Matt Kennedy Added to ACNA Working Group

I am pleased to hear Fr. Matt Kennedy has been added to ACNA’s Working Group on Race, Racism, and Racial Reconciliation.

I had concerns about the balance of the group but kept them private because I did not know enough about the group members to have a public opinion.  I do know Matt well enough to know he will significantly improve the group’s balance.  And he is an excellent addition regardless.

Even before his appointment I have harbored some hope that the Working Group and the College of Bishops’ response to it would steer ACNA away from the influence of Critical Theory.  That hope is increased now.

Matt Kennedy Banned From Twitter

Many of my readers know Matt Kennedy as the Rector of Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in upstate New York. Along with his wife, the almost famous author and blogger Anne, he is adept at sarcasm and very dry humor. More importantly, he is both measured and straight-spoken in what he says and writes.

But that is not good enough for Twitter. He is banned and is likely to remain so.  I will let Fr. Matt tell the story from his Facebook account:

Well, I've been suspended from Twitter for 12 hours. Remember the man posing as a woman and trying to force poor immigrant women working in spas to give him a "brazillian wax" treatment. 

Yep, that . . . whatever again.  

He tweeted that he had been victimized by women refusing to touch his genitals and I wrote the following under his tweet: "@trustednerd You are a man pretending to be a woman trying to force real women to touch your testicles. It is perverse and sickening. It has nothing to do with love. But you can be forgiven if you will forsake yourself and turn to Jesus who bled and died for sinners. He can heal you." And so, now I am suspended. So fascinating to see "progressives" defend, angrily I might add, an attempt by a man to legally force women to touch his reproductive organs. Here's the note from Twitter: "We've temporarily limited some of your account features. We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules. Specifically, for violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."

It’s not Matt Kennedy who is doing the harassing.  And to his credit, he is not backing down.

Update 1: They said I could lift the ban by removing the tweet or by appealing. I will not remove the tweet. So I appealed the banning. Here's what I wrote. They only gave me a limited number of characters: "a Canadian man is trying to legally force women to touch his genitals. I objected to this. I have no idea why this violates twitter standards." 

Let's see what happens.

Update 2: Here's what happened: 

"Thank you for your patience as we reviewed your appeal request for account, @lambeth98, regarding the following:

Matt Kennedy
@lambeth98
'@trustednerd You are a man pretending to be a woman trying to force real women to touch your testicles. It is perverse and sickening. It has nothing to do with love. But you can be forgiven if you will forsake yourself and turn to Jesus who bled and died for sinners. He can heal you."

Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision.
You will not be able to access Twitter through your account due to violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically our rules around:
Violating our rules against hateful conduct

In order to restore account functionality, you can resolve the violations by logging into your account and completing the on-screen instructions."

Which are….

"By clicking the above button, you are removing the content of your Tweet and forgoing the option to appeal this violation. Please note that the original content will be replaced with a notice stating your Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules."

Now in case you do not already know that Fr. Matt is not one to back down, his conclusion is:

Yeah, no, that's not going to happen. 

I will update if anything new happens. But knowing Fr. Matt’s backbone and Twitter tyranny, I am not expecting any change.

The Kennedys Explain the CANA Situation

For those who find the CANA situation in ACNA and the Church of Nigeria perplexing, Matt and Anne Kennedy in their Preventing Grace podcast have the best explanation I’ve heard (beginning after around 8 minutes).

To rehash, the three CANA dioceses, by agreement between the Church of Nigeria and the Anglican Church in North America had to choose which of the two provinces to stay in.  CANA East chose ACNA and therefore changed their name, to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word.  CANA West and the Diocese of the Trinity will be staying in the Church of Nigeria.

Sadly, there has been some heat during this process.  But I will let the Kennedys discuss that.

CANA East Decides to Stay in ACNA, Change Name

Matt Kennedy, though his Sunday School class (which he usually has live on Facebook. I recommend it and sometimes listen as I get ready for church.), informs that the CANA East Synod voted overwhelmingly to stay in the Anglican Church in North America rather than to remain in the Church of Nigeria.

