Splinters of faith bind together as foundation for new church
By MILLETE BIRHANEMASKEL, birhanemaskelm@knews.com
January 13, 2007
A Rwandan coffee aroma wafting through the halls at Middlebrook Christian Ministries in Knoxville is the product of a peace effort in the East African country.
In the United States, the sweet smells are an unpleasant reminder of turbulence among brethren in the Episcopal Church.
The worldwide Anglican Communion's American branch is fighting an internal battle, which so far has cost more than one-third of its membership -- dropping from 3.5 million to 2.2 million -- in 30 years and caused some leaders to cry heresy at practices such as the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003.
But to reduce the problem to one of homosexuality is wrong, said the Rev. Christopher Cairns, who leads a Knoxville congregation that recently broke away from Church of the Ascension Episcopal Church. After being "inhibited" -- or prevented from ministering in an Episcopal Church -- by the Diocese of East Tennessee, Cairns now operates under the authority of the archbishop of Rwanda.
The Anglican Mission in America has been an answer to Cairns and other conservative Episcopal parishes throughout the country that feel the American church has deviated from Scripture.
Cairns' decision to accept a pastoral role at the Anglican Mission of Knoxville was grueling and one not reached with any flippancy.
"Leaving the historic faith of my fathers and mothers is tragic to me," Cairns said.
Anglican Mission in Knoxville
Cairns is not being facetious when he ties his lineage and the Episcopal Church to the first European boats to land on American shores.
The Episcopal Church descends from the Church of England. And his great-great-uncle was the architect of St. Mary's Cathedral in Memphis; his great-great-grandfather's brother was founding rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio; his great-great-great-aunt founded St. Mary's Convent at Sewanee University.
Cairns' father was in the military, and both of his parents were a shining example of their faith, he said. Cairns recalls when he was a small child and his family took in an immigrant Vietnamese family.
"Before I ever read it in Scripture -- Take care of the stranger in your land -- it was something my parents did," Cairns said.
It was during Cairns' last year at Sewanee, majoring in Third World studies, that, as he describes it, his intellectual life and spiritual life met. The Episcopal Church and its history of fighting injustice was a natural fit for Cairns, who was concerned with hunger in the Third World.
He went on to Virginia Theological Seminary but felt he was met with injustice. He said he discovered a hostile groupthink mentality whereby it was difficult to raise objections or ask questions from a conservative standpoint without feeling like a pariah.
Cairns' dissidence with the groupthink mentality was only strengthened as he worked in a variety of churches that swung from conservative to liberal. He spent some time at The Falls Church in Fairfax, which also recently realigned with an African province.
In May 2006, he was ordained an Episcopal deacon and served on staff at Church of the Ascension in Knoxville -- known for having a congregation that represented all views. But the dynamics were changing as more-conservative congregants left the church, upset with being fed a scriptural interpretation they didn't agree with.
A few months after a large split this past summer, Cairns began the process to join under the archbishop of Rwanda, the Rev. Emmanuel Kolini.
But the bishop of East Tennessee, the Rev. Charles vonRosenberg, refused to write Cairns a letter saying he was a deacon in good standing. Instead, vonRosenberg inhibited Cairns, forbidding him from ministering in an Episcopal Church.
Kolini would still accept Cairns and later ordain him a priest.
"What made it much more difficult for me and the bishop of East Tennessee is we like each other. I love and respect the man," Cairns said.
Cairns is the first clergy to be inhibited by the diocese in vonRosenberg's tenure of eight years but not the first to feel shut out by it. A group in Chattanooga asked to set up a church for more traditionalists but said vonRosenberg refused to recognize them. The group -- the Anglican Church of the Redeemer -- also now affiliates under Rwanda.
VonRosenberg acknowledges the diocese has lost membership in recent years, but he also says the church has gained membership as well.
The diversity of the church has always been one of its biggest draws. A variety of viewpoints are represented, vonRosenberg said.
Any decisions the church has made were in line with its canons and followed historic procedures that have governed the church from its origins, vonRosenberg said.
"I am sad about what has caused people to leave the Episcopal Church, but we continue as the Episcopal Church inclusively and (with) respect for a people of a variety of points of view, and that's something we are not going to give up. Those who are uncomfortable with that sense of freedom or whatever has made them uncomfortable, I wish them well with their spiritual journey," he said.
African archbishops 'primitive'
The break-offs in East Tennessee are not out of line with what is happening with the Episcopal Church, USA.
The Anglican Mission in America was formed in 2000 after bishops of the American Anglican Council made a direct appeal for intervention, according to the Anglican Mission Web site.
The concerns were a declining membership and a battle of "competing visions, which are in conflict over the very essence of the Gospel itself."
Kolini, among others, answered the call, focusing on reaching 130 million unchurched Americans and creating a means for churches to be "fully Anglican."
So far, more than 100 churches nationwide have joined the Anglican Mission under Rwanda and four American bishops. That number doesn't include churches such as the Truro and The Falls in Virginia, which are under the Anglican Province of Nigeria. Nine provinces, including Rwanda and Nigeria, have missions in America.
VonRosenberg said the archbishops of these provinces are working outside of their jurisdictions.
The archbishop of Canterbury "does not recognize these crossings of jurisdictions," vonRosenberg said. "The ones making these decisions and separating, claiming to be Anglican, are not actually recognized by the one who is head of the Anglican Communion."
Bishop T.J. Johnston, an American who oversees 38 churches under Rwanda, including Knoxville's church, argues the opposite.
"There is a massive realignment taking place with the Anglican Communion at large," Johnston said. "They (the Episcopal Church) have moved so far away, if any group is not recognized it's the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church is on probation with the Communion."
Another criticism of the mostly African archbishops is that they come from primitive cultures and primitive thinking.
Johnston, who has heard this criticism before, said he knows African bishops who speak eight languages and who have given more authority to Scripture than leaders from countries who brought Christianity to them.
Cairns said, "I would rather stand with Africans and Latin Americans and Asians who represent the content of the historic faith that we have all vowed in our ordination vows to continue with."
Beyond homosexuality
The consecration of the Rev. Gene Robinson in 2003 opened Pandora's box. But it only escalated a detachment that had begun years prior, Cairns said.
In the 1960s, James Pike, an American bishop, Walter Righter, denied the virginity of Mary and the resurrection of Christ. Later, Bishop John Selby Spong did the same.
Other disputes were about the ordination of women and using Elizabethan language in the Book of Common Prayer.
Sometimes, the discord was inappropriate, Cairns said, such as that which stemmed from the church's involvement in the civil-rights movement.
Other times, people lost faith because their leadership lost faith in the gospel, Johnston said. With the exception of a few, "Seminaries have taken the approach that Scripture is one voice among many in defining truth."
So as pleas from throughout the Anglican world -- most recently for the Episcopal Church to slow down on issues surrounding homosexuality -- continued to fall on deaf ears, people such as Johnston and Cairns took heed.
"Suddenly the church I was expecting to serve was not the one I signed up to serve," Cairns said. "I can't share this trajectory."
So Cairns now sits in his office with a dry-erase board marked with notes on church planting. Membership has grown enough -- to about 100 -- to warrant a permanent structure and name.
Until that happens, he shares a building at Middlebrook Christian Ministries with three other faith groups -- a pot of coffee brewing. The tribes of Rwanda who once engaged in genocide against one another now work side by side like brothers in the coffee fields.
Cairns is convinced he made the right choice but remains conflicted because of the relationships severed with people he still considers brothers such as vonRosenberg.
"I don't put myself in the category of prophets or martyrs and saints," Cairns said. "But at the same time, show me Christian discipleship without a cost."
Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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