

Monday’s discussion led to some heated exchanges between residents for and against the demolition, and between a pro-church advocate and Coun. Hilary Payne.

Elaine Weeks, a Walkerville resident who founded the group Save St. George’s Church, argued that the building had historic merit and should be saved. She noted that the original building was first named Memorial Hall in honour of Canadian men who fought in the First World War.

She feels the city should do more to preserve heritage.

What Advent is really all about

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Global warming, of course. Fred Hiltz tells us so in the Anglican Church of Canada’s 2016 Advent meditations. To clinch the point, Hiltz invokes a few inspirational apophthegms attributed to Saint Suzuki:

As we consider God’s creation,there is an urgency of concern about the global environmental crisis.We can no longer deny the harsh realities of islands drowning as sealevels rise; of deserts expanding in the face of unchecked deforestation; of weather patterns changing and growing violent as global warming continues; of lifestyles and livelihoods disappearing as the Arctic icecap melts.
Really coming to terms with these realities was very much the focus of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP21—held in Paris. “COP21” refers to the ”Conference of Parties” and to those countries which have adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the midst of that great gathering of political and religious world leaders, and among thousands of ordinary citizens from every corner of the globe, a huge ecumenical service was held in Notre Dame Basilica. I had the great privilege of being there.

[…..]

“Aware of the impact of the lifestyle of most of the developed countries, we need to call into question the logic of our consumption and to allow our attitude and witness to experience conversion— practising restraint and simplicity, not as a form of heroic renunciation, but as a form of joyful sharing. Our hope as Christians rests in our belief that our world is not destined to despair, but to transformation, and that human beings capable of self-destruction are also capable of uniting and choosing what is good.”

This “conversion” is the very thing that renowned environmentalist David Suzuki calls “the necessity for a massive change of spirit” on the part of leaders in government and industry and on the part of consumers in society…which includes us all. Suzuki has said he looks to both business communities and faith communities to provide leadership in calling for this “change of spirit”.

Homosexual bishop to be consecrated in Toronto evangelical church

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Rev. Canon Kevin Robertson, an active homosexual, was one of three clergy elected to the position of bishop in the Diocese of Toronto in September. The diocesan paper notes:

The bishops-elect will officially begin their duties on Jan. 1, 2017. They will be consecrated on Jan. 7 at St. Paul, Bloor Street.

St. Paul’s, Bloor Street is one of the largest Anglican Church of Canada parishes in Canada and it is evangelical. If any conservatives remaining in the ACoC think they can quietly continue without the church’s gay agenda being thrust in their faces, think again. St. Paul’s has to host the consecration of a bishop whose domestic arrangements are flagrantly contrary to the convictions of the congregation.

Massive DDoS attacks swamp the Internet

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You may have noticed that Anglican Samizdat was down for a while yesterday. It wasn’t caused by a secret cadre of clerical hackers buried deep in the bowels of 80 Hayden Street, but by multiple distributed denial of service attacks that brought down much of the Internet in the Eastern US.

Read it all here:

Friday morning is prime time for some casual news reading, tweeting, and general Internet browsing, but you may have had some trouble accessing your usual sites and services this morning and throughout the day, from Spotify and Reddit to the New York Times and even good ol’ WIRED.com. For that, you can thank a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) that took down a big chunk of the Internet for most of the Eastern seaboard.

This morning’s attack started around 7 am ET and was aimed at Dyn, an Internet infrastructure company headquartered in New Hampshire. That first bout was resolved after about two hours; a second attack began just before noon. Dyn reported a third wave of attacks a little after 4 pm ET. In all cases, traffic to Dyn’s Internet directory servers throughout the US—primarily on the East Coast but later on the opposite end of the country as well—was stopped by a flood of malicious requests from tens of millions of IP addresses disrupting the system. Late in the day, Dyn described the events as a “very sophisticated and complex attack.” Still ongoing, the situation is a definite reminder of the fragility of the web, and the power of the forces that aim to disrupt it.

Coincidentally – or perhaps not – on October 1st, Obama transferred the last vestige of U.S. control of the Internet to a non-profit organization against the recommendation of numerous security experts:

September 26, 2016

Hon. Ashton B. Carter
Secretary of Defense The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr.
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff The Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

Dear Secretary Carter and Chairman Dunford:

As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests.

On October 1st, the contract between the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will expire. Upon expiration, the President will allow the Government’s remaining control over the Internet to transfer to ICANN. This includes the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function and NTIA’s review of all Internet Protocol addresses and authorization for them to be placed on the authoritative root server (the A Server). In simple terms, nothing now is accessible on the Internet until it has undergone an IP address assignment and NTIA review and NTIA has authorized Verisign to post the address to the A server.

