New Westminster – New Gospel; the ANiC trial

Court cases between orthodox parishes and revisionist dioceses have, sadly, become something of a commonplace in North America, but the current court battle in the Supreme Court of British Columbia between four Anglican Network in Canada parishes, including St John’s Shaughnessy, and the Anglican Church of Canada’s Diocese of New Westminster led by Bishop Michael Ingham is proving to be very revealing.

This is the first time a Canadian court has been asked to rule on the question of overall control of Anglican church property. The trial itself began on 25th May and has some time to go, with judgement not expected until late summer, but whether they win or lose, the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) has already done orthodox Anglicans – if they take notice – a great service by this bold decision to take a legal stand.

The ANiC parishes’ case is essentially very simple; that the Diocese of New Westminster under Bishop Michael Ingham no longer holds to the central doctrines of the Christian faith; it has reinvented the gospel and the presenting issue, the blessing of same sex unions, is simply a symptom of this deeper malaise. In evidence at the trial on day three , a member of one of the ANiC congregations spoke of her shock as far back as 1994 when Bishop Michael Ingham  denied the uniqueness of Jesus as the only saviour and in 1997 he subsequently enlarged on this theme in his book ‘Mansions of the Spirit’. As members of the ANiC, they are aligned with the orthodox majority in the Anglican Communion through the GAFCON movement and see that they have a duty to ensure that historic assets are protected and held in trust for orthodox Anglican ministry. In essence, their argument turns on a confessional understanding of the church – that a valid Anglican Church is one which is faithful to historic and orthodox Anglican doctrine and practice.

While Michael Ingham does not deny that the authorisation of  blessings for homosexual partnerships is a major departure from mainstream Anglican teaching – in fact he sees himself as something of a prophetic figure in this regard – he strongly maintains that a Church can change core doctrines so long as the correct procedures are followed. In essence, his argument turns on an institutional understanding of the church and this takes us to the heart of the division in the Anglican Communion – does unity – being ‘in communion’ – depend primarily upon shared doctrine or shared institutional history?

The revisionist agenda thrives on ambiguity and confusion, but this legal action has forced Michael Ingham to state the revisionist position with an uncommon degree of clarity, not only under cross examination, but also in the Diocese of New Westminster’s Submission to the court released on June 1st.
 
Here it is stated quite directly that ‘what underlies their [the ANiC parishes] entire case is their insistence that the blessing of same-sex unions is inconsistent with “historic, orthodox Anglican doctrine and practice”. The [Canadian] General Synod, however, has affirmed that such blessings are not in conflict with the core doctrines of the Church’ (p.3, emphasis as original). 

It might be thought that if the General Synod can authorise such a fundamental departure from historic Anglican teaching, its right to continue holding historic assets could be questioned. The New Westminster Submission recognises the point and acknowledges  the precedent set by General Assembly of Free Church of Scotland v. Lord Overtoun [1904] in which it was ruled that  ‘the property of a religious institution must be held and applied to the original purposes for which that institution was founded, that is, for the original “trust”’, but then argues that in a Church where there are mechanisms for changing doctrine (as there were not in the Free Church of Scotland), the principle no longer applies and Churches can change doctrine without historic assets being at risk.

It would appear that this understanding contradicts the Anglican Church of Canada’s (ACoC’s) own constitution. The Solemn Declaration of 1893, adopted by the first General Synod and part of the Declaration of Principles in the Handbook of the General Synod of ACoC, commits the Church to ‘hold and maintain the Doctrine, Sacraments and Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded in His Holy Word, and as the Church of England hath received and set forth the same’  with specific reference to the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal and the  Thirty-nine Articles ‘and to transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity’ (emphasis added).

But now it seems, we know better and are no longer bound to pass on these things ‘unimpaired’. Under questioning on day six  of the trial, Bishop Ingham said that he viewed the Solemn Declaration as ‘an historical document’  Likewise, the Diocese’s submission argues that an interpretation of  the Solemn Declaration ‘as a requirement for the Anglican Church of Canada to maintain “historic, orthodox Anglican doctrine and practice”’ is an outdated and static understanding of doctrine, whereas Anglicanism is a ‘dynamic faith tradition’ in which ‘interpretation is an ongoing project’ (p19).

