{"id":29475,"date":"2022-02-09T21:41:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T02:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=29475"},"modified":"2022-02-09T21:41:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T02:41:59","slug":"an-anglican-cleric-comments-on-the-trucker-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/an-anglican-cleric-comments-on-the-trucker-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"An Anglican cleric comments on the trucker protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been waiting for the Anglican Church of Canada to say something about the protestors congregating in Ottawa. The church has no hesitation lobbing opinions into the ether to support BLM, Indigenous rights, LGBT activities and so on. Even in the face of universal uninterest. Why the reticence here? It can\u2019t be that<\/em> hard to pick a side since the bishops\u2019 mentor, our illustrious Prime Minister has already blazed the path of righteousness by denouncing the protesters as racists, misogynists, homophobes, Nazis and probably a few other things I\u2019ve forgotten. Surely the church should find itself prophetically harmonising with this wave of heady invective?<\/p>\n

At least one clergyman has finally stepped into the fray. The ex-Catholic, ex-Evangelical Rev. Michael Coren.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the trucker protests, the political hard right is co-opting Christianity\u201d<\/em> blazes the headline, omitting the fact that anyone to the right of Joseph Stalin is \u201chard right\u201d in Rev. Coren\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

What seems to upset Coren most is that the protestors recited the Lord\u2019s Prayer. How dare they! They aren\u2019t allowed to because they are not making obeisance to Coren\u2019s idols of inclusion<\/em> and tolerance – <\/em>which\u00a0makes as much sense as the rest of<\/a> Coren\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"There is a video circulating on social media of a group of truckers in Ottawa discussing their plans. They exchange views in a quite heated manner, and then suddenly one of them begins to recite the Lord\u2019s Prayer. In direct obedience and observance, all of the others remove their caps and follow suit. It\u2019s being posted by supporters of the convoy who see the enterprise as God\u2019s work and want to emphasize the piety of all concerned.<\/p>\n

[\u2026..]<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve no idea of what was in the hearts of those men who suddenly turned from bellicose plotting to telling God they \u201cforgive those who trespass against us,\u201d but judging by the ubiquity of vulgar anti-Trudeau signs and images of nooses, I\u2019m a little cynical. I\u2019m a priest \u2013 the Lord\u2019s Prayer is central to my very being \u2013 but it\u2019s more than just a collection of words. It\u2019s what Jesus taught us to say. Jesus \u2013 who owned nothing and lived communally \u2013 reserved his harshest words for the wealthy and legalistic, redistributed food and preached tolerance, inclusion and grace. He could be as gentle as a watercolour in his love and compassion, but fierce as a lion of Judah in his demand for social justice.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing new of course about the politicization of Christianity; it\u2019s been happening ever since church and state began to mingle 1,700 years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Admittedly, the Anglican Church of Canada does not politicise Christianity. It can\u2019t because it has ceased to be Christian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been waiting for the Anglican Church of Canada to say something about the protestors congregating in Ottawa. The church has no hesitation lobbing opinions into the ether to support BLM, Indigenous rights, LGBT activities and so on. Even in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2694],"tags":[2032,1079],"class_list":["post-29475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-truckers","tag-anglican-church-of-canada","tag-michael-coren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}