Where is leadership?

Dear editor,

I recently read in the Ottawa Citizen a story entitled Anglican church faces extinction. The article quoted from a report prepared for our bishops by a volunteer adviser. In his report, Keith McKerracher quoted statistics and said that the Anglican Church of Canada "is in precipitous decline and facing extinction by the middle of the century." I was so shocked by the conclusions of the report that I opened with great anticipation my December copy of the Anglican Journal to read the in-depth discussion and comments of our leaders on this bombshell of a report.

What did I find? A passing mention of the report under the heading, Bishops examine church growth. One bishop welcomed Mr. McKerracher's blunt approach, and another said the declining church membership tracks a decline among our traditional constituency of white Anglophones. I am dumbstruck once again.

Where is the clarion call to action on the part of the primate and the bishops? Where is the recognition that unless major action is taken immediately to staunch this hemorrhage in member numbers, we won't have a church in a few more years? This crisis cries out for attention and leadership. Where are our leaders and what are they doing?

William Carradine

Bayfield. Ont.

Vianney Carriere, director of General Synod's communications and information resources department, replies:

A bit more information might be helpful in appreciating the provenance of Mr. McKerracher's document and its disposition at the House of Bishops.

Mr. McKerracher compiled his figures strictly as an individual pursuing his own interests. There was absolutely nothing "official" about his document. Mr. McKerracher is a member of the Communications Information Resources Committee of the national church and that committee heard the presentation before the bishops did, but it was not asked to endorse the document and did not do so. Neither its methodology nor the analysis was tested in any way.

If the bishops' response to Mr. McKerracher's figures seems a bit muted, it may be because the document (which, by the way, was not distributed to them) contained nothing they did not know. The Anglican church has been losing about 2 per cent of its members a year (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less) for many years. This would be well known to the bishops.

However, far from ignoring Mr. McKerracher's information, the House of Bishops chose to cancel a free evening so that they could share impressions and experiences about how and where the church is growing. From all accounts, the bishops found this session inspiring.

Anglican leaders have not ignored declining membership. The Framework approved by General Synod in 2004 and the companion stewardship initiative entitled Letting Down the Nets tackle this problem head on.