Issues for the Church

Dear Friends, welcome to "Tellout", the website about evangelism and antique photography. My hope as you wander these pages is that you will find here teacher resources and interesting antique photos from Hi-Vu Magic Lantern Slides. You may be a history buff and find the origins of Christianity in the "Household of Faith" section fascinating. As a Bible student you may wish to explore the online Bible study of the Household of Faith in both the Old and New Testaments. You may want to dig into questions arising from archaeological findings at the so called "Jesus Tomb." Whatever your interest, there is something here for you.

Issues for the Church of God

You will find the Church as the Body of Christ in The Mystical Body study of interest. A Good Read. Enjoy the story of a modern itinerant evangelist in "Glory" or re-examine your own faith in "Journey." My greatest desire is that you should discover the wonder in allowing ordinary people like you and me to know a personal Jesus in our hearts. Jesus is still the greatest discovery that any of us can make. May this treasure become yours. God bless you!

Order of Canada

The highest civilian honour in this country is the Order of Canada. It is awarded every year to leading citizens and extra ordinary people for outstanding service to the nation. Captain Ray Taylor, the late Director of the Church Army in Canada, received it for fifty years service to the poor, the lost and the unloved. This was most deserving.

This last week, the country was shocked when Henry Mergentaler, aged 85, the initiator of Abortion Clinics around the world, was named to the Order of Canada. What a sad reflection on our times that the Governor General, appointed by Her Majesty the Queen, should be persuaded to do such a thing. A man who came out of a Nazi Concentration Camp has himself "encouraged a culture of death and has thus attacked the most vulnerable, the unborn" (the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edmonton, The Most Rev. Richard Smith).

One of the qualifications for the award is that the recipient should not have a criminal record, yet the authorities have chosen to ignore the 10 month term of imprisonment Henry Morgantaler served in prison for committing illegal abortions.

Canadian Flag Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada says, "Dr Morgantaler upholds the Canadian values of democracy, human rights, equality of women." If this is were so, and it certainly is not, and we continue in this direction then there will surely be no democracy, no human rights and eventually no equality for women in Canada. Were we not all foetuses at one time, whether men or women? Does an unborn child have no rights? To its shame, Canada to this day does not have any legal limitation on abortions and a pregnancy can be terminated up to the ninth month, although Dr Morgantaler's Clinic only performs abortions, so he says, from "seven weeks up to approximately 19 weeks of gestation" (Morgantaler Website).

Dr Morgantaler does not have the qualities required to be a recipient of the Order of Canada. Every other person who has received this order is tarred with this brush and shamed by this decision. Will others give up their Order of Canada honours because of this bad decision?

Man with Balloons and Children As an Anglican minister, I think of the Early Church Christians in Rome picking up unwanted babies, mostly girls, who had been purposely left out for the wild animals at night and taking them into their own homes. I think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters collecting the dying from the streets and giving them a decent home where they could end their days. I think of Jesus embracing the children and telling us, "Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19.14) Later, "He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me ..." (Mark 9.36-37a).

I therefore hope, with all my heart, that the Governor General changes her mind and gives the award to someone more deserving than Dr Morgantaler. It's not how much we do with our lives but what we do with them that really matters. If Canada keeps going in this direction, we will indeed become one of the most morally destitute, criminally driven and uncaring peoples in the World. So much for democracy, human rights and equality of women.

That's what I think anyway.

Old Friends New Ways

A colleague and Rector of our church in Peterborough, The Ven. Gordon Finney and his wife Adele today celebrated 30 years since being made Deacon and 10 years at our church, St John the Evangelist in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. For those who don't know the churchy language, The Ven (or The Venerable) is the proper title for an Archdeacon, in this case The Archdeacon of Trent-Durham in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto. Anyway Gordon is 30 years in ministry. I too have passed this mark recently, but I couldn't help but think how things have changed and how they have stayed the same in all that time. In England in the 1970's, we were contending with a senior Church of England Bishop asserting that "God is Dead". Many people believed him. Today we contend with a different problem, what to do about homosexuality in the church. Both old and new problems hang on the belief in or disbelief in the Word of God, the Bible. What to do in such a situation? We can stick our heads in the sand. We can break away and form a new splinter church. We can stick it out and keep on asserting the truth as we see it.

Fisherman An old Church Army friend used to say that "the old church ain't perfect, but its still the best boat to fish from." I tend to agree as a cradle Anglican. We need to keep on keeping on.

I was reading a little booklet called "The Audacity to Live" written about Wilson Carlile, the founder of The Church Army. He was the 9th Curate in his Parish, but he had a love for the lost of his day, so he went out asking working men and women about their Faith and getting them to stand up and speak about it to other people. He believed in conversion as I have allways done, but that was not the case in the Church of England of his day. "At the Church Congress at Reading in 1884, Wilson Carlile was literally howled down by an ecclesiastical audience for venturing to plead for a place in the Church system in which the enthusiasm of working men and women could be used in the work of winning the world." ("Audacity to Live" page 22). Wilson Carlile insisted on three things,- the reality of conversion, consecration of heart and life, and a loyal intelligent Churchmanship.

Those of us in the Anglican Church of Canada and all other Christian leaders need to re-assert these great truths today. Let the evangelicals in the Anglican Communion call for conversion, consecration and loyal intelligent churchmanship. Let the Anglo-Catholic, Charismatic, and Liberal in our church do the same. Let the Baptists, Brethren and Pentecostals do the same in their denominations too. Then God may give us revival again!

"Lifting up Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Transformer of human lives"

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