A Call to Prayer

June 29, 2019 | The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

The ANiC Bishops Charlie Masters, Trevor Walters and Stephen Leung with the assistance of The Reverend Canon David Short make a call to prayer:

We wish to add our prayers to those of many others for the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada(ACC), July 10-16, 2019 in Vancouver BC. We stand in loving support of our brothers and sisters who remain in the Anglican Church of Canada, seeking to guard the gospel entrusted to us by Christ and his apostles.

We are heartened by the Open Letter to the House of Bishops (Holy Week 2019) and more recently by the word from Bishop David Parsons. We admire their clarity and courage in the defense of the gospel. Their questions remain unanswered by the House of Bishops and the Primate, because they are unanswerable. We are saddened by the process engineered by the Council of General Synod and the Commission on the Marriage Canon, ignoring the voices of those submissions which represent the tradition of the church, and effectively excluding the one Voice of God himself revealed in the Scriptures.

For over a decade the Anglican Church of Canada has been steered toward increasing theological and pastoral incoherence by its leaders. There seem to be two incompatible gospels being promoted within the Anglican Church of Canada, tearing the fabric of the Communion at the deepest level. With all the best intention in the world, General Synod will attempt the impossible: to hold two irreconcilable gospels together by a vote of Synod to change the Canon on Marriage. There will be calls to “stand together,” creating an ecclesial, structural unity in defiance of logic and Scripture, and the statements of the Global Communion since Lambeth 1998.

This will only deepen and harden the unhappy divisions, furthering a unity not based on shared faith but ecclesiastical, Synodical structures. The effect will increasingly diminish the witness of the ACC.

Please pray for all those attending General Synod. Pray that God would revive his church with a spirit of grace and truth; that he would grant repentance to all of us on all sides of these issues. Above all, that God would reveal his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. This is our only hope in life and death.

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The Right Reverend Charlie Masters
The Right Reverend Stephen Leung
The Right Reverend Trevor Walters
The Reverend Canon David Short