Anglican/Episcopal News  |  Human Sexuality

Waging Fragmentation
 By Daniel J. Webster
Thursday, August 24, 2006
 

We blinked. We had stood up for the Holy Spirit's full inclusion of all people. And then we blinked. Why? What happened in Columbus that didn't happen in Minneapolis?

General Convention is supposed to be our governing authority. We have no pope. We have no dictatorial central teaching authority. We are governed by lay, clergy and bishops coming together in prayer and discernment to lay out the best way they know how the actions of God leading us forward as this church in this time.

But in Columbus, it appears all the rules got thrown aside because of threats from a faction of so-called Christians who are driven by power and control rather than grace and justice.

I felt the Holy Spirit once again in the hall when the announcement came that the first female presiding bishop was elected. The time afforded prayer in the House of Deputies was extraordinary. The silence before the announcement of the bishops' choice was most reminiscent of the Deputies' vote for Gene Robinson three years ago. It was like a Pentecost wind blowing through our church. The polity of our church was working. It was open, transparent, and grace-filled.

We had stood up for the Holy Spirit's full inclusion of all people. And then we blinked.
But then on the final day in Columbus one Convention blogger said the outgoing presiding bishop "chastised" both deputies and bishops for "not taking seriously" the Windsor Report. The incoming presiding bishop made a plea for the deputies to pass the resolution that targets one group of Episcopalians as unworthy of being elected bishop. One deputy was quoted in the media as saying, "What are you supposed to do when your presiding bishop asks you to do something?"

I wasn't there. I had left Convention that morning. But my answer to the question proposed by that deputy is that when your presiding bishops asks you to do something, read it closely, carefully, and prayerfully. Roll it over your tongue. If it tastes bad, don't swallow it. Don't let the work of the Holy Spirit and all the good and faithful servants of God be thrown away. Don't give up the democratic polity of the Episcopal Church for the patriarchal, authoritarian polity of the Church of Nigeria.

I shall let the canon lawyers decide whether the rules of General Convention were broken so that the Anglican Communion wouldn't be. But the reality is the Communion was broken before the vote. The homophobic, misogynist, biblical literalists had their plans in place. They are acting them out now.

The Diocese of Ft. Worth acted first. It wants out of the Episcopal Church because a female presiding bishop was elected. They've wanted that for a long time. They want to align themselves with someone, and I mean some one, who shares their unjust view of the world. It's not theology. It has little to do with God and everything to do with male dominated power on this earth.

Now the Archbishop of Nigeria wants his own bishop for North America. He's chosen and consecrated Martyn Minns from Truro Parish in Fairfax, Virginia., as bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). Archbishop Peter Akinola already has a covenant agreement with the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) in America that broke away from the Episcopal Church in 1873. Why doesn't he just use their bishops?

They want to align themselves with someone ... who shares their unjust view of the world. It's not theology. It has little to do with God and everything to do with male dominated power on this earth.
The answer is that consecrating a bishop for CANA -- even if that renders meaningless the covenant with the REC -- is part of a plan hatched at least three years ago. The archconservatives in this country have been waging ideological wars in the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations see "This Schism Brought to You by the IRD") for years.

There are other dioceses asking for other leadership from elsewhere the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is quick to point out these are a very small number of dioceses or parishes announcing plans to leave. They also point out that while that there may be individuals within a diocese -- which could include its bishop -- who choose to leave, it simply isn't possible for a diocese to leave the Episcopal Church. If a bishop were to leave the church, the episcopal seat of that diocese would simply be ruled vacant, and a bishop would be sent as chief pastor for the remnants until such time as an election could take place according to the canons.

The Balkanization of the Anglican Communion was predicted by many even before most Episcopalians had heard of Gene Robinson. The bishops from Rwanda and Singapore who had ordained North American priests to be bishops of the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA) did so well before the election of the Bishop of New Hampshire.

In 1998 at the Lambeth meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world, the female bishops were snubbed. Some misogynist bishops would not participate in events with the women. And I'm told that most, if not all, the U.S. bishops treated the African polygamist bishops with respect and courtesy.

At that meeting former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie suggested we "look at each other as fellow citizens of the heavenly city, and as those who are thus constituted within Christ's Church as a sign of hope for the whole human race, the bearers of the gospel of reconciliation."

"We must never make the survival of the Anglican Communion an end in itself, the Churches of the Anglican Communion have never claimed to be more than a part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church."
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold has been preaching, living, and holding up reconciliation throughout his nine years' tenure. Those who come to hear him, those who are interested in reconciliation, are those whose minds and hearts are open to live a new dream of Christ's body on earth.

The forces who do not want a reconciled world won in Columbus. It was a setback. It was injustice at best and evil at worst.

We need to hold on to other words from the late Archbishop Runcie: "We must never make the survival of the Anglican Communion an end in itself, the Churches of the Anglican Communion have never claimed to be more than a part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church."

The Episcopal Church has never seen itself as anything more than part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. It has sat at the table of the human-made Anglican Communion for the furtherance of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Having been "sealed and marked as Christ's own forever," we can't be any more part of the Body of Christ than we already are. We need no longer sit a table if the agenda is exclusion of certain groups of human beings, or even the exclusion of our whole church. As Episcopalians, to do so would be to violate our baptismal covenant. And we can't do that.


The Rev. Daniel J. Webster was most recently the director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. He has served as a media advisor to several Episcopal dioceses and national entities. In 2003, he traveled to the American Anglican Council conference in Dallas, Texas and the Lambeth meeting of Anglican Primates in London to help articulate to secular media outlets the perspective of a mainstream U.S. Episcopal diocese that had voted among the majority in support of the actions of the 2003 General Convention. He is currently on the staff of the National Council of Churches. Webster is a past elected member of the National Executive Council of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. His regular column for The Witness addresses issues of faith, peace and justice, and looks at the political debates in today's church. Dan may be emailed at webster801@hotmail.com.