CanadianAnglican
Evangelical charismatic Anglican Catholic
In a normal synod vote you cannot abstain. It is a matter of doctrine, and either you support a change or you do not. In the run-up to the General Synod, the Council of the General Synod (the standing body of the Anglican Church of Canada that is in charge of the national offices and leadership of the Church, etc) said that their plan was for a completely procedurally clear process, all above board, because as I have mentioned previously, the Anglican Church of Canada has had a history of using procedural manipulation to pass contentious proposals at General Synod that have led to decades of dispute and acrimony (my rector was a clergy delegate at the synod that approved same-sex marriage, and there are similar but lesser concerns in the process of liturgical reform that led to the Book of Alternative Services which my current rector also participated in).
In February, the House of Bishops announced that they did not have the requisite 2/3 majority and that the measure was not likely to pass. No bishops changed their minds, however the first full day of Synod (this past week, months after the bishops announced that the measure would not pass in their house) the Synod voted to change the voting procedure. One bishop, one clergy and one lay delegate abstained from the vote as a result of that. Had they not abstained from the vote, it would have failed in two houses. That is how close the vote was.
Because of the procedural change at the last minute, and because of the obvious desire of the leadership (primate, Chancellor, COGS, etc) to pass the motion, there is a strong sense that again the vote was rigged (in the 70s the vote was held when people were out of the room who would have opposed it and other measures were put in place to limit debate and input, etc). Similarly, on the first day of the synod, the Chancellor announced that it was his determination that Canada's marriage canon did not in fact prohibit same-sex marriage, despite the fact that it limited the sacrament of matrimony to one man and one woman (explicitly). He argued that it did not prohibit a diocese from expanding beyond that definition. Again this was seen as an underhanded way of permitting those who wished to do so to proceed with same-sex marriage regardless of whether or not Synod approved the measure (which is in fact exactly what happened when the bishops of Ottawa, Niagra, New Westminster, etc announced immediately following the failed vote that they would permit it in their diocese anyway).
Now as a point of clarification and reminder to everyone, the amendment has not yet come into effect. Bishops cited above that have determined to proceed are still planning to begin marrying same-sex couples even though the canon has not yet changed. The same resolution must be passed again at the next general synod in 2019 by a 2/2 majority in all three orders again. Once that happens it will come into effect in January 2020. Despite this, people are ignoring that. People are ignoring the resolution passed calling on the church to engage with the report of the marriage canon which was disregarded during the debates in favour of making the arguments from emotion and experience that the change was needed because if you didn't you didn't love someone or it ought not to be because of one or two verses. There was no doctrinal debate at all.
As I have referenced, the resolution will amend the marriage canon to adopt civil law (over which the Church has no control) as the means by which the Church affirms people are qualified to enter into holy matrimony. This is the text that was adopted:
Declare that Canon XXI (On Marriage in the Church) applies to all persons who are duly qualified by civil law to enter into marriage.
This is very troubling because it effectively says the Anglican Church of Canada no longer has a doctrine on Marriage. We cannot have a doctrine on marriage because we do not control any longer who we say is qualified to be married. If we do not control who is qualified to be married we cannot claim any unified doctrine. We cannot say in one section that if the law permits it they are qualified, and then in another section say they are not qualified. The Chancellor's own ruling that same-sex marriage was not excluded by virtue of the language of the unamended Canon makes that wholly clear.
If the Parliament of Canada were to pass legislation that said that two people could not be prohibited from marrying by virtue of religious affiliation, the Canons of the Anglican Church of Canada would no longer permit Holy Matrimony from being restricted to couples where at least one member is a baptised Christian.
The conscience clause, which Bishop Steven Andrews required to be added back in 2013, was also amended out at the start of the debate by the bishop of Toronto (one of the bishops who intimated that he would permit same-sex marriages in the diocese after the supposed no vote, and has since said he is still considering letting it go forward despite the fact that the canon will not change for three years).
