{"id":9399,"date":"2010-07-20T23:42:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T03:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=9399"},"modified":"2010-07-20T23:42:42","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T03:42:42","slug":"the-diocese-of-toronto-responds-to-canadas-anglican-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/the-diocese-of-toronto-responds-to-canadas-anglican-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diocese of Toronto responds to Canada\u2019s Anglican crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Diocese of Toronto has recognised<\/a> that the Anglican Church of Canada is in trouble:<\/p>\n

The Anglican Church of Canada has been experiencing decline in its membership for some time. A report to its House of Bishops in 2005 showed that between 1961 and 2001, Anglican parish membership dropped from 1.36 million to 642,000, a decline of 53 per cent. The decline was quickening. Membership fell by 13% between 1981 and 1991 and by a further 20% from 1991 to 2001. The report<\/p>\n

warned the House that the Anglican Church was currently losing 2% of its members per year and that \u2018if you take that rate of decline and draw a line in the graph, there\u2019ll be only one person left in the Anglican Church of Canada by 2061. The Church is in crisis. We can\u2019t carry on like its business as usual.\u2019\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The diocese of Toronto faces a stark reality: grow or die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is about to adopt the same solution as the Diocese of BC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A report from the diocese of British Columbia, which faces similar issues to Toronto and is also seeking to stimulate new growth, notes that: \u2018The Achilles heel of organizational transformation is resource allocation\u2019 and so \u2018the Diocesan Council will need to demonstrate fierce resolve if the Diocese is to shift financial resources from marginal activities to mission-critical initiatives\u2019.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The italicised section is easily recognised for what it is: a euphemism for closing marginal parishes, selling the buildings and using the money to prop up more promising \u2013 or diocesan compliant \u2013 specimens. As this admits:<\/p>\n

There has been a general welcome within the diocese for the sustainable and strategic policy. The diocese has been applauded for finally doing something about the subsidy of declining parishes and there was widespread acceptance that \u2018growth requires pruning\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps foreseeing a future exodus to more orthodox pastures, the diocese has pronounced by fiat:<\/p>\n

\u00b0 All church property in the diocese is held for the purposes of the whole Church, irrespective of the name of the registered owner, and the proceeds realized from any sale or other disposition of surplus property or any land by any parish are to be shared with the diocese for the purposes of the Church.<\/p>\n

\u00b0 On disestablishment of a parish, all proceeds are designated as diocesan share.<\/p>\n

\u00b0 It is inappropriate to use proceeds for ongoing operating expenses of the diocese.<\/p>\n

\u00b0 The diocesan share of any sales proceeds shall be placed in the Ministry Allocation Fund.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, no matter what the deeds say, the diocese is laying claim to building ownership.<\/p>\n

My favourite part is:<\/p>\n

The conclusion is that self-funding Churches are essential. St Paul was self-funding and the primitive Churches were largely financially independent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who could argue with that? Bishops, you had better take some tent-making classes.<\/p>\n

Just as in any secular enterprise, there is a great deal of tergiversation about “mission”, but entirely absent from the document is any recognition of the importance of bringing people to salvation and reconciliation to God the Father through Christ: it is all about surviving as an institution – somehow \u2013 anyhow.<\/p>\n

Is a church that is so preoccupied with its own welfare worth preserving?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Diocese of Toronto has recognised that the Anglican Church of Canada is in trouble: The Anglican Church of Canada has been experiencing decline in its membership for some time. A report to its House of Bishops in 2005 showed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[2114],"class_list":["post-9399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diocese-of-toronto","tag-diocese-of-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}