We need to recapture and embody our lost and forgotten Anglican virtue of mission and evangelism.
Our church’s biblical convictions have cooled, and most of our parishes are theologically confused, malnourished and erroneous, and have lost creedal confidence in the supernatural power of God’s Word, in God’s Holy Spirit, and in the historic person of Jesus—his virgin birth, his theanthropic life, death, bodily resurrection, bodily ascension, and bodily return. Our church does not need to be more culturally relevant or to be “with the times.” We need to “hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” God’s Word. We need to take seriously and be especially convinced of Jesus’s death on the cross as our only means of being reconciled to God and to each other. We need to take seriously and be especially convinced of Jesus’s bodily resurrection as our only means towards cosmic justice and transformation. Clergy need to preach and teach these things in their homilies and sermons. Parents must teach these things to their children who are baptised in the church. We are not God’s people if we are not people who believe and trust His Word.
I am hopeful that the Anglican Church of Canada will persist 20 years from now. God has granted us still the management of enormous resources, assets, materials and real estate. But those are not our most treasured possessions. We have the creeds, our Bible, our common prayer, our history of missionary and theological enterprise, our liturgical heritage, the beauty of biblical language and sacred music, our global presence and ecumenical relationships, our sacramental conviction and participation—these are our Anglican conduits through which the Holy Spirit still chooses to work. Let us therefore step up, stand up and live up to the historic, apostolic, and catholic richness of our Anglican heritage to declare Christ crucified, to make Jesus known and glorified, to call all people to repent and believe His Holy Gospel, first in our parishes and throughout the places that we are in.