The Island Parson

This will be the first of three posts I am going to put up here on my blog.

• This one is going to be about the attendance statistics collected by the General Synod.
• The second will be about how the statistics are used to produce the number of delegates allocated to each diocese, as well as how people get to vote at General Synod in other ways. I do some number crunching in that blog, to show that not all votes are equal (and argue why that is actually OK).
• The third post will combine the weighting of the each vote as a representation of attendance with how those votes went with respect to the First Reading of the Amendment to the Marriage Canon.

Delegates at General Synod 2010 in Halifax debating the proposed amendment to change how delegates to General Synod are apportioned. The motion on the screen was eventually amended.

At the General Synod meeting of 2010 in Halifax the rules around how delegates to General Synod were determined for each diocese was changed. Each diocese was entitled to send its bishop or bishops, as well as one youth delegate. That did not change. The way in which it determined how many clergy and lay delegates there were in each diocese was changed. Prior to 2010 it was based on the number of clergy licensed to active ministry. After Second Reading of the Amendment in 2013, the rule to determine clergy and lay delegates became:

Dioceses shall be entitled to elect clerical and lay members of the General Synod as follows:

i) for dioceses having an average attendance of 4,999 persons or less, two members of each Order;
ii) for dioceses having an average attendance between 5,000 and 9,999 persons, three members of each Order;
iii) for dioceses having an average attendance between 10,000 and 14,999 persons, four members of each Order;
iv) for dioceses having an average attendance of 15,000 or more persons, five members of each Order plus one additional member of each Order for each 5,000 of additional average attendance in excess of 15,000.
v) the words “average attendance”, as used in this section and elsewhere in the Constitution, shall mean the average attendance for liturgical celebrations for Easter, Pentecost, the second Sunday in September and Christmas in the second and third calendar years prior to the year in which General Synod will take place, as reported by the Diocese to Church House.
Constitution of the General Synod II. 8. f)

Accordingly, in 2014 and 2015 the dioceses collected the statistics required for the four days, namely Easter, Pentecost, the Second Sunday in September, and Christmas. Christmas is understood to include the services of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and Easter includes any attendants at the Vigil. The four days in the two years (I.e. eight days) are added up, averaged, and the average number then determine how many lay and clergy attend. Easter and Christmas are typically high numbers, whereas the other two are pretty normal Sundays for weekly attendance.

So, for example, my Diocese of British Columbia had an average of 6135.38. This means that in addition to one bishop and one youth delegate, we were entitled to send three clergy and three laity. The diocese itself determines how these delegates are chosen – in some dioceses the bishop has the right of appointment of one or two – but usually they are elected by diocesan synods. In the Diocese of BC we always elect our clergy and lay delegates, and I was one of the three clergy honoured to be so selected.

The Office of the General Secretary confirmed my hope that the attendance records were public, so I asked and received these numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. Some of the dioceses did not submit any figures, namely Algoma, Mishamikoweesh, Moosonee, and Quebec. This may be due to administrative challenges – as a former executive officer of the Diocese of BC I know what a hassle it is to get parishes to give statistical information on a timely basis. Each of these jurisdictions are small, and they may have made the back-of-envelope calculation that they would not get out of the minimum level of representation, so it was not really necessary to file a report. That said, I haven’t inquired, so I don’t really know.

Here are a few observations.

First, the two year average for attendance at Christmas is 241,913. While one can make all kinds of comments about that figure, the fact is that this is a heck of a lot of people. On a regular basis at least once a year we get close to a quarter of a million people in our churches. Say what you will about the church, and our Anglican denomination in particular, but 241,913 is a big number. We get fewer on Easter – 190,357 – and the numbers for the Second Sunday of September is a mere 93,786, but this raw number suggests that as a church we are still affecting the lives of many people. Should we do more? Absolutely. Have we had better numbers in the past? Yes. But we’re not dead yet!

