The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada is meeting this week in Winnipeg. Why do I care about this, given I left that church almost five years ago? Well, I left it, but I didn't do so in anger - I loved the church and felt there were beautiful and holy things about it, including a lot of kind, faithful and wise people whom I still love - but that it was drifting further and further from God, and the faith I wanted was not there. So, I've been watching for the last bundle of years as the church I once belonged to has drifted further and further from anything I recognize as a part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, that has its roots and its tradition in the faith of Jesus Christ and the apostles.

Top of the agenda at this Synod is the controversial topic of the blessing of same-sex unions. It's been on the agenda before, and if this time it doesn't pass, it'll be on for the next, and the next, and the next, until it passes. I don't care about that so much - it's inevitable, and only those in the Anglican church who don't remember the way every controversy since the Prayer book revision of the late 50's onward went will disagree. And I don't care because it's no longer any of my concern. What upsets me is the inevitable method that the liberal and progressive groups use to achieve their ends, and how they don't see how much the church's behaviour is at odds with what it says.

What upsets me is what's going to happen, and I don't mean the decision they make this year. Whether or not they agree to it this year, next Synod, or the Synod after that, it's going to be a fact. What bothers me is that the attitudes of the church haven't changed in over 50 years, and that the members of the church don't, even now, recognize how hypocritical those attitudes are. I weep for them. I do. My heart breaks as I listen to them say basically the same things they've said over every major divisive issue that's faced them since the last revision of the Book of Common Prayer, back in the late 1950's.

One of the biggest boasts the Anglican church makes is about how broad and welcoming it is - back when the terms "high" and "low" church meant something, it was a way of saying that they could accommodate the more catholic "smells, bells and yells" members as comfortably and as well as they could the more Protestant, ascetic members. As things became more divisive, in both society and the church, it became a rallying cry - we are so broadminded that we can comfortably accommodate both sides of an issue - whether that issue is the revision of the Prayer Book (50s), the admission of divorce and divorced persons (60's), the ordination of women (70's), the new service book (80s), acceptance and celebration of homosexuals and active homosexual clergy (90s) , or now, the blessing of same-sex unions.

In every case, what's actually happened is that the ones who support the issue, whatever it is, get to a point where they say, in effect, "If you don't like what we're doing, then leave. We aren't going to change and we aren't going to go away, and if you don't like it, we'll drive you out."

What happens is that the issue first erupts in controversy. When it's been studied and argued enough, it eventually goes to the General Synod as a motion. What happens after that is that the motion usually passes on a diocese by diocese (or in this case, parish by parish) level - so that the bishops who agree with the motion can implement the controversial issue, and the ones who don't, don't have to.

In the case of the ordination of women, that was done diocese by diocese, and eventually, candidates for ordination were required to sign a document that stated they didn't object to the ordination of women. If they didn't sign they weren't ordained. If you were lay, and your parish had a vacancy, you weren't allowed to refuse to have a woman as a priest, regardless of what you felt about the issue. So, if you didn't like it, you left, because there was no other choice, if you hadn't left in disgust before.

With the Book of Alternative services, the same thing happened, but in this case, the Book of Common Prayer was relegated (in some cases by episcopal order) to the 8 am service only, so that if you had small children and wanted them to attend Sunday School, or you preferred the later services, you had to put up with the BAS whether you liked it or not. If you got baptized, confirmed, married or buried, you got no choice - you had the BAS, like it or not. If you didn't like it, you left.

And it's happening again.

The CBC reported the issue, and this is a quote from the story:

Regardless of the decision, though, Fleming said the more difficult question to answer is how to deal with the faithful who will, "because of their integrity, feel that they no longer can be a part of the Anglican Church.

"Some will say we've gone too far, others will say we haven't gone far enough," he said. "How do we say goodbye?"

Why do you have to say good-bye? How can you boast of your broad and welcoming and inclusive approach when you are pushing out the people in the Canadian Anglican Communion who are either unsure of the right and wrong of this, scripturally, traditionally and ethically, or who are convinced of the wrongness of this decision? That is not a broad and welcoming church. That's a church that says you can't be a member of our church if you disagree with what we say the truth is, regardless of what you really feel about the issue, regardless of what the broader, world wide church says it is, and as long as you agree with us that the Gospel, Jesus, and the concept of a universal, authoritative truth is subsumed beneath the social justice and politically correct agendas that we decide upon.

I'm so sorry for the church that I left, but honestly? I don't think that church exists anymore. And I'm even sorrier for that.