The IANA function is critical to our nation’s ability to effectively defend our national assets and civilian population and ensure integrity in our cyberwarfare capabilities. As Congress has considered this transfer of authority, it has stated that ICANN should ensure that .mil and .gov remain exclusive to DoD and that all IP addresses assigned to DoD are used exclusively by the Government. That ignores the fact that DoD is reliant upon private sector critical infrastructure for its operations, and the integrity and security of the IP addresses associated with these assets are equally important to the protection of the American people.

In the absence of U.S. Government involvement in IANA, it seems possible that, over time, foreign powers – including potentially or actually hostile ones – will be able to influence the IANA process. Even coercing the delay in approving IP addresses could impact military capabilities. From a broader view, given the well-documented ambition of these actors to restrict freedom of expression and/or entrepreneurial activity on the Internet, such a transfer of authority to ICANN could have far-reaching and undesirable consequences for untold numbers of people worldwide.

Of more immediate concern to us, however, is the prospect that the United States might be transferring to future adversaries a capability that could facilitate, particularly in time of conflict, cyberwarfare against us. In the absence of NTIA’s stewardship, we would be unable to be certain about the legitimacy of all IP addresses or whether they have been, in some form or fashion, manipulated, or compromised. Given the reliance of the U.S. military and critical infrastructure on the Internet, we must not allow it to be put needlessly at risk.

Indeed, there is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time.

In light of the looming deadline, we feel compelled to urge you to impress upon President Obama that the contract between NTIA and ICANN cannot be safely terminated at this point. At a minimum, given the irreversible character of this decision and its potential for grave and enduring harm to our national security and other vital interests, the decision should be delayed.

Sincerely,

J.P. “Jack” London
Executive Chairman CACI International, Inc.

Michael A. Daniels
Former Chairman, Network Solutions

Jody R. Westby
CEO, Global Cyber Risk LLC and
Former Chief Administrative Officer & Counsel, In-Q-Tel

Adm. James A. “Ace” Lyons, USN (Ret.) Former Commander-in-Chief
U.S. Pacific Fleet

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting)

Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, USA (Ret.)
Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence

Hon. Pete Hoekstra
Former Chairman, House Intelligence Committee

Oliver “Buck” Revell
Associate Deputy Director (Ret.) Federal Bureau of Investigation

Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.)
Former Deputy Chief of Staff, United States Air Force

Hon. Michelle Van Cleave
Former Counter-Intelligence Executive

Rep. Brian Babin (TX-36)
Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Science Space and Technology Subcommittee

Hon. Jon Kyl
Former Senate Minority Whip

Dr. Lani Kass
Former Director, Air Force Chief of Staff’s Cyber Task Force

Hon. Charles E. Allen
Former Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis

Lt. Gen. C. E. McKnight, Jr., USA (Ret.)
Former Director, Command and Control Systems for Nuclear Forces, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Hon. John G. Grimes
Former Assistant Secretary, Networks & Information Integration and
DoD, Chief Information Officer

Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder, USAF (Ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Air Force Network Operations

Rep. Dave Brat (VA-7)

Vice Adm. Robert R. Monroe, USN (Ret.)
Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency

Maj. Gen. Henry Canterbury, USAF (Ret.)
Former Operations and Readiness, Air Staff Pentagon

Daniel J. Gallington
Former General Counsel Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Maj. Gen. Harold “Punch” Moulton, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director of Operations, U.S. European Command

Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Israel, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director of Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office

Andrew McCarthy
Former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Southern District of New York

Hon. Paula A. DeSutter
Former Assistant Secretary of State and Professional Staff Member, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Rear Adm. Philip S. Anselmo, USN (Ret.)
Former Director of Command Control Communications Computers and Intelligence (C4I)

Rear Adm. Pierce J. Johnson, USN (Ret.)
Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Regional Headquarters, Lisbon (Portugal)

Lt. Gen. C. Norman Wood, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director, Intelligence Community Staff

Dan Goure
Former Director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Thomas H. Handel
Former Executive Director, Naval Information Warfare Activity (now Navy Cyber Warfare Development Group)

Vice Adm. Edward W. Clexton, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Commander, Carrier Strike Group, and Deputy Commander in Chief, US Naval and Marine Forces, Europe

Vice Adm. Jerry L. Unruh, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Third Fleet

Rear Adm. Albert A. Gallotta, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Vice Commander, Naval Electronics Systems Command

Rear Adm. H. Winsor Whiton, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander of the Naval Security Group and former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency for Plans, Policy, and Programs

