From the Vancouver Sun
METRO VANCOUVER – The Anglican diocese of the Lower Mainland will be able to retain ownership of four disputed parish properties worth more than $20 million, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled today.
Justice Stephen Kelleher decided against conservative Anglican dissidents who went to court claiming they deserve to have legal control of St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church in Vancouver — one of the largest Anglican congregations in Canada — as well as three other Lower Mainland church properties.
The clergy and trustees at the four conservative parishes left the 600,00-member Anglican Church of Canada last year and joined a smaller conservative breakaway Anglican organization called the Anglican Network in Canada, with about 3,500 members.
The bitter Lower Mainland court case over church property is the latest in a series of harsh confrontations in Canada and around the globe between liberal and conservative Anglicans. The issue of same-sex blessings and how to interpret the Bible have been focal points of a decades-long division in the worldwide Anglican communion, in which liberal Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham has been a key player.
In addition to St. John’s Shaughnessy Church, which is at the corner of Granville Street and Nanton Avenue in Vancouver’s most expensive neighbourhood, the congregations affected by Wednesday’s ruling are St. Matthew’s Church in Abbotsford, St. Matthias and St. Luke Church on West 49th in Vancouver and Good Shepherd Church on East 19th in Vancouver.
Ingham said in an interview Wednesday evening he was pleased that the judge’s decision is “substantially in our favour,” providing “clarity” that the diocese continues to own the properties in question.
Kelleher’s ruling, Ingham added, “may be precedent-setting” across Canada, where some other conservative parishes are considering leaving the Anglican Church of Canada and trying to take the properties with them.
A spokeswoman for the four disaffected Anglican parishes said Wednesday they will take time to review the 98-page ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
The self-described dissidents [huh?] had maintained that, under trust law, they are the proper owners of the four valuable church properties because they are not “departing” from the larger worldwide Anglican denomination. Instead, they told the judge, they are allying themselves with a particular arm of Anglicanism during what they call an historic “division” within the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican communion.
The conservatives claimed in court they are the true “orthodox” Anglicans who are following the denomination’s “historic” doctrine. They argued that Ingham abandoned the true Anglican faith in 2002 when he became the first Anglican bishop in Canada, if not the world, to formally approve same-sex blessings.
However, Justice Kelleher ruled that “orthodox” has always had a fluid meaning within the 400-year history of Anglicanism.
“‘Historic’ and ‘orthodox’ are uncertain and subjective terms that cannot, in my view, form the basis of an enforceable trust,” Kelleher said. “Moreover, a trust which freezes doctrine at a point in history is inconsistent with the history of change and evolution in Anglicanism.”
St. John’s Shaughnessy member Cheryl Chang, who serves as legal counsel to the breakaway Anglican Network in Canada, responded Wednesday to Kelleher’s ruling in a statement, saying: “It is a great concern to hear that a majority {within a diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada} can redefine and change the doctrine of the church, and that those who wish to remain faithful to the church’s teaching must change their beliefs or sacrifice their buildings.”
Even though Kelleher ruled against the dissidents on the main issue — saying an Anglican Church of Canada parish “does not have authority to unilaterally leave the diocese” and take the property with it — the conservatives won on some secondary issues.
For instance, the judge ruled that a $2.2-million donation to Good Shepherd congregation by Daphne Chun should be held in trust for the breakaway Anglican organization. As well, Kelleher decided that Ingham had not had the authority to terminate some trustees at some conservative parishes.
Although officials for the dissidents could not be reached for comment late Wednesday, the website for St. John’s Shaughnessy has for some time informed parishioners that, in the event of losing the court case and the property, the congregation would resume somewhere else.
“We would all move together. We would remain St. John’s and worship elsewhere,” said the website.
The St. John’s Shaughnessy website also tells members that the existing clergy, despite leaving the Anglican Church of Canada in 2008, would continue to hold services, but “just in different buildings.”
Ingham said Wednesday he is ready to “work with” any members who wish to remain with the four conservative Anglican Church of Canada parishes, so that they can together determine which new priests could be appointed.
“The Anglican church is a big tent. It has room for liberals and conservatives,” Ingham said, adding he is ready to appoint theologically conservative priests to serve the four parishes and “get back to the proper work of the church.”
Ingham acknowledged the Vancouver-area diocese has had to spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” defending itself against the lawsuit. Even though Kelleher has not yet ruled on who should pay court costs, Ingham said it’s customary for those who launch unsuccessful lawsuits to have to pay defendent’s legal bills.
