Latest news with #Anglican
Daily Maverick
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
In the name of God — time to act and protect followers from ‘holy men' who weaponise religion
Two things have become apparent while researching this depressing and sadly not-so-shocking Two by Twos church scandal. It is neither the scope nor how long it has been allowed to continue and been covered up, nor the lifelong scars this has left on thousands upon thousands of victims and survivors. These are a special class of survivors – those of religious predation and abuse; individuals whose very spiritual core has been shattered and wounded by the entitlements of male church hierarchies claiming a perverse power and hold over the souls of those they 'save' in the name of God. The words we use The first is that the word 'pornography' does not describe the scourge of child torture, sexual assault and rape that takes place. Most often this is filmed and photographed, and distributed among networks. Pornography is for adult consumption. This is something much darker and depraved. We should insist on calling it what it is. Second, surely it is time for the recommendations of the 2017 Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Rights Commission report into the Commercialisation of Religion and Abuse of People's Belief Systems to be acted upon. The commission's recommendations to amend existing legislation to protect congregants and believers, and for religious organisations to register with the government, was resisted by the religious establishment. Eight years later, in April this year, the commission announced that a Section 22 Committee led by Professor Musa Xulu will work towards the establishment of a peer review council to protect congregants from harm. There is enough evidence – and it mounts daily – that religion is being weaponised by self-appointed prophets and preachers in positions of 'leadership' to exploit 'followers'. This greed is performed for either financial gain or political power or perverse sexual enjoyment. Sometimes it's all three. The Two by Twos pustule that burst globally in 2022 is just one scandal among many. From deviants in the Catholic and Anglican churches, to the Pentecostal pastors who force congregations to eat grass or touch their genitals during a 'service', many have dark secrets to hide. The victims are, in every single instance, women and children, boys and girls, who are rendered powerless by religious dogma and scriptures set in stone. In the eyes of these 'holy men', those in the flock lower down in the hierarchy are biblically sanctioned possessions. Apart from registering as tax-free institutions, a matter of debate when it comes to mega-millions mega-churches selling tax-free holy water and underpants, what other controls exist? What prevents anyone from declaring they are their own Personal Jesus? As did the notorious South African paedophile Gert van Rooyen (alongside his partner Joey Haaroff), who is believed to have kidnapped and murdered six young girls in South Africa between 1988 and 1989, before shooting Joey and himself as the police closed in on him. Pieter van Zyl details in his book Gert and Joey, how Van Rooyen converted to Christianity while in jail for the rape of two 12-year-old girls and, upon his release, established a congregation that he led. Van Rooyen operated in the apartheid era, but people like him thrive under the cloak of religious protection today because we live in a secular society where freedom of religion is guaranteed and is a constitutional right. Surely then the Constitution should protect citizens from horrific and criminal exploitation when it occurs in this realm? 'Established' religious institutions in South Africa are allowed a high degree of autonomy and are not subject to government control. That is democracy. As Public Benefit Organisations, there is no need for religious organisations to pay tax, and that is it. What then to do with the criminals who hide behind the Bible and religious garb? What checks and balances exist to stop such horrific accounts of abuse, over years and generations, leaving broken lives? Leon van Niekerk, the Two by Twos member who reported abuse to the South African Police Service, shows us how we can use the Constitution to put the fear of the law into abusers of all shapes and sizes. He understood his constitutional duty to report abuse, and he did it. Whether the system works, we have yet to find out. DM
Hamilton Spectator
18 hours ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
New report suggests opening churches to the masses as attendance dwindles
When Rev. Kevin George first arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral, congregants accused him of coming to rip out the pews. 'I was like, 'OK, everybody take a breath. I don't have my chainsaw with me,'' he said Friday, a day after welcoming the public into the newly renovated building in downtown London, Ont. It's been 18 months since he started working at the church, and the pews are indeed gone. After much prayer and consideration, the change came with the blessing of the congregation. George is leading the adaptive redevelopment of St. Paul's in an effort to keep the Anglican church building alive in a model not unlike the one endorsed by a new report from the Canadian Urban Institute. It argues churches must change their approach to managing their buildings because declining attendance is putting their longevity at risk. The institute fears the loss of physical buildings could spell the end for the churches' civic function. The non-profit's report says that in addition to their spiritual role, church buildings have long been places where people go for social services, from food pantries to foot clinics and charity bingo to child care. It was that same argument that got members of St. Paul's onside, George said. They asked themselves, 'What are we doing with the space and what does that space do for us to allow us to be the church that we need to be today, tomorrow and for generations to come?' George recalled. 