“I pray that in time these sad divisions may be healed,” the Anglican Bishop of New Westminster, Rev. Michael Ingham, said in a statement released… [this week]….
“Obviously, this decision is extremely disappointing and should be of great concern to all Christian denominations,” she said. “While these congregations have remained steadfast in their faith, and have not changed the traditional teaching of the Christian church, they have now been called to sacrifice all their assets, including their church properties, for the sake of their faith.”
[Special counsel to the ANiC Cheryl] Chang added: “We always said that given a choice, we would choose our faith over our properties, and we have been willing to make that sacrifice if called upon by the courts to do so.”
FWIW the Supreme Court in Canada is profoundly liberal, having voted 9-0 a few years ago to require provinces to make available same-sex ‘marriage’. In that context, especially in respect to the main presenting issue, the decision was completely predictable.
One wonders how this will play out. Bp Ingham has gone into the history books as the ‘gentleman’ who charged Jim Packer, arguably one of the great evangelical Anglican theologians of the 20th century, with abandonment of ministry, and took his license. I don’t know if he got deposed.
Packer was an assistant at St. John’s Shaughnessy, one of the congregations that left for the Southern Cone. This is a huge parish, and I rather doubt that there will be many liberals to attend worship there (and pay the bills) once the present congregation leaves. Perhaps it will become a mosque.
Sorry for the double post, but more about this (from one side) is at the DioNW website: http://www.vancouver.anglican.ca/
Bp Ingham in a pastoral letter writes, “By now you may have heard that the Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed Leave to Appeal by those who launched law suits against the Diocese in an effort to oppose the blessing of same-sex unions…For many of us, the debate about same-sex relationships has faded into distant memory.”
Wishful thinking, Bishop.
I doubt that “liberal” or “conservative” had much to do with this, No. 1. The reason the decision not to hear the appeal was predictable was because the intermediate appellate court ruling was a clear and well-reasoned application of the law.
#4. I think this has been debated elsewhere (on this and other forums) and while you are welcome to your views on this matter, you’ll understand if others disagree with your evaluation. As it happens, for good or ill, the courts have decided, and it’s in God’s hands now. What some have meant for evil, God means for good… and he is the judge before whom all will stand some day to give an account. May the Lord have mercy on us all.