Jamming for Jesus: General Synod Diary, Day 4
Posts and diary entries from the Anglican Church of Canada’s 2023 General Synod, meeting for part of that time conjointly with the Evanglical Lutheran Church in Canada. Earlier posts in this series are here.
A Bible verse for today: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands.” (Psalm 100:1) Because…
Highlight of the day: The evening session was devoted to hearing from the Anglican Council of Indigenous People, the culmination of which was Archbishop Chris Harper getting us all out of our seats and into a big circle and leading us in a round dance around the hall. Then the Lutherans came in and we had Holden Evening Prayer, complete with handbell choir. Then we had a Gospel jamboree led by Bishop Lydia Mamakwa of the Indigenous Spiritual Ministry of Mishamikoweesh. What an absolutely wonderful ride of music, song, worship, and praise. I am pleased to say the Diocese of Montreal was well represented among the singers at the jamboree.
A notable moment in this morning’s joint session with the Lutherans devoted to social and ecological justice: an indigenous delegate at our table spoke about how he would like to take some of the justice resources of the church back to his community but he would be doing the work in his own language and translation was an issue. We asked him how to say justice in his language. His reply, “Well, it would take about a paragraph.”
In her closing remarks to our last ecumenical session, Lutheran National Bishop Susan Johnson told the Anglicans frankly, “We were saddened by some of the decisions you made. We respect the way you work but I am saddened my time working with Linda will be shorter than I thought.”
Speaking of which, I found this old article interesting. After Bishop Linda was elected in 2019, she gave an interview to the Anglican Journal. I noted this paragraph.
Asked how long she expected to be primate, Nicholls replied that the precise length of her tenure remained to be worked out. It would depend partly, she said, on the needs of the national church and partly on the interpretation of the canon on the primate, which states the primate can hold office until reaching the age of 70. Her 70th birthday, Nicholls said, would fall shortly before the 2025 General Synod; but the canon, she added, does not seem entirely clear on whether the primate must resign by his or her 70th birthday at the latest, or at any point in his or her 70th year. The most she would serve, she said, would be two triennia.
Who knew the contention this would foretell? (Here’s a link to the canon on the primacy, by the way. The relevant section seems to be 4, c, i.) I’m a bit too tired to assess how clear or unclear it is.)
There are so many lay people at Synod who have interesting careers and lines of work. (And we should give thanks to all of them for, in many cases, taking vacation time to be here.) Here’s the website of Alex McPhee, a lay delegate from the Diocese of Qu’appelle in Saskatchewan. In addition to being an independent cartographer, which is as neat as it sounds, he is also the first cartographer ever nominated for federal office by a political party.
We elected the members of the Council of General Synod today and when they stood up to be recognized the racial and ethnic diversity of the group was apparent. There’s still a long way to go but CoGS seems more diverse than Synod as a whole.
In the afternoon, we passed a motion “Addressing the Climate Emergency” (A204), which among much else “encourage[s] all members of the Anglican Church of Canada to make safeguarding the integrity of God’s creation a priority in our faith and our actions.” In the morning, we had been talking about social and ecological justice. In between, we ate lunch. It occurred to me that food might be the bridge between justice and the climate motions. What we eat, how we eat, where that food comes from are justice issues and have profound climate impacts. Eating also happens to be at the centre of the Christian faith. There are some important links here to explore. If the whole world ate like we are eating this week, it would be impossible to realize our climate goals. Because the whole world can’t, it is a justice issue.
Speaking of which, a couple of days ago I suggested it would be interesting to explore how synods in different provinces of the Anglican Communion sit at their meetings. I’m realizing you could also study how they eat. In Canada, we all eat our meals together all day long. This is great for meeting other people informally. Alas, the food has been somewhere beyond bad. This morning’s Eggo waffles could have been used as frisbees. There is a catastrophic absence of non-diary vegetable protein, which means at this stage in Synod I, as a vegetarian, would give my left arm for a legume. Sigh. I’m sure it’s saving the church money but I’m not sure it’s saving the planet.
At this stage of the Synod, there’s such a difficult tension. There are a number of resolutions where it seems quite clear they will pass — the ones on climate change or water, for instance — and so it would seem to make sense to not give them much discussion and move on. Yet the views of speakers in support can be quite interesting and helpful and offer to the whole Synod good ideas to take home. I appreciated, for instance, the views of a farmer from (I think) Saskatchewan about how climate change is affecting his work, or the testimonies of indigenous delegates about the need for reliable access to clean water.
I had thought the Israel-Palestine resolution would be referred for more work but it came to the floor for debate not long before dinner. One paragraph that had been particularly offensive to Jewish groups had been removed but it was otherwise unchanged. In the middle of the debate the primate, quite unusually, spoke at length to the motion from the chair. This began in reply to a question but she just kept going. She acknowledged at least twice that she was “pushing the role of the chair” and it turned into a quite impassioned plea to pass the resolution. It’s clear that this is important to her (though if that’s the case she could have let the prolocuter chair). It’s also clear that consultation with Jewish groups came quite late in the process. The primate’s intervention has, I think, made it clear how much value she places on this resolution and for that reason I think there will be a majority for it to pass as a kind of legacy for her.
Events like a General Synod bring out some archaic church practices. One common one is addressing the Primate as “Your Grace.” This comes from the English practice where archbishops have the same rank as dukes (who are graces) and bishops have the same rank as barons (who are lords). Whatever you think about this — and I’d be happy if we didn’t start ranking our bishops according to medieval political titles — there is something more than vaguely ridiculous about someone wearing shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt beginning a talk with the words, “Your grace.”
The list of C resolutions (submitted by delegates) is now complete and they cover a range of interesting and important topics. (Scroll all the way to the bottom of this page to see them.) It seems certain that time constraints mean virtually none of them will make it to the floor.
This is the first time in a very long time that I have marked Canada Day outside of the province of Quebec where it is often barely acknowledged. There was a subdued and critical response in the hall. In a joint statement, Bishops Susan and Linda said, in part, “We invite you into a reflective remembrance on the complexities of our national identity.” Indeed.
If you saw this picture, would you guess this man is the bishop of Rupert’s Land?
