The end is nigh

Few opening paragraphs are so ominous as this one from the New York Times:
Bishops of the Episcopal Church on Tuesday rejected demands by leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion to roll back the church’s liberal stance on homosexuality, increasing the possibility of fracture within the communion and the Episcopal Church itself.
What do you think? Should Archbishop Rowan Williams finally abandon his mission to keep the Anglical Communion together? Should TEC be left to go its own way?

Comments

I'm not familiar enough with Anglican Communion polity to know how to answer that question. How much is left up to the Archbishop of canterbury?

In any case, it looks like things are starting to spiral down quickly.
Steve Martin said…
As a somewhat disillusioned Evangelical, who found he really couldn't leave the Evangelicalism (the grass is NOT always greener!), and has since found a home in an Evangelical Anglican local church, this whole conflict makes me a little sad. A church that has survived without any real schism for almost 500 years (many denominations like baptists, prebyterians, reformed, mennonites probably average a split a year!) it is depressing to think that its finally come to this. That evangelical Anglicans, liberal Anglicans, and high-church catholic Anglicans have shown that we can worship together and work together is a real testament to the committment to the unity Christ pleaded for.
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On the other hand, I really am in no position to offer any practical advice to Williams and the rest of the Anglican leadership. Unity may in fact be impossible. I do hope that it doesn' result in a wider schism.
Anonymous said…
I deeply respect Rowan Williams and I think the Episcopal church has done a poor job of creating healthy dialogue. But in the end, I think the Episcopal church's position on homosexuality is the right one.
Anonymous said…
I continue to think there is no "Anglican Communion". And this is the evidence. You can't do anything with authority and TEC thinks it has nothing to lose. Romantics will tell you otherwise of course. There is only Lambeth and it is a century old and used to be sparsely attended. Missing out on it will really not be that big of a deal, just a return to status quo ante.

Of course a few dioceses and scattered congregations COULD/MIGHT leave TEC. TEC would likely sell them the church properties and never recover in these areas. But the splinter and African-influenced dioceses in U.S. will not have the critical mass necessary to sustain a claim as a necessary expression of a global communion. They would be as compelling an alternative as the Cumberland Presbyterians. For that reason I think no diocese will leave TEC. Plus clergy want their pensions.

And the only difference now for the global church will be less money going from TEC to the African churches as it will now go instead to secular NGO's in Africa.

As for TEC, average Sunday attendance is 750,000 for the entire denomination. It is graying and will virtually collapse anyway, a decade before a few other mailnliners.

That's the way I see it anyway,
Stan
::aaron g:: said…
Thanks for sharing this report.