Ultimately the state of marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada is that there are no longer any coherent purposes for why marriage is to be permitted. Each bishop may not permit or restrict marriage as they see fit, and ultimately each priest may similar decide whether or not they wish to marry any couple for any reason. There is no consistency, and our polity has been negatively impacted for that.
Everyone is so caught up in the negative emotions of the synod that no one is particularly engaging in any kind of discussion on what the implications of all of this are going forward, and how it might impact future decisions. Other decisions at synod were also overshadowed. Because the debate went on so long, taking up several extra hours on Monday night and then adding several hours worth of procedural debate Tuesday morning, the liturgical revisions were passed largely without debate authorizing a new psalter and morning and evening prayer which were heavily criticised when they were first published. The author's had originally sought to remove the creeds and replace them with non-traditional affirmations of faith.
The only good thing that happened there was a motion to amend the BCP to de-authorize the use of a prayer in it was defeated, something the Prayer Book Society had been advocating for (it was an amendment to remove a prayer for Jews to recognize Christ as their messiah).
Finally a report (Iona Report) on the vocational diaconate was received without debate. The report basically calls for vocational deacons to become social workers and social activists with a particular emphasis on indigenous affairs, and moves them away from traditional roles in terms of pastoral care and visits to shut-ins for the distribution of the sacrament.
Again that process was very frustrating because there was no debate, and it allows the few people involved in the faith and worship comittee to direct significantly influential matters within the church (the psalter that was approved was entirely written and composed by a single priest with no broader consultation, and the the rationale for the new liturgies that were approved were very explicitly failing to address the concerns raised for why they were commissioned... Essentially the claim was made that the BCP and BAS liturgies were difficult to use because you had to flip around in the books so much, but the rationale for the new liturgies was that the BCP and BAS language was insufficiently inclusive, so efforts were made to create new liturgies that no longer refer to God in the masculine gender or as Lord, and some other similar changes were made).
Overall the one big result for me, having had to sit through this and now having had an opportunity to pray over it a few times, is to emphasize how entirely unsuited the parliamentary synod system is for doctrinal decisions, and how utterly dangerous it is to allow such a small group to have absolute control over these liturgical revisions (two people for all of the liturgies that were approved, and a panel of five people for the Iona Report on the diaconate). It actually makes me yearn for a teaching magisterium like Rome has, if not for the fact that our bishops displayed no more tact or grace than most of the other delegates (kudos to Bp. Fraser Lawton of Athabasca as a notable exception).
In February, the House of Bishops announced that they did not have the requisite 2/3 majority and that the measure was not likely to pass. No bishops changed their minds, however the first full day of Synod (this past week, months after the bishops announced that the measure would not pass in their house) the Synod voted to change the voting procedure. One bishop, one clergy and one lay delegate abstained from the vote as a result of that. Had they not abstained from the vote, it would have failed in two houses. That is how close the vote was.
Because of the procedural change at the last minute, and because of the obvious desire of the leadership (primate, Chancellor, COGS, etc) to pass the motion, there is a strong sense that again the vote was rigged (in the 70s the vote was held when people were out of the room who would have opposed it and other measures were put in place to limit debate and input, etc). Similarly, on the first day of the synod, the Chancellor announced that it was his determination that Canada's marriage canon did not in fact prohibit same-sex marriage, despite the fact that it limited the sacrament of matrimony to one man and one woman (explicitly). He argued that it did not prohibit a diocese from expanding beyond that definition. Again this was seen as an underhanded way of permitting those who wished to do so to proceed with same-sex marriage regardless of whether or not Synod approved the measure (which is in fact exactly what happened when the bishops of Ottawa, Niagra, New Westminster, etc announced immediately following the failed vote that they would permit it in their diocese anyway).
Now as a point of clarification and reminder to everyone, the amendment has not yet come into effect. Bishops cited above that have determined to proceed are still planning to begin marrying same-sex couples even though the canon has not yet changed. The same resolution must be passed again at the next general synod in 2019 by a 2/2 majority in all three orders again. Once that happens it will come into effect in January 2020. Despite this, people are ignoring that. People are ignoring the resolution passed calling on the church to engage with the report of the marriage canon which was disregarded during the debates in favour of making the arguments from emotion and experience that the change was needed because if you didn't you didn't love someone or it ought not to be because of one or two verses. There was no doctrinal debate at all.