This is not the first time that Anglican congregations have left the 78-parish Vancouver-area diocese, known officially as the Diocese of New Westminster. In 2005, the clergy of four other conservative Vancouver-area Anglican parishes voluntarily left four church buildings and resumed their ministries in different locations.
Did anyone really expect an impartial moral decision out of a BC court system that is normally blatant in it biased decisions based upon neither law nor morality? That so-called justice system is merely a purveyor of partisan “avant-guarde” politically correct decisions based upon the desires and wants of the left-wing socialist/communist liberal agenda.
The loss is not unexpected.
Justice Kelleher’s reasons are of a nature that I most feared: we lose, but there are errors in the judge’s reasoning that make it tempting to appeal. He had no authority to reject the centuries old case law regarding the holding of church property on trust and adopt the American “neutral principles of law” approach. However even if we were to appeal and win on that point, we will lose anyway, for reasons set out in the judge’s reasoning on the trust argument.
The overreliance on the Solumn Declaration of 1893 was a huge mistake, because we cannot prove that the ACoC has abandoned it, as would be required to win the case. Justice Kelleher has set out some of the reasons. It is merely a resolution of General Synod, which GS can amend or change at any time. The ACoC has done nothing formally in derogation of it. We cannot prove that it has renounced its fundamental doctrines.
I have not discussed this before publicly lest it come to the attention of the other side, but the fundamental-principles doctrine we have been arguing has never, in the entire history of the Canada and the United Kingdom, been successfully argued except in case of a change of denomination. That is the kind of abandonment of fundamental principles required in order to win a case such as this.
So although the judge’s conclusion that under a trust argument the ACoC may change its doctrine in any way it chooses is wrong, even if the appeal court rejects it, we lose the case anyway.
It is not in our interest to appeal the decision; the risk is too great that the court will overturn the building-fund decision and the illegal-firing-of-trustees decision. I suppose the best we can do in NW is try to get a small sum of money on respect of the illegal trustee replacement and an agreement that neither side will appeal.
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I have been saying all along that we never had more than a 2% chance to win this case (upped to 5% with the addition of the cy pres argument.) For some reason God has allowed our leaders to be deluded regarding both the facts and law of this case. To date little damage has been done; the building fund part of the case was worthy of litigation anyway, and as long as we were in court the whole thing might as well be litigated. But the time for self-deception and disingenuous spin of the kind in this press release is over.
In Ontario there was not the realism to make a serious settlement offer to the diocese (a realistic offer would have had them keep the buildings and pay us around 25% of their net worth). It has been stated that the congregations stated that they wanted to keep their buildings and didn’t want to pay money to the diocese for buildings they had already paid for. They didn’t seem to realize, and apparently our internal structure created no way to inform them, that they weren’t going to have any choice in the matter. A negotiated settlement is now worth nothing to the diocese. Let us pray that our leaders have the strength and prudence to negotiate/arrange the best means of putting this all behind is and prepare for a new start.
So sorry to hear about the decision.
I’m sick of the argument that makes “equality” synonymous with sexual preference. It’s nonsense. Our “equality” is in our humanity, not our sexual preference otherwise our humanity is reduced to our sexuality (which is often how the argument proceeds!). And for the Anglican Church of Canada in the Diocese of New Westminster to allow same-sex blessings means that the leadership has swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, the reduction of humanity to sexuality. This is a terrible decision by a secular judge who has little understanding of the history of Anglicanism, its doctrines, including its long-established understanding of sexuality – which the house of bishops in Lambeth in 1998 reaffirmed in Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality – that is, that same-sex relationships are contrary to the church’s historic teaching. Bishop Ingham decided to break with historic Anglican teaching expressed in Lambeth resolution 1.10 when he endorsed same-sex blessings. That the judge can’t see this is a massive oversight.
I pray to God that he would be merciful to New Westminster and see fit to remove Bishop Ingham from his position (NB: I’m *not* praying that he dies).
That is way too harsh. I for one am very grateful to Cheryl and the legal team for all the hard work they put in; in addition, given the fact that we don’t have access to the 90 plus page decision, declaring that an appeal isn’t worth it, and “they weren’t going to have any choice in the matter”, is premature.
There’s a link to the decision at the bottom of the post after this one. I wouldn’t have commented without reading it.
Our lawyers were paid $1.1 million. They don’t need gratitude as well.
That’s not a terribly Christian attitude, Toral. Besides, the money came from the legal defence fund, not from general funds. Nobody was forced to contribute to it.
Toral,
You seem to have reached a hitherto unprecedented depth of cynicism in your view of lawyers – presumably from the inside knowledge that you have gained by being one.