Lt. Gen. Bennett L. Lewis, USA (Ret.)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mobilization and Director, Defense Mobilization Systems Planning Activity

Lt. Gen. Tex Brown, USAF (Ret.)
Former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

Rear. Adm. Charles R. Kubic, CEC, USN (Ret.)
Former Commander, First Naval Construction Division

Rear Adm. Phillip R. Olson, USN (Ret.)
Former President of the U.S. Navy Board of Inspection and Safety

Victoria Coates
National Security Advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz

Morgan Wright
Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government

Mike Steinmetz
President & CEO, Digital Executive LTD

Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole, USAF (Ret.)
Former Executive Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense

Capt. David E. Meadows, USN (Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander Naval Security Group

Capt. Scott W. Witt, USN (Ret.)
Former Chief, Weapons and Space, National Security Agency

Capt. Michael Sare, USN (Ret.)
Former Navy Cryptologist / Cyber Warfare Officer

Katherine C. Gorka
President, Council on Global Security

Col. R. J. Peppe, USAF (Ret.)
Former Chief, Selection Board Secretariat

Michael J. Jacobs
Former Information Assurance Director, NSA

Gwyn Whittaker
Former CEO, Mosaic, Inc.

Lynn Schnurr
Former Army Chief Information Officer and Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service

Frederick Fleitz
Senior VP, Center for Security Policy and former CIA Analyst

Daniel J. Bongino
Former Secret Service Agency, Presidential Protection Division

Col. F. E. Peck, USAF (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Jim Webster, USAF (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Floyd H. Damschen, USAF (Ret.)

Col. Raymond C. Maestrelli, DDS USAF (Ret.)

Col. Ed Leonard, USAF (Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Gary L. Harrell, USA (Ret.)

Christian Whiton
Former State Department Senior Advisor

Maj. Gen. John Miller, USAF (Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, USAF (Ret.)

Col. Richard W. Dillon, USA (Ret.)

Lt. Col. Ronald King, USA (Ret.)

David P. Goldman
Columnist, Asia Times and PJ Media Capt.

James H. Hardaway, USN (Ret.)

Lt. Gen. Gordon E. Fornell, USAF (Ret.)

Rear Adm. Thomas F. Brown III, USN (Ret.)

Col. Daniel Pierre, USAF (Ret.)

S.C. Robinson, Ret.
Section Manager, Y-12 National Security Complex

Richard T. Witton, Jr. (Ret.)

Col. Michael R. Cook (Ret.)

Roger Kimball Editor and author

Larry Cox
President, Western Slopes Security Services

Angie Lienert
President & CEO, IntelliGenesis LLC

Col. Willard Snell, USAF (Ret.)

David Winks
Managing Director, AcquSight, Inc.

Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, USAF (Ret.)

Kevin D. Freeman
Founder, NSIC Institute

Lieutenant Colonel Allen B. West (USA, Ret)
Member, 112th US Congress
Executive Director, National Center for Policy Analysis

An Anglican Theology of Money

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The Anglican Church of Canada has produced a report on The Theology of Money in which it denounces capitalism, a system that, apparently, is mired in “structural sin”. In its place, the report seems to be proposing Marxism branded with the stamp of an ecclesiastical imprimatur.

This would all be a little less risible if the senior ACoC clergy eager to impose economic strictures on the rest of us, earned less than six figures annually themselves. But, then, as a group of literary pigs have noted: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I remember a number of years ago attending a meeting where Fred Hiltz, speaking in his usual soporific monotone, became almost animated when announcing some wonderful news: not that revival had overcome every obstacle carefully placed in its path and visited the ACoC, but that a major donation was on the horizon, a bequest from a dead – even more dead than usual – Anglican, as I recall.

Of course, Western civilization is obsessed with money and its acquisition but it’s not the system that’s at fault, it’s the people living in the system: us. That includes (I do like to be inclusive) clergy and a church that is forever begging for financial support.

Here, the church version of the Occupy (anything but the cathedral or the bishop’s house) Movement is explained by Rev. Maggie Helwig, a regular at the Toronto gay pride parade:

On October 18, an Anglican Church of Canada task force has released “On The Theology of Money,” a report calling the faithful to embrace a “vision of ‘enough’” when it comes to material wealth.

Many Christians in the 21st century are torn between their faith, which teaches that hoarding wealth is wrong and that Christians should support each other, and an economic system that values individualism, limitless growth, and commodification, says the Rev. Maggie Helwig, a priest in the diocese of Toronto and member of the task force.

Using Biblical texts, early church teachings, contemporary theology and political theory, Helwig’s essay, Non nobis, Domine (Not to us, Lord) provides the main substance of the report, a result of two years of research, reflection and study.

