A new theological college named after noted writer and preacher J.I. Packer is to be opened in Canada – and will include Anglo-Catholicism in its framework.
The centre, due to open in Autumn 2022, is an initiative of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) – a denomination with 80 churches which is part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and part of GAFCON, the global movement of traditionalist-minded believers. The Anglican Planet website reported that Packer’s widow Kit gave permission for his name to be used with ‘much joy’ and ‘hearty approval’. According to the Planet, ‘the residential co-ed college would aim to represent the Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical/ Reformed and Charismatic traditions within Anglicanism,’ including ‘Feast Day Eucharists’.
A working group, chaired by Canon David Short of St John’s Vancouver, had been researching the possibility of launching such a seminary for the past year.
Website Living Church reports: ‘The Anglican Network in Canada began to form in 2007, as a grouping of conservative and mostly evangelical congregations which had left the Anglican Church of Canada. Its 80 churches are mostly in Canada, though it also includes one congregation in Vermont and two in Massachusetts.
‘Dioceses in the Anglican Church in North America often have overlapping geographical boundaries, but the Anglican Network contains nearly all of its Canadian churches. Six additional congregations in British Columbia also belong to a missionary district called Via Apostolica, and the Reformed Episcopal Church’s Diocese of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic has one congregation in Ontario.’
The diocese’s ordinands are currently training for ministry at Artizo, based at St John’s Anglican Church in Vancouver; at interdenominational evangelical seminaries Christ College and Regent College; and at Wycliffe College, Toronto.
