Anglican Mainstream

BY Ralinda B Gregor, Executive Editor, Encompass

In February, 11 Anglican Church of Canada parishes voted to realign with the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC) and come under the oversight of the Province of the Southern Cone. The first to vote was St. John’s Shaughnessy, in Vancouver B.C., the largest parish in the Anglican Church of Canada and church home to noted evangelical theologian, the Rev. Dr. J.I. Packer.  Packer serves as an executive editor of Christianity Today and as Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver in addition to serving on the staff at his parish.

Shortly after St. John’s Shaughnessy cast its historic vote, the rector and clergy, including Packer, were notified by diocesan bishop Michael Ingham that they had 60 days to respond to his notice of presumption of abandonment of the exercise of ministry, the first step in deposing them.  Encompass Executive Editor Ralinda Gregor spoke with Dr. Packer to get his reaction to the events in Canada.

Ralinda Gregor: How do you feel about being given notice of presumption of abandonment of the exercise of ministry?

Dr. Packer: It is so grotesque that I find it hard to take seriously. Grotesque is the word because I have not abandoned the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada. On the contrary, I am realigning with a parish church that I serve at, St. John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver, and I am realigning to the Southern Cone in order to maintain the doctrine and discipline of the AnglicanChurch in Canada which is the doctrine and discipline of the provinces—all provinces—of the Anglican Communion. And the further accusation that I am leaving the Anglican Church of Canada for another church organization is quite inappropriate because I am moving to another jurisdiction within the Anglican Communion—that is the jurisdiction of the Southern Cone—and doing so on the basis of the assurance given some years ago by the Archbishop of Canterbury that he acknowledges the churches and clergy that are in irreconcilable dispute with the diocesan bishops. We remain in communion with the See of Canterbury and there is no question therefore about our status as Anglicans.  Bishop Ingham is proceeding against me in terms of a canon, an Anglican Church of Canada canon which was not drawn up with anything like the present situation in view. What it had in view clearly was the move from the Anglican Church of Canada to another denomination. … The notice with its threat that Michael Ingham has sent me seems grotesque, and I don’t lose sleep over it, I must confess. However I shall respond to it.

RG: What are your hopes for the Anglican Network in Canada?

JP: Well I think that our shift, our realignment to the Southern Cone, can only be temporary. My hope personally is that the attempts being made by the Common Cause fellowship to design a non-geographical third province for North America including churches in Canada along with churches from the Network in the states—I hope that that venture will come to fruition, and that we who, at the moment, are realigning as a church of the Southern Cone will be able to become part of that province.

That’s what I would like to see in North America because it seems to me that both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are so firmly in the grip of liberal theology at leadership level and at ministrative level, it’s idle to envisage reformation and change there for the foreseeable future. So in face of the moral certainty that you have two provinces — both of which are deeply committed to liberal theology and the values and the adjustments in the concepts of sin and righteousness that go with it — the only viable option for maintaining revealed truth and biblical godliness—the only alternative option is to form a new province. So I hope and trust that the Common Cause project will come to fruition. The Common Cause folk, I know, are hoping that very soon they will be able to present a blueprint of a non-geographical third province that they’re trying to design. And I look for that eagerly!

RG: You aren’t the only one.

JP: I believe that.

RG: In those videotapes that you and David Short did for St. John’s parish you talked about Jeremiah and staying in conversation with the erring church to show them the error of their ways. How do you think this can best be done, especially since so many orthodox leaders have become frustrated with the structures of the Anglican Communion and their ineffectiveness in settling disputes?

JP: Well this is a difficult question, and I’m not sure that I have anything that would count as a substantial answer. I’ll tell you that in New Westminster … what we were aiming at was to secure a review, revision and withdrawal of the move that the diocese had made. But that proved simply fanciful as distinct from realistic. We couldn’t do it. We asked, since we were out of communion with our own bishop, for adequate episcopal oversight from another bishop. The bishop of New Westminster not only refused to take our request seriously, but when the bishop of the Yukon offered to give us Episcopal oversight—that is to perform confirmations for us and be the bishop through whom new appointments would be made and so on—the bishop of New Westminster in conjunction with the then-metropolitan of the diocese ganged up against us, well against the bishop of the Yukon, and threatened him with legal proceedings for what he declared himself willing, in response to our need, to do for us. That showed that the bishop of New Westminster was now playing power politics on the issue and intended to starve us out. That is, if we weren’t going to have him as our bishop—which we said we weren’t because we were out of communion with him—we were not going to have anyone else. He was going to use all the resources of the law to ensure that we didn’t get anyone else.

And well, the writing was on the wall really from that point onward. We could not stay as we were indefinitely, that is without a bishop, remaining in the diocese therefore without our candidates for confirmation being confirmed and without being able to choose our own clergy for the future. … So gratefully receiving the invitation from the Southern Cone, we accepted it and are now moving to the Southern Cone jurisdiction, which of course breaches the principal of geographically exclusive jurisdiction which is one of the principals of practice historic Anglicans have stayed with. But there’s nothing in scripture that obliges the principal of Episcopal jurisdiction to be understood in a geographically exclusive way—I mean only one bishop having jurisdiction within a single geographical area — and I think that that principal needs to be breached in the present situation. … So the point is that there’s nothing sacrosanct about the principal of geographically exclusive jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in itself is necessary in some shape or form, and all churches have it, but it doesn’t have to be geographically exclusive in the way it historically has been among Anglicans. Of course the irony here is that in principal it goes back to the fourth century when Christianity became the most favored religion of the Empire, and the rationale of the principal then was to keep out heresy. There were heretic bishops charging around and trying to gather groups of churches who would back their own eccentric views. Well the problem for us in New West is that it’s the bishop who is effectively the heretic.

RG: Do you have any advice or encouragement for ortho¬dox parishioners both in the U.S. and Canada who are still in the Episcopal Church or the Church of Canada? And perhaps you have advice or encouragement for those who have realigned like yourself?

JP: I would only say—and I’m being deliberately cautious here—everyone must do as their own conscience prods them to do. Those of us who have realigned have done so because in conscience we are convinced that the authority of scripture and the terms of the Gospel are directly involved in the particular eccentricity of accepting gay unions as a form of holiness and blessing them accordingly. … We have in Canada, as I think you have too in the States, clergy and people who are of the same conviction as ourselves regarding the true pastoral care of homosexuals and nonetheless are staying with the existing church and are not realigning. It’s important that those who do realign and those who don’t should remain friends with each other and avoid censorious remarks about each other. It’s important, in other words, that all of us do what our consciences require us to do, and the best advice I can give to anybody in this situation is to pray that you—and all of us in this situation—will discern very clearly what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do. And it’s notorious, in fact, in church history that the Holy Spirit has not called all to do what He calls some to do, which surprises some people. But it does seem to me that it’s very clear that that is the way things work. So that’s the only advice I will give.

RG: Well that’s pretty good advice.

JP: You can see that for me keeping the peace—keeping conversations going, being open to discussing this matter with people with views different from yourself—is a high priority value in this situation. I want everything to be done amicably. I would think that if things are done in a spirit of hostility and mutual criticism—well, whatever is done in the way of realignment will be spiritually a loss rather than a gain. How it’s done is as important, I think, as what is done.†
 

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