Holy Trinity Protest

Trinity III, 1998

Dear Bishop Michael,

Resolution #9 at Synod 1998

We, the undersigned members of Holy Trinity, Vancouver, wish first of all to commend you for your statesman-like action in withholding episcopal consent from the implementation of this resolution. This will help us all to heal, and will unite us in prayer for you as diocesan and for one another. We are thankful that the tone of the discussion was indeed for the most part both rational and irenical. This said, however, we must go on to express our very deep disquiet, not only that the motion was passed, but that it ever came to the vote in an Anglican diocese. In the first place, it was passed after the briefest and most superficial arguments had been heard on either side, whereas it would have been reasonable for Synod to have received detailed position papers for study beforehand, and failing that to have listened to two weighty presentations, each of at least an hour in length. In the second place, Synod ought not to have been debating a motion whose implementation would almost certainly have been illegal in Anglicanism. Yet a trained bishop and a trained lawyer permitted this flawed proceeding to take place.

That the argumentation was superficial and led to an un-Anglican conclusion may be seen from the following facts:–

i. The meaning of the resolution was never elucidated. One of our delegates sought an answer as to the connotation of the terms “bless” (a theological question) and “union” (a biological and legal one). An answer was promised, but no answer was forthcoming. As a result Synod lacked important factual information before the vote.

ii. The nature and source of authority in Anglicanism, and that there is a hierarchy of our sources of authority, was not stated by anyone more senior than an ordinary parochial clergyman. Nobody pointed out that we grant to no bishop, not even to a majority of bishops, and to no Synod, any independent magisterium.[1]

iii. The relation of the authority of experience to that of our other sources was not clearly stated by you or anyone senior. As a result Synod spent a great deal of time listening to personal opinions based on anecdotal evidence, nor did anyone intervene to remind us that all laws make hard cases, but are not invalidated thereby.

iv. Several speakers put forward the view that God could not have been expected to foresee our contemporary dilemmas and that we must in effect tailor the Faith and Christian ethics to our times. This profoundly anti-supernaturalist view went uncorrected by you, though it is un-Anglican and un-Catholic.[2]

v. The exegesis of Scripture was for the most part sloppy and unprofessional. We may well agree that “His whole meaning is love”; but the meaning of love, the relation of one part of God’s revelation to another, and in particular the meaning of love in relation to law, has been the subject of nearly 20 centuries of intelligent and reverent study in Judaism and the Church Catholic.[3]

Some speakers, again uncorrected by you, confused taking the plain sense of Scripture seriously with taking it literally, nor was there any acknowledgement of the fact that literalism is sometimes appropriate.[4]

Some favoured an attitude to the moral law which sets Scripture against Scripture.[5]

vi. Naive opinions were voiced about the ancient world in general and the biblical writers in particular. The impression was given that nothing old could possibly be new again.[6]

vii. It was assumed that the aetiology of the homosexual condition is simple and well-understood. In fact it is highly complex even in the given individual, and is still poorly understood.[7]

v. It was further assumed that a supposed genetic predisposition renders the individual no longer free or responsible. This is to infantilise the homosexual person in relation to all other mentally competent adults.[8]

ix. A parallel was drawn with the debate over the ordination of women. It was not pointed out that that debate was about admitting women to a kind of priesthood about which the New Testament is silent.

vi. There was an implicit doctrinal clash, connected with the argument about love, about the nature of the Christian life. Some implied that personal fulfilment is a Christian ideal, others emphasised discipline, obedience and sacrifice. It would have been good if you as our leader had discerned the old quarrel between legalism and antinomianism behind much that was said, and that we were indeed debating a doctrinal question. Gal. 5 might have figured.

xi. There was a failure to think in an Anglican and Catholic way about the past as well as the present. If we are Catholic in terms of time as well as space, we will seek to honour, not discount, the struggles of those who have given up satisfactions of all kinds, legitimate or illegitimate, for Jesus Christ.

Several years before your election as bishop, the Annual Vestry of Holy Trinity Vancouver passed an unanimous motion to the effect that we were committed to what we believe to be a scriptural and Anglican position in this matter, in accordance with the ’79 episcopal guidelines. Old or new, we are striving to believe and behave as classical Anglicans here. To sum up the position of this parish, we are not prepared to move in the direction of Resolution #9. It seems to us that that same Scripture, and that same Lord, that call us to love our neighbours by just conduct, call us to love our neighbours by sexual restraint and purity. We oppose the pretence that homosexual ‘union’ exists, let alone is capable of being blessed by Anglicanism in the name of our Creator and Redeemer. Homosexual persons who press for blessing on their relationships have at bottom a quarrel, not with church and society, but with the Author both of our biology and of heterosexual passion and response as the Great Metaphor for His love and ours. If we involved ourselves in that, we could not hold our people, still less grow. We think it more consistent that the Diocese should institute a Day of Celebration, to uphold those who seek to live, often at great personal cost, in accordance with what we believe to be Christian sex-ethics in this sphere.

Yours in Christ,

Copy: His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.