David Crawley, one-time acting primate, remembered as early advocate for LGBTQ+ people, skilled negotiator

“David drove change wherever he was. He never accepted the status quo,” says the Rev. Ken Gray, retired dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Kamloops, B.C. He’s describing Archbishop David Crawley, former bishop of Kootenay, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon and acting primate, who died Aug. 17 at age 88. Crawley is remembered by friends and colleagues as an intelligent debater, an articulate leader and a passionate and early advocate—even during his early career—for causes that were not always popular at the time. 

One of those causes was his push for greater acceptance of and ministry to Canada’s LGBTQ+ community, beginning during Crawley’s days as rector of St. Paul’s Church, Vancouver in the mid-1980s, says Gray. Crawley led the church during the height of the AIDS crisis, during which time, Gray says, “he really took courageous steps to bring the needs of the gay community to the church and to help it find the courage to minister to [them].” 

On one memorable occasion, he says, Crawley and then-bishop of New Westminster Douglas Hambidge went to perform a private confirmation for a gay man who was suffering from a particularly infectious case of AIDS. Crawley put in extra time to do the research to ensure that he would be able to touch the parishioner he was ministering to—something many feared could lead to transmission in the early days of AIDS. 

David Crawley was born in Minnedosa, Man., grew up in Alberta and Ontario and studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Kent at Canterbury, England where he earned a BA and an MA respectively. St. John’s College, Winnipeg awarded him two honourary degrees later in life. 

During his career in the church, beginning with his ordination in 1962, he served parishes in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. He also served as bishop of Kootenay, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon and as acting primate in the months from the retirement of Archbishop Michael Peers in February 2004 to the General Synod later that year. He worked on several major aspects of church discernment, including on the House of Bishops task force on homosexuality, as vice-chair of the editorial board for the Book of Alternative Services and at several stages of the church’s reckoning with the legacy of the residential schools. 

As metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon, Crawley also steered the province through a debate over blessing same-sex unions, says retired dean Peter Elliott. This debate required him to balance his own strong feelings on the issue with the need to keep the province together as some parishes threatened to switch dioceses or leave the Anglican Communion altogether in a prelude to the national marriage debate to come later, says Elliott. 

One of Crawley’s most critical contributions to the history of the church came when he was a member of the Anglican church’s residential schools negotiating group, says Elliott, who was also on the team with Crawley. Crawley was one of the best debaters the Anglican Church of Canada had to offer, he says. That made him an invaluable asset on the team tasked with negotiating the parcelling up of liabilities for the damages the schools had done to Indigenous youth between the Government of Canada and the Anglican Church. At the time, it was not clear whether the church would end up taking on so much of the liability that General Synod would become insolvent, says Elliott. But a deal was reached, albeit one that was highly controversial within and beyond the church, and the process of reaching it owed much to Crawley’s intelligent, articulate and compassionate negotiating, he says. 

“It’s fair to say that the General Synod exists today to a large extent because of the leadership of David Crawley,” he says. 

Elliott also tells a story from the negotiation, in which one of the government lawyers commented on Crawley’s negotiation skills. 

“[He] came up to Crawley and said, ‘You negotiate very, very well and that’s a skill we didn’t expect from clergy.’ And David said, ‘Well, the thing that I’ve had to do that none of you have had to is negotiate with the mother of a bride during a wedding.’” 

Crawley loved debates, Elliott adds, often showing his affection for friends by picking their brains or challenging their thoughts on points of disagreement and expecting a spirited back-and-forth in return. You could tell you were close to him if the two of you got into a really heated “discussion-slash-argument,” says Elliott, which Crawley would leave very satisfied. He could also be warmer and pastorally caring than one might expect from a man who drove such a hard argument, he says.  

Retired Archdeacon of British Columbia Peter Zimmer, a lifelong friend of Crawley, says their two families frequently went skiing together, one of Crawley’s great passions. Zimmer tells a story about Crawley sitting and watching Zimmer’s daughter—then a child—painting her toenails red. She looked up to Crawley and asked if he would like his toenails painted, too, he says. And with a moment’s thought, Crawley said yes. After a few minutes, he walked away with his own toenails painted bright red. That showed another of the archbishop’s character, says Zimmer—the courage and humour to do something others might have seen as silly or embarrassing because it would be a fun moment to share with a kid. 

Correction: Crawley served as rector of St. Paul’s Church, Vancouver, in the 1980s. An earlier version of this story described this church as St. Paul’s Cathedral.