Second, the dioceses vary widely in their average attendance, which is an indication of a huge disparity in size. Have a look at this:

* Council of the North           § Archdeaconry of Labrador is in the Council of the North

As you can see, the average attendance in the Diocese of Toronto is more than forty times that of the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior, and more than 100 times that of the Diocese of Yukon. If we were to range them the Diocese of Toronto is in a class by itself, being more than twice the size of the next largest diocese by attendance, namely Huron. The next four dioceses fall between 7,500 and 11,000, which means Toronto is at least three times their size. The next nine dioceses range between 3800 and 6900, five are between 1152 and 2348, and the rest are all below 1000. To put it another way, close to 2/3rds of the Canadian church is found in just seven dioceses. While we can be proud that we are in every corner of the country, we are overwhelmingly an urban church.

A third observation is that if we were a city we’d be 21st on the list of metropolitan areas. At times it feels like the Anglican Church of Canada is a small village that just happens to spread across the country from shore to shore to shore, but the data suggests that we’re really a mid-size city with all the diversity that entails. Our church is bigger than you think it is.

Fourth, some of these dioceses are really small in terms of population. But they are also often responsible for large geographic areas. An argument might be made that some dioceses should just merge – Quebec with Montreal, or Saskatoon with Qu’appelle. Indeed, the leadership of the Diocese of British Columbia a few years ago had a very, very informal discussion about whether it would make more sense in terms of stewardship of resources to join with the Diocese of New Westminster (I know this ‘cause I was there) but the conclusion was “God put us on an island and determined the boundaries of the Diocese that way”, so we did not go forward to get more serious. Despite that experience I believe we need to push that question of stewardship of resources, but at the same time we need to be respectful of the trajectories of different dioceses in their traditions and cultures.

A final comment is to observe that there are other measures of our size. Based on nine year old data from the ACoC website at http://www.anglican.ca/help/faq/number-of-anglicans/ there are 545, 957 persons listed on the parish rolls. This suggests that even at our major feasts only half the people we count as Anglicans are actually in church. According to Statistics Canada and the 2011 census some 1,631,845 people in our country consider themselves Anglican. Both of these statistics bear witness to the quip by Reginald Bibby that our problem is not that people have dropped out, but that they aren’t dropping in. In terms of a strategy for evangelism we would do well to consider how to encourage those who think that they are already members to become more active!

In the next blog post I’ll look at how those numbers translate into representatives at General Synod.

I haven’t posted much on this blog lately because I’ve been posting on another blog – the Diocese of BC at GS2016. It’ll give you a partial view of the 41st meeting of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada from the perspective of the delegates from the Diocese of British Columbia (i.e. Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands).

Full coverage by the Anglican Journal may be found here.

I feel sorry for C. C. J. Carpenter, who was a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the US between 1938 and 1968. He was undoubtedly a decent man and an effective leader. But that is not what he is remembered for.

Charles Colcock Jones Carpenter was a graduate of Princeton and the Ivy League wrestling champion. He stood six foot five and had a large booming voice and a patrician accent. He looked like what people expected in an Episcopalian bishop in the mid-20^th century. He was able to take advantage of the Baby Boom in the post-war era and during his time many parishes were founded and became self-sufficient. A church camp was founded and was well established. His diocese was in the South, but he sought to encourage overcoming the divisions of segregation within the churches, which earned him the enmity of the Ku Klux Klan.

However, Carpenter is not remembered for any of this. Carpenter was the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, and is today mainly remembered for being the first name on a list of eight clergymen who signed their name to an open letter published on April 12, 1963 in Birmingham Alabama. The title of the letter was “A Call for Unity” and in addition to Carpenter it was signed by a rabbi, a Catholic bishop, Methodists, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian. The letter was directed at the demonstrations being planned by against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, protests that were part of a nonviolent campaign being coordinated by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. An injunction had been obtained from a judge to prevent “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. The leaders of the campaign said that they would not obey the injunction, and would move forward with their protest. On Good Friday, April 12, the leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, along with Ralph Abernathy and other leaders were arrested and thrown into jail.

What got to King in jail was not the brutal and demeaning treatment he received at the hands of the racist Birmingham police – he expected that – but the failure of moderate religious leaders to give the campaign support. He received a smuggled copy of the letter criticizing him and others as an outsider and condemning his methods of non-violent protest. In response King wrote on scraps of paper a “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. It is a remarkable piece of writing and still relevant today.

