Offering a hopeful vision for the future of the Church, Archbishop Shane Parker, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, addressed the Diocese of Toronto as a guest speaker at its 163rd regular session of Synod in November.
Bishop Andrew Asbil revealed that the invitation to Archbishop Parker came mere moments after he was installed as primate in June. “Archbishop Shane is no stranger to stepping into difficult situations,” Bishop Asbil told the audience. “After the service, I said to him, ‘By the by, Archbishop, we’ve already booked you to be our guest speaker.’”
In his remarks after dinner on Friday evening, Archbishop Parker explored an analogy comparing the Church to a stained-glass window, originally coined by the Very Rev. Henry Chadwick, a 20th-century English theologian.
“The stained glass reflects the light. It’s got colours, it reflects the goodness of the gospel, the love and compassion and gentleness and mercy and courage and justice of God,” he said. “The stained glass that is the stuff of the Church needs to be held by oak and iron.”
In some cases, he said, the Canadian Church hasn’t paid enough attention to the oak and iron – its structures and canons – and the stained glass has tumbled to the ground. “In other cases, we’ve spent so much time thinking about the oak and iron that we’ve forgotten its purpose. The stained glass is clouded over.”
He went on to say that the Cast the Net vision and calls to action, which have guided the diocese since they were unanimously approved by Synod in 2023, have achieved a balance between addressing the oak and iron and letting the stained glass shine.
“You have to look at property and structures, and the way parishes are configured and where ministry is happening, and all of those things that support the stained glass,” he said.
He likened the work the diocese has done through Cast the Net to the national church’s Creating Pathways document, approved by General Synod last June.
“We have focused too much on ourselves and our Church and keeping it going with these great cumbersome structures, instead of realizing that we may need to cast some of them away,” he said. “For years, we allowed ourselves to be changed without responding to what we see around us and realizing we must begin to guide change, to feel different, to look different, importantly to behave differently.”
Archbishop Parker encouraged Synod’s work in reflecting on the 20 Calls of Cast the Net to discern what God is calling the diocese to do, while not getting lost in either the oak and iron or the stained glass.
“You’re called to tell the good story through your structures, through your ministries, through the light of Christ, the love of Christ, the justice, the gentleness, the courage, the forgiveness of Christ,” he said. “You’re called to make your Church strong and vital and vibrant so you can pivot it to see Christ, and to allow Christ to shine through the stained glass of what God has called you to be.”
Archbishop Parker joined Synod in its business session on Saturday, and he spoke near the end of the morning to reflect what he had been observing.
“It’s remarkable just to see the diversity in this room, the relationships between individuals, and it’s something to be thankful for,” he said.
He remarked on some of the tensions that had surfaced over the course of the day, explaining that tension is a creative place.
“It means that something is being shaped, something is being worked on. You are being worked on by the Holy Spirit,” he said. “The tension that I was hearing, and you were hearing as well, is the tension between what is and what can be – what we see before us now and the future perhaps that we have a glimpse of, but we do not fully see.”
He implored Synod members to remember the water of baptism. “Remember that you were baptized in the name of the living God, and you reside with the cross and marked as Christ’s own forever,” he said. “Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The water of baptism, the sign of the cross, the promise that we are Christ’s own forever, says to us that all shall be well.”
He praised the diocese for its work of deliberate discernment through Cast the Net. “When I look at you, and I look at this expression of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, I see a diocese that’s poised to thrive,” he said.
“You are modeling what every church, every diocese in our country needs to do, which is to do the deep dive and look carefully at themselves, look carefully at what we stand on, and to identify plans and priorities that will allow you to change and to grow into the full stature of Christ,” he continued. “To position yourselves so the light of Christ shines through the well-supported stained glass that is the ministry God gave you to conduct. All shall be well.”
Letter outlines Paul’s theology