I do think that the legal team – particularly Cheryl – have done what they believe to be right, what God has called them to do. Although they do have to be paid, this exercise has always been more about principle than money – even for the lawyers.
Of course they have done what they believe to be right, and what God has called them to do. That’s not at issue. The same thing could be said about Michael Ingham or Michael Bird. Does that mean that everything they do is beyond criticism? I know nothing about our B.C. lawyers, but everything I have seen suggests they did an excellent job. The legal theory put together by the Chancellor was, in its essentials (a little pun there) the best we could come up with.
Sometimes, however, every one of us is wrong about what God has called him to do. There are times for prayerful reconsideration of what we have believed.
As far as principle is concerned, a lawyer on principle should be as ready to argue Michael Ingham’s side as much as ours. Lawyers are not supposed to be their clients’ personal friends or cheerleaders. They are supposed to offer hard-headed legal advice.
Of course they have done what they believe to be right, and what God has called them to do.
I also think God’s call was real.
Judge Kelleher may well have decided on the legal issues involved in this case but this is a clear example of judgements that may well be legally correct but definitely not morally correct. Being a civil court it has no interest in theological issues. The decision shows the failure of the ACoC to have effective procedures in effect to discipline apostate bishops. Once a clergy person becomes a bishop he/she seem to have absolute power and when you have a primate and other members of the House of Bishops who are content to simply sit back and allow apostasy to reign that absolute power is sealed – sealed on this side of the grave but definitely not on the other side.
I am totally confident in the abilities of our legal team and we need to pray for our clergy and congregations as they try to get past this tragic decision. There is no question that Michael Ingham will push this for all it is worth as he clearly demonstrates his loyalty and that is definitely NOT our Lord and Saviour.
We must remember this case was forced upon the orthodox parishes by the Diocese illegal order to remove our trustees and clergy. I can only pray that members of the congregation will not be taken in by Michael Ingham’s deceptive invitation to work with him.
I’m not sure what the Diocese is supposed to have “won” here. An empty building, which they alone must now pay to maintain in a time of economic recession — or sell off, when buyers are scarce? A parish that, having cut its last ties to them, will no longer be generating money for their depleted coffers? A congregation that must be built up again from scratch, when the Diocese is actually losing members and closing down or amalgamating other parishes? Where’s the “win” in all this?
Good point.
Good, bad or otherwise, a decision has advantages. The four parishes affected have doubtlessly been making plans – plans that had to remain in hiatus pending a decision. Now they can figuratively “shake the dust off their sandals” and move forward. I’m looking forward to hearing about what the future might hold.
Well, like I said on the other thread, I think the diocese, and the ACoC, will inherit what they desire – the property and the money. However all this will disappear in good time, in the kingdom of rust and moths.
My point of view, and I hope I am not going to get into too much trouble with my fellow bloggers (gulp), is not in favour of fighting for the property. I fully respect the reasons people do so, and it’s not for me to say what decisions should be made with other congregations property.
That said, I believe that 1 Corinthians 6 v7 is relevant here (http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/6-7.htm), and in that I know I take a different position from J I Packer.
A fair settlement would be akin to an amicable divorce, when both parties take away from the marriage what they put into it. However, there is nothing amicable about this divorce. It’s pretty much all or nothing. The legal decision could only really only go one way or another.
Since I understand the diocesan investment in the properties was minimal or non-existent, you could view the judgment as legally correct in the essentials (though I don’t profess to know that), whilst being morally completely wrong. So the diocese may get what they want, but it’s hard to see God blessing that.
Ultimately, I believe that God may desire things to be this way, and that He will work through ANiC in so many more wonderful ways than would have been possible if we had retained our property. It may just prove to be blessing and mercy in the long run.
That’s not to say it smarts any less in the short term, and I do appreciate the amount of time and effort the legal team put into this!
There is a tendency to forget that we elected these bishops even though a little preventative research would have shown their apostate leanings well before such elections, and we also forget that the people of the Synod voted a couple of times to accept ssb rather than it being a edict from above. So to lay all the blame at the feet of the bishops is much more hierarchical than the ACoC is. It is synodically governed, episcopally led (don’t know who that quotes…). Once the apostates outnumbered the orthodox, in the pulpit and in the pew, the die was cast, unless God saw fit to intervene. Perhaps willingness to leave the properties behind is one way to show that we trust completely in the Lord’s provision. Let’s not return to Egypt.
