Magic Statistics

Human rights advocates are expressing increasing frustration with the UN’s Human Rights Council, set up a year ago to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission.  Although created in hopes of more even-handed behaviour, the council has been prevented by African and Muslim nations from considering Sudan’s actions in Darfur.

But member countries from Africa and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an association of 57 states promoting Muslim solidarity, have dashed those hopes by voting as a bloc to stymie Western efforts to direct serious attention to situations like the killings, rapes and pillage in Sudan's Darfur region, which the United Nations has declared the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Council members did find one nation they could agree to denounce—repeatedly.  Guess which one.

Instead, the council has focused its condemnation almost exclusively on Israel. It has passed eight resolutions against Israel, and has cited no other country for human rights violations.
. . .
"It spent the entire year slamming Israel," [US Undersecretary of State for political affairs Nicholas] Burns told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. He noted that the council had conducted formal hearings against Israel "but not against Burma and not against Zimbabwe and not against North Korea and not against Iran."

As if the council’s credibility has not been damaged enough already, members are circulating a proposal to lay off many of its experts who monitor and report abuses in individual nations.  The proposal specifically endorses maintaining the mission monitoring the Palestinian territories, however.

h/t: Big News Network.com - Breaking Religious News

Previous related posts:

• UN Human Rights Council votes against identifying rights-abusing nations
• New UN human rights body “more contemptible than its predecessor”
• UN guilty of “unethical and corrupt behaviour”

That’s Ted Byfield’s take on the media-supported crusade by Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster, to discard traditional Christian sexual ethics and legitimise same-sex blessings in the Anglican Church of Canada.  Mr Byfield cuts right through Bp Ingham’s claim that modern science has discovered facts about homosexuality of which the biblical writers were ignorant.

Did the early Christians not know that some people had a sexual desire for persons of the same sex?

As a matter of fact, they knew all about it, because many of them lived in a society that fully approved of it. Did they not know about sex outside marriage? They did indeed. Did they not know about abortion? They certainly did and the people around them widely practised it. So what are the sexual things that we know and they didn't know?

The answer is we know nothing they didn't know. Then why should the church change its teaching?

Though the bishop doesn't say, we know his real reason. It's because society itself has changed.

Society has reverted to the sexual standards of the pagan world, and the bishop wants the church to revert along with it. The church must adopt new attitudes towards sex, he says, by which he means the old pagan attitudes.
. . .
How different were the bishops who actually converted the pagan world. They saw the church as setting an example for the world to follow.

Bishop Ingham sees the world as setting an example for the church to follow. Small wonder the world shows so little interest in such a church.

Got that right!  Yet, the ACC doesn’t seem to care.  It’s been well over a year since the McKerracher Report Presentation detailing precipitous declines in ACC membership became public knowledge, and the church has done practically nothing.  Budget cuts have been discussed, but initiatives to counteract the downward trend do not appear to be on the radar.

I don’t agree with everything that Mr Byfield said, however.  He is a knowledgeable and usually astute observer of religious affairs, so I was surprised at this comment.

The Canadian Anglican church is to decide the issue in June.

If the church rejects gay marriage, Ingham will no doubt be expected to recant or resign.

I cannot see either of those happening.  The ACC rarely “expects” a bishop to “resign”, and Michael Ingham will not quit.  Moreover, his revisionist view has a solid group of supporters who, if past experience is any guide, simply will not take “no” for an answer.  If the ACC fails to accept his position at this June’s General Synod, he and his followers will come back again and again for as long as it takes to wear the church down.

That’s the liberal modus operandi: “No” really means “The process of listening and dialogue will continue”, while “Yes” means “The issue has been decided in our favour, so debate is now closed—forever.  It’s time to move on to more important problems.”

Previous related posts:

• Globe and Mail regurgitates Ingham’s speech
• Bishop Ingham reveals in-depth theological knowledge
• Anglican Church of Canada: Fewer members, less giving, more bishops

This morning’s post-Communion hymn at St Timothy’s Anglican Church, Diocese of Edmonton. (Hymn #431 in the Anglican Church of Canada's hymn book, Common Praise.)

Take up thy cross, the Savior said,
if thou wouldst my disciple be;
deny thyself, the world forsake,
and humbly follow after me.

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
his strength shall bear thy spirit up,
and brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.

Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
nor let thy foolish pride rebel;
thy Lord for thee the cross endured,
to save thy soul from death and hell.

Take up thy cross then in his strength,
and calmly sin's wild deluge brave,
'twill guide thee to a better home,
it points to glory o'er the grave.

Take up thy cross and follow Christ,
nor think til death to lay it down;
for only those who bear the cross
may hope to wear the glorious crown.

To thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
all praise forevermore ascend:
O grant us in our home to see
the heavenly life that knows no end.

Words: Charles William Everest, 1833
Music: Breslau

Charles William Everest (1814-1877) was an American poet and priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church.  He served as rector at Hamden, Connecticut, for thirty-one years, and taught in the rectory school there.

(The Anglican Church of Canada’s hymn book has modernised the words by changing “thy” to “your”, etc.)

This morning, the StatDaughter and I dropped in at St Timothy’s, Edmonton, where The Rev Joseph Walker became rector a few months ago.  We were very warmly welcomed, and it was great to see Joe again.  He preached an excellent sermon based on the gospel reading from St Luke.  His topic was an especially appropriate one for this season of Lent—repentance.

Joe runs the fine blog felix hominum, but that doesn’t seem to be general knowledge in the congregation.  At coffee time after the service, I spoke to a parishioner who was quite surprised to find out that his rector is also a blogger.

I was in town because I have to go to Ottawa on a business trip and decided to spend the weekend in Edmonton on my way to the centre of the universe the nation’s capital.

Previous related post: Two Anglican bloggers plot meet together

The collect for today, the Third Sunday in Lent, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants; and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:1-14
The Gospel: St Luke 11:14-28