For the most part, the Diocese of Niagara no longer believes the gospel: its priests don’t believe the creeds, that the bible is the inspired word of God, in the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ or his physical resurrection. Unsurprisingly, Christians are fleeing the diocese.

The editor of the Niagara Anglican, Christopher Grabiec, ever intent on keeping a firm grip on his blinkers, does not see the obvious connection between a benighted theology and mass exodus. Instead, it is a time of testing, even a dark night of the soul.

The corrective action suggested by Mr. Grabiec is to more thoroughly abandon historic creeds and orthodox Christian beliefs (page 1):

It’s time to hang up our past prejudices and our insistence on things being the way they were. Christ, born among us, entered a world that was smug and sure of itself and its religious systems. He turned over their tables. Who is to say that our systems, our creeds, our beliefs as we understand them, are for all time? Our chosen bishop and spiritual leader has asked us to look at everything and to grow in Christ, pursing excellence as a community and as ministers of Christ in the world.

As the 4 Niagara ANiC parishes brace themselves for the next legal onslaught from a diocesan administration bent on exacting revenge for the affront of being told they have abandoned the Christian religion, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the predicament of Christopher Grabiec and his master is a contemporary exposition of Exodus 4:21.