Another Vancouver Island parish leaves diocese
The congregation of St Matthias Anglican Church, in Victoria, British Columbia voted decisively on Sunday, March 8, to come under the episcopal oversight of Bishop Donald Harvey, Moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC)… St Matthias, which is one of the largest Anglican parishes on Vancouver Island, is the 16th former Anglican Church of Canada parish and the third on Vancouver Island to join ANiC in the past 13 months … 94.4 per cent in favour of realigning with ANiC…
– news from the Anglican Network in Canada.
Vancouver-area parishes’ case to be heard on May 25
Press release from the Anglican Network in Canada: 7 January 2009
The trial involving four Vancouver-area Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) churches and the Anglican Church of Canada’s (ACoC) Diocese of New Westminster will begin on May 25 in British Columbia Supreme Court. Three weeks have been set aside to hear the case.
The four parishes – St. Matthew’s (Abbotsford), St Matthias and St Luke’s (Vancouver), St John’s Shaughnessy (Vancouver) and Church of the Good Shepherd (Vancouver) – had asked the courts in early September 2008 to clarify their trustees’ responsibilities in light of hostile action taken by the ACoC diocese. Read more
Invitation to members of all Anglican Churches globally to sign Vancouver petition
Ahead of expected action by the Diocese of New Westminster against the churches of Good Shepherd and St. John’s Shaughnessy, a new petition has been made avialable, so that members of the Anglican Communion worldwide (and not just C of E members as on the previous petition) can express their support.
This new petition reads,
We, the undersigned, as active clergy and lay members of the Anglican Communion, stand with those parishes in Vancouver that are part of the Anglican Network on Canada, affirming that they are authentically Anglican.
Please consider adding your support. Helpful background here.
Invitation to CofE members to support Vancouver churches
Members of the Church of England have been invited to express their support for the Anglican Network in Canada parishes, including St. John’s Shaughnessy, where David Short is Rector.
The petition, and background information, is available at this link. The actual petition reads:
We, the undersigned, as active clergy and lay members of the Church of England, stand with those parishes in Vancouver that are part of the Anglican Network in Canada, affirming that they are authentically Anglican.
Australian readers (who therefore cannot sign this petition) are urged to continue in prayer. Formore information, please see the St. John’s website.
(Photo: David Short and James Packer at St. John’s Shaughnessy.)
Letter from the Trustees of 4 Vancouver churches
“As Trustees and members of ANiC, we have repeatedly invited the diocese and its representatives to sit down and negotiate a resolution with us on the matters in dispute. We have sought alternative resolution methods through the House of Bishops in Canada and again with all the dioceses involved. Every attempt has been refused…”
– The trustees of St. John’s Shaughnessy, Good Shepherd Vancouver, St. Matthew’s Abbotsford, and St. Matthias & St. Luke’s Vancouver write to their Congregations. Read it all at the St. John’s Shaughnessy website.
Vancouver parishes ask for clarification
Four Vancouver-area Anglican Network in Canada parishes are asking the courts to clarify their trustees’ responsibilities in response to hostile action taken by a diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada.…
– Press release from the Anglican Network in Canada – via VirtueOnline.
Vancouver Magazine on St. John’s Shaughnessy
“On a Sunday morning earlier this year, hundreds of Anglicans pour through the doors of St. John’s Shaughnessy Church. The stately grey building at the corner of Granville and Nanton is home to a well-heeled and diverse congregation: parents with a clutch of teenage sons, elderly women in wheelchairs, youthful couples.
Sitting near the front with her husband is soft-spoken, 72-year-old Gail Stevenson, who has attended the church her whole life. Closer to the back, sitting all by himself, is 46-year-old Steve Schuh. Many of the parishioners sit in the same pew week after week—pews that may soon be pulled out from under them. …”
– Jonathan Graham at Vancouver Magazine reports on the challenges facing St. John’s Shaughnessy and like-minded churches in that city. (Hat tip: Ed Hird.)
Vancouver Island priests inhibited
The two priests of St Mary of the Incarnation, in Victoria (Metchosin) were inhibited late Friday afternoon by Diocesan Archdeacon, the Venerable Bruce Bryant-Scott.
The Venerable Sharon Hayton, rector, (pictured) and the Rev Andrew Hewlett, assistant priest, received notice late Friday afternoon (February 15), that disciplinary action was being commenced against them although no charge was given under the Church’s canons. Read more
Review of Packer’s ‘Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age’
“I was eating pizza the other night with two young men, one a Christian, the other a seeker. We talked about what it means to be a Christian and some of the challenges of the Christian life.
The first surprise was that they/we couldn’t get through two family-sized pizzas. The youth of today!
The second was that they thought that becoming a Christian in 2024 was a way of rebelling.
One told how his boss, a Gen X Roman Catholic, explained that young men shouldn’t be going to church but should instead be finding a girlfriend to sleep with and getting drunk. The young man found this boringly orthodox, ignoble, and distasteful. He felt certain that there must be a better way to live.
I’m having conversations like these more and more these days. Are we seeing early signs of a spiritual awakening among young people? I wonder whether the Lord is beginning a new work among these younger generations.
