From The Times (UK):
August 2, 2008
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Anglican Communion is ridiculed as “the Gay Church” and is losing members over homosexuality, say bishops meeting in Canterbury.
Mission is being damaged and confidence in the validity of the Anglican Communion is being hurt, they say.
The bishops’ comments appear in a draft of the final Reflections document of the Lambeth Conference.
About 670 bishops from 38 provinces worldwide have contributed to the document after meeting in African-style indaba, or discussion, groups during the 2½ week conference at Kent University.
The final document will be published tomorrow. It is the main report to emerge from the conference, which has been designed to enable debate without votes or resolutions that might widen divisions.
The document lists unexpectedly strong concerns about the liberal direction that the Anglican Church in the West is taking over homosexuality. The report says: “We wish this wasn’t the big issue because there are bigger ones. But we can’t now avoid it.” It says that some provinces feel the teaching of the missionaries who brought the faith from the West has been betrayed. “It is experienced as a new form of colonisation.”
The report cautions that the liberalisation of the Western Church is seen as leading to sexual licence: “Confidence in the validity of [the] Anglican Communion is severely damaged.” It continues: “Bishops cannot be a symbol of unity when their consecration itself divided the Church.”
Options range from doing nothing because if it is God’s will it will last, to taking punitive action. The report cites the Bible verse: “If your eye cause offence, pluck it out.”
Yesterday bishops debated the new Anglican Covenant, which is intended to bind provinces together in an agreed statement of doctrine.
The effect of the covenant will be to create a “two-tier communion”, divided between those who will and will not sign up. According to the latest draft, provinces that violate the covenant by actions such as consecrating a gay bishop would be issued with a “declaration of relinquishment”.
But this would not mean they were irrevocably expelled from the Church. A “process of restoration” would be started immediately to restore them to full communion.
Liberal bishops in the US Episcopal Church are understood to oppose the covenant. They want a more gentle Anglican “rule of life” that would respect provincial autonomy but still hold fast to fundamental Christian principles.
All the indications are that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s plan to avoid schism by creating a conference without conflict has worked.
But Dr Mouneer Anis, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, said that his experience of Bible studies and indaba groups at the conference had confirmed his worst fears. “I see a great wall being put up by revisionists against those orthodox who believe in the authority of Scripture . . . I am shocked to say that we are finding it very hard to come together on even the essentials of the faith we once received from the Apostles.
“Everywhere we go we meet gay and lesbian activists, receive their newsletters or read about their many events.”
He said they were intent on pushing their agenda on delegates. “They push all these sexuality issues so intensively into the conference and then blame us for talking about them too much.
“In the attitude of some North American Churches I am reminded of the arrogance of the American Administration that made a mess in Iraq because it refused to listen to the millions of voices from the wider world.”
A leading liberal also criticised the proposed covenant. Bishop Michael Ingham, of New Westminster Diocese in Canada, where the first same-sex blessing liturgy was authorised, said: “We think that any centralisation of power will take us away from historic Anglicanism.
“The covenant is essentially punitive. Instead of an invitation into mission, it seems more concerned with doctrinal conformity. That is a move towards confessionalism, which is not the spirit of Anglicanism.”
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