Category Archives: Anglican Church of Canada

Bridging divisions the Anglican way

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John Chapman, Bishop of Ottawa is going to quell the strife in his church by training his priests:

The Anglican Church in Canada is updating how it trains priests so they can minister to everyone from Bay Street stockbrokers to Baffin Island Inuit.

Up until now priests have only been trained to seek out and hunt down candidates for same-sex unions; now that demographic has been exhausted, they are going after stockbrokers.

Ottawa Bishop John Chapman, who is leading the initiative, believes a savvier clergy would help bridge the church’s current bitter divisions over issues such as gay priests.

I can’t think why no-one has come up with this before. If only the clergy were more “savvy” we’d all start agreeing with same-sex blessings. It’s so obvious.

“The genius of the Anglican Church has been its capacity to live in difference,” Chapman said in an interview.

Or, as is now the case, disintegrate in difference.

As much as the church is badly divided these days, at least people care, “and that’s not what I remember as a child. I don’t remember people working up that kind of energy about anything. It was still the club; it was the social life. You found yourself there every Sunday and you weren’t even sure why some times.

Now, at least, people know why they do not belong to the Anglican Church of Canada

“I can’t imagine my childhood church getting worked about human sexuality,” said Chapman. “These are one of the most exciting times; there is a passion for faith.”

It’s true, of course: the creeping heresy of the ACoC has created passion among Anglican Christians; so much passion that a new Anglican province has been formed. Thanks for the nudge, John.

But pastors need new skills in calming congregations at war over sexuality or steering communities through traumatic change like closing a church. “There is quite a variety of need … that has exploded in last 25 years and we have not, in terms of a common standard … kept pace with that.”

It’s hard to keep pace with dealing with the havoc you have created when you are expending so much energy in creating more, John.

In order to calm congregations, training in doping incense with teargas, crippling but non-lethal wielding of thuribles and the use of taser tipped bishops crooks has begun.

Those working with immigrants, in urban areas, or remote First Nations communities, all need unique skills if they are to keep the church vibrant.

“The Anglican Church is not … white Anglo-Saxon,” says Chapman.

“It’s very much a global church, represented in this country.”

The global Anglican church is the one thing that bishops like Chapman are ignoring; every request from the bulk of the Anglican Communion to stop same sex blessings and homosexual ordinations has only served to create perversely contorted justifications for continuing to do what it has been asked not to do. Chapman himself coined the phrase “experiential discernment” to explain why he was continuing to do what he ought not to; I understand that the Ottawa branch of the Hell’s Angels now tattoos that on every member’s arm as part of his initiation.

Recommendations will go to the national church’s faith, worship and ministry committee, which will develop a proposal for common standards. Chapman is hoping that Primate George Hiltz, head of the Anglican Church in Canada, will create a commission to address the problems.

“create a commission to address the problems” . In other words, nothing will be done.

Where are the Anglican protests over homosexuals killed in Iran?

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The Anglican Church is in the West is falling all over itself to condemn the homosexuality bill before the Ugandan government. Here is the screech of outrage from the Anglican Church of Canada:

COGS passed a resolution that expressed its dismay and concern over the draft proposed anti-homosexuality bill currently before the parliament of Uganda. COGS resolved to call upon the church of the province of Uganda to oppose this private member’s bill, and called upon the Government of Canada, through the Minister of External Affairs, to convey to the government of Uganda a deep sense of alarm about this fundamental violation of human rights and through diplomatic channels, to press for its withdrawal; and asked the Primate to send this message to the appropriate bodies.

The bill as it stands is draconian and has been opposed by the Anglican Church of Uganda.

What is strange, though, is Iran has been routinely hanging homosexuals for the last 30 years with no real trial except an appearance before a sharia judge; and the Anglican Church in the West has not protested at all.

Where is the deep sense of alarm, the dismay, the message to the appropriate bodies? Entirely absent.

Does Fred Hiltz only care about Anglican homosexuals? Perhaps the Anglican Church is not as diverse and inclusive as it would like people to think.

