Angry in the Great White North

The Anglican Church (known as the Episcopalian Church in the US) is splitting apart over the issue of homosexuality, and especially same-sex marriages and the ordination of gay clergy:

Tensions within the American denomination have increased since the June meeting of its top policy-making body, the General Convention.

Anglican leaders had asked delegates for a moratorium on confirming any more openly gay bishops, in light of the uproar over the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his longtime male partner.

But Episcopal delegates could not agree on the wording of the resolutions after days of painful debate. Instead, the convention adopted a last-minute, nonbinding measure asking church leaders to "exercise restraint" in electing future bishops. Williams has said the Episcopalians have "not produced a complete response" to Anglican concerns.

The issue of homosexuality is just symptomatic of a larger liberal-conservative divide. It isn't just theological differences, either. It is a lack of respect as well:

The same convention elected [Katharine] Jefferts Schori, who supports gay relationships.

Jefferts Schori is the Presiding Bishop-elect, elected on June 18. The Presiding Bishop is the top bishop, the leader of the Episcopalian Church. Now for a church that universally accepts male priests, but is divided on the ordination of women, electing a woman to be the head of that church is sending the message that the debate is over, not because both sides have come to an agreement, but because one side has decided to simply stop listening.

Needless to say, those conservative dioceses are feeling rather insulted:

Since then, seven conservative dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Fort Worth, have rejected Jefferts Schori's leadership.

And in case you think this is just about women priests, Jefferts Schori represents everything conservative Episcopalians have issues with. Not just gender issues, but the most fundamental theological underpinnngs of faith:

Some traditionalist leaders in the Episcopal Church, saying their patience was at an end, took initial breakaway steps shortly after the General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, concluded on June 21. Five of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses said they were disappointed with the church's newly elected presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, who said she had favored Robinson's election.

Central Florida, one of the five, aired its grievances in a statement June 30, saying it was "deeply saddened" at the election of Jefferts Schori because of her support for the "blessing of same sex unions in the Diocese of Nevada, and who, in her first sermon following the election, spoke of 'Jesus, our mother.'"

Actually, she refered to Jesus in both genders in the same breath:

In her first sermon following her confirmation, Jefferts Schori declared "Our Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are His children."

I guess that makes Jesus some sort of hermaphrodite (sorry, the politically correct word is intersexual, hermaphrodite being seen as stigmatizing).

The backlash is real, and the Episcopalian Church is reeling:

In another sign of a growing schism in the Episcopal Church, the Rev. Joe Rees on Sunday told his congregation at All Saints Episcopal in Vista that he was resigning to start a new Anglican church in the city.

Rees made the announcement at both Sunday services in Vista, and by that afternoon, he was leading prayers as the new executive pastor at St. Anne's Anglican Church in Oceanside, where he will work until he can open a church in Vista in three to five years.

Several members of All Saints Church showed their support for Rees by attending the afternoon service at St. Anne's.

Citing theological differences with the group's national leaders, more than 100 congregations have left the Episcopal Church USA in the last six months. St. Anne's left the Episcopal Church USA and its local diocese in January and St. John's in Fallbrook left last month.

What these new parishes have done is to reject the leadership of their local liberal bishops and have put themselves under the control of foreign bishops:

St. Anne's is aligned with the Diocese of Bolivia, and St. John's is aligned with the Diocese in Uganda.

These parishes identify themselves as Anglican to distinguish themselves from Episcopalian, which is ironic, since the name Episcopalian came into use in the aftermath of the American Revolution in order to highlight the separation from the Anglican Church, required so that clergy could avoid having to accept the supremacy of the British monarch. Now they are becoming foreign controlled again, and willingly so.

Going to a foreign bishop is called "alternative primatial oversight". It is controversial:

Last year [Nigerian Archbishop Peter] Akinola said in a letter that the Nigerian church's intent is not to challenge or intervene in the affairs of the U.S. or Canadian church bodies, "but to provide safe harbor for all those who can no longer find their spiritual home in those churches." But on July 4 the Nigerian church issued a statement calling the U.S. church "a cancerous lump" that "should be excised" from the worldwide Anglican Communion.

So what is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, going to do? He's going to have a sit-down and suggest a compromise:

The spiritual leader of world Anglicanism has asked six Episcopal bishops to meet in New York next month to try to resolve differences over homosexuality tearing at their church.

The gathering is part of a broad effort by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to preserve the global Anglican fellowship despite a hardening conservative-liberal divide over whether the Bible bars gay relationships.

He still thinks this is just about homosexuality.

Williams is not expected to attend, though Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, will participate, along with outgoing Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori, who takes office in November.

The other participants are Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, Texas; Southwest Florida Bishop John Lipscomb; and Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, head of the Anglican Communion Network, an association of 10 conservative Episcopal dioceses and more than 900 parishes considering splitting from the national church.

The solution?

Williams has proposed a two-tier system of membership in the world communion, giving churches with nontraditional views on gay clergy and other issues a lesser role.

Gee, sounds a lot like "civil unions" for gays as a different name from "marriage". Actually, with civil unions, there was no functional difference between that and marriage -- it was just that traditionalists wanted to maintain the word "marriage" for heterosexual couples for various reasons usually focused on the issue of childbearing.

Williams is describing a real two-tier membership, with the liberal churches having a lower status.

We all know what happened in the same-sex marriage debate. "Civil unions" were considered unacceptable even though they were identical to marriages in terms of the benefits and responsibilites that would exist between the partners. Liberals demanded the word "marriage" even though it meant ejecting children as a core concept of marriage in order to make the institution available to same-sex couples.

How do you think liberals will react to William's proposal given that it really means some sort of inferior status?

That's right. They'll reject it, and demand a new compromise in which everyone believes in what liberals believe in (or perhaps more accurately, that everyone stop believing in stuff the liberals don't believe in, since liberals like Jefferts Schori don't seem to have any actual core beliefs). Now that one of their own will be running the Episcopalian Church, the liberals will probably get their way. And conservatives (those who believe in Jesus and stuff like that) will continue to leave for Africa and South America, if only in spirit.