'And when we did that work, the barriers began to fall.' Without the pews, which seated 700, the space can be used in any manner of ways — as a concert venue, a conference hall, and, of course, a space for worship. The renovations, which also included making the space wheelchair accessible and installing much-needed air conditioning, have cost $1.9 million. The congregation and Anglican Diocese of Huron have together raised $1.1 million, and they're now looking to external sources to cover the balance. They're hoping some funds could come from the City of London, which has endorsed the space as a new creative hub. The church will also expand its civic role, George said. 'When I moved downtown in January of 2024, one of the overwhelming narratives about St. Paul's was, 'I can never get in there. The doors are locked,'' he said. 'Well, that's changed dramatically and will continue to change because our attitude now is 'doors open.'' If churches don't adapt, CUI President Mary Rowe said, they face two major threats: development and decay. 'As urban environments kinds of civic spaces that provide this kind of opportunity for informal, casual social interaction, they get encroached upon because the market pressure is such that that building starts to become more desirable for high-end housing,' Rowe said. 'And in small communities where there may not be the same kind of pressure for real estate development, there's no money or resources to shore up the civic functions of these places.' The report contends church spaces, which for decades have benefited from tax exemptions, have a duty to continue offering civic services. But a 2019 study by the National Trust for Canada predicted that one-third of Canada's 27,000 faith buildings, most of which are Christian, would likely close permanently in the next 10 years. 'What we need are new models that get new resources into these places so that you can actually evolve in a way that serves the community around it,' Rowe said. The report attempts to 'unravel the Gordian knot' of how at-risk, faith-built assets like churches should be managed going forward. That's a question Rev. Graham Singh has spent more than a decade working to answer. He's the senior pastor at St. Jax Church in Montreal and CEO of the charity Releven, which works to preserve and repurpose underused churches. St. Jax, formerly called St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, is a sort of prototype for the Releven model. The grand cathedral on Rue Sainte-Catherine ceased operations in 2015. It was in disrepair and maintenance was extremely expensive because of its heritage designation. It reopened the following year under the new name. 'A challenge is the building itself,' Singh said. 'Raising money to repair the roof, which is this heritage-listed slate roof that has to be repaired with like-for-like materials. And then the same thing with the masonry, which is a very expensive 150-year-old stone construction.' But now, the building is home to four separate congregations and a non-religious non-profit, which will soon handle management of the building. Secular tenants of St. Jax include organizations that work in refugee resettlement, food security and youth employment. Meanwhile, the City of Montreal is in the final stages of a process to acquire the green space outside St. Jax with the goal of turning it into a park. Singh also knows about the complexity of working with the municipal government. In order to make all the changes to how the St. Jax building operates, his organization had to prove they had the historic right to change the site's purpose and use. That heritage impact assessment has become part of the Ville-Marie Pilot Project, which opens the door for other churches in the city to share their space with non-religious groups, he said. 'The city has indeed been updating their zoning and urban planning framework to allow more of that to be happening in other locations in the future,' Singh said. Through Releven, he's taking that experience and helping other churches leverage it. The CUI report found one of the barriers for churches looking to change their business model is a lack of knowledge on the part of local leadership. 'There's very few examples of a congregation or a diocese or an owner of a faith building that have been able to do it by themselves because of the complexity of these buildings and the regulatory environment,' said Jennifer Barrett, managing director of programs, planning and policy at CUI. Some churches have partnered with real estate developers. Among them is All Saints' Anglican Church in Winnipeg, whose lands are now home to West Broadway Commons, a 110-unit housing project. Fifty-six of those units are affordable. But in many cases, Barrett said, churches are resistant to that sort of change and fearful of giving up control. 'It is challenging for faith communities to let go of their buildings,' she said. George said that was true for the congregation at St. Paul's. Ultimately, they decided that they should retain ownership of the property. 'We would have become sort of a tenant in our own space, and the Diocesan structure of the Anglican Church doesn't work well for that,' George said. 'We're working on what we believe will be a public-private partnership to administer this going forward because we know we're going to get very busy. I mean, we've only just moved in yesterday, and we're already receiving calls. There's a demand here for a space like this.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
18 hours ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
New report suggests opening churches to the masses as attendance dwindles
