Apologia Pro Vita Mea (or, what a year it's been!)

On Sunday, August 6, I will take up my new post as preaching pastor at New Hope Christian Fellowship, the Wesleyan Church in Shawville Quebec. I expect most readers of the blog know that I relinquished my license with the Anglican Church of Canada in the Fall of 2016, but some of you might not. And I know some of you expected I would be moving to another Anglican body, as so many others have done. I haven't. What follows is a sort of an apologia pro vita mea (with apologies to Cardinal Newman).

I entered the final year of my contractual obligation at the Church of the Epiphany in Sudbury in 2016. Though it was in many ways a secure position which afforded me time to write and teach (the congregation was very kind and generous!), Rachel and I had both concluded that our ministry there was coming to an end. What troubled us, however, was the lack of clarity about next steps. We talked about a move to Athabasca, to Toronto so that Rachel could finish her M.Div, as well as other possibilities, but none worked out. Opportunities were either unfeasible, or, in spite of good will all round, didn’t click for some reason or other. When we explained this dilemma to +Stephen Andrews over dinner one evening, he was supportive (as always) and offered to extend our stay in Sudbury for two years, but with the possibility that we could leave with notice at any time.

Then came April. My father was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer, which had metastasized to his liver and given 3 to 6 months to live.[1] It was immediately clear to both Rachel and me what our next move was: to Shawville, to help in the care of my dad until he died, and then, to help mom downsize and get used to a new life. About the same time, a job offer as youth pastor at New Hope, Shawville was extended to Rachel which included a house and utilities as part of her salary. At that point, the decision was made.

I sought and secured my release with +Stephen and announced our departure to the people at the Epiphany. +Stephen also alerted the Bishop of Ottawa to my arrival so that there might be some work once I arrived. I was, again, grateful for the support. We would be leaving the Epiphany at the end of June, and departing Sudbury one month later.

Once in Shawville, God’s provision continued with irregular, but well-paying work for me as a supply teacher at the local high school, working at the local funeral home, and some clergy work in local (mostly, though not exclusively, United Church) congregations.

As all of this was going on, there was the debacle of General Synod 2016. After the secret vote, followed by bishops’ press-conferences, followed by un-secret recounts—which, as far as I can tell called into question every decision made and not just the decision on the marriage canon, it became evident to me that I could no longer serve as a presbyter in the Anglican Church of Canada. Those bishops who spoke to the press made it very clear that regardless of any decision taken by General Synod, they were going to go their own way. The result, as far as I could see, was a monarchical episcopacy that far exceeded the wildest dreams of the most ultramontane Catholic.

Where Catholic bishops are accountable to the magisterium and Pope, there is now no such restraint in the Anglican Church of Canada. The Canons no longer act in any meaningful way to check on episcopal actions. They, alongside Holy Scripture and the House of Bishops, have become just another wax nose to be twisted according to the position of whomever is wearing the purple at whatever time. (And if the position can’t be twisted, hold a press conference and announce that “Do what I wilt shall be the whole of the law.”) As I commented to a colleague at the time, General Synod left the church with bishops who appeared genuinely to believe “Les canons? Les canons sont moi!” How any presbyter can legitimately keep his or her ordination vows in such an environment I cannot imagine. Others can so imagine and have been able to stay in ministry. Many of these I count as colleagues and some as dear friends and I do wish them well. I judge only myself when I say my imagination failed and as a result, I could not stay. Especially in the Diocese of Ottawa.

I relinquished my license in early Fall, and as far as I knew, left ordained ministry behind not knowing that my prediction that canons would be either ignored or rigidly enforced according to ideological purity would come true as quickly as it did in both BC and Toronto. The canons are now weapons in a rout and any pretense to “walking together” has been dropped.

It was at this point—now Spring of 2017—that things changed significantly. The pastor of the congregation where Rachel worked announced his retirement. He then approached me and asked if I would succeed him. His reasoning was simple: I was here. I was affordable. It would keep Rachel on staff (and let’s face it, everybody loves her). Most importantly for him though, was the fact that this was the church in which I was raised. There would be an immediate fit.

I was not convinced. My prayer life quickly reduced to, “Father, take this cup from me. . . .” But, God did not. At each stage of the process in which God could have intervened to end it (and was asked to do so), the process advanced: with each hurdle passing more quickly and more smoothly than the last. I am especially grateful to the Ven. Harry Huskins, Ex. Arch. of Algoma and +Anne Germond for the very gracious letters of support they provided for me in my departure. I am also grateful for the welcome that has been extended to me by Rev. Peter Rigby, the Superintendent of Central Canada District of the Wesleyan Church, by the district as a whole, and by all the clergy I have met or re-connected with since June of this year. (And let’s be honest, a lot of these clergy are my cousins and one is my brother, so they have to welcome me, right?)

All this to say: I did not leave the ACC in order to join another church. Those two events in the minds of all concerned, except perhaps the mind of God, were independent of each other. My reason for relinquishment had to do with the dismissal of any ecclesial instrument that could effectively say “no,” to a bishop. In the absence of accountability, I could not trust. And because I could not trust, I could not serve. I have been welcomed into the Wesleyan Church, where there is room for a sacramental theology and where there is a shared and lived sense of accountability before Holy Scripture and in the light of a common Discipline.

And that is where I am called to be.

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[1] My dad, I should say, is now some 16 months on, doing reasonably well. His doctors now describe his cancer as chronic rather than terminal.