Anglican Church facing the threat of extinction

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From the Globe and Mail:

Michael Valpy.

The Anglican Church in Canada – once as powerful in the nation’s secular life as it was in its soul – may be only a generation away from extinction, says a just-published assessment of the church’s future.

The report, prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, calls Canada a post-Christian society in which Anglicanism is declining faster than any other denomination. It says the church has been “moved to the far margins of public life.”

According to the report, the diocese – “like most across Canada” – is in crisis. The report repeats, without qualification or question, the results of a controversial study presented to Anglican bishops five years ago that said that at the present rate of decline – a loss of 13,000 members per year – only one Anglican would be left in Canada by 2061.

It points out that just half a century ago, 40 per cent of Vancouver Island’s population was Anglican; now the figure is 1.2 per cent. Nationally, between 1961 and 2001, the church lost 53 per cent of its membership, declining to 642,000 from 1.36 million. Between 1991 and 2001 alone, it declined by 20 per cent.

Regular attendance is declining at all Canadian Christian churches, except for the Roman Catholic Church, whose small increase is attributed to immigration.

The B.C. diocesan report tells Anglicans on Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands – which the diocese covers – that 19 of their 54 churches should be closed, with another 11 put on death watch, and that two more should not have their priests replaced when they move on or retire.

The remaining congregations have been told to abandon their sedate, clubby Anglican culture and get their behinds off pews to evangelize in shopping malls, homes and workplaces.

“The status quo is not an option,” the report says. With a preponderance of Anglicans being 60 or older, the church is “one generation away from extinction,” it says.

“The unchurched are not coming to us. Lapsed Anglicans are not coming back in sufficient numbers.”

Two things have caught up with the Anglican Church of Canada and will be the cause of its final undoing:

  1. The ACoC, as this report suggests, is beset by a clubby Anglican culture. This kept people coming back for more bazaars, rummage sales, ladies teas and church dances 50 years ago, but now there are more enticing alternatives. Telling aging congregations to get their behinds off pews to evangelize isn’t going to help much because they have no good news to tell: it has been purged by increasingly liberal and unbelieving clergy.
  2. Those who contribute a substantial amount of money to the church each week are orthodox Christians who believe in giving a percentage of their income back to God. Such people have been thoroughly alienated by the ACoC’s increasingly radical anti-Christian liberalism, so they are leaving either individually or as entire parishes. Soon there will be no-one left willing to give money to the ACoC.

“The status quo is not an option” is being chanted as a remedial mantra in numerous dioceses. In truth, those shouting it the loudest are the ones most determined to continue doing more of what has brought the ACoC to its present sorry state; a contemporary application of Exodus 10:20a; perhaps.

Why The Meeting House irritates Anglicans

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John Bowen has written an article about The Meeting House, why it is so successful and why Anglicans find that so irritating.

Some, of course, would think that 8,000 people showing up for worship, even in a cinema, would naturally be a good thing. What could there possibly be to criticise? Well, for a start, from an Anglican point-of-view, it is not liturgical worship. There is a lot of singing (led by a local worship band), followed by a pastoral prayer and announcements, and then a 45-minute sermon, broadcast on the big screen from the church’s headquarters in Oakville. Then we go home. So there is no liturgical shape or content to the service. Neither is the service (usually) Eucharistic. I was there once when there was a Eucharist, but it was in the last five minutes, tacked on at the end almost as an afterthought, and again with virtually no liturgical framework.

But, if we are honest, there is one thing that irritates us more than all of these combined: it is that The Meeting House is successful. Successful in attracting people—a lot of people, and a lot of young people at that—successful in holding on to (not all but many) of them, and successful in opening and filling new churches. If there is one thing that rankles with us, it is that kind of success.

He goes on to enumerate the aspects of the Meeting House that Anglican parishes might consider emulating in order to grow: use leadership gifts wisely; Christian education; home groups; rented worship space; discourage spectator Christianity; humility.

