The end is nigh for the Anglican Church of Canada, says David Goodhew. In fact, the end has already come and gone. We are left watching its taillight disappear into the clouds as we wring our hands in sorrow, pining for the old days. In his Covenant essay, which appeared on August 5, Goodhew declares that the Anglican Church of Canada is the first province of the Communion to have collapsed. More withering is to come, he warns us, if churches insist on being “in the vanguard of progressive theology.”
Other essays, by Sharon Dewey Hetke and Cole Hartin, have appeared since to continue this conversation. These writers attempt to consider both the reasons for this statistical decline and the response of church leaders to the situation.
Goodhew’s initial essay, however, provokes fundamental questions, laying out concrete statistics with fair points to consider. Above all, he raises genuine concerns that deserve a theologically bound and historically accurate analysis, informed and framed by Holy Scripture, centered in faith. There can be no denying that there are foundational changes underway in the mainline denominations in Canada — as there have been in other places, especially in the United States and Europe.
Anglican and Episcopal congregations tend to be older, smaller, and are bringing in less financial offerings. Moreover, the people who attend and participate in our churches have diminished their personal commitments of time and energy. Goodhew also points out that baptisms are down, and he uses these statistics as primary evidence for his definition of the church’s implosion. But are these indicators a true picture of the status of the Anglican church within Canadian society? Or are they a sign of a repositioning of the place of all churches in a pluralistic, multicultural world?
This statistical analysis — looking particularly at baptisms — points to an obvious shift in the role of the church in contemporary multicultural society. Goodhew’s numbers are not wrong, and in fact the population in Canada has doubled since 1960, when the churches were full. This makes his measurement of the collapse of attendance in traditional churches even more notable. His metrics are right, but do they present an accurate picture of the health of the church? If “collapse” is the correct lens with which to view the situation, is it then correct to attribute this collapse to the “adoption of progressive causes”?
While longing for a previous era of full pews, thriving Sunday schools, youth clubs, choirs, and committees is a reasonable position, these are not the only valid measure of church success. Archbishop Lynne McNaughton, of the Diocese of Kootenay in western Canada, and archbishop of British Columbia and the Yukon, is adamant that the church under her watch is not dead or dying, but in fact is thriving into a new reality. Her diocese has been engaged in creative new models of how to sustain thriving communities engaged in whole-hearted faith. She says many of these communities no longer look back to “what used to be” but are discovering what God is calling them to be now.
“We are not focusing on the demographic blip of the postwar baby boom, a false and unhealthy model to imitate,” McNaughton says. “But instead [we are looking] at what the early church had with house churches, or 1903 with circuit rider priests, or what church will be like when the baby boomers are dead!” Hers is a robust refutation of a church in collapse.
To understand the seismic shifts within the church, it is important to consider many factors: the devastating role the church played in conjunction with the Canadian state in establishing the colonial project of nation-building, the changing role of women both in the church and beyond, and the full inclusion of diversities within a renewed understanding of Jesus’ radical invitation to belonging.
Goodhew doesn’t identify which of the “progress causes” that he claims are wrecking the church. Is it a commitment to work towards reconciliation with the First Peoples of these lands? Or is it the ordination of women? Maybe it is the determination to welcome a wider diversity of people? Is it our anti-racism work? Perhaps it is our response to the devastation of the natural world through human greed?
These are not “issues” external to the demands of Christians, McNaughton says, but determinations of a faithful people to be “doers of the word, not merely hearers of the word.” It isn’t a question of which comes first, personal faith or actions of justice, she says. Churches are called to be centers of loving action, nurturing faith as part of these actions in the neighborhood and in the world. This is what is required of us in the name of our faith in the God who made all creation.
Goodhew claims that the diminishment of the Anglican Church of Canada is due to its focus on “outside issues.” But attention to these “issues” requires profound actions based on Christian identity. Confession of sin, atonement, justice-making are at the very heart of our Christian life. For example, the vile actions of the Anglican church in the establishment and maintenance of Indian Residential Schools, the cornerstone in the attempted genocide of Canadian Indigenous peoples, was nothing less than a betrayal of Christian faith. Goodhew is silent about this. He says nothing about the church’s current lively and active search for reconciliation and true right relationship. “We cannot ignore our colonial background. The Anglican Church of Canada is wrestling with this fraught history, committed to being a place of humility and true reconciliation,” says the Bishop John Stephens of the Diocese of New Westminster, which includes Vancouver and surrounding areas.
