Ron Ferris (Bishop of Algoma): The passage of A186 is confusing. I feel doctrine can only be set by two-thirds majority at two consecutive General Synods by Canon. I believe the status of this resolution is advisory. The defeat of local option keeps the Windsor Moratorium as our national standard. I am concerned that General Synod would attempt to overturn a two-thousand-year-old moral tradition with a fifty percent majority at a single Synod.

David Short (rector at St. John’s Shaughnessy, New Westminster): Synod has made four things very clear: 1. That the ACC is divided at its deepest level in its understanding of the biblical gospel. The motion debates, like those in New Westminster in 1998 and 2002 reflect two diametrically opposite and irreconcilable understandings of the gospel and of holiness. This makes a mockery of any supposed structural /canonical unity. 2. The lack of unity so clearly displayed at General Synod will lead to increasing lawlessness across the country. 3. The passage of 186 was a clear rejection of the Windsor process and Lambeth 1:10 and a defiance of the statements of the various instruments of communion. 4. The division in the Canadian church is incapable of internal resolution and we look to the instruments of communion to act to repair the tearing of the fabric of the Communion.

Robyn Symons (youth delegate from Kingston, Ont.): I can’t say that I’m discouraged but I definitely recognize that for a lot of people voting against 187 was more of a ‘let’s wait’ rather than a ‘no’ vote. Certainly this isn’t good news. I really think that God has given the Anglican church three more years to get its act together. In three years time I think Anglican conservatives will see with certainty which way the church is headed--for better or for worse.

George Sumner (Principal of Wycliffe College, Toronto): The resolutions, taken together, are one grand muddle. I think that it is unrealistic to expect a synod to make judgments that involve canon law and controverted technical theological terms, especially when you mix in emotion and weariness. But at the crucial moment Synod rightly exercised its practical reason: from this we ought to draw back.

TAP: What advice would you give to those who would say, “Now’s the time to leave the ACC since it passed A 186”?

Ferris: I believe that most dioceses, bishops, clergy and congregations will continue to live in harmony with the Windsor Report and the teachings of the Anglican Communion. “The Articles of Religion” remind us that the Church can and does err (BCP p. 706).

Short: I well understand the depth of frustration and wound so many feel. However, my advice is that this not the time to leave the ACC, because we must wait to see how the rest of the Communion responds and whether they will help with the resolution of our unhappy divisions. Our decisions and actions closely parallel those of TEC and the Primates have given till September for TEC to respond to the Dar es Salaam communiqué. In our unprecedented circumstances, we must look wider than our Canadian church for solutions to a church divided on the very gospel, which has created the deeply entrenched  incoherence of our witness to the Apostolic gospel. Further, we need to act with charity and pray for God’s guidance and help.

Symons: I would not discourage people from leaving as the Anglican church is largely moving away from the Scriptures but I also believe that conservatives, at this point, can still stay within the church and remain faithful to Scripture. I do not believe that the time has come yet to leave. If that time comes, we should leave together rather than trickling out.

Sumner: As for A186, it is best understood by means of its own explanatory amendment, namely that same-sex unions are not in the Creed, which actually is obvious. That in no way determines whether they ought to be allowed. To claim that A186 makes some major doctrinal statement is to prove that it ought to have required two-thirds of the votes after all! To leave over this is to give it more credence than it deserves. As to advice, I think that traditional Anglicans should redouble their efforts to build up parishes, renewal ministries, theological colleges, to build one another up, to think and write and organize and pray for the renewal of the Anglican Church. Banish what the medievals called accidie, spiritual depression--we have work to do.

Ferris: Three encouraging moments were seeing old friends, hearing our international partners and collaborating with colleagues from across the country.

Short: There was an honesty from many of the proponents of same-sex unions that they will act in defiance of 187 both before its defeat and since. After Synod a number of diocesan bishops have written that they will now follow the policy articulated in the bishops’ pastoral letter which is a flat contradiction of the 187 vote. This kind of lawlessness will only increase.

