The Anglican Church of Canada is a sorry mess. This article in the Journal exemplifies the muddled floundering of the adherents of Rowan’s middle way. Cultural dogma sets simpering conviviality on an entirely higher plane than truth and Anglicans, being suckers for cultural conformity, will do just about anything to get along with each other. When antagonists become friends, nothing has been accomplished other than – friendship; if the friendship is regarded as progress, it has displaced truth and is little better than stomach heaving niceness.

Agree to disagree and move on, a twenty-something youth representative from the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) board of directors suggested recently. Continue the discussion but don’t let it get in the way of moving forward, he advised.

That’s the same conclusion Canon Harold Munn reached after a year of lunch conversations with a colleague on the other side of the same-sex blessings fence. Try as he might, Mr. Munn simply could not budge his lunch-mate’s position. One incredible thing did happen however: the two men came to understand each other’s point of view and out of mutual respect, a friendship grew.

It’s not consensus, granted, but it’s progress. Out of the rut. And it may provide us with a model of how we can proceed. Because outside the doors of the Anglican Church of Canada and indeed, across the Anglican Communion, the world is changing. And while we’ve been driving back and forth on the same old issues, the ranks of Anglicans in the pews have plummeted to an all-time low.