100 years ago--Canadian Anglicans envision new social order

The social gospel which replaced the true gospel in the mainline churches was already at work in the Church of England in Canada (now the Anglican Church of Canada) a century ago, with man bringing in the kingdom of God. Even with that liberalism, you'll notice that their views on immigration would bring instant condemnation today. There were no women clergy then, of course, and alphabet perverts were in the closet instead of the pulpit. As reported in the Calgary Daily Herald, September 17, 1923, p. 10 (bold, headlines in original):

ANGLICANS GIVEN VISION OF NEW SOCIAL REGIME

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Canon Vernon Presents His Report As Secretary To Big Congress

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NOT REVOLUTION, BUT AN ORDERLY PROCESS

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Immigration Issue to Be Fully Discussed by Church Heads

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The vision of a new social order was outlined at the opening session of the boards of the general Synod of the Church of England in Canada, which for the next ten days will be held in the Paget Hall. Practically the whole of the morning, after routine had been transacted, was taken up with the consideration of the report of the general secretary of the council of social service, the Rev. Canon C.W. Vernon.

He stated that in the new vision the value of personality would be applied at all costs in the realms of business, industry, politics and the social order generally, in which the sacrificial service for others would become the normal characteristic of the professing Christian, and the distinguishing mark of the true Christian.

Not Violence of Revolution

That social order, he said, was not to be developed by the violence of revolution, but by the orderly progress of an evolution ever tending upward and onward. There was no short cut to the realization of that ideal. Love alone, not force, could build the city of God. The new social order, he said, would never be consummated by the establishment of a reign of law enforced by penalties whether legalized or of the Ku Klux Klan variety. The new order would be a kingdom of love, expressing itself in service, a commonwealth of God, in which every laborer, whether with brain or hand, would have the artist's joy of achievement, in which each would seek the good of all, and all would spend themselves in service for otehrs.

The Immigration Issue

The question of immigration was also dealt with at considerable length in the report, and this will be fully discussed at a later period. In connection with that phase the report pointed out that the council had no more important work than in looking after the newcomer. They were witnessing the building of a nation and a church by the process of immigration. They were naturally anxious that the best of their British traditions, and the ideals of the Church of England, should shape and fashion the life of the Canadian nation within the British commonwealth. There was much to encourage them. The census figures of 1921 published in the spring showed that in the last decade the percentage of people of British racial origin in Canada increased from 54.08 in 1911 to 55.40 in 1921. The percentage of Anglicans in Canada, which was 12.6 in 1901, and 14.47 in 1911, had risen to 16.02 in 1921.

Emigration to States

While immigration to Canada was a bright and interesting side of the picture, unfortunately there was another factor to be considered, and that was the large emigration from Canada to the United States of native-born Canadians and of comparatively recent newcomers from the mother land. They must build up their own economic and social life so efficiently that all would be convinced that there was no country with greater prospects, more opportunities for service and more attraction as a place to spend one's life than Canada.

Helping British Harvesters

Incidentally Canon Vernon stated that much good work had been accomplished in connection with the large number of British harvesters that had arrived in the Dominion. Each of these had been presented with a card on landing at Quebec or Halifax, that if any of them found themselves "up against it" they should write to the headquarters of the Social Service Council.

In commencing his report Canon Vernon stated that were two widely prevalent but mistaken ideas met with in connection with social service. One was that it was for the poor alone; the other that the church's social ministry was badly needed in the overcrowded centres of population, but had no place in their rural districts. "It cannot be too emphatically asserted," he said, "that the church's social ministry is for the rich, among whom very often the under-privileged and maladjusted are to be found, as well as for those poor in the world's goods, and that our rural districts have to the full as many social problems as our cities and towns. It is because of this universal need of social service that the value of the church in coping with the need should be recognized more than is often the case."

There was a very full attendance of high Anglican church dignitaries present when the initial session opened on Monday morning. The Very Rev. C.P. Matheson, Primate of all Canada, presided.

Altogether there are more than 120 archbishops, bishops, clergy and laity in attendance. It is the first time that this important gathering has been held in the west. At all Anglican churches in the city on Sunday, special sermons were delivered, the primate preaching at the Pro-Cathedral in the morning, and the Bishop of Huron in the evening.

The boards meeting here represent the Missionary Society, Religious Education, and Social Service. The last mentioned was the subject which engaged attention at the opening of proceedings on Monday. One of the chief features of this was the question of immigration.

A public meeting will be held in the Paget Hall at 8 o'clock on Monday, under the auspices of the council of Social Service. The speakers will be the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Ottawa, whose subject will be "Christianity and the Public Conscience," and the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Saskatchewan, who will talk on "Immigration."

