Gay activist says split regrettable but admits it might make life easier

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The leader of a Toronto gay Anglican group says he would be sorry to see a split in the church but thinks his own life might be made easier if a conservative wing were to break away.

"I'm getting to the stage where I'm not sure that I want to be perpetually justifying my existence in the church as a gay man," Chris Ambidge of Integrity Canada said yesterday.

"I want to get along with worshipping God and doing what I need to be doing in the church," he added.

Ambidge, who is chair of the Toronto chapter of the gay and lesbian justice ministry, was responding to news that conservative Anglicans are planning to establish their own church.

"They have serious theological issues with the direction the rest of the church is going. I feel sorry for them that they feel they need to draw the circle tighter and to circle the wagons," he said.

He said his preference is for the church to remain united.

Differing opinions over same-sex marriage are at the heart of the debate, explained Ambidge, who worships in The Church of the Redeemer at Avenue Rd. and Bloor St.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion)

7 Comments
Posted September 29, 2007 at 2:35 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. samh wrote:

We’re not forcing him to justify his presence in the Church. He is being compelled to justify requiring the Church to bless his sin. Why can he not see the difference?

September 29, 3:07 pm | [comment link]
2. Lumen Christie wrote:

Orthodox/reasserters need to read and consider this carefully.  The left wing believes it deserves to inherit the whole church and really does want us all to be gone.  With all the “no one should say I have no need of you” rhetoric of the past couple of years, they really have no willingness to have us around, no less to listen to us.

Hey, Albany, the time for being a “prophetic voice” is over

Let’s just go, already

September 29, 5:23 pm | [comment link]
3. Daniel Lozier wrote:

Susan Russell wrote:

Just for the record, “Integrity” called B033 dead-on-arrival in Columbus when the ink wasn’t yet dry on the coerced resolution offering gay and lesbian vocations as sacrifical lambs on the altar of global communion politics as the “Windsor” Bishops (or whatever they were calling themselves at that point) came down the escalator from the House of Bishops and lined up for their all-ready-to-go press conference declaring it not enough to hold the Communion together.

We didn’t accept Lambeth 1.10 in 1998 and we didn’t roll over for B033 in 2006.  It is now time for the Anglican Communion to decide whether it can live with the diversity we represent ...
August 28, 3:27 pm

September 29, 6:39 pm | [comment link]
4. Harvey wrote:

After painfully reading most of the rhetoric about the split in the TEC I have to keep focusing on the fact that the TEC is the one splitting from the Anglican Communion not the opposite.  And the faithful ones in the TEC are desiring to be part of the Anglican Communion may be splitting so they can go back to the “fold”

September 29, 7:45 pm | [comment link]
5. Br. Michael wrote:

Harvey, the painful reality is that we may have to leave both.

September 29, 8:25 pm | [comment link]
6. Rolling Eyes wrote:

Br. Michael, why would the reasserters have to worry about leaving the Communion when we are in agreement with the vast majority of the Communion, and when groups like the Network are recognized as being in Communion with that majority while TEC is not?

September 29, 11:03 pm | [comment link]
7. Br. Michael wrote:

Because it does not appear that the AC will ever discipline TEC.  So in the US if you want to be in the AC you will have to be in the TEC.

September 30, 5:37 am | [comment link]
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