Compare this with A134’s companion, Resolution A135, prepared by the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee, which would authorize “resources for the church to use in addressing issues relating to human sexuality, including the blessing of same sex unions and the changing definition of marriage in society”. Resolution A135 states the matter with a greater candor: the discussion about blessing gay couples is related to a “changing definition of marriage in society”.

The civil culture, as reflected in certain courts and the mass media, often depicts gay couples as another form of family, which are now suffering the same opposition once faced by interracial couples. Some Canadian Anglicans, most notably in the Diocese of New Westminster, believe the church should endorse, with its pastoral blessings, this redefinition of marriage. That some advocates of gay blessings are “uncomfortable talking about same sex marriage” is a matter of feelings, not of determining facts. The discussion always has been about marriage, and that reality would become more explicit if General Synod were to approve A134.

Canon Beresford writes that A134 “does not address the substantive issues” of blessing gay couples, but instead is “the starting point of what is essentially a procedural motion which sets forward ways of living with disagreement and calls for further study”. This understates the effect of authorizing dioceses to bless gay relationships as each sees fit. A134, despite Canon Beresford’s belief to the contrary, codifies local option. Beresford favorably cites—as precedent—the vote of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, which said last summer that “local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same sex unions”.

In other words, the Episcopal Church already has endorsed local option regarding gay blessings. To understand the effect of local option on gay blessings, consider the effect of local option on gay ordination. Although the Episcopal Church never formally endorsed local option regarding the ordination of noncelibate gay clergy, it allowed a de facto local option by never banning such ordinations in its canon law.

The results of this double-mindedness are now clear: noncelibate gay clergy have become rectors, reshaped hundreds of congregations, ascended in diocesan and national bureaucracies, and—in the case of Gene Robinson—joined the House of Bishops. In short, local option on gay ordination achieved what gay activists could not achieve through nearly 30 years of General Convention deliberations and votes. Local option established facts on the ground, and those new facts shaped the discussions of each successive General Convention. Local option was not merely a holding pattern. It was an active revision of church order and theology.

So, then, let the advocates on both sides of this debate address one another with loving clarity. General Synod faces a resolution that would affect the church’s definition of marriage. Synod will vote to remain faithful to the church’s historic, orthodox understanding or it will not. General Synod is asked, during this session in St. Catherines, to endorse local option on gay blessings. Accepting local option would increase the number of congregations willing to defy the consensus of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It would hasten the day when another resolution says, in effect, “Since various dioceses have approved local option on gay blessings, now is the time to prepare a formal rite for authorized blessings throughout the Anglican Church of Canada”.

This is not a merely procedural vote to enable better study and dialogue. It is a vote for the best that gay advocates in the ACC can hope for in 2004. It is a resolution of despair, which assumes that local option is the most honorable way for a divided Anglican province to live in an ersatz peace. The best pastoral response to Resolution A134 is to give it a dignified burial in St. Catherines.

Douglas LeBlanc is a contributing editor for Christianity Today.

Praying For Victoria Staff

On June 2, when General Synod will be in its sixth day of difficult deliberations, Bishop Victoria Matthews of Edmonton will be undergoing surgery for breast cancer. She will be in recovery when the new primate is installed at Christ Church Cathedral in Hamilton.

Prior to her sudden diagnosis, Bishop Matthews was a strong contender for the primacy and her withdrawal from the election shocked everyone. If elected, Bishop Matthews would have been the first female primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

In a letter to her diocese sent May 19, Bishop Matthews said the diagnosis was “a surprise.” But she added, “I am at peace with what must be done. The love of God is everlasting and I am strong in my faith in Jesus Christ, the great physician, and the healing power of the Holy Spirit.

“Of course I ask and welcome your prayers, and I’ll make sure you are informed, on a timely basis, about my progress,” she said. “There is the expectation of full recovery. As far as I’m concerned I have lots more ministry ahead of me.”

Chemotherapy and probably radiation treatment will follow. She is expected to be on medical disability leave for up to one year.

She also withdrew her name as a nominee for the office of the diocesan bishop of Toronto. And her own diocesan synod might be postponed until May, 2005.

“Victoria is a person who faces adversity with steadiness and grace,” said Ron Ferris, Bishop of Algoma and one of the remaining candidates. “She is deeply rooted in the life of prayer, radiating serenity, and pointing us to Christ.”

In her “Vision of the Primacy” Matthews wrote, “At this time relationships within the [worldwide Anglican] Communion are threatened. Recognizing that every province has something to teach and much to learn, I believe we need to strengthen our commitment to the Communion and our common faith.”

She wrote of the dioceses and parishes of the ACC, “There is a distressing tendency to think that we don’t need each other…. Moral and prophetic leadership are especially important in times of crisis.

“Canada is not a Christian country,” Matthews continued, but that doesn’t mean there is no place for the prophetic call to peace and justice. It is the Church’s vocation in Christ to waken the conscience of Canada.”

