Now comes the interesting legal question: who owns a church? I do not mean the theological church (which Christians sometimes refer to as the "body of Christ"), but the local building and pews, those sometimes splendid, sometimes ramshackle, edifices to which worshippers trudge on a Sunday morning to give honour and glory to God?

As it happens, two Anglican congregations (St. Simon's and Pender Harbour) had bought and paid for their church land and buildings; naturally they have claimed ownership of the property. As the wardens of the Pender Harbour put it: ".Given that the trust relationship between the people of the Parish of St. Andrew's, Pender Harbour, (now Christ The Redeemer Anglican Church, Pender Harbour) and the Bishop and the Diocese of New Westminster has been broken by the actions of the Diocese and Bishop, and given that the land, church building and resources have been acquired, built and maintained wholly by the Anglican constituency of this community, it is our congregation's intention to retain the beneficial ownership of the said properties, buildings and resources for present and future orthodox Anglican ministry in this locale."

That seems to me a fair result. But Canadian Courts are unlikely to agree.

Here's why.

A decade ago the same issue (homosexuality) tore apart what had been until then the largest and most successful Protestant denomination in Canada, the United Church. When church headquarters announced that henceforth the church would ordain practicing homosexuals, and that decision was ratified by a meeting of General Council, several individual congregations split away.

In Kent County, for example, three local congregations went to Court to try to establish ownership of the church property. In 1991 the Court held that the church properties were owned not by the local church but by church headquarters; the Court also held that this result involved no conflict with the petitioner's "freedom of religion" as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights. Mr. Justice Goutreau. wrote: "The members who left the congregation .exercised their religious freedom by saying that they did not want to be part of the United Church of Canada. .Even if it is accepted that their freedom of religion is impaired .the Charter is not available.[in these circumstances]". There are other Canadian cases to like effect.

Now it is certainly true that the Courts have advanced Charter
jurisprudence since 1991, with the Supreme Court of Canada often taking an activist stance. But that tends to happen when the case before them corresponds to the Court's ideological agenda, and you may be sure that religion is not high on the Court's current list of favoured interests (although homosexuality is). So it would be naïve to suspect that a breakaway Anglican denomination will encounter much sympathy - or even understanding of its position - from the Courts.

I predict that the former Anglican parishes of New Westminster will find
little or no sympathy in either Canadian courts or legislatures. In the
name of Scripture, they have challenged the great god, Equality, and that is an increasingly dangerous thing to do. When they leave the denomination in which they once worshipped, I suspect they will walk away without a pew, a prayer book, or a penny. But they will leave with their integrity intact, and with their determination to forsake all else to follow their Lord. God bless them.

Ian Hunter writes a column for the National Post in Canada