Canada: Is it really a problem of ‘just a few parishes’?

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2008/06/03/canada-is-it-really-a-problem-of-just-a-few-parishes/

[Anglican Mainstream] 6 June 2008--Well the long-awaited fracture is now beginning to take place. In February, 15 churches have determined that their future does not lie in the Anglican Church of Canada. Churches both in the Diocese of New Westminster as well as others across the country have now voted to leave their dioceses and subsequently the national church and come under the leadership of the ecclesiastical Province of the Southern Cone. What will come of all of this remains to be seen. But it is undeniable that the church is now facing a critical time. Or is it?

If the various church leaders of the ACC are correct, there is no crisis. Relying on statistical analysis, which makes no distinction between St. John’s Shaughnessy, Canada’s largest Anglican congregation and many of our well-loved, yet scarcely-populated country parishes, the line has been that this is a blip, a regrettable blip but a blip none the less, and that there is no crisis. Is this simply an attempt to diminish the significance of the fracture in our church, or does this sort of response signify something much more serious — that our leadership does not have a realistic assessment of the situation at hand. Let’s look at the facts.