An Anglican canon makes an astonishing claim at the very end of today’s Anglican Journal article on Canadian reactions to the primates’ communiqué. According to Canon Joyce Sanchez, chaplain to Montreal’s Integrity chapter and associate priest at Christ Church Cathedral,

Each [Anglican] province, or country, “has its own context and own understanding of the Gospel.”

That’s the article’s final sentence.  I think that’s called “burying the lede”.  I do wish the reporter had asked for elucidation.  I sure would have.

I am absolutely flabbergasted to discover that the Anglican Church of Canada has its very own understanding of the Gospel.  Where is this written down, that I may learn what my church professes concerning the Gospel?  I’d also like to know where I can read about the unique understanding of the Gospel held by The Episcopal Church.  How about the Church of England?  Church of Nigeria?  Church of South India?  And the rest of the Anglican provinces?

Wow!  They’re all different.  I had no idea.

OK, enough sarcasm.  What’s going on, really, is that Canon Sanchez is employing multicultural rhetoric to obscure the fact that there are two different understandings of the Gospel abroad in the worldwide Anglican Communion.  The first is what can be called the historic orthodox Anglican understanding, as summarised, for example, in the Thirty-Nine Articles.

The other understanding holds that words in the Bible and in creedal statements can be willfully redefined to mean something quite different from what the church has always understood them to mean.  This understanding is the root of the contention that, in many areas, the Bible does not say what the church has always understood it to say.  Thus, for example, the claim that the Bible does not teach that homosexual behaviour is contrary to God’s will.

Clearly, the two understandings of the Gospel are radically different.  In fact, some have argued that there are two gospels in the Anglican Communion.

In that connection, St Paul said something that bears consideration:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Too bad Anglican Journal didn’t get into that with Canon Sanchez.

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