What I know for certain is that the Church must be ready to receive young seekers. That means that our churches must be refuges of radical, self-sacrificial love. Parched and thirsting for meaning and community in today’s desert of online isolation and spiritual desolation, nothing will attract young people more than an actual flesh-and-blood loving Christian community. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This kind of strange Christ-like love can arise only from an intimate relational knowledge of Jesus himself.
This is where a book like Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age comes in.
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) was a British theologian, author of the now-classic Knowing God (1973), who for most of his working life was a professor of theology at Regent College in Vancouver. He stands alongside John Stott, F.F. Bruce, Michael Green, Dick Lucas, Martyn-Lloyd Jones and other superb conservative-evangelical British preachers and theologians of the twentieth century.
The book is in fact a lightly edited transcription of five lectures that Packer first delivered at Kuyper College in Grand Rapids in 1978, and then at Moore College in Sydney. …”
–At AP, Campbell Markham reviews J I Packer’s Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age. (Bold added.)
And you can also see or hear Packer’s five lectures at the Moore College Annual Lectures in 1978 – in glorious grey and white, thanks to the Donald Robinson Library at Moore College.
His series title was “We Preach Christ Crucified”. Very much worth watching.
At about an hour each, why not consider watching these with your Bible Study?
Lecture 1 – We’ve a Story to Tell.
Lecture 2 – The man Christ Jesus.
Lecture 3 – He emptied himself: the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Lecture 4 – The wonderful exchange.
Lecture 5 – No other name: the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
Related:
The Moore College Annual Lectures 2024 with Tom Schreiner.
David Short shares his Journey of Faith; Leadership and Surviving a Split in the Anglican Church of Canada
“The tectonic plates of global Anglicanism have shifted and are realigning around the theology of Scripture and the gospel.
The shifting surfaced first in our diocese which was strongly theologically liberal. When the bishop announced he would proceed with the blessing of same sex unions, we walked out of Synod and appealed for alternative episcopal oversight from the Canadian house of bishops. The bishop brought charges against us and we then entered years of processes from the national and international church – all under the hostility and threats of the diocese.
It was our view that we had not left anything, but it was in fact the diocese which had abandoned biblical historical orthodoxy. …”
– David Virtue speaks with David Short, Moore College graduate who continues to serve Christ in Vancouver.
Related:
The Good Fight of Faith – Links to a 2022 interview with David and Bronwyn Short by Simon Manchester for Southern Cross magazine – and other relevant pages.
Many other posts on this website.
Image: David during a GAFCON online tribute to J I Packer in 2020.
14 Lesser-known details about J. I. Packer
“Much can be said about J. I. Packer that, while personal to Packer, is nonetheless generally known, or at least not unexpected to someone who knew him as a public figure. But everyone has a dimension of personality and life that is hidden from public view and known mainly by family members and close acquaintances. I have collected data that belongs to this lesser-known side of J. I. Packer. …”
– At Crossway, Leland Ryken shares some of his research on J I Packer, who was called home three years ago.
Image courtesy Regent College Vancouver.
Many posts about J I Packer elsewhere on our website.
The Good Fight of Faith
In the July–August 2022 issue of Southern Cross magazine Simon Manchester has an insightful interview with David and Bronwyn Short in Vancouver.
They share something of the battles for the truth of God’s Word, and the cost of doing so.
Do take the time to read it all (pages 24-26), and continue to uphold in prayer the Shorts, St. John’s Vancouver, and all of the Anglican Network in Canada.
Simon mentions the recent book The Anglican Church in Canada. Read more about it here.
Long-time readers will be well aware of events in Canada the last twenty years. David’s 2004 article “Are we stronger than He?” is a good place to start.
See also:
St. John’s Vancouver leaves the building, praying for God’s blessing on New Westminster, September 2011.
Posts relating to Vancouver, and Canada.
In the interview David Short says, “Jim Packer wrote a wonderful essay called ‘Why I Walked’ that is well worth reading.”. It certainly is, and is available here as a PDF file on the GAFCON website.
Photo: Bronwyn and David Short via SydneyAnglicans.net.
New ANiC Bishop Co-Adjutor Elect Announced
“The Anglican Network in Canada is pleased to announce the election at Synod 2021 of the Venerable Daniel Gifford as our Co-Adjutor Bishop.
Archdeacon Dan was elected by our Diocesan Synod on Thursday, November 18, 2021. …
Dan is currently the vicar of St John’s Vancouver Anglican church, serving with David Short who is rector of that parish.”
– From the Anglican Church in North America.
J I Packer on the Death of Death
Today marks one year since J. I Packer was called home to be with Christ.
It’s very appropriate that the Gospel Coalition has republished his Introductory Essay for John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ.
“There is no doubt that Evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement.
In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and of equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead.
This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. …”
Image: Regent College, Vancouver.
J. I. Packer’s Final Book
“J. I. Packer, who went to be with his Triune covenant Lord on July 21, 2020, was never able to see this final book in print. But The Heritage of Anglican Theology was near and dear to his heart, the one book he wanted to give his last years to. …”
– At The Gospel Coalition, Justin Taylor introduces J. I. Packer’s last book.
Image: Regent College, Vancouver.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…