Every so often the ACoC does something so unintentionally apposite to its saprogenic condition that the urge to advertise it becomes overwhelming. The Anglican Church of Canada has a new Lenten study: finding God’s presence in darkness.
Intrepid participants will have little difficulty in finding an abundance of darkness in the ACoC but the prospect of finding God in such dense, impenetrable darkness in just 40 days is, surely, absurdly optimistic.
The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down Canada’s existing Criminal Code prohibition on euthanasia and assisted suicide, declaring them to be constitutional rights. Parliament has a year to come up with a replacement law. This ruling follows the pattern of the Supreme Court’s throwing out of Canada’s abortion law in 1988. As I’m sure you are aware, no law has replaced it and Canada is one of the few countries that has no abortion law whatsoever: a baby in the womb can be legally murdered at any stage in its gestation. For those of you in your golden years: don’t get sick and inconveniently occupy a hospital bed: they will be coming for you – and your organs.
Here are some reactions from North American Anglicans.
ACNA’s is straightforward:
The Anglican Church in North America is committed to defending life from conception to natural death.
The Anglican Church of Canada has a diversity of opinions on the matter, “diversity” being the only intact dogma left in the ACoC.
Care in Dying: A Consideration of the Practices of Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide was published in 2000 and commended for study across the church by General Synod. While acknowledging the diversity of opinions on the matter within the church, the report suggested that the church should “oppose any shift in public policy leading to the legalization of euthanasia in our society at the present time.”
Bishop John Chapman from the Diocese of Ottawa – the bring out your dead diocese – is ecstatic.
I’m ecstatic…Current practice, prior to the new legislation, has been so black and white that it has been unhelpful for those people who are living with unbearable suffering. This new legislation actually now puts the decision back into the hands of the individual, medical professionals, and drawing upon the strength of their faith to make a determination about what action they should take. It’s a compassionate decision.
Funnily enough, just after this ruling descended, Toronto City Council endorsed the proposal to install platform-edge doors in the subway system to prevent suicides. Health regulations dictate that suicides can only be safely prescribed and performed by doctors. The anti-suicide doors will cost around $1billion, apparently. Think of the money saving opportunities in simply wheeling euthanasia candidates onto inward facing ramps on local subway platforms. I understand Bishop Chapman is preparing a generous pastoral response for those eager to participate in missional subway terminations. It’s only a matter of time before this makes it into the Five Marks of Mission.
I recently received this email to which I think it might be interesting to respond publicly:
You know, the ACoC isn’t some monolithic body, right? There are many evangelicals, conservatives, and traditionalists who’ve stayed within the ACoC. Hell, there’s even folks like myself still being ordained there (by “like myself” I mean, young, straight, married, evangelical). How does that fit within your universe?
Contrary to what my correspondent suspects, I don’t have the luxury of inhabiting my own universe; after all, if this were my universe there would be no ACoC.
I dispute that there are “many evangelicals, conservatives, and traditionalists who’ve stayed within the ACoC”. There are some, obviously, but most have already left; the few that remain tend to protest too much and form small, quivering, impotent huddles like the Anglican Communion Alliance; their stated aim may be to staunch the liberal tide but no-one, least of all the ACoC, takes them seriously. There are even some orthodox bishops for whom I have some sympathy: Bishop Bill Anderson, for example; I interviewed him here and here.
No matter how much conservative holdouts might try to convince themselves otherwise, the ACoC is a monolithic body: it is an organization that forces assimilation into the dominant culture. It pretends to be inclusive but clergy who resist the liberal drift in any serious way are isolated, ostracised and generally not hired in the first place. The main purpose of any who stubbornly remain is to bolster the illusion of the ACoC’s tolerance and inclusion when they are conveniently paraded as tame conservatives at ecclesiastical photo ops.
For many years my own parish maintained a dignified isolation from its home diocese, the Diocese of Niagara. We ignored them and they ignored us – unless they needed more money, of course. Eventually, though, it becomes apparent that this is a dishonest relationship; how can you remain a subsidiary of an organisation with whom you fundamentally disagree? If you wish to retain any integrity, you can’t.