He wrote:
I must confess that over the past few years
I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion
that the Negro’s great stumbling block
in his stride toward freedom
is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner,
but the white moderate
who is more devoted to “order” than to justice:
who prefers a negative peace
which is the absence of tension
to a positive peace
which is the presence of justice;
who constantly says:
“I agree with you in the goal you seek,
but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”;
who paternalistically believes
he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom;
who lives by a mythical concept of time
and who constantly advises the Negro to
wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will
is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering
than outright rejection.

So, why do I bring this up?

As you may know, there is a meeting of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada this July in Richmond Hill, Ontario. You are probably also aware that one of the motions to be presented is a request to change the Canon on Marriage to empower bishops to allow their clergy to preside at same-sex marriages. I will be there, and I intend to vote in favour of it.

However, in February of this year (2016) the House of Bishops met and communicated to the Council of General Synod that they did not believe that the House of Bishops had the necessary 2/3rds majority. In other words, the message seems to be, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

Well, for many of us this is a justice issue. Unfortunately, unlike in King’s case, we are not in the vanguard of justice, but trailing in the rear. As Anglicans, years after same-sex marriage became the law of the land, we have been hiding behind the shields of religious belief, justifying the lack of change because of the necessity of placating our privileged, conservative brothers and sisters rather than hearing the pain and exclusion of LGBTQ sisters and brothers.

But I am tired and I am impatient. As Executive Officer & Archdeacon of the Diocese of British Columbia for nearly ten years I went through the schisms, seven parishes in this diocese, with lawsuits and anguish, and this after trying hard to persuade people to remain because, after all, we had not even started blessing same-sex relations. And still we were condemned both locally and internationally. Well, I have had enough. I will go to the General Synod and vote my conscience and vote for inclusion and the amendment to the marriage Canon.

To the best of my knowledge Bishop Carpenter never repented of having signed “A Call to Unity.” I do not know how he reacted to the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” But the question I put to the Canadian House of Bishops, these shepherds of the church is this – which side of history will they be on? Will they be like those many Episcopalians who supported Martin Luther King? Or will they be like Bishop Carpenter, who in the name of a supposed unity wanted to delay justice? Will they have sufficient faith to choose seek justice?

My prayer is that the House of Bishops will have that faith – that there will be enough of them who will choose to be on the side of justice, on the side of compassion and mercy, and that there will be enough and more  votes to pass the amendment. Justice delayed is justice denied.

.

If you are a member of the Anglican Church of Canada, you probably know that there is a meeting of the General Synod this July in Richmond Hill, Ontario. You are probably also aware that one of the motions to be presented is a request to change the Canon on Marriage to empower bishops to allow their clergy to preside at same-sex marriages. This would only be the First Reading – because it deals with a change to doctrine and worship it requires being passed at two consecutive General Synods, and with a 2/3rds majority in the “houses” of laity, clergy, and bishops; thus, it would not only have to be passed at this General Synod, but at the next one in 2019 (and even then, according to the draft motion, it would only come into effect on January 1, 2020).  In February of this year (2016) the House of Bishops met and communicated to the Council of General Synod that they did not believe that the House of Bishops had the necessary 2/3rds majority.

It does look bleak, eh? 2/3rds is pretty high bar, and while the guessing is that the motion would pass in the two “lower” houses, the message from the bishops to those who want to change the canon is “Don’t get your hopes up.” That said, lobbying has begun. A Facebook group with over 1400 members has started to gather advocates for the change (and somehow I got named as one of the admins). Its members have sent to every bishop copies of Michael Coren’s book on how he changed his mind on the issue. There will be a booth at General Synod 2016. Most importantly, written letters have been sent to bishops asking them to consider voting in favour of the change, and frequently these letters have spoken of personal experiences of how the Anglican Church of Canada has excluded them.