You may recall that the Church of Nigeria and ACNA earlier agreed that the three dioceses in both provinces would separately decide which province to remain in forthwith.  Kennedy expects the other two dioceses, Trinity and CANA West, to leave ACNA and stay with the Church of Nigeria.

Since CANA East will no long be in CANA, an arm of the Church of Nigeria, the diocese will change its name to the Diocese of the Living Word.

The Evil “Church” (TEC)

I am outraged this morning. No, I am not outraged over lesbian Mary Glasspool receiving consents to become a “bishop” in the Episcopal “Church”. That was predictable and passé already. *yawn*

What outrages me is that the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York sold the building that once belonged to the Church of the Good Shepherd . . . to Muslims. So here we have a “church” that sues the faithful out of their parish buildings and sells them to enemies of the faith.

So where do I stand on The Episcopal Church and on the Anglican Communion now?

Let me spell it for you.

A “church” that sues the faithful, praises murdering the unborn, aids the spread of Islam, and, while they are at it, makes “bishops” out of shameless perverts can go to Hell.

And I not only do I have no interest in going with them, I do not want to be in communion with any bishop who tolerates such evil in the church. Yes, that means I have no interest in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury as long as he is a dithering enabler of The Evil “Church”.

(UPDATE: Corrected two typos and added a link.)

Jesus and the Bible

I thought about titling this post “Brilliant Minds Think Alike.” For this morning, I’ve been working on a back-up sermon for my parish, a sermon for me to give in case my rector cannot preach. And in it I make the point that one cannot divorce Jesus from the Bible. To warm up to my point, I remember an episode from my Presbyterian Church of years ago:

One time I heard a preacher say, “We don’t believe the Bible; we believe the Christ behind the Bible.” Well, that preacher was wrong. And, by the way, I told her so after that service. Which wasn’t exactly appreciated. But, regardless, she was wrong. If you believe Jesus, then you believe the word that he believed in. One cannot call Jesus Lord and then in effect say Jesus was wrong to trust God’s word as authoritative, so we won’t believe God’s word as authoritative. But there are people who try to get away with this somehow.

In the draft sermon, I continue:

Beware of those who divorce Jesus and the Bible. The result is not the real Jesus, but a pet Jesus who reflects our inclinations rather than God’s. To the politically radical, a pet Jesus is radical; to hippies, a pet Jesus is a hippy; to surfers a pet Jesus is a surfer dude.

Now Jesus may have been radical; he may have had long hair; and he most certainly walked on water like surfers only dream of. But Jesus is much much more than that. Yet if we fall into the foolishness of divorcing him from God’s word, our Jesus will be as small and as distorted as our desires. Our Jesus will not be the real Jesus.

Well, just a few moments after working on those words, I see that Matt+ Kennedy has made a very similar point over at Stand Firm. If we are left to our own inclinations and perceptions, then . . .

One person's Jesus is meek and mild another person's Jesus is Almighty and King and Lord. One person's Jesus is all about non-violence and another's is making whips out of cords. One person's Jesus says that its okay never to go to church because worship takes place in the heart another person's Jesus says go to church every Sunday. There is the emergent Jesus, the inclusive Jesus, the social revolutionary Jesus, the peace and justice Jesus, the green Jesus, the gay Jesus, the straight Jesus the Republican Jesus the Democrat Jesus, the baby Jesus...name your politics, name your movement, name your preferences, name your passions and there is a Jesus for you.

The remedy?

But you don't have to stumble around and wonder, guess, speculate about who God is and what he is like. He speaks. He speaks to you and to everyone else directly and clearly. God has answered that question. When you read scripture, when you come face to face with God's own self-revelation, then you know who God is.

The point is clear. If you seek to know Jesus, to know God, then don’t rely on just your own perceptions. Seek to know His word.