As is usually the case in this kind of analysis, two important points are missing:

  1. The meeting House actually believes what it is peddling. There is no Anglican dithering about the meaning of the concepts of Resurrection, substitutionary atonement, the divinity and uniqueness of Christ, the sinfulness of man, the reality of salvation, heaven and hell. The Anglican Church of Canada has for the most part abandoned this Gospel.
  2. The reason the Meeting House wants to draw in people is because of point 1, not because it wants to get bigger. The Anglican Church of Canada wants to draw in people in order to get bigger so that it can continue its middle-class social club.

In its more earnest moments the ACoC does engage in its favourite pipe-dream of immanentising the eschaton and it even hires people to help.

Rachel Jordan has some advice for Christians who believe that someone else is going to build the kingdom of God here on Earth. “There isn’t a Plan B – you’re it,” she says. “You are the people God has chosen to be his agents right here, right now.”

It still has nothing to do with the Gospel.

Victoria for Pope

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But first Canterbury:

Canada’s leading female Anglican cleric has courted controversy at a major church conference in Britain by predicting the eventual rise of a woman as archbishop of Canterbury.

“The signposts are pointing in one direction,” former Edmonton Bishop Victoria Matthews told Reuters yesterday during a global gathering of Anglican bishops at the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference. “I would be very surprised if it wasn’t accepted worldwide.”

Bishop Matthews, whose selection in February as the bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand, sparked an uproar among conservative Anglicans in that country, also shot back at Vatican officials who have complained the Church of England’s July 8 decision to begin appointing female bishops poses “a further obstacle for reconciliation” between Catholics and Anglicans.

“With the greatest respect, the Vatican has to understand the Anglican Communion is not synonymous with the Church of England,” Bishop Matthews said in the interview. “The Anglican Communion has had women in the episcopate for about 20 years. They really need to do their homework and realize that the communion is 38 provinces and not one with satellites. That is a pretty significant error.”

And here she is, prepared and ready.

ACoC priest, Alan Perry, questions the ACNA briefing paper

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Canon Alan Perry is challenging the accuracy of the briefing paper prepared by Lorna Ashworth for the Church of England’s General Synod next month. The motion is to “express the desire that the Church of England be in com­munion with the Anglican Church in North America”.

In his challenge, Canon Perry makes a number of points; among them is this (my emphasis):

Only three former bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada have associated themselves with ACNA:
* Donald Harvey, formerly of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador
* Ronald Ferris, formerly of Algoma
* Malcolm Harding, formerly of Brandon

None of these have been deposed. All were already retired, and all three voluntarily relinquished their ministry pursuant to Canon XIX of the Anglican Church of Canada. This is the equivalent of Canon C1 (2) of the Church of England which makes provision for a cleric “voluntarily [to] relinquish the exercise of his orders and use himself as a layman.”

However, three former presbyters of the Anglican Church of Canada have recently been consecrated as bishops by ACNA: Stephen Leung, Charles Masters and Trevor Walters. This may account for the claim of six. (Also, Silas Ng was consecrated as a bishop by the Church of Rwanda.)

As of March 2009, 52 of the clergy (other than the six bishops) in ACNA were former clergy of the Anglican Church of Canada. The claim of 69 includes the newly ordained and possibly some other transfers.

The total of Anglican Church of Canada clergy as of June 2009 was 3861.

Not a single Canadian priest has been deposed for joining ACNA. The term is almost entirely unheard of in Canada. It is one of the penalties provided for in the Canon on Discipline. However, none of those who have left to join Rwanda or Southern Cone or ACNA have been canonically disciplined.

The phrase “relinquish license for ministry” is canonically meaningless in the Anglican Church of Canada. The correct phrase is “relinquish ministry” pursuant to Canon XIX, on “The Relinquishment or Abandonment of the Ministry” which states that relinquishment:

“removes from the [cleric] the right to exercise that office, including spiritual authority as a minister of Word and Sacraments conferred in ordination.” (emphasis added)

Relinquishment renders the cleric unlicensable in any Jurisdiction. Relinquishment of ministry is reversible, but only in the jurisdiction in which ministry was relinquished.

