Your faithful correspondent writes today from London, amidst a week remarkable in that two very different faiths–each with its own share of tumult–are on public display.
On Wednesday, the world’s Anglican bishops will gather in Canterbury, for the start of their once-every-10-years meeting, the Lambeth Conference. One of the globe’s biggest Christian events, the conference brings together in one place leaders of the Anglican Communion, which incorporates 37 churches that trace their origins to the Church of England (plus the C of E itself, of course). Total membership? Estimates start at 70 million, in 164 nations, all told.
But not all bishops (there are hundreds) will show. There’s deep anger among some, put off about the communion’s inability to prevent a few of its members from ordaining gay men and women as priests. The real turning point came five years ago, when Epsicopalians–Anglicanism’s American branch–in New Hampshire elected a gay man as their bishop. (There are Americans firmly planted on both sides of this issue, and in the middle, too.) As the Lambeth meeting has drawn steadily closers, talk of schism has rumbled ever louder.
Read it all.
David Waters: The Case Against Anglican Schism
Your faithful correspondent writes today from London, amidst a week remarkable in that two very different faiths–each with its own share of tumult–are on public display.
On Wednesday, the world’s Anglican bishops will gather in Canterbury, for the start of their once-every-10-years meeting, the Lambeth Conference. One of the globe’s biggest Christian events, the conference brings together in one place leaders of the Anglican Communion, which incorporates 37 churches that trace their origins to the Church of England (plus the C of E itself, of course). Total membership? Estimates start at 70 million, in 164 nations, all told.
But not all bishops (there are hundreds) will show. There’s deep anger among some, put off about the communion’s inability to prevent a few of its members from ordaining gay men and women as priests. The real turning point came five years ago, when Epsicopalians–Anglicanism’s American branch–in New Hampshire elected a gay man as their bishop. (There are Americans firmly planted on both sides of this issue, and in the middle, too.) As the Lambeth meeting has drawn steadily closers, talk of schism has rumbled ever louder.
Read it all.