On the previous day, Michael Ingham  had referred  to the Archbishop of Canterbury in defence of this ‘dynamic’ view.  When asked to define orthodoxy, he said “I am greatly persuaded by Archbishop Rowan Williams saying “he describes (it) as the conversation of the Church… broad and not narrow… and includes many streams of thought.”

It is not entirely clear if Ingham is actually quoting the Archbishop at this point, but even if he is not, it is a fair summary and entirely consistent with what Williams has written; to take but one example ‘If we had to choose between a Church tolerably confident of what it has to say and seeking only for effective means of saying it and a Church constantly engaged in internal dialogue and critique of itself, an exploration to discover what is central to its being, I should say that it is the latter which is more authentic.’ (Women and the ministry: a case for theological seriousness’, in Monica Furlong (ed.), Feminine in the Church, 1984, p12).

In its defence, the Diocese also cites the Archbishop of Canterbury’s continued recognition of ACoC as part of the Anglican Communion following the intervention of Archbishop Greg Venables on behalf of the ANiC congregations. The New Westminster Submission quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter of 4th February 2008 to the ACoC Bishop of Brandon assuring him that ‘this office and that of the Anglican Communion recognise one ecclesial body in Canada as a constitutive member of the Communion, the Anglican Church of Canada’ (p80). So however much historic doctrine, teaching and morality may be up for questioning, that clearly does not include the territorial jurisdiction of bishops and, with unblushing canonical fundamentalism, the Submission supports its prelatical claims with an appeal to the ‘ancient canons of the Church going as far back as the 4th century’ (p78).

So what is being revealed in this case is that the Diocese of New Westminster’s defence gives rise to a line of argument which leads inexorably to the conclusion that Anglican Churches do not in principle have any doctrine which cannot be changed, but its essentially pragmatic motivation   becomes obvious when it is maintained that the institutional structures of episcopacy which arose to preserve this doctrine are beyond debate. 

This position is being given plausibility by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, not only by his theological writing, but also by his refusal to use the powers of his office to exercise any form of effective discipline.   And it is clear that what is evolving in New Westminster is a ‘new gospel’. Its Submission is not at all apologetic about innovations which have helped to precipitate a global spiritual crisis, claiming in prophetic terms that ‘The blessing of same-sex unions is very important to a great many people within the Diocese, as the evidence shows. The blessings advance Christianity’s ideals of love, acceptance and inclusion. They are a legitimate expression of Anglican belief within the social context of Vancouver and its surrounding areas’ (p46).

So for the future, The Churches in the increasingly secularised cultures on both sides of the North the very clear lesson emerging from this case is that moratoria and incremental negotiation over covenant clauses are futile strategies. The revisionist aim is not, initially, to exclude orthodox ministry, but to neutralise it through defining the church institutionally. If it can be generally accepted that doctrine is provisional and can be changed by a Church following due process– even if it hasn’t yet – then the legal ground has been conceded and the defences against false teaching are undermined. Atlantic will then be extremely vulnerable, even in England itself where establishment has meant that the Church has been heavily conditioned by the state since the sixteenth century and the present Archbishop of Canterbury’s theology of ‘conversation’ only serves to downgrade the Church’s capacity to discern truth from error.

A more radical approach is necessary which builds on the GAFCON initiative to realign the Anglican Communion  as a confessional body and give it solid expression by some form of Conciliar accountability. Since the reformation, the lack of any kind of magisterium – a central teaching authority – has been a besetting weakness of the Church of England and by extension,  the Anglican Communion  as a whole. That vulnerability is now being painfuly exposed. Though some evangelical Anglicans might be nervous about Conciliar leadership, it is likely that court cases such as that of the ANiC parishes will become increasingly common and for their sake it is vital to have a clear and authoritative voice for global Anglicanism, not a vacuum that gives plausibility to error, placing historic resources and the visible landmarks of the faith in jeopardy.

Do pray for the ANiC parishes and their lawyers as the trial continues. Updates can be found at http://anglicannetwork.ca/legal_updates_0509.htm. And for readers in the British Isles, this is a very good reminder of why you need to take a stand and book for ‘Be Faithful’ at Westminster Central Hall on 6th July to support the launch here of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans!

Charles Raven

5th June 2009