A new book by the Rev. Canon Dr. Kim Murray is full of “bones.” This is his metaphor for the seventeen texts in From a Long Perspective: the Foundational Documents, Ecumenical Covenants, and Other Significant Agreements of the Anglican Church of Canada. In 160 pages, Canon Murray provides texts and commentary for old familiar “bones” (the Nicene Creed) as well as those lesser known (the Bonn Agreement of 1931).
“This is my take on what it means to be a Canadian Anglican,” says Canon Murray, rector of Salt Spring Island parish, B.C. The book is timely, he explains, because of the eruption of different “Anglicanisms” within the worldwide Anglican Communion: “We need something that says what we’re about, and why we’ve been doing things.”
From a Long Perspective, written for both Anglican amateurs and veterans, is the first Canadian anthology of foundational Anglican texts. Canon Murray, who has a PhD in History from the University of Durham, provides historical background and the occasional personal note, as in his commentary on the Primate’s Apology to Aboriginal Anglicans (1993) where he shares his own story of institutional mistreatment.
The book, which sprang out of Faith, Worship, and Ministry committee meetings, may be a good resource for those refocusing after General Synod 2007. Canon Murray writes, “I have encountered a new and enlivened sense of what it means to be an Anglican. I have rediscovered why it was that I fell in love with this part of the Body of Christ.”
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