Going Through the Motions

Going Through the Motions.

A View From the Pew

by Gerry Hunter.

April ended, and May began, with the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada considering the situation in the Diocese of New Westminster. Bishop Terry Buckle had made his offer of oversight to the faithful parishes there, who would have none of the Diocesan's manifestations of apostasy. He went there under the specter of pending judicial action, one who had taken extraordinary action to preserve a place for faithful Christians in New Westminster within the national Church. If observers were expecting a miracle, I am pleased to report that there was one. Bishop Buckle made it back to the West Coast alive.

Bishop Michael Ingham, the tormentor-in-chief of West Coast faithful Christian Anglicans, is well known as a master political manipulator. He was true to form at the meeting. What he lacked in Christian relevance, he more than made up for in timing, if not originality. He chose the occasion to give effect to his promised charade of pastoral care for those in his Diocese who see through his abandonment of the historic Christian faith. Thanks to a collaborator, he had in hand a request for the appointment of a powerless purveyor of platitudes, who wore purple. He managed to somehow persuade someone to strut and fret for hours upon his stage, and announced the appointment. And sure enough, this tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, gained him applause from the assembled prelates worthy of Richard Burbage or Sir Laurence Olivier in their primes.

There were three motions pertinent to the abandonment of faithful Christian witness in the Diocese of New Westminster. Two were favorable to Bishop Ingham's predations, and were moved and seconded by Archbishops. A third, calling not for repentance but merely restraint, was moved and seconded by Bishops, and was tabled. With these actions, the Canadian Bishops have moved the Anglican Church of Canada a giant step closer to irrelevance in the manifestation of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.

In their first motion, the "House welcomes" the appointment of the Episcopal Visitor. Now the kindest thing that can be said of this action by the House is that it takes very little to please them. In fact, it takes absolutely nothing, because the appointment is an utterly vacuous act. This is not the appointment of anyone to do anything. It is the attachments of strings to a marionette. For the only pastoral authority involved will be that which is "delegated," and the only duties which may be performed are those which are "assigned." Indeed, Bishop Ingham states explicitly in the memorandum announcing the event, "The Diocesan Bishop retains canonical authority over all parishes, and licensed clergy, including jurisdiction in all episcopal acts. None of the duties of the Episcopal Visitor shall in any way exclude or replace the same responsibilities of the Diocesan." Edgar Bergen expected nothing less from Charlie McCarthy.

Although the House may, perhaps, be excused in the pews for being easily pleased, the motion has a second paragraph which, among gratuitous and flagrant insults, would demand the blue ribbon. For the faithful Christians in the pews are urged to "explore the possibility of finding their own best interests, and those of the wider Church" in this Episcopal vaudeville act. In the pews, we know full well that the scheme has been well explored. It has been found wanting with reference to Holy Scripture, clergy promises, Christian love, respect for conscience, its implicit temporary nature, Anglican tradition and polity, legality, and applicability to new clergy. And we pray that the hypocrites who urged us to consider it again do not compound the insult by claiming they were unaware of any of this. Let there be no mistake; this most patronizing and condescending insult directed at those of us who occupy the pews has not gone unnoticed, either with respect to its form or its source.

The second motion was hardly earthshaking. Having previously made the decision to pass the buck on the matter of blessing "same-sex unions" to the General Synod of 2004, this motion merely asked that Bishop Ingham agree to wait until then, all along with everyone else in the House. But it seems that the bilious rhetoric around "collegiality" which we in the pews frequently have spewed in our direction is not about a universal principle. In fact, we in the pews trust we will never again be put upon with any further mention of it. That way, the House can claim at least a moment of consistent behavior in its history, since it saw fit not to vote on this motion, but rather to table it.

The third motion made it very clear that the House of Bishops has, as a body, absolutely no interest at all in the spiritual well-being of believing Anglican Christians in thrall to Bishop Ingham. Dismissing Bishop Buckle's efforts to support this witness, with a sop that it was based on a "desire to be helpful," it urged the withdrawal of the offer. Now if we in the pews ever had any misgivings at all about the contempt which, as a collective body, the House of Bishops holds for our action to stand firm for the faith once delivered to the saints, these misgivings are no more. What is more, we are mindful that this contempt has been manifested by a body whose members each have sworn they are, "ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word: and both privately and openly to call upon and encouraged others to do this same." We in the pews, you may be assured, see nothing in this motion that could possibly be taken to be encouragement to Bishop Buckle in his efforts. Indeed, this undercutting of faithfulness to the Christian Faith and Holy Scripture must send as much of a chill through those Bishops present who are inclined to faithfulness as it does to faithful Christians in the pews. They, as much as we, had a clear indication that, to the House, we are both unappreciated and expendable.

So now, in the pews, we must respond and act. The reality of the powerless Episcopal Visitor as a deemed sufficient response to the predations to which we have been subjected must be squarely faced. Our most urgent task concerns our children. They now inhabit a spiritual ocean which locally contains both cleaner wrasses and blennies. We are not bereft of faithful clergy who will care for our spiritual needs and health, as the wrasses clean other fish in their environment. But Bishop Ingham had in hand a request that enabled him to give effect to the Episcopal Visitor sham. For faithful parents in the pews, that means there are also blennies in the ocean. The blenny looks and behaves very much like the wrasse, but rather than cleaning a fish that approaches it, the blenny removes chunks of fin and flesh. We must make sure our children are safe, because appearances in New Westminster cannot be relied upon.

We must also contemplate on how it could possibly come to pass that Bishop Ingham could engage an Episcopal Visitor at all. In doing so, we must be mindful of the fact that, although those who enabled his coming were close enough to have seen what was going on in the diocese, the respondent was not. We must acknowledge that Bishop Buckle is not the only Bishop with a sincere desire to be, in the words of the House, "helpful." But here in the pews, we can only think of the words Sir Isaac Newton spoke when a beloved pet knocked down a candle, setting fire to some papers, destroying the almost finished labors of some years: "O Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief done!" Indeed, we must remember that what the House as a body has seen fit to do to us here in the pews, it has done to every believing Christian Anglican in Canada, including those it numbers among its own members. Theirs must be a particular pain, because the two motions which consigned us, ignominiously and contemptuously, to insignificance, were moved and seconded by men who, at the members' own concentrations, were addressed as "Most Reverend Father in God."

St. Peter has both warned us and assured us. He warned, "there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even defying the Master who bought them, ... And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. And in their agreed they will exploit you with false words." (2 Peter 2:1--3). But he also assured, "do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as do something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." (1 Peter 4:12--13)

In the pews, we must not forget that today, right now, faithful Anglican Christians beyond the contaminating effects of Western culture suffer much more for the sake of Jesus Christ then we do. They have no part in causing our torment, and are the overwhelming majority in the Anglican Communion. We wonder what they will think, say, and do, now that the Canadian House of Bishops has gone through the motions.