Task
force struck
to
study St. Michael Report
New
Brunswick Anglicans encouraged to pray, talk about same-sex blessings
by Ranall
Ingalls
Bishop
Claude Miller recently asked the Diocesan Council
Episcopal Team and Dean Keith Joyce to strike a diocesan task force to
study and address the St.
Michael Report. Written by the Primate’s Theological Commission, it
ruled the blessing of committed same-sex unions is a matter of
doctrine, which precludes parishes and dioceses dealing with the issue
on their own. The primary duty of the task force is to encourage
Christians to think, pray, and talk about an issue that is easier to
ignore. The goal is truth: to deepen our understanding of the place of
the body and of human sexuality in the struggle for holiness.
Its first
step is to encourage the people of the diocese to read the St.
Michael Report and write down their thoughts. The second step is to
find ways to draw Christians who may think very differently about the
issue into serious conversations with other.
According
to the St. Michael Report: “The Commission urges that this necessary
theological discussion in the church move beyond attempts to justify
one side or another of this specific question, and seek a broader
consensus on the relationship of sexuality to our full humanity in
Christ.” (paragraph 21, page 17)
Although the diocesan task force is responsible to
put together a report for the Faith,
Worship and Ministry Committee of the Anglican Church of Canada,
its primary purpose is not to do or make anything. Its primary purpose
is to call the diocese to thought, prayer and conversation.
The task
force, accidentally but appropriately, was struck as Lent approached.
At a time when we hear St. Paul urging us again not to ignore the body,
but to train it so as to bring integrity to our disordered and
destructive wills. As runners in a race, we look for glory. But as St.
Paul reminds us, the glory we seek is incorruptible. In other words, it
is the glory of charity. It is the glory of the unchanging love of God
the Trinity. It is the glory of Christ crucified for love of enemies.
There could not be a better time in the Church year to call Anglicans
to think about the place of the body in the Christian life with those
we too easily dismiss, with contempt and anger, merely as enemies.
The St.
Michael Report grew out of General Synod 2004 which raised the question
of the blessing of committed same-sex unions. It was then the Primate
was asked to convene the Primate’s Theological Commission and give its
members the task to decide if the blessing of such unions is a matter
of doctrine.
The
Commission, which includes Anglicans who disagree profoundly about
important questions, set about the difficult task of working together
to hammer out what became the St. Michael Report.
In
addition to finding the issue of blessings a matter of doctrine, the
commission also called the church to engage in the same kind of study
and conversation which resulted in the St. Michael Report.
In the
Commission’s words, “... we are especially concerned that our church
should commit herself to serious engagement with the whole range of
theological issues associated with such blessings.”
The report
discusses six issues in particular: the doctrines of salvation, of
Christ (the Incarnation), the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the
creation of human beings in the image of God (Theological
Anthropology), the part of human relationships in the struggle to grow
in holiness and likeness to Christ (sanctification), and holy
matrimony. There is much to think about.
The Rev. Dr. Ranall
Ingalls is rector of the Parish of Stanley and a member of the Diocesan
St. Michael Report task force.
21 February 2006
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