The Anglican Church in Canada has commended a new liturgy seeped in transgender ideology for examination, trial use, and comment, which outlines the blessing and affirmation of gender transitions.
The liturgy, entitled, “Pastoral Liturgies for Journeys of Gender Transition and Affirmation” was commended by the council at the Anglican Church in Canada’s synod in early November.
The commendation means that the liturgy will be made available for trial use in churches, study, and feedback over the next year as it is rolled out in churches.
A spokesman from the Anglican Church in Canada, which has about 359,000 members, told The Daily Wire that the purpose of the trial, study, and use period for the liturgy was “discipleship.”
The liturgy adopts radical gender ideology throughout and openly celebrates gender transitions.
“The rites and prayers in this collection may be used in contexts where a member of the Christian family wants to have their gender identity affirmed within a supportive community,” the liturgy states, “This can be due to a gender transition process begun, in process, or completed, or due to a newfound awareness of a particular identity location on the gender spectrum.”
It adds, “The use of these rites here presumes, rather, the active presence of a baptised Christian person within the congregation who is in some place on a journey of gender consciousness that comes with or without an external change.”
Then noting that the change should be “welcomed” and “celebrated,” the liturgy claims, “There is a growing community of gender non-binary and transgender theologian” who the church “can learn” from.
The liturgy is supposed to be used by transgender and non-binary parishioners in a pastoral or community worship setting. The rites are contingent upon the local Diocesan Bishop’s allowance.
The liturgy also uses “they/them/theirs” pronouns, which allow for the preferred pronouns of the congregant to be used in the prayer or ceremony.
The rites included are pastoral prayers “blessing” the gender transition in either public worship or a smaller setting while the “Affirmation of Gender Identity” designed for public worship. The liturgy recommends placing the rites “within a eucharistic celebration” to ground them in the “salvation story.”
In the rite “A Blessing over the Process of Gender Transition” the text the presider is supposed to read that what scripture says about the “first human’s gender” is more “poetic” rather than “clear cut.” It also says that “more than” maleness and femaleness were “affirmed as very good.”
The text also endorses people physically changing their genders and even says it honors God.
“Taking steps physically or spiritually to manifest our gender identity more fully is to participate in God’s commandment to tend and love all that God has made,” a deacon is supposed to say.
The presider also asks for God’s blessing for “the gender transition process.”
The text recommends that the rite “Affirmation of Gender Identity” rite take placed during a special day on the church calendar like Advent 3 or Transfiguration Sunday.
“We gather to acknowledge a new way in which N [the person with new gender identity] is seeking to be known and [and their new name], signifying all that N has always been, is now, and is still becoming,” the leader is supposed to say in one iteration of the ceremony.
In another version, the leader makes reference to the name changing of several biblical figures including Abram, Jacob, and Saul. While these figures all did have their names change, they did not change genders.
The presider says that the person having their gender affirmed is becoming part of this “honoured and holy tradition.”
The resource includes additional prayers and blessings including a blessing over “treatment” which asks God to “make use of” a number of different hormones including estrogen and other “medications” There is also a prayer for surgery.
At the end, a number of Bible passages, hymns, and a number of resources listed that were used to create the liturgy. One of the resources used was an article from the organization TransTorah. Another was the book “Transfaith” by Chris Dowd and Christina Beardsley.
According to Miles Smith, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, the move to bless gender transitions is not in line with historic Anglican theology.
“Endorsing gender transitioning is inconsistent with Anglicanism because the historic Church of England and its successor churches–what we call Anglicanism–upheld the traditional biblical teachings on the created order, and affirmed that God created humans ‘male and female,’ he told The Daily Wire.
He added that the move was out of line with many Anglicans throughout the globe.
“This move is consistent with liberal Western Anglicans’ departures from the Communion’s historic teachings which are affirmed by the majority of Anglicans around the world, particularly those in Africa and South Asia,” Smith noted.
Issues of gender were not the only ones which the Anglican Church of Canada is going woke.
The synod discussed adopting a number of other woke policies, including the discussion of a potential “aspiration” of the denomination to be a church that “Is intentionally dismantling colonialism and passionately inclusive.”
A spokesman for the Anglican Network in Canada, a reportedly more conservative group of Canadian Anglicans, declined to comment on the liturgy.