religion
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Benedict XVI: My essential contribution can only be prayer, and in my prayer I will be very close to the Anglican bishops who are meeting in the Lambeth Conference. We can’t, and we shouldn’t directly intervene in their discussions. We respect their own responsibility. Our hope is that schisms or new fractures can be avoided, and that a solution can be found that responds both to the needs of our time and also to fidelity to the Gospel. These two things must go together. Christianity is always contemporary and lives in this world, in a given time, but it makes present in this time the message of Jesus Christ, and therefore, it offers a true contribution for this time only by being faithful in a mature way, in a creative way that’s faithful to the message of Christ. We hope, and I personally pray, that they find together the path of the Gospel in our time. This is my wish for the Archbishop of Canterbury: that the Anglican Communion, in the communion of the Gospel of Christ and the Word of the Lord, finds responses to the current challenges. deborah gyapong
It appears that Benedict XVI is willing to play the long game and willing to understand the essential nature and the essential tensions within my Church.
I shall include him in my prayers.
Written by jay on July 17th, 2008 with no comments.
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“Relatives of 7/7 London bomber hold party at his grave”
Hang on: he got a grave? The UK actually shipped his body back to Pakistan for a “proper burial” and didn’t wrap it in bacon first? kathy
Garlic for vampires, dogs and pigs for Islamists: works like the wonderfully ancient charm it is. If you are fighting the 7th century you need to use 7th century tactics.
Written by jay on July 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral. topeka capital journal
Speed the Day!
Written by jay on April 6th, 2008 with 10 comments.
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Dawg has gone to some trouble to suggest that it isn’t Islam or the Koran which inspires terrorism - it’s the awful conditions of life many Muslims face. His head, metaphorically, has been handed to him. He does, however, note that it is a small minority of the world’s Muslims who are active terrorists and likely less than a majority who support those terrorists. I might quibble with that but I suspect the numbers are rather higher for today’s text:
The case of Mehdi Kazemi has been reported with a degree of sympathy by the liberal British media which, by and large, doesn’t like seeing people hanged. The BBC found itself in a bit of a bind because, while it wholly approves of sodomy, it approves of Islam too. Both are on its Category One list of stuff which deserves to be treated nicely in news reports. And so we were told that while Iran was a ‘conservative’ society which did indeed exhibit the occasional bout of homophobia, it wasn’t necessarily the case that Kazemi would be strung up as soon as he got back. If he pretended not to be gay, he’d probably be OK for a while. At other times we have been informed that Islam is a peaceable religion which has nothing at all against homosexuals, it’s just the macho, patriarchal culture which prevails in that part of the world. This little nugget of voluntary self-delusion is true only if you accept that Islam itself is a product of the macho, patriarchal culture in that part of the world. There are 57 member countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, of which 41 sign up to state persecution of homosexuals and ten put them to death. ron liddle, the spectator
And, well, yes, Fred Phelps and his tens of adherents and Jerry Falwell and the Pope are not too keen on homosexuals. However, and here is my point, so far as I am aware, no Western nation or mainstream Christian communion calls for their execution.
Here is the thing, Dawg, Christianity has come to terms with the Enlightenment. Some wings have embraced Enlightenment values, others have grudgingly accepted the reality of those values without actual embrace. Not so Islam.
So the question I have is whether mainstream, leave aside Wahhabi and Safal variants, Islam is capable of not killing homosexuals or advocating (to use the lefty coinage) for their deaths.
(Note: I have no problem at all with Imams, Pastors and Rabbis condemning homosexuality from their pulpits or in the letters pages of newspapers - they and their adherents have a perfect right to condemn whatever they believe to be sinful…it’s the killing which I want renounced.)
Written by jay on April 1st, 2008 with 14 comments.
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The flea posts that LiveLeak has improved its security and now has Fitna back on line.
Dr. Dawg has seen the movie and didn’t like the tie in between the Koran and the ongoing Islamic terrorism which Wilders’ film underscores. Dawg drags out the hoary idea that the Bible has blood curdling passages too, so there. Which explains all the headlines we see about Anglicans beheading the infidels and Biblically inspired Amish hostage takings. I don’t have time for a point refutation of Dawg and I doubt it is necessary - the best example he can come up with is Fred Phelps who, one must admit is pretty horrible and has a following which numbers in the tens none of whom, so far as I am aware, has crashed a jet into a building while singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
Written by jay on March 31st, 2008 with 16 comments.
Read more articles on Canadian Politics and International and Islam and Terror and blogging and culture and idiot lefties and media and religion.
Yo, Warren,
These are alarming developments which require some explanation. Some of it has to do with the resilience of anti-Semitism, to the way in which it is able to mutate, to take different forms and shapes over time, to adapt to changing circumstances by integrating new elements (such as a grossly disproportionate anti-Zionism, in which Israel and the Jews who support it, however critically, are singled out for special opprobrium) into an existing stock of “ideas” and rearticulating them in a new combination. Part of the problem here is the denial of many on the left that this is or indeed can be the case. Rather they insist that there is no connection at all between different bouts of anti-Semitism over time, as if each instance appears from nowhere and can only be explained as a product of specific factors at a particular moment. Philip J Spencer engage journal
Go read Spencer and then check out who your allies are. The Left’s anti Zionism fell over the edge into antisemitism a long time ago. Your real friends are over here on the free speech right. You won’t see any righties sponsoring Israel Apartheid weeks at te U of T. An event you seemed to have missed on your blog.