Ellie at #11, the problem is, the Diocese will sell off properties they can’t afford to maintain, and properties that they know will realise good capital. What that means: once the land is sold, you can’t get it back, and opportunities to do ministry in that area become more difficult logistically. And what’s gained by selling off these properties? The money goes to pay people like Ingham because the money coming into Diocesan coffers has depleted due to declining churches. It is a very serious issue of stewardship and of future possibilities for ministry. It ought not to be minimized by suggesting, “It’s only property, not ‘souls’”.
I also agree with Peter at #14 that 1 Cor 6:1-8 is relevant here. In this passage it is the strong, rich, powerful “Christians” at Corinth who are taking their poorer, weaker, powerless fellow-Christians to the law courts. And Paul says to the stronger, richer, more powerful, “Why not be ‘wronged’? Why not be ‘defrauded’? Instead you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and this to your brothers (and sisters)” (1 Cor 6:7-8)
[I put 'wronged' and 'defrauded' in ' ' here because I believe it is Paul's rhetorical device to indicate that the rich *thought* they were being wronged, but no real wrong was done - the petty grievances against them led the wealthy instead to wrong their fellow, poorer Christians.]
Richard B Hays notes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians:
“Recent research on the court systems of the Roman empire has shown that there was a strong systemic bias in favor of higher-status litigants. The overwhelming majority of civil cases were brought by the wealthy and powerful against people of lesser status and means.” (p93)
So, to put the matter into its current context, it appears as though the Diocese is in the category of the more powerful prosecuting their weaker, poorer, fellow-Christians. From a Christian perspective, the Diocese is culpable. It doesn’t mean the legal team of ANiC parishes should have just rolled over because 1 Cor 6 says, “Don’t engage in civil lawsuits.” Instead, they have every right and responsibility under God to defend themselves and their brothers and sisters as much as they were able to do.
This is a tawdry affair and Ingham should be thoroughly ashamed that he has presided over such a situation. I see that the only way forward is for parishes to have a much greater say in the trusteeship of their parish properties. These cases in the New Westminster Diocese have shown a great weakness in the Anglican Communion’s and individual Dioceses’ property laws. And, until now, there hasn’t been a pressing need to test them.
I just read through the ruling and I disagree with the statement that dioceses gets the property, it doesn’t say that in the ruling. If I understand it correctly it says:
1) The duly elected trustees (ANiC) are the directors of the corporations
2) The corporations have the right to buy and sell property, with the restriction that the Bishop must approve any such sale
3) The Trustees need to exercise their trust in the context of the rules in the dioceses of New West.
I see three options for these trustees
1) Stay in the diocese – not likely
2) Resign
3) Use their standing to negotiate a third way
We need to pray for wisdom and God’s leading for these trustees and our legal team
Out of everything bad will come something good. God can turn the most awful wrong into a most brilliant right (refer to Saul of Tarsus) and so forth.
Perhaps our ‘new’ churches, from East to West Coasts, when entering into building new buildings, buying new properties, whatever, should have it in writing and carved in legalese that these buildings and properties will now be and always be the properties of the particular Parish and parishioners and that the Diocese or Province will not have any ownership rights whatsoever.
I know, such a thing is not necessary in our “new” Diocese, Province, whatever today. But what about one hundered years from now when evil has lurked into our new church and the future Inghams and Byrds and Chapmans etc. start to flap their collective wings and decide to change our Holy Bible and decide to call Jesus Christ a prophet of sorts rather than the Son of God and so forth.
What about then. People, learn from this terrible wrong that the terribly biased court system of this country has become. Make the properties of each Church totally theirs……
Gerry (#18), I wonder if the concern you are expressing, at least in part, motivated the early congregationalists (I don’t view congregationalism negatively)?
Warren #19
~ I’m not sure I understand you correctly, however, if the early congregationalists (North American Anglicans) had looked at or thought about it, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in….would we?
This is always a challenge with large denominations…..Always has to be a top and a bottom and the bottom is always controlled by the top… The top always owns everything (look at the roman Catholic and Anglicans for two) and the people who do most of the sacrificing, building, paying for end up as the owners of little and then when schism comes, they lose those things which are subject to rust and moths. Inversely, those who win the rusty-mothy stuff usually end up losing the best part….the soul!
Each individual parish-church-group should always be the legal owner of their buildings, chattels, etc. Paying tithes “up-along” is just fine and those should be used for those things which they are intended for.
Gerry (#19), I was thinking of those who broke away from the Church of England in the 16th and 17th centuries; the forerunners of today’s Baptists (and some other denominations). I don’t imagine they had much luck in wresting properties away from the state church.