When Rev. Kevin George first arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral, congregants accused him of coming to rip out the pews. 'I was like, 'OK, everybody take a breath. I don't have my chainsaw with me,'' he said Friday, a day after welcoming the public into the newly renovated building in downtown London, Ont. It's been 18 months since he started working at the church, and the pews are indeed gone. After much prayer and consideration, the change came with the blessing of the congregation. George is leading the adaptive redevelopment of St. Paul's in an effort to keep the Anglican church building alive in a model not unlike the one endorsed by a new report from the Canadian Urban Institute. It argues churches must change their approach to managing their buildings because declining attendance is putting their longevity at risk. The institute fears the loss of physical buildings could spell the end for the churches' civic function. The non-profit's report says that in addition to their spiritual role, church buildings have long been places where people go for social services, from food pantries to foot clinics and charity bingo to child care. It was that same argument that got members of St. Paul's onside, George said. They asked themselves, 'What are we doing with the space and what does that space do for us to allow us to be the church that we need to be today, tomorrow and for generations to come?' George recalled. 'And when we did that work, the barriers began to fall.' Without the pews, which seated 700, the space can be used in any manner of ways — as a concert venue, a conference hall, and, of course, a space for worship. The renovations, which also included making the space wheelchair accessible and installing much-needed air conditioning, have cost $1.9 million. The congregation and Anglican Diocese of Huron have together raised $1.1 million, and they're now looking to external sources to cover the balance. They're hoping some funds could come from the City of London, which has endorsed the space as a new creative hub. The church will also expand its civic role, George said. 'When I moved downtown in January of 2024, one of the overwhelming narratives about St. Paul's was, 'I can never get in there. The doors are locked,'' he said. 'Well, that's changed dramatically and will continue to change because our attitude now is 'doors open.'' If churches don't adapt, CUI President Mary Rowe said, they face two major threats: development and decay. 'As urban environments intensify…those kinds of civic spaces that provide this kind of opportunity for informal, casual social interaction, they get encroached upon because the market pressure is such that that building starts to become more desirable for high-end housing,' Rowe said. 'And in small communities where there may not be the same kind of pressure for real estate development, there's no money or resources to shore up the civic functions of these places.' The report contends church spaces, which for decades have benefited from tax exemptions, have a duty to continue offering civic services. But a 2019 study by the National Trust for Canada predicted that one-third of Canada's 27,000 faith buildings, most of which are Christian, would likely close permanently in the next 10 years. 'What we need are new models that get new resources into these places so that you can actually evolve in a way that serves the community around it,' Rowe said. The report attempts to 'unravel the Gordian knot' of how at-risk, faith-built assets like churches should be managed going forward. That's a question Rev. Graham Singh has spent more than a decade working to answer. He's the senior pastor at St. Jax Church in Montreal and CEO of the charity Releven, which works to preserve and repurpose underused churches. St. Jax, formerly called St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, is a sort of prototype for the Releven model. The grand cathedral on Rue Sainte-Catherine ceased operations in 2015. It was in disrepair and maintenance was extremely expensive because of its heritage designation. It reopened the following year under the new name. 'A challenge is the building itself,' Singh said. 'Raising money to repair the roof, which is this heritage-listed slate roof that has to be repaired with like-for-like materials. And then the same thing with the masonry, which is a very expensive 150-year-old stone construction.' But now, the building is home to four separate congregations and a non-religious non-profit, which will soon handle management of the building. Secular tenants of St. Jax include organizations that work in refugee resettlement, food security and youth employment. Meanwhile, the City of Montreal is in the final stages of a process to acquire the green space outside St. Jax with the goal of turning it into a park. Singh also knows about the complexity of working with the municipal government. In order to make all the changes to how the St. Jax building operates, his organization had to prove they had the historic right to change the site's purpose and use. That heritage impact assessment has become part of the Ville-Marie Pilot Project, which opens the door for other churches in the city to share their space with non-religious groups, he said. 'The city has indeed been updating their zoning and urban planning framework to allow more of that to be happening in other locations in the future,' Singh said. Through Releven, he's taking that experience and helping other churches leverage it. The CUI report found one of the barriers for churches looking to change their business model is a lack of knowledge on the part of local leadership. 'There's very few examples of a congregation or a diocese or an owner of a faith building that have been able to do it by themselves because of the complexity of these buildings and the regulatory environment,' said Jennifer Barrett, managing director of programs, planning and policy at CUI. Some churches have partnered with real estate developers. Among them is All Saints' Anglican Church in Winnipeg, whose lands are now home to West Broadway Commons, a 110-unit housing project. Fifty-six of those units are affordable. But in many cases, Barrett said, churches are resistant to that sort of change and fearful of giving up control. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. 'It is challenging for faith communities to let go of their buildings,' she said. George said that was true for the congregation at St. Paul's. Ultimately, they decided that they should retain ownership of the property. 'We would have become sort of a tenant in our own space, and the Diocesan structure of the Anglican Church doesn't work well for that,' George said. 'We're working on what we believe will be a public-private partnership to administer this going forward because we know we're going to get very busy. I mean, we've only just moved in yesterday, and we're already receiving calls. There's a demand here for a space like this.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2025.
