• BC Christian News • MAY ISSUE 2001 • VOL. 21 #5 • Formerly "Christian Info News" •

Lift high the Anglican cross

ANGLICANS from around the world will discuss the essentials of their faith at a conference in Langley next month.

The conference, which is titled Lift High the Cross and takes place at Trinity Western University June 14 - 19, is the first national gathering of Anglican Essentials representatives since the coalition was formed in Montreal seven years ago.

A press release on the Anglican Essentials website says the goal of this conference is to help the Anglican Church of Canada find the way forward over the next decade. We begin this recognizing the global nature of Anglicanism and its rootedness in the central tenets of historic, orthodox Christianity.

Speakers at the conference will include Dr. Edith Humphrey, a theologian from Ottawa; Rev. Dale Lang, the minister from Taber, Alberta who has turned the death of his son in a school shooting into an opportunity to promote forgiveness; Rev. Dr. Barry Parker, rector of St. Pauls, Bloor Street in Toronto, one of the largest Anglican churches in Canada; and bishops from Europe, Africa and South America.

Anglican Essentials comprises three orthodox Anglican groups, including the Prayer Book Society of Canada, Barnabas Anglican Ministry and Anglican Renewal Ministries. Rev. Ed Hird, rector at St. Simons Anglican Church in North Vancouver, says the existence of Anglican Essentials has helped the Anglican Church in Canada to avoid some of the more bitter tensions that have afflicted the Episcopalian church, its American counterpart.

If you look at the American church and the mess its in, I believe the Essentials coalition has been a big part of why the Anglican Church in Canada has had little of that, and has had little loss, in terms of membership, compared to what's happened in America, he says.

Peter T. Chattaway