Initial news reports indicate that several of the Anglican national churches around the world are upset about the proposed ordination of Bishop Robinson in the Episcopal Church in the U.S. The opposition seems to be particularly strong in the African and East Asian churches, although there’s also statements of concern from some church leaders in Australia and the U.K. The Archbishop of Canterbury is appealing for calm: Storm Gathers Over Gay Bishop.
So, do people think that schism is a real likelihood, or can the Anglican tradition of compromise and respect for each national church get us through this one?
It depends on how aggressively the gay advocacy groups push in the next few months, I would say. If they lay low after this and allow the more moderate folks space and quiet to calm the waters a bit, the church has a fairly decent chance of making it intact. If they push too hard on other issues, a lot of conservatives may feel backed into a corner and start diving off the boat.
I would say unlikely. If they stuck around after the Lambeth conference that pretty much railroaded homosexuality as scripturally incompatible, they’re probably going to stick around now when the church seems to be making some progress. The other possibility would be the activists cut off from the Anglican Communion, as the various Anglican churches worldwide sever ties with them.
If all of the other Anglican churches deny them… then isn’t that functionally equivalent to their leaving the church? Does it really make a difference if the church leaves them instead?
Well you said “decide to leave”, which would indicate a choice on the part of the gay-supportive groups. To be quite honest, I’m not sure such a schism would be completely without its own blessings, mixed though they may be.
Not quite, Apos. Steve Wright or another active CoE member could explain it better than I can, but a gay priest in a celibate relationship was nominated for an English see, received quite a bit of support, but also got controversy from the same folks that are objecting to Bishop Robinson (plus the homegrown British conservative group Forward in Faith), and agreed to step down for the sake of church unity.
I am not going to prophesy about what’s likely to happen. I know we have two men who are both solid spiritual leaders and strongly in favor of church unity in Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Archbishop of Canterbury Rown Williams, and I know they’ll be doing their utmost to hold us together.
Apos, all that resolution does is to give formal governing-body sanction to what’s been happening already: parishes and disoceses that are willing to bless gay unions are doing so, and those that aren’t, aren’t. Strangely enough my own diocese is one of the few it will cause any real change in: Bishop Curry, who personally has no objection to the services and would be quite willing to approve them, asked that our churches not do it until after this convention because it was not authorized by the church as a whole, and was construed by some as contrary to a doctrinal statement. So he’ll be OKing them now.
Generally, large-scale schism doesn’t seem to be what Anglicans (in the worldwide sense, which includes Episcopalians) do. It looks like they grumble a lot, lose some individuals, but still hold on under the doctrine of “We’re Anglican, whatever that means.” The Anglicans as a group are just not too big on any sort of doctrinal unity, at least not in comparison with the Orthodox. Of course, we Orthodox sometimes consider the presence or absence of pews to be a major controversy, so perhaps we have a bit of an extreme perspective.
A couple of things have become clearer in the last week or so that might indicate the direction that this is going. This is all speculation on my part, fueled by discussions I’ve had this week with clergy and lay leaders involved in these things.
First of all, the ‘activists’ in the USA-- the ones who supported Bishop Robinson and same-sex union blessings – are unlikely to go anywhere. Things are going their way in the Episcopal church.
The ‘mainstream Anglicans,’ as they call themselves, represented by the American Anglican Council, are holding a meeting in Plano Texas October 7-9. Their agenda is unclear. My feeling is that the most likely action is for them to petition the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow them to establish another Anglican province within the borders of the United States (or North America). This would create two overlapping Anglican provinces in the same national borders, the Episcopalians and American Anglicans (or whatever they come to be called).
The second thing happening in October is that the Archbishop, for the first time in the 600+ year history of the Anglican church, has called an emergency meeting of the Anglican primates from all the provinces around the world. The actions of the Episcopal church will be discussed. Some Bishops have already threatened to end communion with (excommunicate) the Episcopals. I think many Bishops would support the idea of an orthodox Anglican church in America, but I’m not so sure the Archbishop would go for it. They all may decide to sever communion with the ECUSA (very unlikely); or they may just decide not to do anything at all (worst case scenario, IMO).
So, to summarize. The ‘best-case’ scenario would be thus:
After meeting in early October, the American Anglicans ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish a second Anglican province in the US/North America.
After the Archbishop’s meeting with the Anglican Primates in mid-October, he does just that, and the Worldwide Anglican Communion (WAC) recognizes the AAC as a new Anglican province.
ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswald, in a fit of Christian charity, allows churches leaving the ECUSA for the AAC to keep their land, property, clergy pensions, etc.
The ECUSA and AAC remain in communion with each other and the rest of the WAC.
Now, things could get messy at any one of these steps. The Archbishop and the rest of the Primates of the WAC might not come to an agreement about the AAC. What if some of them choose to recognize them as a new province, but the Archbishop doesn’t? The potential is there for the rift to divide the entire worldwide communion.
Even if the AAC gets their wish in that regard, the ECUSA is under no obligation let them take any of the land, property, posessions or monies with them.
I would predict that the least likely thing to happen is nothing.
Skammer’s analysis seems on target. IMHO, the major problem is an attitude that we’re so certain we’re right that we refuse to have compassion for those hurt by our attitudes. And that’s a direct violation of Christ’s basic command.