Sufi conference in Morocco highlights global citizenship

I'm not a fan of The Unz Review; I don't share or endorse the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias expressed by many of its columnists. However, it does sometimes publish interesting items, such as the following by Kevin Barrett, a convert to Islam, originally on Substack, on September 28, 2023 (bold, link in original):

Since I came to Islam in 1993, I have attended plenty of Sufi get-togethers, both here in Morocco and back in the USA. They are generally modest affairs (except for the food, which can be pretty lavish). Typically a couple of dozen people at most gather in a circle if it’s a mosque, or a rectangle if it’s a Moroccan sala, to perform dhikr, a kind of chanting, swaying group meditation. After an hour or two of dhikr, sometimes including an exhortation or discussion led by the shaykh, a communal meal is enjoyed. And I do mean communal—people reach in to eat off the same plate and drink out of the same glass.

I spent the day yesterday at a very different kind of Sufi gathering: a big academic-style conference sponsored by corporations, NGOs, and presumably the Moroccan government. Entitled “Sufism: Religious and Civic Values for Global Citizenship,” it was hosted by the Boutchichiyya Zawiya in Madargh, Morocco, and coordinated with the Mawlid an-Nabi (the Prophet’s birthday, celebrated today).

Sufism, often defined as “Islamic mysticism,” has had a long, ambivalent relationship with institutional forces and with power in general. Organized into tariqas or brotherhoods, some Sufis have supported rulers, others have opposed them, while the majority have oscillated between offering friendly and critical feedback. Today, some politically-engaged Muslims view Sufism negatively because, they say, it promotes quietism and navel-gazing rather than engagement with the formidable challenges facing the community. But historically, that’s just not true. Sufis have generally been about as activist (or not-so-activist) as anyone else.

Personally, my “truth jihadi” activism is inspired in part by Moroccan malamati Sufism. The malamatis (“people of blame”) don’t mind being vilified, because they don’t care about anyone’s opinion but God’s. The Moroccan malamatis have traditionally specialized in speaking truth to power, often in shocking ways. Middle Eastern malamatis, by contrast, traditionally did stupid things like filling wine bottles with water and chugging from them in the mosque to give the false impression that they’re obnoxious drunkards. (Since the last of the Middle Eastern malamatis got chased out of town a long time ago, you’re unlikely to see any on your next trip to Baghdad or Damascus.)...

...The serious business of the conference involved the notion of global citizenship (citoyenneté globale). In French and English, that sounds a bit like your status under the forthcoming world government being set up by the likes of George Soros and Klaus Schwab. But the Arabic phrase, موطنة شاملة, has rather different connotations. The word for citizenship, موطنة, stems from the notion of وطن (national homeland) and might be translated as “national homeland-belonging.” And the word شاملة means “inclusive” or “comprehensive.” So موطنة شاملة (an inclusive/comprehensive homeland-belonging) sounds, to my ears at least, markedly different from citoyenneté globale. While on one level the conference slogan could mean moving toward “world citizenship,” on another it can imply moving toward an even stronger attachment to national homelands than exists today.

Various Moroccan speakers at the conference, including Dr. Larbi Taouaf of Mohammad 1 University in Oujda, made it clear that one of the references of “national homeland-belonging” was to Morocco’s unique version of national-unity-in-diversity. Morocco, Dr. Taouaf explained, has spent many centuries forging an inclusive national identity bringing together a great many languages and ethnicities. The unifying factor, he suggested, is Islamic religious and spiritual values (which of course promote coexistence and dialogue with other faiths). By contrast, the postcolonial West’s experience of promoting secular-based “diversity” and “multiculturalism” and “pluralism” has only existed for a few decades and doesn’t seem to be working out very well.

Morocco’s approach, Dr. Taouaf said, differs from today’s Western liberalism in that it is “against identity politics in the public sphere.” In other words, Moroccans and their government don’t much care what you do or say in private, but have no compunction about placing limits on your ability to become a public nuisance. (When an American speaker apostrophizing “tolerance” ill-advisedly brought up the fraught issues of gender and sexuality, the next speaker, a Moroccan, subtly but pointedly rebuked him by citing the famous Qur’anic dictate to “command good and forbid evil.”)

It seems to me that rather than asking their hosts whether Morocco is liberal and democratic enough, Western visitors should ask themselves: Is identity-politics-based liberal democracy really the best way to run a country? Case in point: Today’s Washington Post features three excellent articles on how liberalism (say anything you want on social media, including incitements to violence) plus democracy (whoever riles up the voters the most wins) plus identity politics (Hindu fascism) is producing hell-on-earth in Modi’s godforsaken India...

...Meanwhile, back at the conference: How can Sufism, rather than “liberal democracy,” promote good citizenship around the world? I would answer that question by arguing that the mystical dimension of religion, rather than the exoteric and especially the identity politics dimension, is what inspires devotion to the good, the true, and the beautiful, thereby inspiring good behavior. If Hindus in India, for example, spent more time meditating on the Upanishads, and less time lynching Muslims and Christians (and voting and campaigning for people who promote the lynchings) they would be both better mystics and better citizens.

People are more likely to follow rules of good behavior if they can directly sense, intuit, or even know that there is a divine Reality behind those rules. Mysticism teaches direct encounters with the Reality at the heart of religion.

