Rowan Williams bought himself time for a while in his attempt to hold the Anglican Communion together in its row over gay bishops. But yesterday it looked like that time is running out.
He had appealed to the liberal church in the United States to impose a moratorium on electing any more gay bishops after the divisive election of Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. But the ceasefire between liberals and evangelicals has effectively been ended by the election of a bishop who has committed a double sin in the eyes of conservatives: Canon Mary Glasspool is a woman priest and has openly been a lesbian for 21 years.
Dr Williams is clinging to one final hope. Her selection has still to be ratified by the national church before she is ordained next May. In theory her appointment could be rejected. But it is a forlorn expectation. The mood in the US church is that it is time to reject conservative intolerance and affirm that homosexuals are as loved by God as heterosexuals. The conservative group Reform yesterday said that a schism is now “absolutely inevitable”. What has irritated liberals is the speed with which Dr Williams has issued his statement requesting “a period of gracious restraint” which is church-speak for urging the ceasefire to continue.
Had the ABC really been in charity and condemned the ECUSA/TEC for its errors regarding homosexuality, he would be in a much better position to champion the fair treatment of homosexuals as a religious duty. But, since he has failed utterly to explain the moral reasoning for permitting the on-going debacle that is ECUSA/TEC in the Anglican Communion, he has NO moral ground for opposing laws that are pernicious. The claim he has hung his colours on the fence is altogether true and, hence, he seems to support Western decadence and be unable to oppose gross immorality in passive or active formulations.
The Episcopalians got away with Gene Robinson; nothing will happen.
The real gauntlet to be thrown is if one of the white liberal churches in the communion officially becomes unitarian: apostasises from Christianity and stops the game they’ve been playing since the 1700s of lip service to orthodoxy but really being agnostic.
Whichever decision Lambeth makes (invite or uninvite the unitarians) there would be a split. ARCIC would continue (not that it would do anything really, same as now) with the faction that’s still Christian.
The devil is a very powerful adversary. He has, since Creation, rooted himself in our very being. Now he is manifesting himself in and through the actions of the Episcopal Church in consecrating this new homosexual. Young fogey, I think that you are more right than you know. These people pay lip service to orthodoxy, but even worse to Christ. They try and pass their agenda as what Christ would have accepted. Where does Jesus condone sin anywhere in Scripture? VGR and this new woman are working for the destruction of the Church. With this new development, they may have taken it a step in that direction. Let us look at this situation and remember Peter’s words: “Be sober, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. [b]Resist him firm in the faith![/b]
Young Fogey, remaining in the Episcopal Church is no bar to Unitarianism: both +Bruno and +Schori are already there. They can stay TEC and keep all the nice stuff like smells and bells and fancy costumes. What does the Unitarian church have to offer that TEC doesn’t?
Again there have been Anglicans who are personally unitarian (apostate) since the ‘Enlightenment’. I’m talking about a General Synod or General Convention officially going that way, taking a national church out of Christianity. (Which I don’t think the Episcopalians will do soon. Schori and Robinson are in their last generation of fashionable agnostics; the few young in their church are more likely credally orthodox like Williams.)