As I have referenced, the resolution will amend the marriage canon to adopt civil law (over which the Church has no control) as the means by which the Church affirms people are qualified to enter into holy matrimony. This is the text that was adopted:
Declare that Canon XXI (On Marriage in the Church) applies to all persons who are duly qualified by civil law to enter into marriage.
This is very troubling because it effectively says the Anglican Church of Canada no longer has a doctrine on Marriage. We cannot have a doctrine on marriage because we do not control any longer who we say is qualified to be married. If we do not control who is qualified to be married we cannot claim any unified doctrine. We cannot say in one section that if the law permits it they are qualified, and then in another section say they are not qualified. The Chancellor's own ruling that same-sex marriage was not excluded by virtue of the language of the unamended Canon makes that wholly clear.
If the Parliament of Canada were to pass legislation that said that two people could not be prohibited from marrying by virtue of religious affiliation, the Canons of the Anglican Church of Canada would no longer permit Holy Matrimony from being restricted to couples where at least one member is a baptised Christian.
The conscience clause, which Bishop Steven Andrews required to be added back in 2013, was also amended out at the start of the debate by the bishop of Toronto (one of the bishops who intimated that he would permit same-sex marriages in the diocese after the supposed no vote, and has since said he is still considering letting it go forward despite the fact that the canon will not change for three years).
Ultimately the state of marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada is that there are no longer any coherent purposes for why marriage is to be permitted. Each bishop may not permit or restrict marriage as they see fit, and ultimately each priest may similar decide whether or not they wish to marry any couple for any reason. There is no consistency, and our polity has been negatively impacted for that.
Everyone is so caught up in the negative emotions of the synod that no one is particularly engaging in any kind of discussion on what the implications of all of this are going forward, and how it might impact future decisions. Other decisions at synod were also overshadowed. Because the debate went on so long, taking up several extra hours on Monday night and then adding several hours worth of procedural debate Tuesday morning, the liturgical revisions were passed largely without debate authorizing a new psalter and morning and evening prayer which were heavily criticised when they were first published. The author's had originally sought to remove the creeds and replace them with non-traditional affirmations of faith.
The only good thing that happened there was a motion to amend the BCP to de-authorize the use of a prayer in it was defeated, something the Prayer Book Society had been advocating for (it was an amendment to remove a prayer for Jews to recognize Christ as their messiah).
Finally a report (Iona Report) on the vocational diaconate was received without debate. The report basically calls for vocational deacons to become social workers and social activists with a particular emphasis on indigenous affairs, and moves them away from traditional roles in terms of pastoral care and visits to shut-ins for the distribution of the sacrament.
Again that process was very frustrating because there was no debate, and it allows the few people involved in the faith and worship comittee to direct significantly influential matters within the church (the psalter that was approved was entirely written and composed by a single priest with no broader consultation, and the the rationale for the new liturgies that were approved were very explicitly failing to address the concerns raised for why they were commissioned... Essentially the claim was made that the BCP and BAS liturgies were difficult to use because you had to flip around in the books so much, but the rationale for the new liturgies was that the BCP and BAS language was insufficiently inclusive, so efforts were made to create new liturgies that no longer refer to God in the masculine gender or as Lord, and some other similar changes were made).
Overall the one big result for me, having had to sit through this and now having had an opportunity to pray over it a few times, is to emphasize how entirely unsuited the parliamentary synod system is for doctrinal decisions, and how utterly dangerous it is to allow such a small group to have absolute control over these liturgical revisions (two people for all of the liturgies that were approved, and a panel of five people for the Iona Report on the diaconate). It actually makes me yearn for a teaching magisterium like Rome has, if not for the fact that our bishops displayed no more tact or grace than most of the other delegates (kudos to Bp. Fraser Lawton of Athabasca as a notable exception).
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