A Response to Will Scott

The following letter to the editor appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Following the letter is my response. ed.

Global Christianity

Editor -- As both an Episcopal priest and one who grew up in the parishes of Virginia, I find Michael Gerson's May 20 column, "Bringing the faith to American Christians," deeply troubling. Gerson, former speechwriter for President Bush, apparently shares Nigerian Archbishop Akinola's opposition to ordaining women, gays and lesbians.

Although the Anglican Communion has long been unified, Gerson celebrates the decision of a tiny minority (less than one-half of 1 percent) in the Episcopal Church to join Akinola's splintering vision. The "consecration" of Martyn Minns, who stood unsuccessfully for election as a bishop in the United States, aims to shatter global Anglicanism, not build an emerging global Christianity.

As part of an emerging global Christianity that supports ordaining women, gays and lesbians, I recently attended an Anglican conference in South Africa on ending poverty, and caring for the sick and for the Earth. I met Anglicans, particularly African young people, who are glad to work with the mainstream U.S. Episcopal Church.

Indeed, Kenyan theologian Esther Mombo has challenged Akinola to abandon his predatory practice of splintering the U.S. church and focus instead on the critical needs of Africa. The church and news media should make room for authentic voices of African women such as Mombo rather than former presidential spin-doctors, such as Gerson.

These disaffiliating American churches do not represent emerging Christianity, as they suggest, but an arrogant ideology aimed at furthering their narrow agenda.

The Rev. WILL SCOTT

Associate Pastor

Grace Cathedral

San Francisco


Response

Fr. Scott seems to have missed the last four years of Anglican church history. Here's a little refresher: PECUSA was told by the Anglican Communion that to consecrate an active homosexual man to the episcopate would tear the fabric of the communion. Memo to Will - It has. What Fr. Scott terms "Akinola's splintering vision" would more correctly be termed PECUSA's lack of concern for the vision of a unified Anglican Communion. The arrogance that Scott projects onto Abp. Akinola would more rightly be placed on PECUSA who has since at least 2003 said to the other 70 million or so Anglicans that she will do as she sees fit whether or not anyone else in Anglicanism agrees. Apparently Scott isn't aware of this global consensus. Nor is he apparently aware of the growth of Anglicanism in the Global South while PECUSA continues to lose tens of thousands of members each year. This "emerging global Christianity that supports ordaining women, gays and lesbians" is a figment of this priest's imagination. The truth is that this viewpoint is not emerging as much as it is declining. It hasn't won over America, South Africa, or any other place where it has been tried. The Church of Nigeria is growing by the millions; whereas the emerging church that Scott points to is actually dying. How did this priest with such a skewed vision get onto a cathedral staff? I think we all know the answer to that one.