Anglican/Episcopalians Are Reaching Point of Revolt
Pastor Dale Morgan
December 17, 2006
*Anglican/Episcopalians Are Reaching Point of Revolt*
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
For about 30 years, the Episcopal Church has been one big unhappy
family. Under one roof there were female bishops and male bishops who
would not ordain women. There were parishes that celebrated gay weddings
and parishes that denounced them; theologians sure that Jesus was the
only route to salvation, and theologians who disagreed.
Now, after years of threats, the family is breaking up.
As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are
expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut
their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic
congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real
estate worth a combined $27 million, which could result in a legal
battle over who keeps the property.
In a twist, these wealthy American congregations are essentially putting
themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishops in poorer dioceses in
Africa, Asia and Latin America who share conservative theological views
about homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture with the
breakaway Americans.
“The Episcopalian ship is in trouble,” said the Rev. John Yates, rector
of The Falls Church, one of the two large Virginia congregations, where
George Washington served on the vestry. “So we’re climbing over the
rails down to various little lifeboats. There’s a lifeboat from Bolivia,
one from Rwanda, another from Nigeria. Their desire is to help us build
a new ship in North America, and design it and get it sailing.”
Together, these Americans and their overseas allies say they intend to
form a new American branch that would rival or even supplant the
Episcopal Church in the worldwide Anglican Communion, a confederation of
national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and
the archbishop of Canterbury.
The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is now
struggling to hold the communion together while facing a revolt on many
fronts from emboldened conservatives. Last week, conservative priests in
the Church of England warned him that they would depart if he did not
allow them to sidestep liberal bishops and report instead to sympathetic
conservatives.
In Virginia, the two large churches are voting on whether they want to
report to the powerful archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, an
outspoken opponent of homosexuality who supports legislation in his
country that would make it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form
organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant.
Archbishop Akinola presides over the largest province in the
77-million-member Anglican Communion; it has more than 17 million
members, dwarfing the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million.
If all eight Virginia churches vote to separate, the Diocese of
Virginia, the largest Episcopal diocese in the country, will lose about
10 percent of its 90,000 members. In addition, four churches in Virginia
have already voted to secede, and two more are expected to vote soon,
said Patrick N. Getlein, secretary of the diocese.
Two weeks ago, the entire diocese in San Joaquin, Calif., voted to sever
its ties with the Episcopal Church, a decision it would have to confirm
in a second vote next year. Six or more American dioceses say they are
considering such a move.
In the last three years, since the Episcopal Church consecrated V. Gene
Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of New
Hampshire, about three dozen American churches have voted to secede and
affiliate with provinces overseas, according to The Episcopal News Service.
However, the secession effort in Virginia is being closely watched by
Anglicans around the world because so many churches are poised to depart
simultaneously. Virginia has become a central stage, both for those
pushing for secession and for those trying to prevent it.
The Diocese of Virginia is led by Bishop Peter James Lee, the
longest-serving Episcopal bishop and a centrist who, both sides agree,
has been gracious to the disaffected churches and worked to keep them in
the fold.
Bishop Lee has made concessions other bishops would not. He has allowed
the churches to keep their seats in diocesan councils, even though they
stopped contributing to the diocesan budget in protest. When some of the
churches refused to have Bishop Lee perform confirmations in their
parishes, he flew in the former archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev.
George Carey, a conservative evangelical, to take his place.
“Our Anglican tradition has always been a very large tent in which
people with different theological emphases can live together,” Bishop
Lee said in a telephone interview. “I’m very sorry some in these
churches feel that this is no longer the case for them. It certainly is
their choice and their decision. No one is forcing them to do this.”
The Diocese of Virginia is also home to the Rev. Martyn Minns, a main
organizer in the global effort by conservative Anglicans to ostracize
the Episcopal Church. Mr. Minns is the priest in charge of Truro Church,
the second of the two historic Virginia parishes now voting on secession.
Anglican rules and traditions prohibit bishops from crossing
geographical boundaries to take control of churches or priests not in
their territory. So Archbishop Akinola and his American allies have
tried to bypass that by establishing a branch of the Nigerian church in
the United States, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
Archbishop Akinola has appointed Mr. Minns as his key “missionary
bishop” to spread the gospel to Americans on his behalf.
Mr. Minns and other advocates of secession have suggested to the voters
that the convocation arrangement has the blessing of the Anglican
hierarchy. But on Friday, the Anglican Communion office in London issued
a terse statement saying the convocation had not been granted “any
official status within the communion’s structures, nor has the
archbishop of Canterbury indicated any support for its establishment.”
The voting in Virginia, however, was already well under way, with ballot
boxes open for a week starting last Sunday. Church leaders say they need
70 percent of the voters to approve the secession for it to take effect.
If the vote is to secede, the churches and the diocese will fight to
keep ownership of Truro Church, in Fairfax, and The Falls Church, in
Falls Church, Va., a city named for the church.
Henry D. W. Burt, a member of the standing committee of the Virginia
Diocese, grew up in The Falls Church and recently urged members not to
secede. He said in an interview: “We’re not talking about Class A office
space in Arlington, Va. We’re talking about sacred ground.”
Neither side says it wants to go to court over control of the church
property, but both say the law is on their side.
At one of the four Virginia parishes that has already voted to secede,
All Saints Church in Dale City, the tally was 402 to 6. But that church
had already negotiated a settlement to rent its property from the
diocese for $1 each year until it builds another church.
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori,
said in an e-mail response to a request for an interview that such
splits reflect a polarized society, as well as the “anxiety” and
“discomfort” that many people feel when they are asked to live with
diversity.
“The quick fix embraced in drawing lines or in departing is not going to
be an ultimate solution for our discomfort,” she said.
Soon, Bishop Jefferts Schori herself will become the issue. Archbishop
Akinola and some other leaders of provinces in developing countries have
said they will boycott their primates’ meeting in Tanzania in February
unless the archbishop of Canterbury sends a second representative for
the American conservatives.
“It’s a huge amount of mess,” said the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, canon
theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina, who is aligned with the
conservatives. “As these two sides fight, a lot of people in the middle
of the Episcopal Church are exhausted and trying to hide, and you can’t.
When you’re in a family and the two sides are fighting, it affects
everybody.”