WHAT IF?

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Rereading the two posts immediately below this one got me to thinking about something. Could the Episcopalians have pulled off 2003? Or at least minimized the damage they did to the rest of Anglican Communion?

Theoretically, yes; practically, no. As Pierre Whalon hints at and Walter Russell Mead comes right out and says, arrogance and indifference to the rest of the Anglican world have been hallmarks of the Episcopal Organization for a long time.

The fact that Frank Griswold insouciantly signed his name to th[e primates
statement at the emergency meeting in 2003] proves better than anything possibly can TEO’s complete and total indifference to the opinion of the rest of the Anglican world.

And the fact that the Episcopalians kept changing their justification for Robbie’s pointy hat(the spirit is doing a new thing, polity, fruits of the spirit, etc.) suggests that they were genuinely surprised by the firestorm Robbie’s consecration caused.

All of which further suggests that the Episcopal Organization(and the rest of the Anglican left including Rowan Williams) was so convinced of the rightness of what TEO had done that there was no interest in taking seriously any contrary viewpoint.

But what if the Episcopal approach had been entirely different? What if, immediately after Robinson’s approval, he had been ordered to stay down, to confine himself to his New Hampshire duties and nothing else? And what if the 2003 General Convention had passed a resolution that said the following to the rest of the Anglican world?

We realize what we have just done. But New Hampshire wants this man as its bishop and we are bound by our canons to approve him.

But we know full well why you are angry. Therefore, we pledge not to approve the election of another practicing homosexual bishop until such time as we have all sat down together and hashed this thing out.

We therefore urge the Archbishop of Canterbury to move up the next Lambeth Conference to as early a date as possible but we are prepared to wait. And we would like the Conference to deal with this issue and this issue alone.

We believe we have a case to make. But if that case is not accepted, we will walk away from the Communion, wish you Godspeed and allow any of our parishes or dioceses that wish to remain a part of the Communion to do so with our blessing.

If the Episcopalians had taken that line, most, if not all, of the rancor of the last six and a half years would have been avoided. But, as has been stated previously, the Episcopalians were and still are incapable of taking that line. Because that would have required something Episcopalians have never been any good at.

Humility.