The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will meet in
Besides Bishop Jim, this diocese will be represented by three clergy: Jim Sayese, John Dolloff, and Raymond Knight; and three lay people: Stephen Cassidy, Laurie Pratt, and Ann Varcoe. They have a big task before them, as they deal with issues with the potential to change the nature of this church in very profound ways. They deserve our prayers and support.
Material from Church House has largely focused on three matters. The first is what many people have taken to referring to as “The Issue,” the question of the blessing of same-sex unions. The second is the election of a new Primate. The third one, which has attracted the least notice, is the approval of a new financial development program for the national church.
My own experience as a delegate to General Synod tells me that our delegates will soon receive a massive binder of reports, resolutions, and other information. The last General Synod I attended dealt with over two hundred resolutions. Some took up a great deal of time and energy, while others were approved without debate.
While I honour our democratic process, events such as General Synod, and our own diocesan Synods to a lesser degree, make me very conscious of the shortcomings of our system. In the first place, the sheer volume of the work and the compressed time in which to do it makes decision-making very difficult. In the second place—and I am going out on a very long limb here—I have come to believe that conducting meetings according to parliamentary procedure is often counter-productive to the Gospel, and to the building up of the Body of Christ.
The trouble with parliamentary procedure is that it depends on voting, with the majority winning the day. “What’s wrong with that?” you say. In a number of church contexts, I have seen votes which resulted in “winners” and “losers.” Losers have been known to walk away, and the Church is diminished as a result.
Today’s lesson from Acts is the culmination of a longer story, in which Peter’s eyes are opened to the possibility of the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church. The importance of this event can not be underestimated. What had been a movement within Judaism began from this point to become a world-embracing faith. God drew the circle wider than Peter could have previously imagined.
‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’
The movement of the Gospel is ever-outward, ever-inclusive, ever-embracing. We human beings tend to draw our circles small, and to make them smaller. In this way we can and do hinder God, but God continues to expand his circle, calling everyone to “the repentance that leads to life.”
God taught Peter to expand the circle, to bring people with whom he would not previously have associated into the light of God’s love. The “losers” became “winners”—as God desires all to be winners.
If General Synod actually deals with The Issue, it may beby majority vote, in a manner that is already controversial—a resolution requiring a 60% majority. Whatever result occurs will create seriously disaffected “losers.” I believe such a vote at this time will divide the church, and impoverish us spiritually and financially. The development plans made by the national office could hardly go forward in such circumstances.
Historically, Anglicanism has been a “big-tent” faith, embracing people of diverse theological positions and liturgical practices. We have long celebrated this “unity in diversity.” Nevertheless, every tent has its walls and every circle its boundary. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has (correctly IMO) suggested that the current controversies are testing these limits.
However the vote on The Issue shakes out at General Synod—even if Synod decides not to decide—the new Primate will have his or her hands full dealing with a church with a changed face.
What, then, may we say on this question which has come to so dominate church life? The Primate’s Theological Commission, in its “St. Michael’s Report,” gave the opinion that it is a matter of doctrine, but not of core doctrine, and therefore should not be communion-splitting. The Commission’s opinion seems to me to have raised more questions than it answered. Although it is not a creedal matter, The Issue touches on many areas of the church’s core teaching—doctrines such as creation, salvation, the nature of humanity, the Bible, sin, repentance and forgiveness, and the church.
The Commission felt that this question ought not to be communion-splitting. Although some would object here, it seems to me that this matter is one upon which we may agree to disagree, yet still remain together in the tent.
In other words, our position vis-à-vis the blessing of same-sex unions should not be treated as a litmus test of our discipleship, because Jesus has already given us such a test:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
And there’s the bottom line—LOVE. Loving our brothers and sisters does not necessarily mean liking them, and it certainly doesn’t mean agreeing with them in every particular. It does mean striving at all times to treat others as worthy of respect, not calling profane what God has declared clean. It means seeking to build up, to make connections between people, to welcome all into the tent.
God loves his people. God loves his world. God sent his son to love us into eternal life.
Let us then respond in our church—in all its gatherings, formal and informal, large and small—by loving each other, so that all the world may know that we follow the Lamb that was slain, and that all may receive “water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
