By Jack Krayenhoff

PARISHIONERS of some B.C. Anglican churches are facing tough choices when it comes to standing on tough issues.

Dinah Mastine was a life-long Anglican – and her church, St. Philip’s in Victoria, had a long-standing reputation for being evangelical. But last year, she felt she could no longer stay there. How did that happen?

Mastine was born, baptized and bred in the Anglican Church. When in her teens she was confirmed, she says, “I believed in God and Jesus, but I had not committed my life. I had things done to me, but had not done anything myself.” She did not make the decision to follow Christ until after she left England for Canada in the 1960s. After awhile she came to live in Quebec, where she joined an evangelical Anglican church.

In 1993, she and her husband Gordon moved to Victoria and joined St. Philip’s. Often they would have lively and satisfying discussions with the rector about the faith, and worked together with him in monthly healing services.

 But about three years ago, there was a change.

“The teaching was moving away from the absolute gospel,” she says. “It was hard to put my finger on it. During our conversations the subject of Bishop Ingham of New Westminster would come up, and I would tell him what I thought; but it became difficult to get him to state his opinion. I gave him mine, but he did not give his back.”

Her basic reason for leaving was the feeling that the teaching focus had shifted. “The authority of the Bible was not given pre-eminence. Decisions were made, rather, on what secular society feels is right – in this case that practicing homosexuals have the same rights in the church as everyone else, including functioning in leadership.

“But I believe that if we do not admit God’s authority to tell us through the Bible how to live, it causes tremendous damage and grief. So when a homosexual person was given responsibility, in the rector’s absence, to teach children, and this was not corrected after the rector’s return, to me that became the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Considering the tradition of orthodoxy at St. Philip’s, was there not a strong force among the parishioners to join the Anglican Essentials Network?

“Before I left, several others had already gone, and several others after me – but I cannot say for sure why. When I left, I sent letters to the leadership explaining my reasons; but only one person responded. The people have not been listening or reading about the issues; nobody was talking to anyone else.”

Mastine, despite the rift and her subsequent departure, has not rescinded her relationship with the Anglican Church altogether.

“I am still an Anglican. It seems to me that it is the Anglican Church of Canada that has gone off the road. I will still be in communion with the majority of Anglicans across the world, and under the oversight of  Bishop Don Harvey of the Network and Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone.”

Bud Boomer sports a fine tattoo on his right forearm, so it is no surprise to learn he was in the Navy for 25 years (and worked for the Department of National Defense for another 18 after his retirement). 

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He had grown up in a United Church family but, he confesses, “I never got any solid convictions of my own”.

In 1975, his wife June joined St. Mary’s in Metchosin which, under the leadership of rector Harry Sylvester, had become a strongly evangelical, Bible-based and charismatic church.

“She conned me into coming along with her,” he remembers as June, sitting next to him, nods with a smile. However, it took an old Navy buddy, who had himself just become a Christian, to lead him to Jesus.

Boomer has been with St. Mary’s ever since, which continued in its evangelical position –  first under Charles Alexander, who helped found Anglican Renewal Ministries; and  until recently, under Sharon Hayton and Andrew Hewlett (see story below). 

Early on, the congregation thrived; it quickly outgrew the small heritage church in the centre of Metchosin, and with its own resources built a larger facility.

The only help from the Diocese was a modest loan that has been entirely paid off, interest included. The congregation therefore now has two buildings.

During the present controversy, the congregation of St. Mary’s decided – with a majority of 86 percent – to join the Anglican Network In Canada (ANiC), placing itself under the episcopal oversight of Bishop Donald Harvey and Gregory Venables, primate of the Southern Cone, South America. The Diocese of Vancouver Island reacted strongly by banning Hayton and Hewlett from the premises of the church, and from exercising their priestly functions.

According to Boomer, the clergy involved kept them abreast of developments.

“The clergy made us aware of what was going on, updating us at information meetings. They never told us what to do – just informed us of the issues, so that we could make our own decisions.”

Boomer says the issue is one the church is sure will disappear, like others in the past; so they do not address their parishes. Instead, they leave the people in the dark.

“The parishes are uninformed. The person in the pew has heard nothing from the pulpit. He may hear about it on the news and ask questions, but gets no answers. Some people leave, but the church carries on.”

He adds: “People from other Anglican churches are told by their clergy, ‘This is not a church-splitting issue. We had controversy in the past about divorce, and women in ministry; but it went away, and this will go away.’ Meanwhile the over-all decline in numbers continues.”

Deeper issues are at the heart of this controversy, however. Boomer says the Anglican Church of Canada is calling other biblical truths into question.

“The homosexual issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Many Anglican clergy are now saying: ‘The deity of Christ is not that necessary to the faith; the resurrection may be only a metaphor.’ They don’t talk about sin any more, they talk about ‘choices.’ If that is true, there is no longer any need for the Cross, no eternal life. We become a social club, instead of a community of people who want to worship and follow Jesus.”

April 2008