Two additional hypotheses
Because why stop at 7 when we're talking about the future of the church?
I’ve picked up new subscribers of late and it’s likely not everyone is interested in a deep-dive into the intricacies of the Anglican Church of Canada’s structure. Not all posts are this in-the-weeds! This is the last of three posts (here are the first and second) looking at the initial report from the Primate’s Commission on Reimagining the Church in the Anglican Church of Canada.
Having offered a response to the initial draft of a report prepared by the Primate’s Commission on Reimagining the (Anglican) Church (of Canada), I’m now going to be so bold as to suggest two additional hypotheses that I think are actionable, achievable items that Anglicans in Canada can and should take at this moment. I’ve deliberately phrased them in ways that mirror the language of the primate’s commission.
First, it is time for the church to gather better data about itself. When I look at other churches, I sometimes have data envy. For instance, so far as I know the Anglican Church of Canada cannot answer questions about itself like: How many people were ordained in the dioceses of the church last year? What was their educational background? What was their racial/ethnic/national origin background? This is just one set of questions in relation to ministry (my particular area of interest) but there are no shortage of other sets of questions we could ask.
The reason we struggle with this is that the Anglican Church of Canada is, by design, a decentralized church. I’m not trying to change that—it’s a model with many strengths—but if we’re interested in, say, dismantling racism and colonialism and diversifying participation in the church (as this commission is), how will we know if/when we’ve succeeded if we’re not collecting data?
Here's an example: the Council of General Synod is responsible for oversight of church bodies in between meetings of General Synod. It is my impression—but it is no more than an impression based on what I saw when the members of CoGS stood up after being elected at General Synod 2023—that the current CoGS is more racially diverse than past CoGS. But so far as I know no one has any ability to quantify this. There’s lots of good reasons why people would be unwilling to report demographic characteristics about themselves in order to serve in church roles (though you already need to report a fair bit about yourself if you want to serve on a committee of General Synod). But the key point is that if we want to change things, we need in some way to be able to measure them.
In fact, at the last General Synod, some enterprising synod members proposed a resolution that would request the House of Bishops to survey themselves and report on their demographic composition. As with all unacted-upon resolutions, this one should have been referred to CoGS. I’m not seen any indication that CoGS has acted upon this. But it would be one tiny step towards the dismantling and diversifying that the Primate’s Commission is encouraging the church to pursue. In fact, the House of Bishops could voluntarily lead the way and gather this data and report it before General Synod 2025. What is the racial and ethnic background of its members? What is the gender breakdown? On average—and this would get to another of the commission’s hypotheses about in-person meetings—what percentage of members of the House of Bishops comes to in-person meetings? Is there any difference in the racial/ethnic background of the whole house versus those who tend to come to meetings?
Imagine the picture of ourselves that would begin to emerge if we had some data and not just competing impressions of how things seem to each one of us.
Second, it is the time for the church to engage in reflection on the role and function of bishops. One essay question I often give students in my Anglican History and Theology class is this: “Why does the Anglican tradition have bishops and what are they good for?” I think it’s time for the church as a whole to consider this question.
Not infrequently, the General Synod argues about bishops in relation to the national governance of the church. In fact, there was quite a lot of this in 2023 in relation to a proposal to reduce super-majority requirements for certain kinds of motions that led to lots of hand-wringing and high-minded statements about the place of bishops in the church. That, however, is not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the place of bishops in relation to a diocese, which we seem to just about take for granted. Let’s stop taking it for granted.
Right now, by my count, there is one diocese whose bishop lives in another (civil and ecclesiastical) province, another diocese whose bishop left for another role two years ago and which is only now beginning to take steps to replace him after a commendable period of discernment and exploration, and a third diocese which—God bless them—just engaged in a lengthy self-study about the place of bishops in their ministry that led to them reducing the total number of bishops. Meanwhile, just five years ago yet another diocese took the somewhat controversial decision of electing three suffragan bishops at the same time. This led to some consternation in the broader church, but only over the place of these suffragans in the General Synod, and not in a way that engaged with the rather interesting argument the diocese was putting forward, namely that it needed the suffragans because of its geography and its understanding of episcopal ministry.
What I’m saying here is that there is quite a lot of ferment around the church in just what episcopal ministry should look like and what it is for. As a church, perhaps it is time to bring that ferment out into the open and talk about it. This could help us in this moment of change in at least two ways.
First, you might say that bishops set the weather in a diocese—and not always in a good way. I’ve read a lot of church re-visioning reports in my ministry (I know: pray for me) and I have always remembered this report from a 2012 report on the future of the Church in Wales:
“There is a culture of ‘Father knows best’. What this means in practice is that people look to the Bishops and clergy to take initiatives and it has been suggested to us that nothing much happens without this. Further, it means that bishops will often be consulted about minor decisions that ought to be made elsewhere. What is needed is a new, more collaborative, style of leadership, modelled by the Bishops and reflected at parish level. In the end this is about trust; letting people participate fully in decision making processes and then trusting them to own and implement those decisions.”
(I can no longer find this Welsh report online but if you want a copy I can send it to you.)
I think something similar is too true in the Anglican Church as well. We are too busy looking to bishops to make decisions. Meanwhile, many bishops are looking to model collaborative leadership but the pieces just aren’t quite joining up in the right way.
Second, I gave a hearty “hear hear” to a passing comment from the commission about reducing the number of dioceses. One of the inevitable pieces of pushback to this idea is that the resulting dioceses would be too large and the bishop would be too far from the people. This is an important point. Fundamentally, Canada is a large, sparsely populated country and this shapes our ecclesial (and other) realities. But it’s also a point that is rooted in a particular conception of episcopal ministry. What if we had more suffragan bishops who could be closer to the people and also serve as rectors of churches? What if we didn’t think bishops needed to be so close to their people? What if, well, I don’t know, but we’re not going to figure it out until we bring it out into the open.
There’s lots more to add to this list. It’s probably time for the church to have a look at the effectiveness of its various standing committees and various bodies and see if we’re getting what we need out of them. Perhaps we could have General Synod meet less often than every three years. But part of what this primate’s commission could do is help the church focus its attention on key areas, set priorities, and provide us with the tools to move forward. I think these two additional hypotheses might bring some helpful conversations out into the open, and allow us to affirm the hypothesis that (should) underlies all of our work: It’s time for the church to stop doing things just because we’ve always done them.
Thanks for reading this far. I will be looking forward to the final report of the primate’s commission in 2025 and in the meantime praying for their important work and ministry.
The Rev. Canon Jesse Zink is principal of Montreal Dio, a theological college affiliated with McGill University, and canon theologian in the Diocese of Montreal.