Helwig makes the case that the current economic system and the value it places on money are antithetical to authentic Christianity, and should be seen as a kind of “structural sin.”

The essay takes its title from Psalm 115, which attacks the idolatrous worship of images made of silver and gold,  “the work of human hands,” and argues that the money economy, as it is currently practiced today, is a similar form of idolatry.

Citing stories like God’s feeding of the children of Israel with manna in Exodus 16, to the early church practice of holding goods in common described in Acts 2, Helwig points out that the Bible consistently teaches that Christians are called to be satisfied with what they need, and to share with those who have less—an argument she believes is backed up by the Bible’s frequent denunciations of lending money on interest.

She notes, however, “This vision of ‘enough’ is not only very different from the ever-spiralling growth of the money economy, it is actually hostile to it. If we are satisfied with simple, basic human lives of good work and mutual care, we will ‘fail’ according to the terms of our economy.”

Furthermore, Helwig argues that, because the capitalist economic system sees no intrinsic value in human life, it is completely indifferent to the suffering of those who find themselves unable to succeed on its terms.

“The inability of the market alone to ensure adequate human lives for the majority of the population is increasingly clear, as the gap between rich and poor, both globally and within nations, increases,” she says, quoting a report from Oxfam, an international confederation of groups working to fight poverty, that shows inequality as having grown dramatically over the past 30 years.

“These statistics speak of human lives stripped down to the voracious needs of an economic system’s implacable internal logic,” she adds.

[……]

Helwig also believes Christians should have a voice in the political arena, pushing for more redistributive economic policies and resisting trade agreements that “have been proven to limit the ability of persons and societies to make choices for the local common good.”

Fred Hiltz meets the Pope

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Along with Justin Welby, Fred Hiltz met the Pope recently to discuss unity between Anglicans and Catholics. It’s odd that Hiltz felt he needed to travel 7000kms to talk about a “united witness to the gospel” when he could have taken the GO train 30kms to talk about the same thing with Anglican Network in Canada leaders.

From here:

hiltz-popeBut there is a growing desire in both churches to see unity as more than an end in itself, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, reflecting on his recent trip to Rome.

“The unity of the church is not for the church itself, and if it is, we might as well stop talking,” Hiltz said in an interview. “The unity of the church has to be in the interest of a common and faithful and united witness to the gospel, and the gospel is clearly for the world.”

For further confirmation that the whole exercise was little more than a posturing sham, we need look no further than the fact that the latest divisive antics of the ACoC were not even discussed:

For example, the Anglican Church of Canada’s move toward solemnizing the marriages of same-sex couples puts it at odds with Roman Catholic teachings on marriage. However, Hiltz said it was not an issue that came up for him or for any of the leaders of provinces that have made similar decisions.

“There was no kind of public calling into question the integrity of the Canadian church, or The Episcopal Church, or the Scottish Episcopal Church,” he said. “The focus was elsewhere.”

Clergy protest election of homosexual bishop in Toronto

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A number of clergy have written to Justin Welby and the Ontario College of Bishops to protest the election of Rev. Canon Kevin Robertson to the position of suffragan bishop. Robertson is married to a man and sees his election as another step towards, in his words, “the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of our church”.

The protest is a valiant if futile effort to stem the tide of the inevitable. The protesters in the letters below have been saying much the same thing for at least 10 years, probably longer. At each stage, from same-sex blessings to homosexual clergy to homosexual activity not being contrary to the church’s core doctrine – what’s left of it – to, finally, same-sex marriage and homosexual bishops, the protests were as heartfelt as they were impotent. The steady drip, drip of liberal heresy has been accumulating volume and momentum for decades; there will be no stopping it.

The small satisfaction one might take from all this is that the most severe judgement God visits on his people is to remove the restraints that contain the evil in our midst and let us have what we think we want. The Anglican Church of Canada is getting what it wants and therein lies its doom.

I think the signatories below should have extracted themselves from the ACoC years ago. It still isn’t too late – but it may be soon.

From VOL:

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury

Lambeth Palace, London

SE1 7JU

Your Grace,

On September 17, 2016, the Diocese of Toronto voted on a slate of episcopal candidates that included a candidate in an active same-sex relationship.

We write to protest the election itself and to dissent publicly from the diocesan and provincial concurrence with its results.

We hold that the election is out of order insofar as its slate included a candidate whose lifestyle is contrary to the teaching of the historic and universal church on chastity and marriage, and contrary to the present doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada. According to the Constitution and Canons governing episcopal elections this candidate is, therefore, not duly qualified for the office of bishop and the election as a whole was irregular.

