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chapter 3 Questions about Church Governance Governance in the Anglican Church in Canada has always been diffuse and untidy. By “governance” is meant the constituted ways by which the Church makes institutional decisions and assigns authority. It includes structures of decision making, lines of accountability, job descriptions, and spheres of jurisdiction.Anglicans have questioned precisely what were,or should be,the jurisdiction and authority of primates, metropolitans, bishops, colonial secretaries , the law officers of the Crown, governors, colonial councils of various descriptions, various Canadian courts of law, the Privy Council in England, secretaries of mission societies,vestries,parish clergy and staff,church wardens, General Synod,provincial synods,diocesan synods,the staffs of synodical boards and committees, the imperial parliament in England, the various provincial legislatures,after 1867 the dominion parliament,and other persons and groups. Sometimes questions have arisen because some claimed an authority for themselves or for the Church that others thought that they should not have. Sometimes questions have arisen because two or more persons or bodies were claiming the same responsibility and authority. Sometimes questions have arisen because everyone was eager to leave responsibility and authority to someone else. All this was true in the eighteenth century, and it is true today. In short, Canadian Anglicans have over and over again questioned how the Anglican Church should be governed. The history of Anglican governance in Canada can be divided into three periods, each with its dominant model of governance and each framing the perennial questions of Anglican governance in ways specific to the surrounding circumstances. From the 1780s to the 1860s, the Anglican Church had an “imperial” model of organization, dependent on the prerogative of the Crown. From the 1860s to the 1960s, it had a “polity” model, combining monarchical, oligarchic, and democratic principles. Since the 1960s, a “bureaucratic” model has prevailed. Like all models, these are only abstractions, identifying certain 03.82-113_Haye 1/20/04, 9:36 AM 82 83 questions about church governance publicly espoused principles and dominant characteristics; the actual historical processes of governing have been inconsistent, conflicting, and uncertain. Moreover, many Anglicans in each period critiqued the dominant model. Both the theoretical tendencies and the actual untidiness have been essential to Canadian Anglican identity, and so have been Anglican questions about them. The Imperial Period The imperial character of England was affirmed in one of the most important acts of parliament of the English Reformation. The Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533 began: “Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world,governed by one supreme head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic,compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty,be bounden and ought to bear,next to God, a natural and humble obedience.”1 The theory that the act enunciated was that the kings and queens of England were head of both church and state. Henry VIII and his successors claimed the powers of Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, who might lead a military expedition one day and settle a dispute about an episcopal election the next, or make decisions about the value of coinage and chair a meeting of bishops drafting doctrinal definitions . During the time that the Anglican Church in BNA was established or quasi-established, its governance was founded on the assumption of empire. The king or queen—the emperor—appointed the bishops until the 1850s in the overseas colonies of England (chapter 2). Bishops worked in connection with other authorities appointed by the king or queen, including the colonial secretary and the provincial governor. Church law in England applied to the Colonies, except when law officers of the Crown discerned legal reasons why it should not. To most of the rest of the worldAnglican bishops in BNA might seem to have immense power.The royal letters patent delivered to Bishop Charles Inglis (Document 14) gave him authority to institute clergy to benefices, to license them, to enquire into behavior and morals, to punish delinquents, and in general to exercise full ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction under the laws of England and the canons of the Church. But the bishops themselves felt largely powerless in their office.Everything they might want...

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