Posted on 03/21/2007 3:20:44 PM PDT by madprof98
NEW YORK - Episcopal bishops risked losing their place in the global Anglican family Wednesday by affirming their support for gays and rejecting a key demand that they give up some authority to theological conservatives outside the U.S. church.
In strong and direct language, the Episcopal House of Bishops said it views the Gospel as teaching that "all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants" in the church. The bishops also said they would not agree to an Anglican plan for leaders outside the U.S. denomination to oversee the small number of conservative American dioceses that disagree.
"We cannot accept what would be injurious to the church and could well lead to its permanent division," the bishops said in a resolution from a private meeting in Texas.
"If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision."
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. wing of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, a fellowship of churches that traces its roots to the Church of England. But it is at odds theologically with the vast majority of Anglican churches, which take a more conservative view on sexuality and other issues.
Episcopal bishops said they still have a "passionate desire" to stay in the communion. But the Anglican spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, issued a brief statement Wednesday calling their decision "discouraging." The small yet affluent Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, covers a significant chunk of the Anglican Communion's budget.
"No one is underestimating the challenges ahead," Williams said.
Anglicans have been debating for decades how they should interpret Scripture on salvation, truth and sexuality. Those divisions reached the breaking point in 2003 when Episcopalians consecrated the church's first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
Williams has no direct authority to force a reconciliation, and has been struggling to negotiate a compromise.
The latest plan emerged from a meeting of Anglican leaders, called primates, last month in Tanzania — and it included an ultimatum for the U.S. church.
Episcopalians were given until Sept. 30 to unequivocally pledge not to consecrate another partnered gay bishop or authorize official prayers for same-sex couples. Otherwise, the church could have a much-reduced role in the communion.
As part of the Anglicans' demands, Episcopalians were told to accept a "primatial vicar" and special committee that would oversee U.S. dioceses that reject Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Six dioceses do not recognize her authority because of her support for gay relationships and liberal theology. Three of the six also do not accept the ordination of women.
In return, the Anglicans said they would stop Anglican bishops from coming on their own into the United States to take oversight of conservative U.S. parishes. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola has started a conservative parish network as a rival to the Episcopal Church.
But the Episcopal bishops said ceding authority to a panel that included overseas Anglicans cuts against Episcopal church law.
"It violates our founding principles as the Episcopal Church following our own liberation from colonialism and the beginning of a life independent of the Church of England," the bishops said. "And for the first time since our separation from the papacy in the 16th century, it replaces the local governance of the church by its own people with the decisions of a distant and unaccountable group of prelates."
Episcopal bishops did not respond to the Anglican demand about gay bishops and blessing ceremonies. However, the leaders noted that they had previously met requests not to approve another gay bishop "at great cost to many, not the least of whom are our gay and lesbian members," only to have Anglican leaders say the pledges weren't sufficient.
Still, the bishops insisted in a news conference after the meeting that their new statement was not their last word on Anglican demands. The panel of lay people and clergy who oversee the Episcopal church, the Executive Council, will soon take up the bishops' resolutions, and the House of Bishops will meet again in September.
"It is not a final decision," Jefferts Schori said.
But Canon Kendall Harmon of the Diocese of South Carolina, a leading conservative thinker, called the bishops' statement "as strong a repudiation as you can get" of Anglican demands.
"The reality is that they've rejected what's been asked," Harmon said. "They went out of their way to both push back on Rowan Williams and the primates."
The Rev. Susan Russell of the Episcopal gay advocacy group Integrity compared the bishops' statement to a "coming out process."
"This was a huge step that the American church was not willing to go back into the closet about its inclusion of gay and lesbian people in order to capitulate to those who would exclude us," Russell said.
American church up to its usual tricks.
I think they've called Cantuar's bluff.
I bailed from the Church of Political Correctness in 2003.
Now I don't have to twist myself in knots trying to talk myself into worshiping in a church that ignores scripture.
Never been happier to be rid of that bunch.
Hell's a burnin'.
Happily ensconced in an orthodox Catholic parish that has everything our old parish had (including splendid music from English Renaissance composers!) plus adult leadership and real theology . . .
Looks like these fools are going to force a schism of the American church just to please a the gay lobby.
I think it goes beyond that. This is just the issue leftists use as a convenient way to completely take over denominations. Ultimately it is about leftists taking over denominations while purging conservatives.
It could be a Pyhrric victory, however, if the conservatives who are forced out end up reorganizing and rejoining the worldwide communion. I would think that all but the moonbats would start gravitating that direction.
I reject any and all un-churchs.
Largely, I believe the gays are after the real estate the churches sit on. Like the one on Fifth Avenue, New York City, for instance.
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Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15
We left in 2001 when the writing on the wall became impossible to ignore.
And what about those of us who think they are wrong? Oh wait, I forgot, we're supposed to put up, shut up, and start writing checks...all in the name of "justice," God's Word be damned.
I left TEC after Ms. Schori started spouting blasphemies, the gays completed their takeover, and TEC flipped the bird at the rest of the Body of Christ.
Purging conservatives but not their money.
Wow. That sums it up quite nicely, doesn't it?
Wilhelm Tell: I think it goes beyond that. This is just the issue leftists use as a convenient way to completely take over denominations. Ultimately it is about leftists taking over denominations while purging conservatives.
Yes, you have summed it up. The key term there is completely. The leftists took over the Episcopal Church a long time ago, first among the clergy, then the laity. But they had to tolerate a minority of conservatives. As you say, it is a purge now.
Nevertheless, Anglicanism will survive without the Episcopal Church.
There's a higher authority Who has something to say to the Bible-rejecting false shepherds:
Isaiah 3: 8 Because their speech and their actions are against the LORD, To rebel against His glorious presence. 9 The expression of their faces bears witness against them, And they display their sin like Sodom; They do not even conceal it Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.
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