No persons of “faith”, who have not themselves been a part of a social conflagration – now well-studied in recent memory, from World War II to Rwanda, with many human and “natural” disasters in between -- dare dismiss the depth of woundedness, sometimes unto mental death, that is bound up with going through and surviving these events.

Importantly, the pendulum’s movement is indicating that for the first time in a long time the “evangelicals” are beginning to recognize that the basic and real purpose of “a service of worship” is simply to offer worship – as praise, thanksgiving, confession, petition and intercession, but chiefly praise – to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Further, to see that all genuine ministry & mission flow from and surround such holy, God-centered, corporate worship.

That fall, the Archbishop of Canterbury called an emergency meeting of the Primates to deal with what the Episcopal Church had done. In their discussion it was made abundantly clear that the Anglican Communion would be “torn at its fabric” if ECUSA proceeded with the consecration of a bishop in a same-sex relationship. Even the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA signed the report, recognizing the gravity of the situation. He then went on to be the chief consecrator in New Hampshire.

But it's pertinent that he is an Anglican clergyman and sometime academic.

Needless to say, he was writing in the Globe and Mail, a journal which frequently opens its pages to people similarly afflicted, though rarely as severely as this poor man.

He was writing on the gay marriage issue, and he wanted the world to know that, even though he is "a church-going, Bible-reading, creed- affirming Christian," he is whole-heartedly in favour of gay marriage.