Stained Glass, Sweet Grass, Hosannas, and Songs: A Snapshot of Anglican Issues and Visions in Canada

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.

This book is the product of an Environics Research Group contract that
was the first phase of an intended three-phase process of researching
the current life and needs to the Anglican Church of Canada, proposing a
direction for the church, and planning the way to pursue that direction.
The intent of the first phase is to provide, as the subtitle indicates,
“a snapshot” of the concerns of Anglican laity and clergy from
across the country. A troubling addition to the focus groups conducted
in various regions is a chapter titled “Concerns of Stakeholders,”
which gives the impression that the Anglican Council of Indigenous
Peoples, the Council of General Synod, and the Huron (diocese) Youth
Synod, rather than average parishioners and their clergy, are the
important groups in the life of the national church.

The published results of this research are mostly predictable: concerns
about money to finance local churches; worries about coping with racial,
cultural, and theological diversity; perceptions of a gulf between local
issues and issues pursued at national and diocesan levels; questioning
the future of a church of aging congregations. The major surprise was
the frequency with which people at the local level are willing to
consider severing ties with the Anglican Church of Canada.

The Anglican Church of Canada has experienced seismic shifts in the
months between the completion of the report and the publication of this
book. So, to use it as the basis for stage two of the proposed process
would be clearly foolhardy. Another problem is evident in the last seven
of eleven appendixes. Here we find statements on major issues that the
church must address, from residential schools to the blessing of
same-sex unions. Unfortunately, all of the statements come from official
church sources, which means that all sides of the issues are not
presented. Surely such representation is a primary goal of research.