And both sides are guilty of it.
The day I see an Episcopal Church slam the door on a gay man or woman, or decide to sit in judgment over how he or she tries to lead his or her life, on the basis of a judgmental application of Scripture, is the day I start protesting.
But the same goes for the folks who are so dead set on our welcoming them that they slam the door on the folks in the pews whose scruples are violated by what they see as unScriptural behavior.
IMHO, it’s a time for prayer, and humility, and seeking to let the Spirit lead us.
But too many people are convinced they’re right to allow that to happen.
I’ve never asked my gay friends here to pray for their persecutors and those who oppose them. But it think it’s time to.
Or something that’s very precious to me will be torn in two.
Additional point: My (supposedly fairly liberal) diocese is getting nastily fractured by the Gene Robinson and local-option-on-blessings-of-gay-unions decisions, with several vocal people expressing feelings of “betrayal” at our Bishop’s having voted for them.
That they’re meeting doesn’t particularly bother me. The idea that they’d consider making a petition like that, without waiting to see what fruits are borne by the decisions they object to, I find extremely disturbing, for the reasons I gave in the previous thread.
As a longtime Rowan Williams fan, I would be astonished if he were to back such a notion. It seems obvious to me that Rowan’s acting to try to forestall any new institutional schisms or divisions.
Which is a good illustration of why this meeting at Plano should be for discussion purposes only. Any action at this time could result in serious harm to the Church.
If they are right, the issue will still be there two years from now, and they will be just as able to petition the Anglican Communion then as now. There is no need to act before last week’s decisions have the opportunity to bear fruit, for good or ill. Except to rend the church in the name of self-righteousness.
Bishops are in a no-win situation. Our diocese is going to struggle with the other side of the coin. Bishop Herlong said this week that he will not accept clergy who are in sexual relationships outside of traditional marriage, and he forbid congregations in his diocese to bless same-sex unions. There are certain parishes here who are eager to embrace the decisions made at the convention, and who are going to strongly butt heads with the Bishop.
On the other hand, in our congregation, we have already this week had to deal with members who have demanded that none of their contributions to the church get sent to the national body. That requires a monetary shell-game with our tithe to the diocese that makes nobody happy. So the Bishop will be getting it from both sides.
I agree, I don’t think he will like it at all. The question is whether he can convince the rest of the Primates, many of whom are ready to cut ties with the ECUSA completely. I don’t think the Archbishop has the authority to prevent them from recognizing a new province if they want to.
Hmmm, I seem to remember some people saying the exact same thing a few weeks ago, before the convention… they weren’t heeded either.
As much as I respect you personally, Polycarp, I’m going to to have to take umbrage with this. We’ve talked about my fall from Faith. I’d just as soon see all religious institutions splinter into dust. I understand how strong your faith is and I can see why you are hurting from this. But I cannot accept that a person’s religious bigotry is as important and worthy of consideration as a gay person’s right to live and love, and even worship, openly and honestly. Will there be a scism? I don’t know. But if it does, it won’t be the fault of those who stand for Love Your Neighbor.
I fully understand your point, and I am not advocating that you go love the bigots. It’s the man-in-the-pews, who’s in much the same place that you and I have been in the past about the Biblical strictures and how they seem to apply, for whom I’m concerned. On our diocesan message board, I have had interchanges with one woman who understands clearly the unchangeability of the orientation, fought in her church to get it to welcome a celibate but out gay person who was apparently being given the cold shoulder by other “good Christians” :rolleyes:, but who nonetheless finds the idea of a noncelibate gay man as a bishop to be way too much – and who is not accepting of gay unions at all. You know by now I am the farthest thing from agreeing with her – but she’s not bigoted, just law-bound and with scruples one can understand even if one does not agree with.
Besides, how will you show them you’re in the right if not by standing firm for what’s right, but showing compassion to those opposed to you? " If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:20-21) Besides, every gay man and woman has learned to love “outside the envelope” – this is a time to test the limits of that, and show them who you really are – that they, not you, are the ones sinning against God and man.
That may be asking an awful lot of you guys – but I believe it’s what God asks of me, and have stood beside you and taken flak for it. There’s a therapist and amateur philosopher in Atlanta who writes for local publications whos opinion it is that the purpose of gay people is to teach the rest of us how to love.
And I think it was you who echoed back to me the quote from the Beatitudes I once gave to Jayjay as a spirit-lifter – maybe the time has come for all of you to show what it really means.
I honestly don’t know who has the power to do what, in the Anglican Communion.
And as you know from the preceding thread, I was strongly against one of those decisions.
But at this point, we have to work from where we are, rather than from where we’d rather have been. And two wrongs still don’t make a right.
In a way, I was against the elevation of Dean Robinson to bishop for pretty much the same reason I’m against any action right now by either the Plano group or the primates, in petitioning for/acting favorably on the petition to form a new province. That being that even if those decisions would at some point turn out to be the right decision to make, there was no necessary or even particularly defensible reason (IMHO, at least) to act now rather than later, and plenty of potential harm to be done by doing so.
Especially with the Plano group, the only reason I can see to act now is a tactical ‘strike while the iron is hot, and people are fired up to act’ mentality. I compare that with the fruits of the Spirit and find them at odds.