Tag Archives: Diocese of Huron

Diocese of Huron hires secular fund raising consultants

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A church employing secular fund raisers to keep itself financially viable is a harbinger of approaching doom. It is an admission that the transcendent principles on which the organisation rests no longer sufficiently motivate its members to part with their cash – probably because the leaders themselves no longer believe them.

In the case of the Diocese of Huron, the fund-raising effort is being disguised by the epithet “Renew”, a word that, when used by a church, usually means spiritual renewal not bank balance renewal.

From here (page 2):

Diocesan Council approved on February 28, 2013, at a Sub-Council meeting, a plan to position the Diocese and direct it forward as Renew will be launched this year at Synod.

The Diocese has been engaged over the last six months in a feasibility and quiet phase study, preparing the Diocese to launch Renew for our parishes. This time also allowed the Diocese to work toward funding costs for materials, planning and labour to provide for this launch of the program.

Diocesan Sub-Council approved the establishment of a new Renew Committee, which is now charged with directing and managing Renew in the Diocese. Part of their mandate is to now recommend consultants to actively work with parishes and the Diocese in raising funds in support of our established needs as a Church.

The Diocese has now engaged the contracted services of Ms. Amanda Gellman and Ms. Lynda McGregor of our Diocese as professional consultants to help lead Renew in Huron.

Diocese of Huron seeks $445,486.37 in court costs against the people of St. Aidan’s

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The Diocese of Huron won a court case against the ANiC parishioners who paid for and maintain St. Aidan’s in Windsor. The parishioners were evicted and the diocese took possession of the building.

One would think that this would be enough for the diocese, but, no: they also sued for $445,486.37 in court costs.

This goes to show that the grasping avarice often associated with the legal profession pales to insignificance when compared to that of the average Canadian Anglican bishop – Bishop Robert F. Bennett in this case; although, come to think of it, he is a mediocre rather than an average bishop. Perhaps Bennett needs to reread the Five Marks of Mission that are so beloved by his denomination, paying particular attention to “To respond to human need by loving service” and “To seek to transform unjust structures of society”.

The judge denied the diocese the $445,486.37; never mind, Bob, to assuage your financial embarrassment, you could always pass a tin cup to Colin Johnson and James Cowan.

From here:

In a decision released on September 26, Justice H A Rady of the Superior Court of Ontario denied the Diocese of Huron’s bid to exact legal costs from the leadership and parish of ANiC’s St Aidan’s (Windsor, ON). He says: “…I have come to the conclusion that it would be fair and just that the parties bear their own costs.” The Diocese of Huron had been seeking $445,486.37 from the people of St Aidan’s and has now appealed this decision. Your prayer support is appreciated.

Diocese of Huron: church closures and mergers

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Trinity Church, Mitchell was deconsecrated on September 9th, St. Paul’s, Kirkton on September 16th, and St Mary’s, Brinsley on Tuesday September 25th.

In addition, St. Stephens, Christ Church and Holy Trinity will be “joined”. This, apparently, is not an “amalgamation” and there will be no closures. Really, there won’t. In fact, the words “amalgamation” and “closure” have never been mentioned.

Well, they were mentioned once in this article (page 3) by Rev. Keith Nethery, rector of one of the churches – and he only mentioned the words to remind us that they have never been mentioned. Except by him in the article; by accident. They haven’t even been thought about. Really.

50 Shades of Grey in the Diocese of Huron

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I know none of the antics of the Anglican Church of Canada should really surprise me, but they continue to try. The Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church in the Diocese of Huron has plagiarised the title of popular pornographic pulp to entice people into its pews. As the rector says: “Have you read the Bible lately? Very sexually explicit at times.”

I understand that next Sunday’s reading is from chapter 3 – not the Bible.

 

From here:

A local church marquee is turning heads in London with a racy reference to the popular erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey.

For the past week, the sign outside Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church has read “50 shades of grace”—a play on the title of E. L. James’s breakthrough book.

“The intention is that as the book talks about intimate relationships with an unusual twist, so the sign talks about an intimate relationship with God that has a twist,” said Rev. Raemond Fletcher, who got the idea for the sign from a fellow Anglican priest in town. “God’s grace is not only of one shade.”

Fletcher said he hoped the sign would also send a message that the church was not out of touch. “The church (or at least some churches) are not afraid to recognize that sexuality plays a significant role in modern society, but that it should not be a matter of grey areas but of grace.”

Crosspost from the AEC blog

St. Paul’s Cathedral, London to hold U2charist

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St. Paul’s Cathedral will hold its fourth U2charist on May the 4th.

A U2charist is “a communion service, or Eucharist, accompanied by U2 songs” designed to encourage people “to rally around the Millennium Development Goals”.

It appears to make no pretence to having much to do with Christ’s body and blood and, since I think the Millennium Development Goals are a thoroughly odious substitute, I will probably not attend.

Add to this the fact that Bono sees no hypocrisy in tirelessly championing the taxpayer funded Millennium Development Goals while having just made $1 billion from his Facebook shares on which he will, no doubt, pay no tax and I can’t see why anyone would want to attend.

Nevertheless, a prior effort managed to fill the cathedral; it adheres to the received Anglican dogma that it doesn’t matter what you do with people who attend church, as long as you get them there.

Bono does allow churches to use his songs without paying a copyright fee, though: very sacrificial.

