US Episcopal church faces another showdown over gays

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Episcopal Church is headed for
another showdown over homosexuality in a rift that has already
shaken the worldwide Anglican church family to which it
belongs, and threatens even more division.

The next flashpoint will occur in an unlikely place —
Columbus, Ohio — where the Episcopal Church’s triennial
general convention will have to confront the issue again, and
may even have to decide whether a second openly gay person
should be made a bishop. While the meeting does not take place
until June, developments have already begun to play out.

Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said in a
recent BBC interview his church “is not just going to settle
down quietly into being a federation. My anxiety about it is
that if (the church family) is broken we may be left with even
less than a federation.”

The faith has been in turmoil since 2003 when its American
branch ordained the first openly gay bishop in 450 years of
Anglican history.

The Episcopal Church is one of several national churches,
under the spiritual authority of the archbishop of Canterbury,
making up the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican family or
“communion.” Its history dates to colonial times when what
became the United States broke away from British rule and in
the process the Church of England.

While the word “schism” has been tossed about in relation
to what’s happening in the worldwide church, a more precise
term being used these days is to “walk apart,” according to
Mark Sisk, the Episcopal bishop of New York.

WALKING SEPARATELY

It would imply “we’re walking in the same direction but we
may be walking a bit separately,” he said in an interview.
“That is certainly at least a possibility. I hope it won’t
happen, because I believe we in fact do need each other.”

One year ago, under pressure from the world church
leadership and criticism from conservatives, particularly in
Africa, the U.S. bishops decided not to consecrate any new
bishops, gay or straight, or to bless same-sex unions until at
least the next general convention.

That meeting will take place in the Ohio city in June; but
machinery is already being put in place to handle expected
demands at the meeting from those who consider themselves
orthodox believers to turn the moratorium into an outright ban.

There is also pressure because of the vacuum that has
existed for the past year in the consecration of new bishops.
Nearly a dozen diocese have delayed doing anything but are now
scheduling elections in May to choose new prelates. One of
them, The Episcopal Diocese of California, covering the San
Francisco area, has slated five possible candidates for bishop,
two of whom, a man and a woman, are in gay relationships.

So far gay candidates have not emerged in any other
diocese.

But if a gay candidate is elected in the California
diocese, the general convention — running June 10-21 — will
face the same issue it did in 2003 when the bishops approved
the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who
is in an openly gay relationship. Convention approval of a
bishop requires a vote by “deputies” representing each diocese
and then a separate vote by bishops.

Beyond that, the 2.3 million-member church is scheduled to
choose a new presiding bishop, and three of the four candidates
slated so far backed Robinson’s elevation in 2003.

Meantime Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, has
weighed in with a Lenten pastoral letter which some have
interpreted as saying the church’s stand on homosexuality made
at a meeting in 1998 may not be reopened at the next such
meeting — the Lambeth Conference — in 2008.

“Despite levels of bitter controversy over sexuality … I
do not hear much enthusiasm for revisiting in 2008 the last
Lambeth Conference’s resolution on this matter,” he said.

The resolution called homosexual activity “incompatible
with scripture” and said the church “cannot advise the
legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those
involved in same gender unions.”

Williams did, however, say that discussions going on around
the world on the issue should be aired and reflected on by the
2008 meeting along with considerations of the way the church
makes decisions.

INCREASED PRESSURE

The American Anglican Council, a conservative group within
the Episcopal church, said the Williams letter has turned up
the pressure on the Ohio meeting to come into compliance.

“Archbishop Williams has sent a hopeful message that
Lambeth 2008 will stand firm in upholding apostolic faith and
practice, but potentially explosive issues must still be
addressed,” said the Rev. Canon David Anderson, president of
the group.

The questions facing the Ohio meeting, he said, are whether
it will repudiate the actions taken in 2003 “and embrace
Anglican doctrine.”

But Maury Johnston, Virginia-based author of “Gays Under
Grace: A Gay Christian’s Response to the Moral Majority,” said
the church factions have reached the point of “irreconcilable
differences.”

“The longer the Episcopal Church tries to force both sides
into unity that doesn’t work, the longer the church will be
side-tracked from forging onward in the world,” he told
Reuters. “That does not mean that I necessarily want schism. It
just means that I think that it is unfortunately inevitable in
light of the hard-nosed attitudes of conservatives … “

Bob Williams, a spokesman for the Episcopal Church, said
the church “continues to participate actively in the listening
process now under way across the Anglican communion” and the
Columbus meeting will “affirm its participation” in the life of
the church.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said the Ohio meeting
should be seen as “as a vast field of exploration rather than a
moment of decision” that might be construed by some as a
make-or-break moment in the history of the Communion.

In 20 years, he predicted, the church will be talking about
something else.