“Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.” These are the words spoken by astronaut Jim Lovell of the Apollo 13 mission shortly after an explosion on the craft left it leaching oxygen into space, vital for propulsion and breathing. The explosion and the damage it caused presented a cascading set of problems that, if left misdiagnosed and unsolved, meant disaster.
Anglicans in Canada have had our own “Houston, we have a problem” moment. We can debate about when the explosion occurred, but it is not debatable that our craft has been venting critical gasses for decades, and we have had many cascading and interconnected problems that, if left unsolved, all but ensure we will not land safely back on Earth.
Now, before you think this is another doom and gloom article, I intend to offer a solution to our problem. But first, I want to share a personal story. In 2016, a friend invited me to go fishing south of Chapleau, Ont., on an ATV access-only lake about 13 kilometres long. We would spend four days deep in the bush, so we brought all the necessary supplies to fish, camp and survive.
On the first morning, my friend remembered he left something in his truck, so he piloted the small aluminum craft to the bay, where he quickly jumped out into shallow water and waded ashore. “Just putter around in here for a bit. I’ll take the ATV to the truck and be right back.”
Obediently, I piloted the boat out into the deep of the small bay, as I listened to the sound of the ATV fade into the distance. Suddenly, the boat motor sputtered and quit. I put it in neutral and gave it a few tugs. Nothing. My efforts became more frantic as the river grabbed hold of the boat. I began to panic, frantically tugging the cord as the boat started down the river.
I was close enough to the shoreline to grab a small overhanging cedar, so I reached down and grabbed the only rope I saw and tied it to the tiny tree.
As I was bobbing up in down near the bank, I thought, “You better fix this fast!” As my mind raced, I heard a pop! The boat began to move again, flipping around backwards, still close to the bank. I scanned the shoreline for another tree and grabbed it quickly, tying the rope from the front of the boat to its branch.
Then, I sat down to catch my breath, and realized the rear of the boat was filling with water, and it was about to sink. I leapt up, grabbed a bucket, and began to bail, and that’s when I discovered the drain plug was gone. I quickly ripped off my rain pants and jammed them into the hole and continued to bail. Problem solved.
Eventually my friend hacked his way through the bush and found me and diagnosed the engine problem. It turns out when he jumped out of the boat, he disconnected the fuel line just enough to stop the flow but not enough to completely disconnect it. I felt stupid.
Had I calmly assessed the situation at the start, the fix would have been quick and easy. Instead, my panicked attempts to survive had only made things worse. The boat was now safely tied to a tree 150 yards down a river in rapids surrounded by rocks, and the drain plug was hanging in a cedar tree upstream with my rain pants fulfilling its role.
Addressing the crisis
This is about the Anglican Church of Canada. Our current crisis is not so different. We have experienced significant decline, and we certainly must act, or our boats will sink. We’ve had our share of doom and gloom articles and reports telling us what parishes and dioceses already know. We’ve also learned from experience that franticly plugging holes and bailing water isn’t working, and “managed decline” is becoming unmanageable.
We can’t survive, and certainly not thrive in our current condition.
So, what is the solution? I contend that our problem is the fuel line that appears connected, but in many cases is not, and reconnecting it is what is needed most. And that fuel line is historic (or classical) Anglican Christian doctrine, spirituality, and worship. In other words, we need to return to our roots.
Read the Bible
So, what are those roots? Let’s keep it simple. First, as reformed and catholic, our church’s foundation is supposed to be the Holy Scriptures, God’s word written. How can we reliably know the Triune Creator, the history of God’s redemptive plan, the stories of our ancestors of the faith, or anything truthful about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ apart from the Scriptures? Our church must repair the breaches, and re-establish a firm foundation on the Holy Scriptures, and quickly.
Proclaim the Gospel
Second, it is in the Scriptures that the risen Lord Jesus Christ gives us our mission (Mt 28:18-20) to proclaim the Gospel of salvation to the world. It is how the church grows, and it is of course what the world needs most. So, we need to recover the mission our Lord commanded and reject our secularizing tendencies.
Digest the Word
These first two are utterly dependent on a third. As Anglicans we must personally take to heart the Advent 2 collect: “Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
It is not enough to believe that God’s word is authoritative and that we should submit to it, but we must read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it, allowing the Holy Spirit to work God’s word into our hearts and our lives. Hearing Christ speak to us, and being transformed by the Holy Spirit, is the key to our being “the aroma of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15) in our day.
Returning to basics
In other words, we all must return to the daily office of Morning and Evening prayer, meditating on God’s word day and night (Ps. 1:2). When the whole church is praying and feeding on God’s word together, the effects will be seen immediately in our individual lives, and in the life of the gathered, worshipping and then sent congregation.
Now, one might object to using the 1962 Prayer book for all sorts of reasons. Fair enough. But I challenge all of us, whether lay or ordained, to at least spend time in daily prayer, and feeding on God’s word. And specifically, we should be reading the daily lessons appointed though the church year.
Imagine the fuel that would be powering our churches if we were all praying day and night, and inwardly digesting the same Scriptures, week after week throughout the church year. Would all our problems be solved? No. But, I dare say we would find our boats out of harm’s way, back on the lake, and soon we would be catching our limit, and enjoying a shore lunch in the shade.