The issue of whether a priest or bishop relinquishes his right to minister when he leaves the Anglican Church of Canada has come up before.  In December 2008 Alan Perry wrote a letter to the Anglican Journal saying:

Is a bishop still a bishop after he/she leaves denomination?

Anglican Journal, Dec, 2008 by Alan T. Perry

Dear editor,

I am confused as to why you continue to refer to Don Harvey as a bishop, most recently in your news bulletin of Oct. 16 regarding four parishes purporting to put themselves under the “episcopal oversight of Bishop (sic) Don Harvey.”

Nearly a year ago, the Anglican Journal reported that Mr. Harvey had relinquished his ministry. The mechanism for relinquishment of ministry under our canons, to which Mr. Harvey will have repeatedly sworn an oath of obedience, is found in Canon XIX of the General Synod. The relevant section specifies that “relinquishment of the exercise of ordained ministry removes from the [cleric] the right to exercise … spiritual authority as a minister of Word and Sacraments conferred in ordination.”

Thus, although the ontological effects of ordination remain, the juridical effects are rendered null and void. The perhaps more familiar Roman Catholic term for this is laicization.

Mr. Harvey has relinquished his ministry, and therefore ought no longer to be referred to by a clerical title.

He is, for all practical purposes, a layperson. Or are you implying that Mr. Harvey acted dishonestly, either when he relinquished his ministry or when he repeatedly swore an oath to obey the canons?

Alan T. Perry

The editor responded:

Editor’s response: Consulting with the chancellor, Ronald Stevenson, he writes: “In the relinquishment document prescribed by Canon XIX, the cleric says he or she has voluntarily relinquished the exercise of the ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada to which he or she has been admitted. The cleric does not relinquish his or her orders/ ordination.

“Although Bishops Harvey and Malcolm Harding (retired bishop of the diocese of Brandon) have relinquished the exercise of episcopal ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada, they may well be recognized and accepted as bishops in another church even though they ignore the traditional rule that a bishop does not minister or interfere in another bishop’s jurisdiction.”

Alan Perry is attempting to make out, both in 2008 and now, that the bishops and priests who have joined ACNA have no authority to minister. The response from the ACoC chancellor, Ronald Stevenson, is clear: they have. A priest’s relinquishing his license in the ACoC is not the same as relinquishing his orders, ordination or the right to exercise “spiritual authority as a minister of Word and Sacraments conferred in ordination”.

Obviously Alan Perry didn’t pay much attention to the ACoC chancellor in 2008; I don’t suppose he will now, either, but it does appear that he has got this all wrong.

Bishops in Space

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As Lone Star Parson observes, the Anglican Church of Canada, boldly going where no man has gone before:

Add an Image

The Hubble Telescope has captured striking new images of a remarkable object in the night sky – the diminutive Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) hurtling into deep space.

ACoC’s tiny 140 meter nucleus is unusual for being “off center” and unlike larger, more powerful ecclesial bodies, this one has “no gas in its tail”, say sources studying the phenomenon.

A top scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, believes the object is debris left over from a collision with the normative teaching authority of the Church, stating, “The collision likely occurred at over 15,000 kilometres per hour, five times the speed of a rifle bullet, and liberated energy in excess of a nuclear bomb.”

Since 2000, ACoC has shrunk from a little over 650,000 attendees in 2000 to around 325,000 in 2010, a loss of over 20,000 people annually. Pundits predict that no-one will be left by mid-century if ACoC continues on its current trajectory between Mars and Jupiter.

Anglican Church of Canada: Where is your church now?

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Fred Hiltz’s Vision 2019 asks:

From February to October 2009, Canadian Anglicans sent in emails, voice messages, letters, and videos answering the question, “Where is your church now, and where do you want the Anglican Church of Canada to be by 2019?”

Here, distilled from numerous submissions, is the definitive answer to “Where is your church now?”

[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MiwoDpbcdk]