Bishops in rebellion

Liberal bishops love to brag about how they are committed to “walking together” with the rest of the Anglican Communion in spite of radically different views of human sexuality – and, therefore, human nature itself, God’s created order and ultimately the nature of God and his relationship to the church.

It is ironic, then, that the most liberal bishops in the Anglican Church of Canada can’t even “walk together” with their own national church. Many have announced that they intend to defy the  synod of the national church by marrying same sex couples.

Here is a list of bishops who have declared their intention to begin same sex marriages or explore the measures necessary to begin them:

Michael Bird, Niagara
Colin Johnson, Toronto
John Chapman, Ottawa
Jane Alexander, Edmonton
Mary Irwin-Gibson, Montreal
Melissa Skelton, New Westminster
Robert Bennett and Linda Nicholls, Huron

I expect more will follow and I’ll add to the list as they do.

8 thoughts on “Bishops in rebellion

  1. Yes agreed as per my last comment. I don’t think one of the fruits of the Spirit is rebellion.

    Maybe, having disagreed with the Anglican Church of Canada on this, they should do the principled thing, resign, and form a new church. Possibly without taking the buildings. 😉

    • I fully agree. The apostates within the ACoC have clearly shown they are NOT Christian but worship the “god” of political expediency. Orthodox bishops, clergy and laity should become part of the Anglican Network in Canada. Previous actions of various diocese clearly show their disdain for true Christians and their love of stealing properties and evicting genuine orthodox Christians.

    • Peter, I like your sense of humour!

      The thing that was blowing my mind – back before the ‘correction’ made news – was the total lack of integrity displayed by these bishops. Most devout people I know, if they run up against a matter of conscience, feel they have two choices: to stay and to work for change in an honest fashion or to resign. If the conscience issue is a serious one, resignation. But the immediate move to simply set aside church law, a democratic vote and all pretense at ‘listening’, ‘discerning’, ‘dialogue’ and instead to opt for this route was… well, it was revealing to say the least.

      I’m so glad we had this little wobble in the vote-count, because it made many things plain to all who have been watching.

  2. I feel sick to my stomach. I feel like a spectator in the Roman Coliseum, watching Christians be fed to lions. Is it blood sport that I read these posts every day? Where is our Polycarp marching into the arena crying “in the name of Christ, forbear”? Our bishops who should be protecting us from wolves are instead frolicking around the Maypole in Caligula’s garden. The sign of the rainbow seems more and more appropriate everyday as God’s promise that the Earth will be destroyed by by fire. How strangely apropos that the rainbow flag flaunts God’s promise with glee. I’m going to be sick now.

  3. Melissa Skelton has not explicitly said she will ignore the decision (at least not in the Pastoral Letter she sent out this morning). She has, however, committed to a period of consultation on the way forward. During that consultation, I will make the point that I expect all clergy, including the bishops, to comply with the canons, and that failing to do so would be to invite censure, which is likely to be forthcoming. There are financial considerations, and it takes more than one person to start the process, but I would not be surprised to see others considering action too.

  4. I was curious to see if there is anything in the General Synod Canons about discipline of bishops who violate the canons. I found Canon XVIII that does say that it is an ecclesiastical offence to violate any lawful Canons of the Church, including the General Synod Canons. This would be a way of testing whether the marriage canon XXI does prohibit bishops from authorizing same-sex marriages. For bishops, such a case falls into the jurisdiction of the Provincial Court of Appeal. I looked up the Canons for the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario (which would cover the bishops of Ottawa, Huron, and Toronto) and there is a process, but the process is heavily controlled by the Metropolitan, who just happens to be the Bishop of Toronto. In order for a case to be started, there would have to be a complaint filed by three other bishops within the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario or by a group of three clergy and three lay delegates to the provincial synod. It is interesting that there does not seem to be any provision for someone outside the ecclesiastical province to discipline clergy or bishops for violating the General Synod canons, at least as far as I can tell. It certainly does not look very likely for a charge to be filed in Ontario.

  5. Interesting that if the vote had passed with the necessary 2/3 majority, the resolution would have needed to be voted on and passed again in 2019 for the canon change to take effect. However, since these bishops did not get the vote result that they wanted, they are going ahead anyway right now. It makes me wonder what was the point of the whole canonical debate.

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