Anglican Mainstream

By George Conger, CEN

The Diocese of Edmonton has endorsed gay blessings. At a meeting of its diocesan synod on 13 October 2012 delegates to the Synod voted by strong majorities to accept resolution G-3 “Blessing Same-Gender Committed Unions”. Introduced by the Dean of Edmonton the resolution asked the “Synod request the Bishop to grant permission to any clergy who may wish to offer prayers of blessing for covenanted same-gender relationships.”

In her presidential address to the meeting, Bishop Jane Alexander urged members of the diocese to agree to disagree. “Over the years the church has weathered some pretty divisive and combustible issues,” she noted, citing remarriage after divorce, slavery and the ordination of women.

The church had survived these fights, she asserted because Anglicans had been willing to engage in dialogue and remain united. “Can we see each other as Christ sees us and resolve to be together, to talk together, to pray together?”

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by Marites N Sison, Anglican Journal

The Anglican Church of Canada needs more clarity around what the “relational consequences” would be for not adopting the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant.

This is one of the key messages that Council of General Synod (CoGS) members said the church must convey when the 15th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meets in New Zealand Oct. 27-Nov. 7.

All member provinces of the Anglican Communion have been asked to report on progress made in response to the covenant, which has been recommended as a way of healing divisions triggered by debates over the issue of sexuality.

At their spring meeting May 24-27, CoGS members were asked to weigh in on what the report should contain. Bishops were asked for input at their spring meeting, noted Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Emerging from small group discussions, some CoGs members said there’s a lot of uncertainty around what happens when a province decides to adopt or not adopt the covenant. Critics of the covenant have long warned that adopting it could result in a two-tier Communion.

Although a comprehensive study guide on the covenant was prepared and recommended for Canadian Anglicans, “there’s not much interest in discussing it,” reported members of one CoGS discussion group. “We’re not sure why,” they added.

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• St. John’s Vancouver leaves 100-year historic location
• Prefers to ‘keep the faith’ and give up prime real estate
• Mixed emotions as congregation moves to new location

VANCOUVER, BC – September 22, 2011 – St. John’s Vancouver Anglican Church, the largest Anglican congregation in Canada, will begin Sunday services at a new location after moving from its historic location on Granville Street and Nanton Avenue. The congregation, through a lengthy legal action, chose to leave their buildings rather than compromise their beliefs.
 
St. John's Vancouver, which had been meeting at the Granville Street location for almost 100 years, will begin Sunday services on September 25 at Oakridge Adventist Church, at West 37th Avenue and Baillie Street in Vancouver.
 
Disagreement over basic Christian beliefs has separated Anglican congregations around the world into two camps, usually labeled orthodox and liberal, with those holding to historic, Bible-based values and beliefs in the vast majority. The St. John’s Vancouver Anglican congregation has aligned itself with the mainstream global Anglican Church, rather than continue as part of the local, more liberal Diocese of New Westminster. Read the rest of this entry »

From St John's Shaughnessy website

By George Conger, CEN

By Kelly Patterson, Holy Post

It was a historic moment in Ottawa as a subdued crowd of about 300 filed out of St. Alban’s Anglican Church on King Edward Avenue on Sunday, leaving behind a place where some have roots going back to Confederation.

Founded in 1865, the church where Sir John A. Macdonald worshipped has been in the spotlight ever since a showdown over same-sex marriage and other issues led the congregation of St. Alban’s to leave the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, and, after a bitter battle, the building they have called home for 146 years.

“This is kind of historic. We’re in a new era,” said Sheila Lang, 79, as her grandchildren — the seventh generation of her family to attend the church — played in the reception hall of the Ottawa Little Theatre, where the congregation, now called the Church of the Messiah [image, right, from their site], will meet until it finds a permanent home. Meanwhile, the diocese will establish a new congregation at St. Alban’s, with a relaunch planned for Friday.

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From ACL Sydney

David Short, Rector of St. John’s Shaughnessy:

“the way we respond is a God-given opportunity to bear witness to Christ. As those who are disciples of Jesus Christ, this is not just about ‘what’ we do but also ‘how’ we do it. In some ways nothing will change with the decision on Thursday. We are still God’s family, and he has placed us in Vancouver to spread his glory.”

By Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun

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By Marites N Sison, Anglican Journal

Canadian Anglican parishes and individuals who would like to learn more about the proposed Anglican Covenant will soon have a study guide at their fingertips.

The Anglican Church of Canada’s Anglican Covenant Working Group will release the study guide on the national church’s website in time for Pentecost, June 12.

“We’re encouraging people to look at the [details of the Covenant] and to reflect on what its implications are,” diocese of Ontario Bishop George Bruce, chair of the working group, said in an interview.

Bishop Bruce described it as a “historic” and “unique” opportunity for people in the pews “to say what's on their mind, think and reflect on what it means to be church, what it means to do what God is calling us to do.”

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By George Conger,  The Church of England Newspaper.

From Anglican Journal

By Marites N Sison, Anglican Journal

From Yapdates

The news is out. The dissident Churches in the Anglican Church in Canada have all lost their court cases. The mainstream liberal Anglican Church of Canada has asserted their rights and won the case to occupy the properties of the conservative churches. It all started back in 2002 when the gay Bishop issues a rite to all in the Anglican Church to perform same-sex marriages and ordination of gay clergy. Bishop Michael Ingham argues that the new gay practices is in line with Jesus' teachings on 'love and welcoming the stranger.' Trouble is, is performing same-sex practices the 'only' way to love and welcome strangers?

As expected, not all agreed. Such a practice was actively debated within the Church, and after much talk internally, some Churches decided that they could not conscientiously follow the leadership of Ingham. Thus they left the Anglican Church (ACC) to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC).

