Restructuring, not schism, ahead for Anglicans

From USA Today via TitusOneNine:

Updated 11h 48m ago

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called homophobic violence and prejudice "sinful and disgraceful," but said the church's Bible-based teachings on homosexuality could not be overturned easily.

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

The head of the Anglican Communion said Monday that restructuring the world's third-largest Christian denomination appears inevitable in the face of irreconcilable differences on sexuality and the Bible.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams forecast a "two-track" model that could leave the U.S. branch of the Communion, the Episcopal Church, out of decisive roles and without standing as a representative voice in the 77-million-member global Anglican church.

His statement comes two weeks after clergy and lay leaders at the Episcopal governing meeting voted by 2-1 margins to welcome the election of gay and lesbian bishops and to give "generous discretion" to blessing same-sex weddings.

Leaders of the USA's Anglican traditionalists and Episcopal gay activists had similar reactions to Williams' statement.
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Both Archbishop Robert Duncan, of the new Anglican Church in North America, and the Rev. Susan Russell, head of the gay Episcopal group Integrity, say they will keep "being church" (working on evangelism, service and missions) exactly as before, and see when the institution catches up to reality.

The U.S. Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, declined to comment.

Williams has pushed for several years for a "covenant" clarifying that membership in the Communion is for those churches that are "theologically coherent" and agree on how they'll work together, rather than "a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common."

But the Episcopal Church cannot wander alone off the theological reservation, becoming isolated and "unrecognizable," he said.

Referencing a biblical curse on heretics, Williams said, "There is no threat of being cast into outer darkness — existing relationships will not be destroyed that easily."

Still, he foresees a future "not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication, but plainly as what they are: "two styles of being Anglican" pursuing their mission "with greater integrity and consistency," even as they work out issues.

Russell was untroubled by this idea. Ever since the Revolutionary War, when the U.S church broke with the Church of England, "American Anglicans are used to re-inventing structures in order to proclaim the Gospel and move forward," she said.

And Duncan said Communion divisions already "outpace Williams. The speed at which the Archbishop of Canterbury has dealt with the crisis in the Anglican Communion is something faster than glacial — but it's not too much faster. We'll see where the whole Communion goes, but we are far more interested in doing the mission of the church in society than occupying ourselves with what the old structures will do."