If I were offering odds I would give the motion a one in three chance of passing. I’ve argued elsewhere that we might still get the 2/3rds in the House of Bishops but it will be close. I would not be surprised it it failed, but gratified if it passes. And if it fails, that would seem to be the end of it, right? Because, after all,  General Synod has jurisdiction over doctrine, worship, and discipline. The liturgies we use (BCP 1962 and BAS 1985) were developed and authorized by General Synod. The Marriage Canon was written and amended by General Synod. And the discipline canon, as well as the canon on the relinquishment of ordained ministry, was written and authorized by General Synod. So it would appear that General Synod is the place to change things if one wants to have same-sex marriages, and if it doesn’t then we’re hooped.

Except, . . . . maybe not. Pace the delegated powers of General Synod over doctrine and worship, and the great deference people give it, that may not be the end of it. There are other options.

If a bishop wanted to empower his or her clergy to marry same-sex couples here’s what they could do.
First, ask the chancellor to review the marriage canon to come up with a legal opinion on the following questions:
1) Is there anything in the Marriage Canon of the General Synod explicitly forbidding same-sex marriage?
2) Does the ius liturgicum of the Ordinary permit the bishop to authorise rites that are not otherwise addressed by the General Synod?
Then, assuming the answer of the chancellor is respectively “no” and “yes”, the bishop might then authorise such a rite. Even better, the bishop might confer with other like minded colleagues in the House, and agree to act together. Given the importance of bishops working synodically, laity and clergy in the diocese(s) concerned should be consulted, perhaps in a synod, but certainly through the various structures and committees of the diocese.

As an armchair canon lawyer I would argue that a case can be made that there is no prohibition in the Marriage Canon against same-sex marriage. The canon obviously presumes that different-sex marriage is the norm – male and female – but it never actually addresses same-sex marriage. There are things that it does prohibit, and they are identified: In section I.3. the prohibitions based on consanguinity and adoption are in place; and in I.4 the marriage of anyone who is under the age of sixteen is forbidden. I.10 states that “No minister shall solemnize matrimony between two persons neither of whom has been baptized.” I.9 used to prohibit the remarriage of anyone who was divorced while their former partner was still living, but this was changed in 1967 to read “9. Certain Marriage Forbidden   Except as provided in part III or part IV of this Canon, no minister shall solemnize the marriage of two persons one of whom has been a party to a ceremony of marriage with a third person now living.” Parts III and IV deal with how divorced persons whose former partners are living can nevertheless be married according to the rites of the church.

An old principle of English civil law is that “everything which is not forbidden is allowed”.  This principle was defended as being applicable to church issues by the theologian Richard Hooker in the reign of Elizabeth I, in that while scripture contained all things necessary to salvation, it did not rule on all aspects of human behaviour.  Hooker’s opponents, the Puritans, wanted to abolish things in the Church of England which were not expressly supported by scripture – and so they opposed the office of bishops, the use of the sign of the cross in baptism, rings in marriage, and baptism by laity. James I and his bishops at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 adopted the late Hooker’s approach, and the Puritan agenda was frustrated for a generation.

That principle is still at work today. Whether we are conservative, liberal, evangelical, charismatic, high church or low church, Anglo-Catholic, we are doing things that are not covered by the express warrant of scripture, the rubrics of the prayer books, or the canons of the church. A “children’s time” on a Sunday morning is not allowed in any of the authorities I know, and yet it is a common practice. Balloons on Pentecost likewise are common, but are not addressed by our formularies. So it is worthwhile to ask whether this general principle applies to the Marriage Canon.

The second question for a chancellor refers to what is known as ius liturgicum, or the liturgical jurisdiction of the Diocesan Bishop (who in technical church language is known as the Ordinary). If you ever use a liturgy that is not in the BCP or the BAS or has not been expressly authorised by General Synod, but has been authorised by the local bishop, then you are operating under her or his ius liturgicum. In the Diocese of British Columbia we use Iona liturgies and Liturgy for the Islands, with the permission of the Bishop. I have written a Eucharistic Prayer and I have the permission of the bishop to use it in my parish. All of this is legal and canonical. So I would expect that the answer to this question is “yes”.

