From here:
The officer of General Synod who advises the Anglican Church of Canada on canon law and legal matters says he’s “absolutely confident” that human-rights complaints made against clergy who refuse to perform same-sex marriages would fail.
“Human rights legislation recognizes freedom of religion and of religious organizations, and I am absolutely confident that that complaint would be dismissed,” Canon (lay) David Jones, chancellor of General Synod, told Council of General Synod (CoGS) at a session dedicated to the marriage canon Saturday, June 2.
I am quite sure that eventually there will be a human-rights complaint against a clergyman who refuses to perform a same-sex marriage. David Jones’s confidence that it would fail misses the point: would the Anglican Church of Canada pay the legal bills and fines of the refusing clergyman? Will pigs fly?
If the church is not legally bound to defend an employee who is being hounded by the HRC, all reassurances are worthless since the hapless cleric could be financially ruined.
On a brighter note, Dean Peter Wall plans to leave the church and crawl into a hole if the marriage canon change does not pass. Liberals love to harp on about “walking together” in spite of disagreements. But that only applies if they win.
Peter Wall, dean of the diocese of Niagara and chair of the General Synod planning committee, said with a strained voice he feared he would leave the church if the vote were to fail.
“My fear is that if the resolution is defeated, I cannot stay in the church,” he said. “I really fear that I would walk away and never come back into a church again, and take all my leadership, and all my experience…And I’m afraid I would crawl into a hole.”
Peter Wall states he might leave the Church but his actions clearly prove he has together with his many apostate colleagues already left the true CHURCH and worships the detestable “god of political expediency”. Until the ACoC and other branches of the Anglican Communion return to the WORD and adhere to the Scriptures and stand up against the world view which is really one of absolutely no moral standards it cannot be called a CHRISTIAN church.
Membership in the Church throughout its history has always included both true and false believers. It seems to me some branches of the Church are losing true believers faster now than in previous decades.
Peter Wall has a very weak faith and should just leave now. It’s not about you Rev. Wall. The Anglican church of Canada is not Christian because it is not faithful to Centuries old church traditions. The Didache “teachings of the apostles” forbade abortion. [just to mention one tradition] Marriage is between a man and a women. A tradition that goes back to the 1st. Century. All Anglicans should look at the present teachings of the church and compare them with tradition. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. True Christian theology doesn’t adapt and adopt modern morality based on what feels right and non oppressive to one’s rights.
Hello Rob,
I think we need to stop referring to the things that you mention (prohibition against abortion, heterosexual marriages only) as “tradition”. For the truth is that these are not traditions that man can change, but are in fact Teachings from God. And being Teachings from God no mortal has any authority at all to change.
The bigger problem with organizations such as the AcoC is that of a rejection of the Holy Bible as the Divine Word of God. I have actually heard an “priest” of the AcoC say that the bible is only a collection of writings made by men who wrote what they understood at that time, and that today we now know so much more. It is this heresy and arrogance within the AcoC that is an evil and deadly infection. One that is literally killing the AcoC.
Blessing to you,
AMP
If The Church of Scotland’s descent into the gay ‘marriage’ abyss is any guide and the civil assurance of ‘The Government Equalities Act’ (an abyss into which The Presbyterian Church in Canada at its 144 General Assembly is contemplating via an unlawful (ie bypassing appointed Committees and their Reports) Committee of the Whole putsch from the Presbytery of Pickering, with the GA’s two Clerks/Scribes playing hear/see no evil here), be not assured.
V. Free Baptist Pastor Jon Gleason’s ‘Mind Renewers’ “Isn’t It About Time To Go?” and its
September 1, 2011 prognosis. Fatal. Inverting Canon Wall’s planned departure for all the wrong reasons, Pastor Gleason, quoting the Apostle Paul’s + II Timothy 3:5, counsels
“from such turn away” – for all the right, as in Scriptural, reasons.