Written by jay on February 25th, 2008 with 6 comments.
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Publius writes at The Gods of the Copybook Headings:
I have, as far back as I can remember, opposed the ideas of multiculturalism. The notion that all cultures - and therefore all ideas and values - are equal is appalling. It is at best moral equivalence and at worst plain racism under an “enlightened” guise. I also don’t remember inviting any Muslims into Canada, I have invited some Portuguese relatives - any country could always do with more Portuguese people, especially Portugal which seems to have gone all Belgian in the last twenty years.
As for inviting Muslims, I wouldn’t mind doing that at all. In doing so I’d just remind them that they are living in Canada now, and if they’d like to stay they must be loyal to ours laws, our values and our Queen. There are over 200 countries in the world, we are objectively one of the best. If you are honest enough to understand and admit this, act accordingly. Like the old British official who promised to hang widow killers, we should stand ready to do the same. the gods of the copybook headings
When I wrote below of the need for an open, no holds barred, immigration debate in Canada this is exactly the sort of position I was hoping to hear. It is not my position as I am increasingly inclined to believe that sorting Muslims from Islamists is near impossible and that the perversion of Islam preached and practiced by Islamists is entirely incompatible with liberal, secular democracy; but Publius’ suggestion had the merit of presuming nothing.
Now, whether Canadian society can shuck off thirty or forty years of the multicultural delusion is a whole other story. But it is a story which needs to be openly debated.
h/t the flea who has a long and interesting post on one of my all time favorite Frank Herbert novels
Written by jay on February 24th, 2008 with 7 comments.
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I must confess that when Hamas militants blasted holes into Egypt’s border to end an Israeli blockade on Gaza, my first thought was how lucky those Gazans were. Landlocked and living on less than $2 a day—their plight rarely elicits envy, I know. But there are Egyptian slums that swim in more sewage and are submerged in even greater poverty. In those slums, chronic diseases go unchecked and uncured, and children grow up next to the dead in tombs turned into makeshift-housing.
Yet nobody rushes to blast holes into the imaginary border of poverty that suffocates those slums, nor are they sporting t-shirts urging us to sympathise. Why?
Because Israel cannot be blamed. two circles
I have no doubt that, if they work at it the pro-Pali people will manage to blame Israel for the squalid conditions in the Sinai. After all, didn’t the Israelis invade it in 1967? Forty years on the horrific scars of the Israelis still exact their terrible toll.
Yeah, right.
Written by jay on February 19th, 2008 with no comments.
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At least five more Anglican churches — three in British Columbia and two in Ontario — are likely to separate from the national Church over the divisive issue of same-sex blessings by the end of the month. Another four will also vote on similar motions this month. national post
The Anglican Church is a funny sort of organization. On the one hand it is a hierarchy with an area’s bishop holding an extraordinary amount of power, on the other, it is entirely dependent upon its lay members for support.
In British Columbia this is especially the case as the Church has not been around long enough to accumulate significant independent wealth at the diocesan level. It owns real estate but short of putting condos on Church sites there is very little capacity to realize on those assets. Which means, ultimately, that Bishop Michael Ingram is dependent upon his flock for his operating funds.
The issue of same sex marriage and blessing is hugely divisive within the Anglican Church in general and in the diocese of New Westminister specifically. Ingram is well out in front of the Church in his support for the blessing of same sex unions. And the clergy of the Church, many of who are, themselves, gay, are - while divided - well ahead of the People.
While a Bishop has a great deal of power that power can vanish if a sufficient number of congregations chose to leave. And that is what appears to be happening here.
Now I happen to agree with Bishop Michael’s position but I can certainly understand the position of the people who do not. And here is the rub, Bishop Michael takes his position, after years of consultation, very seriously. He has been willing to defy the rest of the Church and his fellow bishops who want a much slower approach. It is a principled position but it is also, as we are seeing, a corrosive one.
At a point, and that point is coming nearer, Bishop Michael will no longer enjoy the confidence of the People of his diocese. He can continue as Bishop in those circumstances - Bishops have tenure even a university professor would envy - but it would be an empty gesture.
Now, at the moment, the diocese is making threats about the confiscation of property and looking for loyalty oaths from its remaining clergy. This is bootless. If you kick a congregation out of a Church all you have is an empty Church.
If ever there was a time for compromise and a recognition that the more conservative views of Anglican doctrine need to be respected this is it. One way out of the dilemma would be to allow a purely local option on the blessing of same sex marriages. Another might be to reserve such blessing to a small number of churches where clergy and People are in favour. At the same time, the more robustly conservative clergy and congregations would have to accept the idea that there is room in the Anglican Communion for the blessing of same sex unions.
Unfortunately, this may all have reached the point of no return so long as Bishop Michael remains in place. Same sex marriage is the lightening rod for a good deal of conservative dissent withing his diocese and within the Anglican Church in general. The tone of the Church, with its unctuous embrace of anti global warming, anti-war, pro-multicult, pro-pc positions has gone a long way towards alienating the Faithful. Combine that with the sidelining of the Book of Common Prayer in favour of more inclusive texts and conservatives have fewer and fewer reasons to go to Church.
Lent can be and should be a time of reflection. Perhaps all of the parties to the dissolution of the Diocese of New Westminister might reflect upon both its proximate cause and the broader issues that cause represents.
Written by jay on February 17th, 2008 with 4 comments.
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