So, to my correspondent: my dear boy, if you, as you say, are “young, straight, married, evangelical”, get out now before you are assimilated.
From here:
Interfaith dialogue
Canada is an increasingly pluralistic country, and more and more Canadians are living, working, and socializing side by side with people of other religious traditions. For Christians, there is a growing need not just for dialogue with people of other faiths, but for genuine relationships with them. Increased awareness of religious plurality, the potential role of religion in conflict, and the growing place of religion in public life all present urgent challenges that require greater understanding and cooperation among people of diverse faiths.The Anglican Church of Canada pursues formal dialogue with people of other faiths together with the other member churches of the Canadian Council of Churches.
I would like to commend the ACoC on this initiative. In fact, Interfaith Dialogue is so important, I feel compelled to make a contribution. So here goes:
Islam is wrong.
What is there to explore, you may be wondering.
For the Anglican Church of Canada, plenty: David Bowie is bisexual, an atheist manqué, and a mocker of Christianity; he fits right in.
From here:
Mike Daley, assistant music director at Church of the Redeemer, has been staging “Rock Eucharist” church services monthly. This Sunday will feature the works of David Bowie.
Mike Daley has a delicate task — selecting the most appropriate David Bowie songs to play during an Anglican church service this Sunday.
[…..]
He has to strike the right balance between songs that people will know and that represent the artist, and pieces of music that are appropriate in a church setting and speak to the Bible readings that day.’
The Anglican Journal published a reasonably good article on the Charlie Hebdo Islamic terrorist murders. Predictably, it rankled with some reverends: here is Rev. Bob Bettson telling us that the nub of the issue is not free speech at all: it is really all about not upsetting people – “Muslim brothers and sisters”, in particular:
I would echo the previous comment and say that this situation is complicated. Free speech carries responsibility with it. I was part of a Muslim Christian dialogue in Calgary representing the Anglican Church when the Danish cartoon came out. We as a group of Muslim and Christian leaders expressed our concern with the degrading and sophomoric cartoons, and expressed the hope they would not be reprinted in Canada. We acted in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. The Charlie Hebdo massacre is deplorable. But lets not make this about free speech, because the kind of free speech exercised by Charlie Hebdo is sometimes like pouring gas on a fire. We condemn the massacre as religious leaders. But we also don’t make the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists into heroes–which they were not in any sense.
You will note that Bettson calls Charlie Hebdo’s humour “sophomoric”; I am flattered that when Michael Bird sued me, Bettson used the same epithet about Anglican Samizdat: an endless stream of ridicule and sophmoric [sic] humour.
But to the point: Bettson reckons that “Free speech carries responsibility with it”. It does: it carries the responsibility to offend. If it never offends, it isn’t free. Liberals, whether political or religious, have a totalitarian temperament that has little use for freedom of any kind: it could lead to people disagreeing with them, disrupting the harmony of their inbred little utopias.
A generous pastoral response to people married to their cats; if that doesn’t fill the pews, nothing will.
From here:
Barbarella Buchner is still married to her two cats after 11 years and is now living on the Spanish island of Lanzarote.
On January 9 2004, she tied the knot with her two male felines, named Spider and Lugosi, after breaking up with her (human) partner of seven years.
Barbarella Buchner sounds like bishop material to me.
Edward Mason is Chair of the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. He recently visited the national offices of the Anglican Church of Canada.
From here:
Whether it is the Rockefeller family joining a campaign to withdraw $50 billion from fossil fuel investments over the next five years or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement pushing for changes in Israeli policies toward Palestine, many people are thinking and talking about where they don’t want to put their money.
[….]
“We don’t expect perfection,” Mason said, “but we expect a positive direction of travel and a willingness and desire to make that positive journey. So with BP, it was reforming their safety procedures, which they put a huge amount of effort into.”