Symons: Yes, as a youth delegate I was pleased to see how many youth were actually conservative. At first I thought there were only a few of us but as the week went on it was made clear that there were considerably more than I had thought. One girl even voted against her entire delegation--that takes a lot of courage.

Sumner: The most encouraging moments at General Synod were the election of the Prolocutor (a Wycliffe grad!), moments of eloquent witness on the floor, and the willingness, again, to tackle a theological question theologically.

TAP: Criticism is mounting of bishops who did not vote for local option. And all bishops will have to discipline those who defy GS and bless same-sex unions. What should bishops keep in mind as they exercise their office in these difficult days?

Ferris: Bishops and all clergy take an oath to uphold the Canons and Constitutions of the Church. There is always a tension in balancing love and faithfulness.

Short: We must pray for our bishops--can anyone think of a more difficult role today? It is the bishops who voted against local option because they can see more clearly some of the disastrous consequences, as well as their responsibility to the Global Communion.

Bishops are not just responsible to their dioceses, but have a special responsibility to teach and defend God’s word and “with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the same” (BCP p. 663).

Sumner: The bishops should be well aware by now that popularity is not in the compensation package. They acted like bishops--guarding the unity of the Church, slowing the momentum down in the absence of a theological case. This is precisely why we have a polity that has distinct orders. Unfortunately, the applause that matters most in history comes long after we are dead.

Ferris: Although various structures of the Church may go through turmoil and great difficulty, I believe that ultimately the Gospel of Christ and the Anglican Communion will have a remarkable future.

Short: It cannot stand according to Jesus. If bishops proceed with local option in defiance of the global Communion and the General Synod, then they should afford a structural / canonical / episcopal local option for the parishes in their dioceses that wish to remain faithful to the teaching of the church. They must put aside coercion, harassment and the use of legal action and find a way to accommodate those who stand in the tradition of Lambeth 1:10. Only in this way can they remove the scandal of division.

Symons: I believe that God can fix this but I’m not sure if He will. It became very clear to me at Synod that there are two religions in the Anglican church -- that is, the church of social justice and the church of Christ as our Saviour.  We aren’t even standing on the same base or trying to accomplish the same things. The Bible is not commonly held as having authority. Jesus is seen simply as a role model and his mission as social justice, not to redeem us to God. To be honest, it was really messed up to have Christians not understand or believe the very basics of their own faith. But then,

very rarely did anyone refer to themselves as a Christian. It seems that the term “Anglican” has simply replaced it--as if Anglicanism were a religion in and of itself. The Anglican church is deeply

diseased. It needs lots of prayer. That said, God can do a lot in three years. Let’s just pray that he does.

Sumner: “For humans this is impossible; with God all things are possible.”  Hendrick Kraemer, the great Dutch missionary

theologian, said that the Church is always in a crisis, for it is always in danger of depending on itself and so it should consider itself blessed when it realizes the crisis.

TAP: Does it help to look beyond just the ACC and see our struggling church in the wider global Communion context?

Ferris: In the global context we have an exceptional opportunity to gather the world to Christ in a rich and vibrant Communion that is Catholic and evangelical, rooted in the scriptures and sacramental in nature. In a few short decades we have emerged as a global family that encompasses people from 164 different countries and 163 different languages!

Symons: Absolutely!

Sumner: It matters enormously to look more widely than our own plot of ground. It has a lot to do with confessing our faith in the “Church catholic.” We are in an age when ideas like diversity and globalism are gripping our culture. Our Communion is undergoing exciting changes that have everything to do with these very themes--it is just the wrong time to think of breaking away! Furthermore these churches, for all their own problems, have a passion for God’s Word and a sense of the cost of discipleship. Putting the African Church down, as has become popular in certain circles these days, is ill-informed and ungracious. There does need to be real grappling within the counsels of the Anglican Communion, but this will require that mutual respect which is born of love and prayer. “Can the foot say to the eye, I have no need of you?”