The Age
a day ago
- Politics
- The Age
Anglican Church can't grow if it fails to accept gay reality
The other day a friend showed me photos of her friends' same-sex wedding. Such joyful scenes as family and friends celebrated with the happy couple. It wasn't a church wedding, and certainly not an Anglican wedding – not even a wedding blessing. While the Anglican Church's highest court has said it is not against the church's constitution to bless same-sex weddings, only a handful of Australian dioceses have permitted that. And now Melbourne Diocese – once the progressive capital of the Australian church – has elected an archbishop firmly opposed to same-sex weddings. There will be no wedding blessings here. He is quoted in last Sunday's Age as saying that church must welcome people in same-sex relationships. But that rings hollow. How can you welcome people while damning their relationships as sinful? The newly elected archbishop, Ric Thorpe, a bishop from London, is first and foremost a church planter. That is why his Melbourne supporters have chosen him. The church is in decline in Melbourne, with numbers of worshippers dropping and many small parishes struggling for survival. His supporters want to see significant growth in the church, and think that means planting lots of new congregations. But will those brave new plants be attractive to Australians in the 21st century, when presumably they will be preaching against same-sex marriage, given the core group of Melbourne Anglicans who campaigned for his election hold the same view? When more than 60 per cent of Australians voted in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2017 plebiscite? Bishop Thorpe claims the Scriptures are clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that cannot be set aside. Many significant scripture scholars read the Bible differently. They say the very few Bible verses that are claimed to prohibit same-sex relationships actually prohibit only promiscuous, predatory relationships. But conservatives have latched on to same-sex prohibition as their line in the sand. Some would argue they took up the cause when they lost the debate in the 1990s about ordaining women. It has given them a stick to knock progressive Anglicans into the ground. The election of Bishop Thorpe shows they are winning. The debate has echoes of the nasty debate that raged in the Anglican Church over divorce last century. Divorced people could not remarry in church, and often were made distinctly unwelcome in congregations. It was Melbourne Diocese in the 1970s that overturned that, and pushed the national church to change. And in 1972, Melbourne Diocese called for homosexuality to be decriminalised, eight years before the state government agreed. How sad that Melbourne has now joined the conservatives. Bishop Thorpe is quoted as saying that the same-sex debate is 'a distraction' from the message of the church. No, it is harming the church's message. The church's message is that God is love, and loves all people unconditionally – and that includes gay people, their spouses and their families.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Anglican Church can't grow if it fails to accept gay reality
The other day a friend showed me photos of her friends' same-sex wedding. Such joyful scenes as family and friends celebrated with the happy couple. It wasn't a church wedding, and certainly not an Anglican wedding – not even a wedding blessing. While the Anglican Church's highest court has said it is not against the church's constitution to bless same-sex weddings, only a handful of Australian dioceses have permitted that. And now Melbourne Diocese – once the progressive capital of the Australian church – has elected an archbishop firmly opposed to same-sex weddings. There will be no wedding blessings here. He is quoted in last Sunday's Age as saying that church must welcome people in same-sex relationships. But that rings hollow. How can you welcome people while damning their relationships as sinful? The newly elected archbishop, Ric Thorpe, a bishop from London, is first and foremost a church planter. That is why his Melbourne supporters have chosen him. The church is in decline in Melbourne, with numbers of worshippers dropping and many small parishes struggling for survival. His supporters want to see significant growth in the church, and think that means planting lots of new congregations. But will those brave new plants be attractive to Australians in the 21st century, when presumably they will be preaching against same-sex marriage, given the core group of Melbourne Anglicans who campaigned for his election hold the same view? When more than 60 per cent of Australians voted in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2017 plebiscite? Bishop Thorpe claims the Scriptures are clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that cannot be set aside. Many significant scripture scholars read the Bible differently. They say the very few Bible verses that are claimed to prohibit same-sex relationships actually prohibit only promiscuous, predatory relationships. But conservatives have latched on to same-sex prohibition as their line in the sand. Some would argue they took up the cause when they lost the debate in the 1990s about ordaining women. It has given them a stick to knock progressive Anglicans into the ground. The election of Bishop Thorpe shows they are winning. The debate has echoes of the nasty debate that raged in the Anglican Church over divorce last century. Divorced people could not remarry in church, and often were made distinctly unwelcome in congregations. It was Melbourne Diocese in the 1970s that overturned that, and pushed the national church to change. And in 1972, Melbourne Diocese called for homosexuality to be decriminalised, eight years before the state government agreed. How sad that Melbourne has now joined the conservatives. Bishop Thorpe is quoted as saying that the same-sex debate is 'a distraction' from the message of the church. No, it is harming the church's message. The church's message is that God is love, and loves all people unconditionally – and that includes gay people, their spouses and their families.
