Divorce is messy, the lessons from a failed marriage often complicated.
Such is the case with this week’s split of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA) from its majority-world leadership in the Church of Rwanda.
Until the 11-year-old partnership crumbled, it seemed to embody the potential for Global South church leaders to rise up and provide spiritual oversight and direction in the developed world.
Now?
“It would be unwise to draw any general conclusions for the future from a dispute which is clearly about particular human relationships,” said Brian Stanley, director of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh.
An odd article that seems to attribute the issues almost solely to “cultural differences” which begs the questions of 1) why did the “cultural differences” only occur after 11 years and 2) why are their the same underground tensions amongst the US AMiA bishops and clergy — such conflict in the latter instance obviously can’t be attributed to deep “cultural differences.”
RE: “So much of what is defined as ‘liberal’ today has to do with matters of sexuality, and younger Christians in America, including evangelicals, are much more tolerant on these issues,” Jacobsen said.”
Oh I wouldn’t be too worried about “younger Christians in America” being tolerant of sexual sin. They tend to grow up and mature as they enter the adult world and look around at the consequences of sin, and they do the same thing with sexual sin too. I get to hang out with plenty of younger Christians and they’ll be as solid as a rock.
A pity for Douglas Jacobsen, though . . . the disappointment will be sharp I expect.