This is a landmark case that garner media coverage from the Vancouver Sun, National Post, as well as the CTV. From a legal standpoint, there is indeed not much that the judges can do, as the documents clearly support the primary owner of such properties, being the ACC. They claim that the dissidents left the Church, and not the other way round. ANIC on the other hand, believed in the spirit of the faith, not the law of ownership. They would rather, in the words of their spokesman, that they will:

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From Church Times

GUIDELINES for clergy considering requests by same-sex couples for blessings have been issued for the An­glican diocese of Toronto.

The guidelines state that they are a pastoral response to committed gay and lesbian couples, and “not an authorized rite of the Anglican dio­cese of Toronto”. This distinction is important, since the introduction of a rite would invite censure from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Office.

The College of Bishops acknow­ledges that the guidelines might strain the “gracious restraint” called for in the 2004 Windsor report, which included moratoria on ap­point­ing someone in a same-sex relationship as a bishop, authorising same-sex blessings, and intervening in another province.

Breaching these moratoria has earned sanctions for both the Epis­copal Church in the US, in which a lesbian bishop was con­secrated in Los Angeles, and the Province of the Southern Cone, which has extended its oversight to conservative dioceses and parishes in the US and Canada.

Toronto’s guidelines, however, aim to walk the tightrope between “gracious restraint” and “pastoral generosity” to same-sex couples, as called for by the Canadian House of Bishops in a pastoral statement in 2007.

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by George Conger, CEN

The Diocese of Toronto’s same-sex blessings guidelines published last week will not violate the Anglican Communion’s moratorium on same-sex blessings, a letter from the diocese’s five bishops to their clergy claims. While the ceremony will acknowledge God’s blessings upon the couple, the Toronto rite will impart no legal or ecclesial recognition of the same-sex couple’s relationship.

The four page document, dated Oct 28 and mailed to the diocesan clergy last week, states that Toronto Archbishop Colin Johnson will licence a small number of parishes to perform the “Blessing of Same Gender Commitments” rite.

The bishops said they sought to find a way to honour the communion’s ban on public rites for same-sex blessings as well as the Canadian Church’s desire to extend pastoral generosity to same-sex couples. The new rites seek to accommodate those in “stable committed same gender relationships” seeking the church’s support for their relationship and those in the diocese who view such a relationship as sinful.

“The diversity of our diocesan community demonstrates that we are called to witness to the faith in a variety of ways, and though such witness is rooted in differing interpretations and understanding of holy scripture and the tradition, they are recognizably Anglican,” the guidelines state.

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By Ephraim Radner, ACI

By Matt Kennedy, Stand Firm

Pastoral discipline exercised toward those spreading false teaching has been banned in the Diocese of Toronto:

3. Same Gender Blessings This pastoral response is extended to couples in our midst who seek to live in mutual love and faithfulness in a stable, long-term committed relationship. A blessing may be made available to couples who are not civilly married as the blessing is not considered to reflect, or to be understood as, marriage.

a. The blessing of any same gender relationship is expected to be part of an existing pastoral relationship with a priest and local congregation.
b. At least one of the couple should be baptized.

4. Same Gender Couples in Parishes not Designated

a. It is expected that no one will be excluded from receiving the eucharist or baptism in any parish on the basis of their sexual orientation or their views on the issue of same gender blessings, whether in favour or opposed.

b. Same gender couples in a parish not designated to perform blessings may approach their Area Bishop to seek an alternative. It is expected that the couple and the priest designated will first seek to develop a pastoral relationship before a blessing is offered.

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Catherine Sider Hamilton and F. Dean Mercer, ACI

On September 14, 2010, Archbishop Colin Johnson ordained priest in the Diocese of Toronto a woman married (by civil law) to another woman. On November 3, the College of Bishops issued “Pastoral Guidelines” for the formal and liturgical blessing of same gender commitments in the Diocese of Toronto.

These actions are problematic both in their content and in their form.

The first action contradicts the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church and disregards its marriage canon. The second does one of two things. In one case, it gives the church’s formal blessing to a civilly married same-sex couple. In the other, it blesses a sexual relationship that is not a marriage. In either case it departs from the historic teaching of the church and its moral vision, both as to the nature of marriage and as to the role and limits of sex.

The bishops have described both actions as pastoral. But in fact they affect the doctrine of the church. The ordination of a person in a same-sex marriage hallows that marriage and names it the ideal, a worthy example for all to follow, properly belonging within the Christian definition of marriage. This is to challenge the marriage canon of the Anglican Church of Canada. This is an act, that is, with concrete legal and doctrinal implications.

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By Charles Raven, SPREAD

By George Conger, CEN

Aging congregations and falling attendance may force the mergers of the dioceses of Montreal and Quebec, the Montreal Anglican reports. The diocesan newspaper said the bishops, clergy and lay leaders of the two dioceses were considering proposals that would begin a “process of discernment toward a fuller partnership as diocesan institutional churches.”

In November 2009 Bishop Barry Clarke of Montreal, Bishop Dennis Drainville of Quebec, Archdeacon Janet Griffith Johnson of Montreal, and Archdeacon Garth Bulmer of Quebec met to craft a two year “discernment process.” An agreement between the two dioceses dated Dec 17 proposed a joint committee to look into “opportunities and obstacles to partnership” between the two dioceses.

Last year Bishop Drainville told the Canadian House of Bishops his diocese was “teetering on the verge of extinction.” Of the diocese’s 82 congregations, 50 were childless and 35 congregations had an average age of 75. These graying congregations often had no more than 10 people in church on Sundays, he said. “The critical mass isn’t there, there’s no money anymore,” he said.

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