But perhaps it is the ordination of women, and the acknowledgment of their gifts for ministry in the church, that Goodhew identifies as one of the “progressive causes” that has sliced a hole in the heart of the church? McNaughton, former director of Anglican studies and chaplain at the Vancouver School of Theology, once had a prophetic tea towel nailed to her office door. It read: A Woman’s Place is the House of …. Bishops.
It is impossible now to diminish the voices of women surging into the public and church worlds, McNaughton says. Women now speak with authority: proclaiming the vision of Mary, the mother of our Lord, professing their faith following the first witness of the Magdalene, and the other women, identifying with other biblical figures from the New Testament, the woman of Samaria, Lydia, Junia. Stephens says that he has heard laments from others in our sister Christian denominations, eyeing how the Anglican church has surged in women’s leadership.
It seems more probable, though, that Goodhew’s vague critique, what he means by progressive causes, is the Canadian Anglican churches’ heartfelt and honest struggle to include a diversity of genders, sexualities, and personhoods. Canadian Anglican churches in 2019 at their General Synod decided to center their work and ministry on being sites of welcome and inclusion.
The Canadian Anglican church has prayerfully, rigorously, faithfully engaged with these elements of our understanding of creation, keeping always at our center the witness of the One who became human in order to lead us into the heart of God. This is not, as Goodhew claims in his essay, a reflection that presented no research beyond the simple citing of statistics, the “adoption of progressive causes” but the actions of people steeped in a gospel-led faith.
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A great mountain of crises faces the world, all of them created by human sin: the climate catastrophe, the horrors of all wars, the legacies of hatred, violence, exclusion. The role of the Christian faith globally remains critical. Never has the world needed more to hear the words of our Prince of Peace. In listening to its parishioners — and to those who have felt cut off from or even harmed by our faith, in being flexible and still rigorous in debate, the Anglican Church of Canada has not “relegated the gospel to second place behind other matters” thus tipping itself into the trash basket. The humble embracing of the matters of the world is the very heart of our mission.
“Jesus is the front and center of who we are,” Stephens says. “And what did he say always? Love one another. People experience the reality that their churches are changing dramatically. Canada is a vast geographic area, and each community is different. It is critically important that we rethink our model of church. Jesus Christ, of course, is at the center of each congregation, large, small. We are undergoing a great shift away from being a colonial church. It is hard work. But we are communities filled with faith and hope. Very much alive.”
McNaughton says, “Our focus is on listening to God in a new time. We have stopped trying to live up to former expectations and celebrate what we have: caring communities, local mission and worship. The future of the Church is in God’s hands. Being faithful in our time is an exercise in trust in God, letting go and listening to the Holy Spirit.”
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Last week I was collecting a couple of boys from the ferry dock as they returned from our diocesan summer camp. These two 12-year-olds, David and Kohvan, were enthusiastic, bouncy, tired, and content. “What did you like the best?” I asked. They both chimed in, “The butter chicken!” David is a newcomer to Canada, a Quechua-speaking kid from Peru. Kohvan is of Cree-Dene-Scottish heritage. His great-auntie was the beloved priest and matriarch, the Rev. Vivian Seegers, who tragically died of COVID in 2021.
Kohvan’s grandmother and great-grandparents were survivors of the horrific Indian Residential Schools. Kohvan and his elder brother were recently baptized, significantly, on the third anniversary of Vivian’s death. As we crossed a great bridge into the city, Kohvan asked me, “Auntie,” he said, “if a baby dies and it hasn’t been baptized, will it go to heaven or hell?” I was speechless — for a moment. And then I answered, with my whole heart. I gave thanks, silently, that I had the privilege of sharing Jesus’ words of absolute love for all creation, especially for the little ones. I gave thanks, silently, that Vivian had held on to the faith, despite all the violence that her ancestors suffered at the hands of a sin-filled church. I gave thanks that the church has changed such that I was present to offer the words of eternal life to this curious young man.
“The Church of Christ in every age, beset by change yet Spirit-led, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.” — Fred Pratt Green, Common Praise, 584
The Rev. Emilie Smith is Guest Writer on Covenant. She is parish priest of St. Barnabas Anglican Church, New Westminster, Canada, and TLC’s Latin America correspondent.