We protested in writing to the Nominations Committee, Chancellor and Archbishop of Toronto before the electoral Synod. We protested publicly on the floor of Synod before the election began. We protested again after the Synod, asking the House of Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario to withhold concurrence (letter attached). In every case the explanation offered was inadequate and the protest was dismissed.

We note that the Marriage Canon of the Anglican Church of Canada, which understands Christian marriage to be between one man and one woman, still stands. We wish to uphold it in our lives, in our teaching and in our churches. These developments create an unconscionable situation for many of the clergy and people.

Therefore we register our dissent and ask for your intervention. We ask for your prayers and the prayers of the wider Communion as we seek to move forward faithfully.

Yours, in Christ,

The Rev. Canon Dr. Murray Henderson

The Rev. Canon Dr. Dean Mercer

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Sider-Hamilton

*****

September 22, 2016

To the College of Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario

We write in protest against the electoral Synod held this past Saturday, September 17, in the Diocese of Toronto. We charge that the three episcopal elections were out of order and we request the Ontario College of Bishops to withhold their concurrence of all three elections.

We do so for two reasons.

First, a candidate in an active same-sex relationship contradicts, by word and example, the doctrine and discipline of the Church.

According to the constitution and canons governing nominations, this candidate was not “duly qualified” to stand for the office of bishop and ought not to have been approved by the Nominations Committee. The slate put forward by the Nominations Committee was therefore out of order.

A protest was made on the floor of Synod against the Nominations Committee’s approval of a slate of candidates that included a candidate whose lifestyle is contrary to the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada. We made a similar protest in writing on July 6, and again on September 8 and September 14, to the Nominations Committee, the Chancellor and the Archbishop.

The reasons eventually offered by the Archbishop in explanation of the slate thus constituted are tendentious and contested. We note further that this explanation came a full two months after our initial letter and just days before the electoral synod.

The Archbishop’s explanation was threefold. The Anglican Church of Canada had recognized the “sanctity and integrity” of same-sex relations at General Synod, 2004. No mention was made that this motion was passed by a show of hands, and was explicitly declared to be non-doctrinal and pastoral the day after a decision on the blessing of same-sex unions had been deferred for another three years.

Secondly, the Archbishop stated that in his judgement and the judgement of the Chancellor of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Marriage Canon was underdetermined and therefore did not rule out same sex marriage. We replied that it was an astonishing claim that there is no settled definition of marriage in the church and further astonishing that this tendentious and undemonstrated claim should serve as the basis for proceeding without any chance for a critical response.

Thirdly, the Archbishop pointed to the first-reading approval of a change to the doctrine of marriage at General Synod. We noted that this had no bearing on the vetting of a candidate in June. Further, until the second reading the existing Canon stands.

The explanation offered–belatedly–for the Nominations Committee’s approval of a slate of candidates including a candidate in a same sex relationship is in every point unconvincing.

Secondly, in addition to the reasons for which we object to the action, in fairness to the Synod of the Diocese of Toronto the exceptional circumstances of the candidate ought to have been publicly noted. There is no way to measure the degree to which voting was skewed across the three elections by his presence or the degree to which delegates were aware of the significance of their voting. In fairness, the explanation we received in the last few days before the election ought to have been made public well before the election was called and open to review and response.

We protest the timing of the response (a two-month delay, with the Archbishop’s final response arriving the evening before the opening of the synod). We protest the failure of the Bishops to make any public explanation available to the people of the diocese. And we repeat our objection to the slate. We hold it to be invalid and the elections to be out of order. We ask the House of Bishops of the Province of Ontario to withhold concurrence.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Murray Henderson

The Rev. Canon Dr. Dean Mercer

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Sider-Hamilton

The right to commit suicide

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I suppose it is one of the many indicators of the corruption of Christianity in mainline denominations  that, where in prior centuries they pondered their God-given duties, we now catalogue lists of our God-given rights. We have degenerated from God making demands of us to our making demands of him.

One of our latest rights, apparently, is the right to die when we want to and Desmond Tutu, naturally, plans to demand it.

From here:

Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have spent my time working for dignity for the living. I have campaigned passionately for people in my country and the world over to have their God-given rights.

Now, as I turn 85 Friday, with my life closer to its end than its beginning, I wish to help give people dignity in dying. Just as I have argued firmly for compassion and fairness in life, I believe that terminally ill people should be treated with the same compassion and fairness when it comes to their deaths. Dying people should have the right to choose how and when they leave Mother Earth. I believe that, alongside the wonderful palliative care that exists, their choices should include a dignified assisted death.