REV. Mark Davison of Brentwood Anglican Chapel is emphatically evangelical – and not too shy to say so.

In fact, in a series of articles in last year’s Diocesan Post, he defended the orthodox, evangelical position on same-sex relationships. How is it, then, that he is staying with the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), which many orthodox clergy and parishioners have abandoned over that issue?

He tells BCCN he feels free to speak frankly; his bishop, James Cowan, has given him permission to do so.

Davison has given the matter a lot of thought. First of all, he emphasizes that same-sex relationships are forbidden in both the Old and New Testament.

Liberals, he says, may try to give these prohibitions a new interpretation. But this will not do, because it violates a principle laid down in the 5th century by St. Vincent, who outlined how to distinguish between truth and heresy: that our understanding of scripture, with respect to differing interpretations, must be guided by the interpretation of the whole church everywhere and throughout all ages.

New interpretations which differ, no matter how authoritative or persuasive the people who propound them, must be rejected when they deviate from faith tradition and reason. The Anglican Church has always accepted that principle.

The liberal view is also unsound, says Davison, when it claims homosexuality is genetically determined – implying it must be accepted as the way God has made a person.

But our genes, he notes, having come down to us from Adam, were tainted by the Fall – and therefore carry Adam’s sin. Now Christ has come as our last Adam, and his power to save includes the power to save us from genetically enshrined sin, because our new birth includes a new set of genes: Jesus’ sinless genes.

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“Jesus heals, reconciles and forgets all sin, whether we describe it as the effect of nurture or of nature,” he says. “Just as he can change people’s natural bent toward adultery, so he can change a bent toward homosexuality.”

Given that this view goes against the Anglican Church of Canada’s current stance, why have he and his congregation have chosen to stay with the ACC?

“A year ago I said to my bishop and the Diocesan Council that we feel confident to remain with the ACC – unless or until we were required to do anything that was unconscionable from the perspective of the historic faith, including blessing same-sex unions.”

Davison sees himself as a representative of orthodoxy within a branch of Anglicanism which is, as he says, “driving itself out of historic Christianity and the orthodox worldwide community.”

His role, he believes, is to “offer commentary and criticism to synods and bishops and councils. Because I love the Anglican Church, and when error enters into it, by God’s grace and help I must speak against it.”

What about the future?

“The ACC is one of the fastest dying denominations in Canada,” he says. “It still is the second or third largest denomination in Canada, but within half a generation that will no longer be the case.

“Worldwide, it is the largest Protestant denomination. Did you know that the number of Anglican believers worshiping in church on Sundays in Uganda alone exceeds that of those in Britain and North America combined?”

In this struggle, he says, “I represent Canadian Christians. What happens in the ACC also happens in other denominations; we are fighting on your behalf as well. We need your support, we need your encouragement, we need your prayers.”

– Jack Krayenhoff

June 2008