Tag Archives: Mardi Tindal

Liberals love form without substance

Posted on by
8

During the heyday of the Charismatic renewal in the Anglican Church, staunch liberals turned their collective noses up at the idea of the Holy Spirit being alive, well and active in the church. Now, scarcely a paragraph emerges from a liberal mainline denomination without some reference to being guided by the “Spirit”. This is a convenient means of sanctifying any hare-brained scheme that pops into the homoerotically overheated minds of the clergy, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the third person of the Trinity.

In the same way, most Christian terminology has been drained of useful content: “Gospel”, “mission”, “disciple” are all bandied about indiscriminately – to the frustration of those who still think they have objective meaning.

The liberals have stolen our words.

That is not enough, it seems. There was a time when no self-respecting liberal would be caught dead with his arms in the air during worship. Now they have stolen our gestures, too.

Here are Rev. Gary Paterson the new moderator of the United Church of Canada – who happens to be gay, a poet and a clergyman, in that order –  and former moderator, Mardi Tindal, putting on a display that appears to be a carefully posed invitation for us to admire their uninhibited enthusiasm for – uninhibited enthusiasm.

I find the image eerily disturbing:

 

2010 World Religions Summit: convocation of loons

Posted on by
2

Religious leaders who have little better to do are meeting to pontificate on the “moral, ethical and spiritual” crisis of our time: what used to be called – before it was largely debunked – “Global Warming” but now goes by the less easily pinned down “Climate Change”. One thing I do know: the climate is definitely changing in Oakville. This morning it was raining and this afternoon it is sunny.

According to this gathering of spiritual Stasi, the time for persuasion, reason, education and even “conversation” is over: it’s time for compulsion:

World religious leaders today grappled with how best to compel governments and citizens to address the issue of climate change.

During the second day of the 2010 World Religions Summit here, some urged their own institutions model the very behaviours they are demanding politicians adopt as policy. Others said their own faith traditions are already doing that. Some urged more education of faith communities while others said the situation is already “beyond education” and requires intervention.

United Church Moderator Mardi Tindal thinks that having a “green” church is an expression of what she believes in, leading one to conclude that the ultimate expression of her belief would be to bulldoze United Church buildings everywhere and plant trees in their place. Something to look forward to:

Tindal also spoke about the environmental initiatives undertaken by inter-faith communities in Canada, including the Greening Sacred Spaces program, which ensures that “our buildings are responsible expressions of what we believe in.”

Pandit Roopnauth has noticed an even bigger blight than un-green United Church buildings: humanity. He takes the dim view that we are parasites. He didn’t elaborate on whether mankind should be exterminated to make way for more of Mardi Tindal’s trees, but I suspect it was at the back of his mind:

Pandit Roopnauth Sharma of the Hindu Federation said people need to be reminded that “we are the biggest parasites on earth. We take and take and give nothing back.”

The combined wisdom of the Baptist, Anglican and Muslim contingents was that we should use less energy, find out what makes people poor and not forget affluent nations – the lingering suspicion being that they shouldn’t be affluent.

It’s little wonder that there are few left in the West who take any religion seriously.