After centuries of rather tense coexistence, serious trouble developed in the last half-century. North American liberal Anglicans proved to be adept at church politics, gained control of the church hierarchy, and promoted a steady stream of theological innovations that assaulted the core beliefs of the conservatives.<\/p>\n
Bishop Ingham, for example, has suggested that we should “stop thinking of ourselves as created beings” and stop thinking of Easter as “something understandable.” Perhaps not coincidentally, Anglican membership has declined steadily in North America.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the dominantly conservative “Global South” Anglican churches have been growing explosively. More than two-thirds of all Anglicans now come from Africa, Asia or South America. And they are now tasked with mediating the divorce of the North American church.<\/p>\n
Can we assign blame in this ecclesiastical divorce? Was one of the parties “unfaithful” (pun unavoidable)? Liberal Anglican spokesman Neale Adams summarizes the liberal vision as: “a big-tent church . . . open to a wide variety of theologies, and we think that’s good.” To my ear, this is a bit like the cheating husband saying, “Ours is an open relationship, embracing a wide variety of extra-marital affairs.”<\/p>\n
The liberals seem to be genuinely astonished that anyone would have a problem with this — saying, in effect, “You can teach that Jesus rose from the dead, if you like, but don’t hassle us if we teach that he didn’t.”<\/p>\n