It is good news that those Anglican parishes that are strongly opposed to homosexuality are forming a new movement. The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) was launched last year as a pressure group within the international Anglican communion, but only now is it trying to exert grassroots influence, raising awareness for its cause on the parish level. If it is successful, then it will be easy to identify the sexual politics of your local parish church. It will be impossible to deny that there is a church within the church, that division has become schism.
This is good news because honesty is better than dishonesty. The fact is that conservative evangelicals profess a different version of Christianity from other Anglicans. There are admittedly other divisions within Anglicanism, but this is the really big one. If opposition to homosexuality is a basic component of your idea of Christian truth, then you ought to be clear about this, and not cohabit with those who fudge the issue, or openly express disdain for your position.
Over the past 20 years or so we have seen huge amounts of dishonesty and evasion on this. The church’s leadership has been trying to build a home on the fence. The liberals and the conservatives must both be accommodated, it has said: as long as both sides are still part of the same communion, then there is hope of reconciliation. A pious sentiment, surely? Well, the piety is laced with self-serving evasion and hypocrisy.
The fault lies with the liberals….
Get out the mustard and mayo. There’s a big feast going on.
[blockquote]The fact is that conservative evangelicals profess a different version of Christianity from other Anglicans. [/blockquote]
Umm.. not just the evangelicals, Theo..
It started as a big schism, why not proceed in that direction? Less bloodshed nowadays; the crown is a much sleepier institution.
Roll up, roll up! Theo Hobson writes three or so COE stories repeatedly and floats them by like plastic ducks at the fairground: disestablishment, schism, bigots. He writes well, and his view vents the frustrations of the progressive clergy (and the supportive but baffled allied ancilliary workers – teachers, social workers etc.). They would, of course, love for the evangelicals to leave the field. The chance of this occuring is somewhere around nada, nil or never. The point of the article one presumes is not to persuade evangelicals to clear off, because Theo Hobson is hardly their go-to-guy for spiritual advice, but to encourage the progressives to “be honest” and shoo them out. It a dreamland, of course – but fantasies can be consoling.