Proud to be a Canadian Anglican

The following is from the Anglican Journal.

"Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has lamented that while he and other primates currently meeting in Tanzania have seen stark images of poverty in the capital Dar Es Salaam their discussions will not focus on improving the lives of the poor but on divisions over human sexuality.
“I am going to a meeting with a gospel of hope and a preferential option for the poor and we are debating who is in and whom we are going to keep out,” said Archbishop Hutchison in a blog, or Internet diary entry, to young Canadian Anglicans at www.generation.anglican.ca.

Archbishop Hutchison, meanwhile, wrote in his blog that he has been praying “that we can truly listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church.” He said: “I believe in an inclusive church that has its doors open to all and that accepts and welcomes people regardless of the human definitions that we may place upon them – male/female, white/black, gay/straight … We run the danger of making the church a club for like-minded people rather than a place of refuge for the sinner and hope for the hurt and vulnerable.”

Archbishop Hutchison said his realization that the church was becoming out of sync with the realities of the world occurred to him during the drive to the conference centre, a beachfront hotel located an hour away from the Dar es Salaam airport.
“Despite being tired my eyes were wide open as we drove over dusty unkempt roads and through a sea of thousands upon thousands of people. Most were standing beside the road looking desperate and without hope,” he wrote. “Adults and children intermingled and behind them were some of the most dilapidated shacks that I had ever seen. For many these are the only houses they will ever know.”

Archbishop Hutchison’s lament echoes one by Archbishop Robin Eames, the newly-retired primate of the Church of Ireland, who also led the Lambeth Commission.
Interviewed by The Tablet, a Roman Catholic magazine, Archbishop Eames expressed disappointment at the way leaders of various factions in the Anglican Communion have behaved towards each other. “I have an image of a matchstick child starving in Africa and here are these robed figures going past arguing, and they don’t see the child looking for a bite to eat.”

I have always thought highly of ++Ted Scott and ++Michael Peers. With these comments ++Andrew Hutchison also gains my high respect. These are the true issues with which the Church should grapple. That would be working for the kin-dom not this constantly bickering over right belief and who is in or out (Both issues are ones of which God is the true judge, not humans. As humans we can only pray that we are acting true to God's desire. Since the gospel is one of love, I would think it pays us to err on the side of love.)