RICHMOND, BC—Canada’s orthodox Anglicans should not be discouraged by the different paths that people of good faith have followed in response to the near-certain collapse of global communion.

On the contrary, says Malaysian-born Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, their common deep commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ means that God can—and will—somehow use them to help birth a renewed and revitalized Anglican Communion.

“Our God has a bigger plan,” says Yong, who is now retired as the pastoral overseer of nearly 300,000 Anglicans in the nine nations of southeast Asia. “Sometimes we only see the little bit. He never reveals the whole thing and says, ‘Come and see.’”

Yong was in the Vancouver area this September at the invitation of the Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC), a group of ten churches in B.C. and Saskatchewan that have left the Anglican Church of Canada and are now linked to the global Communion through the Anglican province of Rwanda.

Under the banner of “Common Cause,” Yong brought together the leadership of about half a dozen disparate associations of churches and groups of individuals—who, in his words, “have not bowed down to Baal”—to remind them of their shared desire to evangelize and plant new churches.

“We want to support one another,” says Cheryl Chang, executive director of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), which has opted to fight for orthodoxy within the Canadian Church. “The truth is, we’re in common cause when it comes to preaching the gospel in North America.”

“My sense is all these groups have been preserved by God for a day like this,” says Yong. “Just seeing them coming together is a dream. We pray that this miracle will be transformed into a real force that will be a witness of the Church united in Spirit and in truth to share the gospel...And let us together maximize the possibilities.”

“Archbishop Yong really symbolizes the passion of orthodox Anglicanism,” says ACiC network leader Paul Carter.

“Although [the crisis within the Communion] seems tortuous and long...and there is inevitably a difference of opinion around the immediate strategic approaches, what his visit does is show very clearly to Anglicans in Canada that a new day is dawning.”

A long-standing disagreement over homosexuality has taken the Communion to the brink of schism. Conservatives say the Bible clearly rejects same-sex relations, while liberals insist the Church cannot deny anyone access to Christ’s love.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new head of the Episcopal Church in the United States, for example, supports gay unions and prays to a “female Jesus.”

In B.C., New Westminster bishop Michael Ingham continues to allow a rite of blessing for same-sex couples despite an appeal from the Communion’s international leaders for a “moratorium” on any further such blessings.

“Put simply,” wrote Anglican Journal editor Leanne Larmondin, “it is a difficult thing to ask a body as vast as an Anglican province to apologize about something for which a great deal of its members are not at all sorry.”

Each side sees the other as troublemakers, says Chang, “The liberal faction is saying [to us], ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, you should leave and go start your own new Church. You should do the ACiC thing.’ In our view, the liberals are leaving—not us.”

Yong hopes that the next worldwide conference of bishops at Lambeth in 2008 will finally put an end to this turmoil. “Those [liberals] who want to walk apart, I wish they would be honest and show more integrity and walk out,” he says.

Yet the Communion’s future may be clearer by as early as next summer, when Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sends out his invitations to Lambeth.

“It will be interesting to see,” says Carter, “whether Michael Ingham’s name is on the list.”