Charles Inglis Day: what could contemporary Canadian Anglicanism learn from Inglis?
A recent article on the Covenant site made for incredibly grim reading for those of us who value the heritage of Canadian Anglicanism. Reflecting on newly-published statistics from the Anglican Church of Canada, the opening sentence of the article declared, "Canada is the first major province of the Anglican Communion to have collapsed". While we might have questions about the conclusions drawn by the article, there is little doubt that the statistics to which it refers are devastating. This being so, one might wonder what value or relevance there may be in celebrating the witness and legacy of Charles Inglis. Not only is secular, 21st century Canada far removed from the political, social, and cultural views of the Loyalist Inglis; the predominant progressive concerns of contemporary Canadian Anglicanism are, to say the least, radically different to the Old High thought and sensibilities embodied by Inglis. We might suggest, however, that it is precisely such an approach whi...