Rapping in the rafters

He raps that he’s just a young priest fighting the beast. His bells are dope and his church is fly. No lie.

Shades slipped on. White collar popped up, black robe hanging down. Lips pushed out and arms crossed.

Rev. Wagner worked in UN refugee camps in South Africa after the outbreak of xenophobic violence in the country in 2008.

That’s how Rev. Kyle Wagner, straight out of Seaforth Parish in Nova Scotia, gets down.

Not your grandma’s clergyman, indeed; but then again, today’s Anglican Church isn’t exactly where your grandma came to worship either.

Can he get an “Amen?!” 

This recently ordained Anglican deacon is not your grandma’s clergyman. He raps about the coolness of the church, blogs about visiting parishioners in his red sports car and takes church youth out to haunted houses.

On his iPod? Tupac Shakur and Jay-Z.

In his sermons? Discussions about the commonalities between Superman and Jesus Christ.

Not your grandma’s clergyman, indeed; but then again, today’s Anglican Church isn’t exactly where your grandma came to worship either.

A change is gonna come…

“The church is transforming, no doubt,” Wagner says. “We’re trying to do things to help us remain relevant in 2009.”

For Wagner, that means communicating like today’s youth — reaching out to them using the funky rhymes of rap music and YouTube videos.

But for the Anglican Church of Canada as a whole it has meant something more extreme, according to Rev. Paul Donison of St. George’s Anglican Church in Ottawa.

“The Anglican Church has chosen to baptize and bless whatever culture is embracing in order to remain relevant,” Donison says. “The church has gone way off the rails from what the Scripture actually says.”

Donison’s church is a member of the Anglican Network in Canada, a group of more than 30 churches that chose to leave the official Anglican Church in Canada in 2008 after it ruled that same-sex marriage is not in violation of biblical teachings.

“The same sex union blessing issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Donison says. “We couldn’t, in good conscience, have stayed with the church…we would have become an accessory to heresy.”

According to Donison, the church’s ruling on same sex marriage is a symptom of a larger problem within the Anglican Church — the idea that the only way to fill the pews is to become more secular.

“It’s not the way to go," Donison says. "It’s not what the Bible calls for.”

Adding to the trials and tribulations of the church, Pope Benedict recently issued an invitation for Anglicans disenchanted with their own church to join the Roman Catholic faith — under the condition they accept the Pope as God’s representative on Earth.

While a mass exodus of Anglicans to the Vatican is unlikely, Donison says the pope’s invitation is a sign of how deeply divided the Anglican Church is between its conservative and liberal elements.

“Rome is paying attention to the disappointment many Anglicans are experiencing.”

St. John the Evangelist, an Anglican church in downtown Ottawa, is the first in the city to bless same-sex marriages.

This too shall pass...

“While some have been drawn away from the Anglican Church, others have been drawn to it.” — Archdeacon Ross Moulton

But division and dissent are nothing new to a church that initially formed by splintering away from the Vatican, says Rev. Dr. Mark Toulouse, a professor of the history of Christianity at Emmanuel College in Toronto.

“Church teachings change over time and of course this might alienate a few worshippers,” Toulouse says. “But change forces the church to reevaluate itself which is vital to its health.”

And despite the fallout over its progressive path, the Anglican Church of Canada plans continue moving forward.

“A clear position on social issues generates a strong response; some favorable, some not,” says Ven. Ross Moulton, archdeacon of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.

“While some have been drawn away from the Anglican Church, others have been drawn to it.”

Toulouse says the current problem for the Church is not its internal divisions, but rather making sure it maintains the integrity of its message while keeping today’s world plugged in.

“You don’t want Christianity to become a consumer faith — it has to stay true to its teachings,” Toulouse says. “But you have to connect with new forms of communication."

And that’s where Wagner says he comes in.

“The Anglican Church is like a family. No family is perfect,” Wagner says. “But the point is to welcome people — preach to them, not above them.”

“I think my rap is just a first step in many new endeavours which our church will be a part of to reach out to the community.”

The new face of faith

Watch Rev. Kyle Wagner rap in the rafters - and reflect on the work he is doing as a newly ordained priest.