So, what I am suggesting is that even if the vote fails at General Synod 2016, bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada would  be on solid canonical ground to authorise the marriage of same-sex couples.

However, even if no bishops authorise same-sex marriages, there will still be same-sex marriages in the Anglican Church of Canada, for the simple reason that they have already happened. I know of two documented cases, and I am aware of others that were “under the radar”. In the documented cases the two officiants – one a cathedral dean and the other a retired archbishop – had their provincial licenses to officiate at weddings suspended for a time. Both are still active in their dioceses, preaching and presiding.

I expect that this kind of thing will become more common. In a recent article in the Anglican Journal the Primate notes that some bishops are already concerned about “the possibility that some priests may go ahead and marry gay couples in the event that a resolution changing the marriage canon to allow same-gender marriages is rejected”.  The Primate then raises the possibility of discipline. Discipline, I expect, would vary from diocese to diocese. In some cases, after a clear, documented order by a bishop to the clergy that same-sex marriages are forbidden, it could result in suspension or dismissal. In others it may result, as in the two previous cases, in suspension of the provincial marriage license for a time. It may mean a verbal admonishment from the bishop and a written letter in the personnel file. The cleric concerned could demand an ecclesiastical trial, with all the attendant publicity and cost. It also creates a problem for the bishop, in that if she or he removes a priest, they then have to find a replacement, and also deal with a furious parish. If half a dozen or more clergy in a diocese all act together then the Bishop is faced with finding numerous replacements in a large number of parishes – and the parishes will really not welcome these new priests-in-charge. This would be a nightmare for all concerned, but it is not impossible.

I am urging all bishops and delegates at General Synod 2016 to vote in favour of changing the Marriage Canon. However, if it does not pass, I fully expect that we will soon have same-sex marriages in parts of the Anglican Church of Canada, and perhaps sooner than the January 1, 2020 date that an orderly amendment of the canon would project. From what I know of the issue and the Anglican Church of Canada, it’s not a question of “if”, but “when”.

I did not draft the following letter, but I support what it says, and I am honoured to been asked to append my name to it.

March 30, 2016

To Members of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada

On February 29, 2016 you released a statement indicating that it was unlikely there would be the required 2/3 approval in the House of Bishops to pass the proposed change to the Marriage Canon at the upcoming General Synod.

We thought you should be aware that, in response to your statement, a Facebook Group has been formed called Advocates for Changing the Marriage Canon. To date there are over 500 members of our church, clergy and lay, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, who have joined this group and a very vigorous conversation is occurring on social media.

There has been much anger expressed. People question the theological and doctrinal reasons that are offered to prohibit full inclusion of LGBTQ persons accessing the full sacramental rites of the church. Some are concerned about the exercise of episcopal authority. We understand that there are those whose conscience may well exclude them from participating in the solemnization of matrimony between Christians of the same gender, but there is confusion as to why this must prevent those are called to offer sacramental marriage to same gender couples from moving forward.

Members of the group want General Synod 2016 to pass the proposed change to the Canon so as to allow this conversation to continue for the next 3 years in dioceses across the country. We appreciate the work represented by the excellent report This Holy Estate. We are moved by the theme of the upcoming General Synod You are My Witnesses—and want the Bishops of our church to know that we have heard—and will not ignore—a call from God to witness to a church that can celebrate and solemnize the marriages of all duly qualified Canadians.

Yours in Christ,

The Reverend Bruce Bryant-Scott, Diocese of British Columbia
The Very Reverend Peter Elliott, Diocese of New Westminster
Ms. Marion Jenkins, Diocese of Brandon
The Reverend Canon Mark Kinghan, Diocese of Toronto
The Reverend Dawn Leger, Diocese of Toronto
The Reverend Jon Martin, Diocese of Ottawa
The Reverend Brian Pearson, Diocese of Calgary
The Venerable Geoff Woodcroft, Diocese of Rupert’s Land

Administrators of the “Advocates for Changing the Marriage Canon” Facebook group
On behalf of the 500 members of the “Advocates for Changing the Marriage Canon” Facebook group