Vancouver Province
for August 6, 1999

To paraphrase Will Rogers, I’m a member of no organized religion – I’m an Anglican. And as such, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to learn that the Archbishop of Canterbury has cleared up all misapprehensions and has stated he believes in the resurrection of Christ. In making his position clear, he claims the media had quoted him out of context. Well, now, as an "out of contexter" by profession, I must say, with respect, the Archbishop is a world class complainer, right up there with Bill Clinton. Here is what Dr George Carey (I assume he’s a doctor of something or other) said originally. "While we can be very sure that Jesus lived and that He was certainly crucified on the cross, we cannot with the same certainty know He was raised by God from the dead." This led to this headline in The Mail –"Archbishop doubts the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Now for those out there who might naively suppose that the Archbishop’s statement well and truly deserved the headline, listen to what his spokesman Steve Jenkins had to say. "It’s a question," said Steve, "of how you define the word ‘know’".

Right on, Stevie, like "BJ" Bill said of Monica, "it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is".

At any rate, there’s great relief amongst us Anglicans who were also cheered to learn that, heaps of hellish references in St Matthew notwithstanding, Pope John Paul II has declared that there is no Hell – at least not in the traditional sense of fire, brimstone and a devil with pointed ears and a tail. Whew! What with all the ecumenical talks between Canterbury and Rome I was afraid we Anglicans, who never were much for hellfire and damnation, might not make it back into the fold after all.

Actually, I’ve taken a great interest in matters religious in the past few years and am now a fairly regular communicant at St Christopher’s in West Vancouver. I’m there because the priest, the Venerable Lou Rivers (who is nowhere near as venerable as I am, I can tell you) agreed to marry Wendy and me even given my track record in that department. Now Lou – who bears no ecclesiastical blame for this because it’s all my idea – mentioned in a sermon that there was more than one church. There was the church of Jesus Christ which is the general communion of all Christians; then there are hundreds of corporate churches of which the Catholic and Anglican are but two. And (here is definitely where I’m on my own) the corporate churches have really screwed up. Men (women have fully arrived yet) at Councils starting with Nicea in 325, began to make up rules called a liturgy, thus giving a framework for the first of the corporate churches. They had a mission statement which they called the Creed, a central ceremony, which they called a Mass or Communion, and some rituals which involved singing and praying in a certain fixed sequence. As this corporate church moved through the centuries splits occurred just as happen with other corporations. Disagreements led to schisms over such matters as whether or not the ceremonial wine and bread of the Communion actually became the flesh and blood of Christ upon ingestion. Wars were fought over such matters. Men were tortured and often burned at the stake for disagreeing with some of the corporations’ rules. To this day, symbolic stake burning of heretics – such as homosexuals - takes place. Political parties promise to rule with Christian principles, whatever that may mean. In my own congregation there have been defections over the question of blessing gay marriages and permitting practicing gays to be priests.

I am – none of you would have guessed this – a contrarian by nature and thus find it impossible to believe what I am told unless the evidence clearly warrants it or I don’t feel in my gut it’s true. So I have abandoned the corporate church (except for using the clubhouse on Sundays) and have reduced my faith to the essentials as laid down by Jesus – thou shall love the Lord thy God with all they heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Thereafter I rely for my defence against charges of heresy on the wonderful words of Elizabeth I who said "there is only one Jesus Christ. The rest is a dispute over trifles." I leave those disputes to Archbishops and Popes.