And not just because Matt+ and I say so. ;)

Bishop Gladstone Adams, Vindictive Lowlife

If my good readers are in need of their daily bile, they may check out how TEC Bishop Gladstone Adams is being a vindictive lowlife against a rector who won’t kiss his feet . . . again.

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MORE: O.K. I have to say more. I know Matt+ Kennedy. He is a good gentle Christian man. He and his parish have bent over backwards to conduct themselves as Christians through this whole matter, even after they lost their buildings and even after a bequest which was clearly not intended for the Episcopal Church was handed over to greedy said “church” in a miscarriage of justice. Matt+ talks about this here. As is typical of him, he is far more gracious about this than I am.

And, yet, The Episcopal Church still won’t leave Matt+ and his parish alone, even after they are long gone.

The shameless evil of The Episcopal Church continues to astound.

Post-GAFCON Analysis

I’ve been eagerly reading analysis of GAFCON. So far, the best pieces I’ve come across are from:

Matt+ Kennedy

Fr. Kennedy notes that the See of Canterbury and heretical bishops have just been marginalized and face further marginalization.

Hills of the North

This is perhaps the best analysis I’ve read so far. He, too, notes well the marginalization of Rowan Williams and of Lambeth:

The Lambeth indaba groups now look even sillier than they did before. The whole Communion is unraveling, and the Archbishop and his American minders and financiers want Lambeth to be nothing more than 60s-style rap sessions. The format that he believed would keep the Communion together now seems poised to underscore his flaccid and ineffectual leadership at the very moment decisive action seems most important. And Lambeth as currently structured will against the GAFCON backdrop not merely appear as a waste of time--it will now be viewed as protecting the North Americans, something the Archbishop simply cannot afford at this point.

It looks increasingly like the best option for Rowan Williams now is simply to resign. He has been tried and found wanting . . .

Christopher Johnson

Mr. Johnson gives a kick in the pants to orthodox North American Anglicans. I particularly agree with his advice to “try the REC.” :)

Encouraging Words from GAFCON

In addition to Archbishop Nzimbi’s statement overnight, there are additional encouraging words from GAFCON. Matt+ Kennedy, a participant who, as noted here, was very concerned earlier in the week, reports this morning, “No one here, whether communion conservative or federal, wants the week to end with an innocuous communiqué and, I think, there is a very good chance that that danger has been averted.”

David Ould is not there, but is “hearing whispers from GAFCON that the final communiqué is going to be tougher than first envisioned. In particular . . . there's a groundswell of opinion amongst the delegates that a firmer line needs to be taken and communicated if the conference is to make a lasting difference.”

Keep praying.

GAFCON: Just Another Meeting?

That’s the question Matt+ Kennedy is asking today.

I completely agree that if it turns out to be just another meeting, it would be a great failure:

If this meeting turns out to be another meeting wherein we are told to wait and that no structural differentiation whatsoever is made; if we leave Jerusalem with a nagging statement to the effect that the Archbishop must “Do something” and that in the meantime we will “obey scripture” and “plant churches”; if we leave here having taught the ABC that we will never do anything more than meet and whine and make “important statements” then GAFCON will have been a dramatic failure. The Archbishop and his successors will know precisely how to deal with us. We will have shown that when pushed to the brink we will blink; that we do not have the will to act decisively; that GAFCON is a paper tiger, noisy but harmless.

Again, Matt+ is there at GAFCON. And he concedes, “there is some danger of that happening.”

And that is a matter for concern and prayer.

The Way Separations Should be Handled

Kudos to Trinity Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Central Florida for coming to a mediated agreement instead of suing each other. Bishop Howe is to be commended for refusing to follow the scorched earth policies of Presiding Heretic Schori.

One wonders how many more such civil agreements would have come about if it weren’t for pressure from Schori and her legal thug David Booth Beers. There’s little question the situation in Virginia and with Matt+ Kennedy’s Church of the Good Shepherd in New York were well on the way to agreement before Schori applied the pressure.

Again, kudos to the Diocese of Central Florida for having the backbone to be civil in what has become an uncivil denomination.