[Apologetics] Anglican leader sees church split over gay bishops

[Art Kelly]

Anglican leader sees church split over gay bishops
Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:18 AM ET

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the world's 77
million Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams, has said the worldwide church may have to
split to end a bitter row over the consecration of gay
bishops.

In a move which analysts say will effectively exclude
Americans from the global Anglican communion, Williams
proposed churches should be asked to sign a formal
covenant, allowing some to be fuller members of the
communion than others.

"Those churches that were prepared to take this on as
an expression of their responsibility to each other
would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a
wider witness: some might not be willing to do this,"
he said in a lengthy statement issued by his Lambeth
Palace office on Tuesday.

"We could arrive at a situation where there were
"constituent" churches in the Anglican communion and
other "churches in association", which were bound by
historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of
the same sources but not bound in a single and
unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the
same constitutional structures."

A row has been running between liberals and
conservatives among the world's Anglicans since the
2003 consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly
gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.
Anglicans in Africa, in particular, condemned the
move, saying homosexuality is un-biblical and morally
wrong.

The row deepened earlier this month when the U.S.
Episcopal Church chose a liberal female bishop as its
first woman leader since the ordination of women was
approved 30 years ago.

In a bid to appease an increasingly alienated
worldwide Anglican community, the U.S. Episcopal
Church (ECUSA) last week agreed to try and avoid the
consecration of more gay bishops, but commentators
said this was not enough to resolve the feud.

COMMUNION LACKS STRUCTURE

In his proposal, which he stressed was not meant as
any kind of decree and should be discussed in detail
over the coming years, Williams said the church had to
change to survive.

"What our communion lacks is a set of adequately
developed structures which is able to cope with the
diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a
world of rapid global communication and huge cultural
variety," he said.

"The tacit conventions between us need spelling out --
not for the sake of some central mechanism of control
but so that we have ways of being sure we're still
talking the same language."

The American Anglican Council, a conservative group in
the ECUSA that opposed Robinson's consecration,
welcomed Williams' proposal but said interim measures
were crucial to stop individual parishes splitting
away from the Episcopal Church before the covenant
plan was implemented.

Some churches and dioceses have asked to be put under
the authority of more conservative bishops in Africa
and Latin America, and the AAC said more could follow.
Splits in the U.S. Anglican community also threaten to
fuel legal battles over church property.

"We fear tens of thousands of individuals will be lost
from Anglicanism forever unless immediate, though
interim, intervention is provided," it said in a
statement.

"The situation in the American church is rapidly
deteriorating and it is critical to act now in order
to prevent the 'Balkanisation' of the entire Anglican
Communion."

Some commentators said Williams' plan would represent
a "schism in all but name". Britain's Times newspaper
said on Wednesday the plan would effectively expel the
Americans from the worldwide Anglican church and
warned: "The repercussions within the American Church
will be profound."


                           
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