Here you will see one of my biggest fans, Rev. Keith Nethery interviewing the organiser:

Katharine Jefferts Schori given honorary doctorate by Huron University College

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From here (page 5)

Bishop Jefferts Schori was in London to receive an honorary doctorate of divinity degree. Her visit to the Diocese began in the afternoon of May 4, 2012 at St. Paul’s Cathedral where Bishop Dance introduced her to Huron clergy who gathered to hear her thoughts on current issues facing the church. Bishop Jefferts Schori is a dynamic speaker with an artistic gift for listening that truly values the individual as well as the group.

Schori’s gift for listening and valuing the individual as well as the group is doubtless what has prompted her to take so many American Anglicans to court for trying to hold fast to the received faith and having the presumption of thinking the buildings they paid for belong to them.

The granddaughter of a former Huron college professor and bishop is not happy about Schori’s doctorate:

As a granddaughter of Bishop W.T. Hallam, in whose honour the Bishop Hallam Theological Society was named, I am deeply disappointed by the recent decision of the college to confer an honorary doctorate upon Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at its upcoming convocation. It is sad to see such a clear sign of the degree to which Huron College has departed from the historic faith of the Anglican church, as represented in the 39 Articles, and as exemplified in my grandfather’s ministry throughout his life, and particularly in his last days as Professor and Dean of Divinity at Huron College, and Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Huron. I am further saddened by the decision because I myself am a graduate of Huron College and enjoyed important years of my life there. As well, I am a lifelong Anglican, and continue to uphold the historic faith along with others in the midst of the current tide of theological confusion.

It is well known in our family that Grandad spent probably the happiest years of his life and ministry at Huron College and in the Diocese of Huron. It was because of this and also the remembrance of his name through the theological society that I had arranged with the college to donate papers of his now in my possession. I have now decided to entrust them to Wycliffe College, where the historic faith is still upheld, and the legacy of evangelical bishops in the Anglican church is likely to be of greater interest.

Although Wycliffe College is more theologically orthodox than the Diocese of Huron – after all, what isn’t? – it still has adopted a head-in-the-sand Neville Chamberlain attitude to the apostasy that is rife in the Anglican Church of Canada. Presumably because it is reluctant to bite the hand that feeds it.

Imam reads from Koran at installation of Diocese of Huron Dean

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After 11 years of serving as a priest in the Diocese of New Westminster under Bishop Michael Ingham, Rev. Kevin Dixon has returned to the Diocese of Huron as Dean of the cathedral.

At his installation, Imam Jamal Taleb of the London Mosque read from the Koran. An auspicious beginning.

Rev. Keith Nethery in the world of blogs

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Rev. Keith Nethery is becoming rather alarmed (page 2) – disturbed even – at what he reads on blogs:

What does it mean to study something? How do we go about discussing an issue?
I spend considerable time reading blogs and various media from around the world on things Anglican. In doing this, there is something becoming more and more obvious to me and it is alarming. Now let me say first that I do NOT just read one side of the story. The blogs that I have marked for daily consumption cover the entire scale of theological opinion. What bothers me is that I see some disturbing trends in how we answer the two questions that I began with.

My understanding of study is that one will find a variety of opinions and see how that informs the thoughts that they possessed going into said study. More and more, it seems to me, that study is another term for a determination to prove the “other” wrong……

When folks search “Anglican” on their computers, it is scarey what they will find masquerading as the true face of who we are. If the foregoing statement was posted on many of the blogs I read daily, it would be followed by an immediate swell of condemnation from people on both ends of the spectrum, because discussion and study have become code words for further opportunity to demand agreement for one’s place on the scale.

This comment by the very same Rev. Nethery tends to show that he is less than eager to take his own advice when he feels called upon to show that those of us who “haunt the far right side of Anglicanism” are in sore need of “a dose of reality.” ­

Job well done in this post and in the discussion with David on Samizdat. I’ve had more than one such conversation with David, Warren and the others that haunt the far right side of Anglicanism that ended similarly – oh, but we’re right and you’re wrong because we say so, thank you for coming and come back again so we can tell you how right we are. I honestly think that we need to bust into their world every once now and again to give them a dose of reality.

The exchange in question is here and, as these things go, was reasonably civil and entirely devoid of the phrase – or idea – “oh, but we’re right and you’re wrong because we say so.”

Rev. Nethery’s solution (page 2) to all this seems to be:

My oft unpopular position is that there is always room to be further informed and to weigh more ideas.

Doubtless this is a remedy that he wishes those of us that infest the swamps of Anglicanism’s right would embrace, but one – in spite of protestations to the contrary – in which he is reluctant to dabble himself: that must be because we are just spinning:

Even one of ANIC’s spinning best bloggers can’t draw more than a comment or two posting on Holy Post at the National Post.

I can’t help wondering whether what is really eating Rev. Nethery is the fact that there are people who disagree with him; and they just won’t shut up.

Thieves rob 4 churches in St. Thomas, Ont., target donation envelopes

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From the Canadian Press:

ST. THOMAS, Ont. — Police say thieves broke into four churches in St. Thomas, Ont., during the nighttime hours on Christmas Day and into the weekend and it’s believed the burglaries are related.

In each case, the churches were entered through basement windows and the thieves searched for donation envelopes, broke into locked areas and ransacked offices.

As of December 29th, no bishops have been implicated.