A Hamilton church that voted on the weekend to leave the national Anglican church body and join the small but growing Anglican Network in Canada, says it is not breaking away.
“We are aligning with the worldwide Anglican church,” said Rev. Sandy Copland of the Church of St. Peter in Hamilton, which was part of the Niagara diocese.
“It’s the Canadian church or parts of it that have broken away.”
This presents an intriguing stategy. Dual membership, perhaps? Hypothetically now. Parish A has been an officially Episcopal Church member parish since 1885. Righteously indignant over the rampant pluralism of TEC, Parish A also joins Network B without officially casting TEC aside. This sounds like AAC/ACN, but with some teeth, perhaps? With an end goal preceded by vision and mission, and measurable goals and objectives? I’m confused (I know, what else is new?). How does one leave and not break away? Please understand that I grasp the semantics, and advocate for them: TEC broke awake from apostolic, historic Christianity, not Parish A. My brain hurts!
In order to grasp it we need to disabuse ourselves of the TEC/815 mindset that the one with the name and the buildings is the real church. But we also need to take care not to form the opinion that God has withdrawn his shekinah (his ‘glory’) from TEC. What my seminary classmate Sandy Copland is saying is that as the institutions of TEC and the ACofC have willfully walked away from the truth of the Gospel, her parish has stood firm. Thus the AC of C, in that view, is the one that has moved. It’s sort like the mean kid who, tired of playing fair, snatches all his toys from his friends in an effort to stop their fun. Then he’s all alone in his back yard, while they’re having fun next door, though sorry that their friend has withdrawn. Those kids don’t need the mean kid’s toys to carry on playing. Meanwhile, he’s got lots of neat toys, but no one to play with them. Does that make sense?
Organizational prestidigitation aside, how does this have practical application for the orthodox in TEC? I’m just not seeing it, unless the evolution/amalgamation of AAC/Continuers/ACN/CCP is going to bear fruit within TEC and then censure, defrock, inhibit,depose, and bring presentment against the heretical leadership of TEC.
Unfortunately, this article from the local paper in Hamilton, Ontario seems poorly written, or is at least hard for those of us lacking knowledge of the local situation to understand. The part about St. Peter’s is clear enough. It’s the part about St. George’s that isn’t.
Anyway, as small as St. Peter’s may be, it’s courageous decision to leave the ACoC and affiliate with the ANiC creates hope for other orthodox Anglicans in Canada, and more bad press for the ACoC. Good for them.
I hope someone will do a story soon covering the emergence of the ANiC as a new ecclesial body of Anglicans in Canada. In particular, I’m intrigued by the fact that this new body now has 21 congregations, but only 13 of them were previously affiliated with the ANglican Church of Canada. The story of the other 8 would be nice to know.
David Handy+
St. George’s Ottawa is a large old evangelical parish, information [url=http://anglicannetwork.ca/pdf/st_georges_ottawa_ontario.pdf]here.[/url]
Thank you, Dr. Turner. The link to the ANiC factsheet about St. George’s, Ottawa was helpful, even though the print is so small.
But perhaps you, or someone else familiar with the ways of Canadian Anglicans, could explain the different usage in the word “vestry” there. I note that at the top of the factsheet, it highlights that the ASA (average Sunday attendace) of the parish is about 260 or so, but that the expected attendance at meetings of (in?) the “vestry” is around 100-110. In the US, a typical “vestry” (i.e., governing board of elected representatives) for a church that size would probably comprise just 12 people, maybe 15-18 at most. I’m guessing that in Canadian usage, a meeting of the “vestry” is more like what we Americans would call a “congregational” meeting.
Finally, let me pose another question about Canadian Anglican churches that also displays my regrettable ignorance as an American. What is the average/mean size of Canadian Anglican congregations? I suspect it may be even lower than in the USA. If St. John’s, Shaugnessy/Vancouver is the largest parish in Canada, and it only averages less than 800 per Sunday, that’s significantly smaller than our largest parishes in the US. So a church like St. George’s, Ottawa, with an ASA of 260 may be one of the largest Anglican congregations in the capital city, despite what seems to this observer to be a relatively modest size.
By way of comparison, however, let it be noted that the typical TEC congregation is also actually very small, around 70 ASA. And it’s been declining for years.
David Handy+
David, the factsheet supplies a website link.
Here the ‘vestry’ is all members in good standing entitled to vote. Parishes hold at least an Annual Vestry, for elections of the Parish Council [=your vestry], passing the Budget etc.
I don’t know about average/mean size in this country. Our population is of course one-fifth yours, but the demographic is historically quite different. Ours is historically a ‘people’s church’ of colonialist origins, sometimes still called “the English church”. The tragically ruined UCC was the sole indigenously Canadian Protestant church. 40% of the Canadian population is nominally Roman.
We were in St. John’s from 1971-81. Holy Trinity, Vancouver, our parish now and still in the Diocese, is easily one of the largest remaining parishes at c. 200 members, ASA c. 100. Many smaller parishes are struggling.
For photographs of both parish churches see [url=http://priscillaturner.redbubble.com/sets/7752/works]my Redbubble Churches gallery.[/url]
Dr. Turner,
Thanks again for responding to my questions. I’m glad that blogs like this one are international in scope. I often feel like such a rank beginner in learning about the worldwide AC; there are so MANY ways in which TEC is different from other Anglican churches.
It appears that there is a real problem with retaining sufficient size for critical mass in many Anglican congregations in both the US and Canada, a problem which many of us clergy are well aware of, but perhaps many laity are not. What is the minimum size to be sustainable? That will surely vary from place to place, but there is a growing agreement among many of us that in order to maintain the old model of parish ministry, with a fulltime, seminary-trained, resident priest in a single parish requires a budget of at least $150,000 (minimum). And that’s with minimal outreach expenditures, which therefore probably sets the minimum budget actually too low. How many people it takes to generate that kind of income will naturally vary too, but many of our North American congregations are clearly in danger of dropping below the critical threshold for viability.
That’s one key reason why more and more TEC churches are being priced out of the fulltime clergy market, further accelerating the decline of the denomination. I suspect that both TEC and the ACoC are closer to having the bottom fall out than most people realize.
BTW, thanks for contributing to the thread next door (so to speak) over at Stand Firm about R. C. Sproul and his embracing of a literal six 24-hour day creation. Alas, I often find it very frustrating trying to post there on subjects like that where there isn’t much openness to, or understanding of, modern biblical scholarship. I’ve often felt rather alone when sticking up there for the validity of mainstream, centrist theological scholarship. So I’m glad you joined in the fray, if only for a while.
David Handy+
To add to the confusion over Vestries: My diocese– Fredericton (which covers the entire province of New Brunswick)– is unique, or nearly so, in Canada in that we are set up on the American model. Each parish has an Annual General Meeting, which elects a corporation consisting of the rector, two churchwardens (not junior and senior or rector’s and people’s wardens- just ‘churchwardens’), 6 to 12 vestry members, the clerk and the treasurer. And we function pretty much the same as in an American parish.