Just as mysticism promotes globalism, it also promotes universalism; those who so-called contemplative spirituality, for instance, come across people from other religions who report similar experiences, leading to the conclusion that the experiences must be coming from the same source--which is why it's dangerous to rely on the shifting sand of subjective experience rather than on the solid, unchanging truth of the Bible. This mysticism is contributing to the deception characteristic of the end times prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

More evidence of apostasy in the Church of England

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

As reported by Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian, July 29, 2023:

A Cornish church that banned women from applying to be its new vicar – despite once counting Dawn French, star of the TV comedy The Vicar of Dibley, among its flock – has reversed the decision under new management.

A newly elected governing council at St Fimbarrus church in the picturesque port of Fowey in Cornwall has told parishioners that a “new season” has begun.

In a statement, the parochial church council (PCC) said the previous regime’s decision to advertise for a male priest to fill its four-year-old vacancy was “misguided and unrepresentative” of the parish and the town.

The decision had been taken without consultation and many people in the parish expressed a “strong desire for change”.

The new PCC wanted the church “to be accessible to all … The PCC has voted unanimously to rescind the previous PCC’s resolution requiring male leadership … We are keen to recruit the best candidate to meet the needs of Fowey parish church, regardless of gender.”

Merisa MacInnes, a member of the PCC, said: “We are encouraged that numbers in the congregation have doubled in recent weeks and we are confident that the right person to be vicar will come forward in the coming months.”

In March, the previous PCC defended its decision to ban female applicants for the vacancy, insisting it was “not sexist”.

It said: “As an evangelical church we look to the Bible for all matters of faith. The Bible is very clear on equality – all are equal …. There is, however, debate over the roles women play within the church.”

It understood that its desire for a male priest-in-charge “can be difficult to understand looking from the outside into the church, but [we] would robustly defend that this position is not sexist, is widely established in the worldwide church, and accommodates all views in the membership of our church without exclusion”.

Andy Virr, the previous chair of the PCC and a local Conservative councillor, and two other PCC members stood down in May amid objections to the stance.

Under exemptions from the Equality Act, the Church of England permits local churches to reject female lead priests and the oversight of a female bishop.

Martine Oborne, the chair of Women and the Church (Watch), an organisation that campaigns for equality in the C of E, and a vicar in west London, said the Fowey decision was good news.

She added: “I think it’s time for church members to assert themselves and not defer to clergy who seek to limit women’s roles in the church.”

Fowey was not unique, she said. Some churches had taken decisions to reject female priests without proper consultation or transparency.

The fight for equality was not over despite 30 years having passed since women were allowed to become priests in the C of E.

“I think personally it’s time for the C of E to find a generous way to bring the arrangements that allow churches to go on limiting or not recognising women’s ministries to an end,” she said.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:24-32

As reported by Alexandra Topping in The Guardian, August 30, 2023 (links in original):

Most Church of England priests want the C of E to allow same-sex weddings and to drop its opposition to premarital and gay sex, according to a survey.

In a major shift in attitudes over the past decade, a survey of priests in England conducted by the Times found that more than half supported a change in law to allow clergy to conduct the marriage of gay couples, with 53.4% in favour compared with 36.5% against.

The last time Anglican priests in England were asked, in 2014, shortly after the legalisation of same-sex civil marriage, 51% said same-sex marriage was “wrong”, compared with 39% who approved.

Last year a row erupted at the first Lambeth conference (a meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world) in 14 years, with the archbishop of Canterbury faced sharp criticism for affirming a 1998 declaration that gay sex was a sin.

But the new poll found that 64.5% of priests in England backed an end to the teaching that “homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture”. It also found that 27.3% of priests supported an end to any celibacy requirement for gay people, while 37.2% said they were willing to accept sex between gay people in “committed” relationships such as civil partnerships or marriages, and around a third (29.7%) said the teaching should not change.

Andrew Foreshew-Cain, founder of the Campaign for Equal Marriage in the Church of England, said the survey showed there was “no excuse for further delay and equivocation” in welcoming gay people into the church.

“The clergy of the Church of England are kinder, more generous, and more welcoming towards LGBTI people than the current official position allows,” he said. “The C of E, and in particular our bishops, needs to stop wringing its hands over gay people and move forward towards blessings and, in time, to celebrating same-sex marriages in our parishes.”

The survey results were encouraging, said Robbie de Santos, director of communications at Stonewall. “We hope that church leaders reflect on these findings,” he said. “Too often, LGBTQ+ people of faith face discrimination and prejudice simply for being themselves.”

The survey also found that three-quarters of respondents thought Britain could no longer be described as a Christian country. Almost two-thirds (64.2%) said Britain could be called Christian “but only historically, not currently”.

In the 2021 census of England and Wales for the first time fewer than half of the population described themselves as Christian.

The Times poll found that two-thirds of priests in England thought attempts to stop the drop in church attendance would fail, with only 10.1% thinking it would be halted, and 10.5% believing that congregations would grow again. Average attendance for Church of England Sunday services in 2021 was 509,000, down from 1.2m in 1986.