Anglican conservatives plan 'show of force'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Anglican conservatives plan 'show of force'*
EPISCOPAL TURNING POINTS
-- 1976: Women's ordination to priesthood approved.
-- 1989: Barbara Harris is named first female bishop in Anglican history.
-- 2003: Openly gay V. Gene Robinson becomes bishop of New Hampshire.
The Associated Press
Less than a month ahead of a global gathering of Anglican leaders,
conservative bishops angry about the liberalism of churches in the
United States, Canada and elsewhere are meeting for a strategy summit in
Jordan and Israel.
Organizers of the Global Anglican Future Conference say they will not
formally break with the 77 million-member Anglican family when the
meeting ends June 29. Even so, the gathering is a clear challenge to
Anglicans who want their fellowship to remain unchanged.
"This is a show of force, unity and global significance," said the Rev.
Peter Moore, former dean of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry, a
conservative Pennsylvania seminary. "The Anglican Communion is in the
process of breaking up. What will emerge from that, I don't know."
The event, starting Wednesday with closed-door sessions in Amman,
Jordan, moves Sunday to Jerusalem for public discussions and visits to
holy sites. About 1,000 attendees — including bishops, clergy, lay
people and their families — are expected in Israel.
The timing is key.
The summit occurs one month before the Lambeth Conference, the
once-a-decade meeting of all Anglican bishops, organized by their
spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Many of the estimated 280 bishops attending the conservative summit are
boycotting Lambeth, mainly because Williams invited bishops from the
U.S. Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and elsewhere who
believe that the Bible permits committed gay relationships.
The Episcopal Church — the U.S. Anglican body — caused an uproar in 2003
by approving the first openly gay bishop, the Most Rev. Gene Robinson of
New Hampshire. Williams barred Robinson from Lambeth, but included the
American bishops who consecrated him.
More conflict arose last weekend when it was revealed that two male
Church of England priests exchanged rings and vows in a May 31 church
ceremony in London. The bishop of London is investigating.
"Going to Lambeth? The question is 'What for?"' said Archbishop Henry
Orombi, leader of the conservative Anglican Church of Uganda and a lead
organizer of the conservative meeting.
"We don't think three weeks in Lambeth under those circumstances will
edify anybody," he told Anglican TV Ministries, an independent
traditionalist group, last month. "There will be more conflicts rather
than fellowship. It's not going to be helpful."
The division is rooted in the shifting center of global Christianity.
The Anglican Communion is a loose association of churches that grew from
the colonial missionary efforts of the Church of England. Most Anglicans
in Africa, Asia and Latin America embraced the missionaries' traditional
outlook.
In recent decades, as membership dwindled in liberal-leaning European
and North American churches, the rolls of Global South churches, as they
are known, expanded dramatically. The majority of Anglicans now live in
developing countries and are scandalized by Northern views of Scripture.
The leadership of the conservative summit comes mainly from these provinces.
The top organizers are Orombi, along with the archbishops — called
primates — of the Anglican churches of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania
and the Southern Cone based in Argentina. U.S. conservatives, a minority
within the Episcopal Church, and British Anglicans also are playing
important roles.
"There is an air of certainty and clarity among the bishops going to
GAFCON, which stifles debate and openness to those of other views," said
Mark D. Chapman, lecturer in systematic theology at Ripon College
Cuddesdon in Oxford, England. "This would change the soul of Anglicanism
as an inclusive and tolerant church that is able to live with difference."
But Bishop Martyn Minns, head of the conservative Convocation of
Anglicans in North America, said orthodox Anglicans are the ones being
shut out.
Minns leads a network of breakaway Episcopal parishes based in Virginia
that have affiliated with Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola. The
Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has sued to keep the parish property —
worth millions of dollars — that Minns' group wants to take with them.
Minns said it was "insulting" that Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine
Jefferts Schori is sending a representative, Colorado Bishop Robert
O'Neill, to be her "eyes and ears" at the Jerusalem events. The
invitation-only summit will focus on joint ministries, relations with
Muslims, training clergy and fighting poverty.
"We need to stop reacting to the latest American ideas and get along
with the business of the Gospel," Minns said.
While the conference participants share a theological outlook, they
disagree over what they should do next. Some have close relationships
with North American and European dioceses, schools and ministries, and
gain stature from their ties to a major world church. The communion is
the world's third-largest Christian body, behind the Roman Catholic and
Orthodox Christian churches.
The Most Rev. Mouneer Anis, presiding bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle
East, who was invited to the meeting, declined to attend. He urged
organizers "not to make binding decisions which may result in dividing
Anglicans in the Global South and elsewhere."