The Crack-Up Begins

The Archbishop of Canterbury released a statement today mulling the evident continued defiance of the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion's demand for a moratorium on the election of openly gay bishops and contrition for the ECUSA's action in approving such an election back in 2003. Even Rowan Williams, who is hardly a conservative, seems to have his apostolic nose out of joint:

“… whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches.�

Of course, there are plenty of liberal Episcopalians who have no problem whatever with this brand of do-your-own-thing religion.

The Archbish suggests that perhaps the Communion might split into "Constituent" and "Associate" members, the former making a formal pledge to respect the will of the Communion as a whole and the latter as sort of Anglicans In Name Only:

“Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were ‘constituent’ Churches in the Anglican Communion and other ‘churches in association’, which were bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the same constitutional structures�.

Dr. Williams also notes that a split of this sort would necessarily fall out on a parish by parish level:

“It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God’s gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but that of ‘waiting for each other’ that St Paul commends to the Corinthians.�

Yup, looks like schism to me. This is more or less what I've been thinking may happen. (Incidentally, it was reported to me over the weekend that there was not the slightest chance that my own church would leave the Communion in order to go off with any ECUSA separatists. I hope this is true, as it would mean that I could avoid a great deal of personal turmoil.)

Meanwhile, the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa have fired off their own open letter to the ECUSA:

We have observed the commitment shown by your church to the full participation of people in same gender sexual relationships in civic life, church life and leadership. We have noted the many affirmations of this throughout the Convention. As you know, our Churches cannot reconcile this with the teaching on marriage set out in the Holy Scriptures and repeatedly affirmed throughout the Anglican Communion. All four Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion advised you against taking and continuing these commitments and actions prior to your General Convention in 2003.

CAPA also saw fit to include a message to those conservative Episcopalians still clinging to their posts:

We assure all those Scripturally faithful dioceses and congregations alienated and marginalised within your Provincial structure that we have heard their cries.

As I say, I think it significant that even Dr. Williams appears to have been goaded into talking about a split. But while he still seems to be seeking some kind of patch-work compromise, I'm not sure that this will satisfy the rest of the Communion if CAPA's initial comment is anything to go on.