Henriette Thompson, director of public witness for social and ecological justice for the Anglican Church of Canada, noted that there is a renewed focus on investment issues for the Canadian church because the joint declaration on responsible resource extraction made with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) at the 2013 Joint Assembly commits the churches to “advocate for responsible and ethical investment and actions by individuals, faith communities, corporations, and governments both in Canada and around the world.”
Mason is working hard to “disincentivise” the use of fossil fuels:
From here:
While engagement with companies is an important component of an ethical investment response to climate change, it is not sufficient. We believe that engagement with policy makers is even more important: only policy makers can put the price on carbon that is needed to disincentivise the use of fossil fuels.
Doubtless he would have visited Canada earlier had it not been for the fact that he paddled himself across the Atlantic in a sustainable canoe constructed from renewable bark harvested from an organically grown Amazonian Hymenaea tree lovingly cultivated from a seed in his own back garden.
One would think that Western Anglicanism, having largely replaced the hope of heaven later with the illusion of utopia now, would be enthusiastically supporting the use of fossil fuel. No other technology has benefited billions of people as fossil fuel has. Even the lenses in Edward Mason’s glasses are probably made of polycarbonate, derived from the demon petroleum; let’s see how well the disincentivising goes without your glasses, Edward.
From here:
Upon hearing the news that the U.S. and Cuba would re-establish diplomatic ties, Bishop Michael Bird of the diocese of Niagara said in a statement that the diocese “rejoices at the transformational opportunities that this announcement holds for the Cuban people and the ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Cuba.” The diocese of Niagara and the Episcopal diocese of Cuba maintain a companion relationship.
When asked how changes in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba might affect the position of the ECC, Archdeacon Michael Thompson, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada, stressed that there is still much that is unknown.
Does anyone believe that the thawing of relations between the U.S. and Cuba will result in transformational opportunities? Will Cuba cease to be a totalitarian state where political dissent is brutally suppressed, or will there be relief for the grinding poverty in which most Cubans live, including those working at luxury resorts that cater to vacationing Canadians – and soon Americans?
Cuba is insisting that the U.S. “respect Cuba’s communist rule“, a demand that will not perturb Western Anglican bishops one iota:
Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday demanded that the United States respect Cuba’s communist rule as the two countries work toward normalizing diplomatic ties.
The main transformation may be that Obama will be able to obtain Cuban cigars legally.
From here:
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) has urged the Anglican Church of Canada not to amend its marriage canon (church law) to allow the marriage of same-sex couples, saying such a move would “cause great distress for the Communion as a whole, and for its ecumenical relationships.”
The IASCUFO’s statement came in response to a request from the Canadian church’s Commission on the Marriage Canon for an opinion about proposed changes to Canon 21 that would allow for same-sex marriages. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, decided IASCUFO would be the “most appropriate” body within the Communion to deal with such a question.
The Anglican Church of Canada has the prerogative “to address issues appropriate to its context,” the IASCUFO said, but it noted the ramifications of “a change of this magnitude” for the Communion and its ecumenical partners. In a letter addressed to Canon Robert Falby, chair of the marriage canon commission, IASCUFO members said they were unanimous “in urging you not to move beyond your present policy of ‘local option,’ ” which allows dioceses to choose whether or not they will offer same-sex blessings. They noted that the absence of a General Synod decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or same-sex marriages “has given space for the rebuilding of fragile relationships across the Communion.”
When deciding whether to allow the blessing of same-sex civil marriages, the ACoC delegated downwards: the ever slippery national church has made no statement that unequivocally gives its approval for same-sex blessings, yet it doesn’t censure individual dioceses that do. In this way, the ACoC nurtures the hope that it will not be held accountable for the chaos created by its sexual agenda.
I’ll be interested to see how the ACoC attempts to wriggle out of accepting responsibility for continuing with the marriage canon discussions; there aren’t enough conservatives left in the dwindling denomination to prevent the almost inevitable marriage canon change, yet there can’t be a local option marriage canon.
Perhaps the church will abdicate its responsibility by exiting the marriage business altogether.
