For a decade now, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) has been bitterly divided over the issue of ordaining openly gay clergy. The matter reached a new intensity this past week when the church’s triennial convention ended the ban on gay candidates serving in ordained ministry. After years of protesting ECUSA’s liberal policies and doctrines, seceding conservatives have now organized a rival church — the Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA — which claims 100,000 believers, compared with two million in ECUSA. This week’s dramatic decision is sure to widen the rift even further, causing what church historians might officially label a “schism.”
The presiding bishop of the mainstream Episcopal grouping, Katherine Jefferts Schori, predictably condemns ACNA, protesting that “schism is not a Christian act.” But it is not wholly clear who is seceding from whom. In approving gay bishops, ECUSA is defying the global Anglican Communion, which had begged Americans not to take a move that could provoke believers in other parts of the world. The Anglican Communion, though noticeably “progressive” in its American and British forms, is a world-wide church of 80 million. Indeed, the majority of Anglicans today live in African and Asian countries where progressive views are not so eagerly embraced. For American conservatives, it is Bishop Jefferts Schori’s church that has seceded from global Anglicanism.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case, it is anything but rare.
“It is Bishop Jefferts Schori’s church that has seceded from global Anglicanism.”
There’s TEC’s epitaph.
This is vintage Philip Jenkins’ stuff, very thoughtful and informative, albeit somewhat simplified for a secular audience. I’m glad that it appeared in the popular, widely read [b]Wall Street Journal[/b]
I’ve recently been reading his latest book, [b]The Lost History of Christianity[/b], about the amazing forgotten history of the Nestorian and Jacobite (non-Chalcedonain) Churches of the East that flourished for about a thousand years (roughly from the 4th century to the 14th). The first sentence grabs your attention: [i]”Religions die.”[/i] And indeed The Church of the East (east of the Roman Empire, that is) did eventually die. Or perhaps I should say, was killed through fierce, relentless persecution.
It’s too soon for historians like Jenkins to say whether the ACNA will flourish as Methodism did, or never get off the ground, as the REC never did. And it’s likewise too soon to know if Anglicanism in the Global North is headed toward death and oblivion, like the Nestorians and Jacobites. But my hunch is that the future of orthodox Anglicanism is bright, and not just in Africa and SE Asia.
Time will tell. In the meantime, what an exciting adventure it will be! Naturally, my hope and expectation is that we are in the early stages of what is likely to turn out to be the New Reformation.
I hope the prolific and always stimulating and insightful Philip Jenkins (a former RC turned Episcopalian) will write at much more length about this Anglican civil war in the future.
David Handy+
NRA (#2),
(Hi David, long time no see.)
[blockquote]
… But my hunch is that the future of orthodox Anglicanism is bright …
[/blockquote]
If by “orthodox Anglicanism” we understand the theological tradition extending from Richard Hooker at least through Archbishop William Temple, then I certainly hope its future is bright. But we need to find a way to get through the current unpleasantness. In particular, we must learn to stop ceding credibility to external critics like Sam Harris.