A native of Toronto, Matthews was the first female bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada and is the country’s only female diocesan bishop.

Her manner with her episcopal colleagues is firm but gracious.

Blessed with a fine intellect, Matthews received her Masters of Divinity from Yale and her Masters of Theology from Trinity College, Toronto. But she has also taught twice in an inner city school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

As a single woman she enjoys reading, swimming and hiking. She has led young people in various pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostelo, Spain, Taize, France, and Iona, Scotland. When the youth were weary and ready to drop, Matthews would urge them on, setting the pace.

Now is the time to encourage the Bishop in her personal pilgrimage, when the journey is particularly rough.

Please pray for Bishop Matthews:

Almighty God, giver of all health and healing: Grant to this thy servant Victoria, such a sense of thy presence that she may have perfect trust in thee. In all her suffering may she cast her care upon thee, so that, enfolded in thy love and power, she may receive from thee health and salvation according to thy gracious will; though Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 580)

Resurrecting the Rez: A profile of Rev. Duke Vipperman By Peter Mitham

“To see the changes that happened in me and some of my friends happen to others” – it’s a phrase the Rev. Duke Vipperman says with all the seriousness of a mission statement. But a warm voice indicates that it’s a genuine expression of what motivates Vipperman, who at 21 left behind the mysticism of the hippie movement for a new freedom in Christ.

Thirty-three years later, he continues to see changes, not just in people but entire congregations. The rector of Toronto’s Church of the Resurrection, Vipperman has assisted in reviving a parish that had just 57 regular worshippers a week four years ago into one with 215 on any given Sunday.

“I can’t put my finger on precisely what the attraction is,” he said. “Our intent was not really to grow, it was to be healthy. And in God’s world, healthy things grow.” Vipperman’s career in ministry had far more humble origins.

Following his conversion, he embarked on a series of jobs with telephone and construction firms as a way of earning enough to pursue youth ministries in and around Fairfax, Virginia. But juggling multiple jobs while engaged in ministry didn’t make long-term sense.

Following his marriage in 1981, he and his wife Debbie took courses at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry with the aim of launching into full-time ordained ministry. But on graduating in 1983, Vipperman found there were only two positions available in Virginia for 14 candidates so he moved to London, Ontario.

“I guess I fit better up here than down there,” he says, with a warm laugh.

Vipperman initially served as an assistant at St. George’s Anglican Church in London, afterwards becoming rector of Exeter and Grand Bend, a two-point parish also in southwestern Ontario. Shortly after his arrival in Canada, he also became involved in the work of Barnabas Anglican Ministries, a network formed in 1984 to draw together Anglican evangelicals across Canada.

Soon enough, in 1991, Vipperman became associate rector of Little Trinity in Toronto. The church was growing, and by 2000 had 600 regular worshippers.

Meanwhile, attendance at Church of the Resurrection was dwindling. Five other churches in the neighbourhood had closed in the previous decade, and the Resurrection knew it had to attract members or face hard decisions about its future. Vipperman accepted the challenge of fostering a revival and, taking about 60 members of Little Trinity, he left for the Resurrection.

He also took with him a respect for what he calls the Anglican church’s “high theology of place” and the structure of parishes that shows people where they should focus their efforts.

Looking at the kinds of people who were in the neighbourhood surrounding the Resurrection, Vipperman found that as seniors in the area moved on – either to nursing homes or beyond – young professionals just starting families were moving in.

Cornerstones of the revival became an active children’s ministry and multimedia presentations that used the traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer but complemented it with contemporary graphics and music. This drew in both Anglicans and people unfamiliar with Anglican practices.

But the congregation wasn’t content to simply minister within its building. It distributed flyers, letting people know they were welcome to drop by the church, and undertook coffee houses in local pubs. Members talked with people on the streets and engaged with the community. A summer day camp using materials from Montreal-based Crosstalk Ministries also drew in a family or two as word got around that the Rez (as it’s known) was a good place for kids.

Today, kids – mostly preschoolers and primary school students – dominate the Sunday school, which has grown to about 60 kids. That’s well over a quarter of the congregation size.

Vipperman acknowledges that the growth hasn’t been easy.

“We had to learn, as a parish, how to readjust our life,” he said, but notes that the readjustment in practice wouldn’t have worked if Jesus hadn’t been at the heart of the change and what the Resurrection was about.

“Jesus’ name is being honoured, and people need to take it seriously,” he said.

Looking to the future, Vipperman hopes to ultimately send a tenth of the Resurrection’s members to revive another church just as members of Little Trinity helped revive the Resurrection.

“Only God can do a resurrection,” he says, repeating a line he told the congregation on his arrival in 2000. “God has brought us back from the brink. If God can do it for us, he can do it for other people.”

Doug LeBlanc is a contributing editor of Christianity Today and is working for ESSENTIALS Canada and orthodox group at Canadian Synod.