Split widens over gay Episcopal bishop

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Christianity’s split over the consecration of the world’s first openly homosexual bishop continues to deepen.

The Vatican in early December abruptly canceled top-level talks between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion that were aimed at finding areas of unity. Meanwhile, more Anglican groups in African and Asia broke ties with the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, over November’s consecration of the Rev. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

In an extraordinary letter, the leader of the Anglican Church in Central Africa accused the Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, of lies, betrayal and promoting a “false gospel.”

The Catholic-Anglican unity talks—called the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission—had been scheduled for February but were shelved. Soon thereafter, Griswold resigned as co-chairman of a sister organization, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, in a move designed to salvage ecumenical relations. He was the main consecrator at Robinson’s ceremony.

Robinson’s consecration made ecumenical relations “very difficult,” but the pope “has said we must keep dialoguing,” said the commission’s Catholic co-chairman Archbishop Alex Brunett. The Vatican agreed to a new committee to “reflect jointly” on the implications of Robinson’s consecration.

“Praise God for the discernment and wisdom of the Vatican that realizes they cannot talk with these pirates. They will be sorting out who they can talk to,” the Rev. David Moyer, president of the Dallas-based Forward in Faith, a traditional organization of Anglo-Catholics, told The Washington Times. “The Episcopal Church has thumbed its nose at the Catholic Church and caused a major ecumenical crisis.”

Several Orthodox bodies, including the Russian, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic and Ethiopian churches, have suspended ties with the Episcopal Church in the past several weeks. The Russian Orthodox Church said that “the consecration of a gay priest has made any communications with him and with those who consecrated him impossible”

Perhaps the deepest sense of outrage is coming from within the Anglican Communion.

Nine provinces of the communion—Nigeria, Rwanda, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, the West Indies and Central Africa—have formally broken relations or entered into a state of “impaired communion” with leaders in the Episcopal Church who have endorsed Robinson, according to The Church of England Newspaper.

In early December, Bishop Peter Adebiyi of Lagos, Nigeria, said Nigerians would ignore the Episcopal Church and set up parishes in the United States, according to the newspaper.

“We will not communicate with (Episcopal Church) in terms of worship or visitation or work on transfer to any of the dioceses in the U.S.,” Adebiyi said. “Priests from there will not be allowed to work or visit the Church in Nigeria.”

The archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, is considering turning to the Africans rather than the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, for moral leadership.

“It would depend upon what Canterbury does, but it is conceivable that Sydney would look more to Nigeria or some other place for the chairmanship of the board,” Jensen said. “It may be that we will find more of our fellowship with the Global South churches than we do with the old Western churches.”

Southeast Asian primates convened a special meeting in Malaysia and broke ties with the Episcopal Church.

“This means that the province no longer treats those (in the Episcopal Church) who carried out and supported the act of consecration as brothers and sisters in Christ until and unless they repent of their action and return to embrace biblical truths,” leaders of the province said in a Nov. 24 letter.

Provinces of the West Indies also declared themselves to be in impaired communion with the Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Bernard A. Malango, archbishop of Central Africa, condemned Griswold’s ministry as false. In a letter, Malango told Griswold that his actions “leave me mystified. What could possibly be considered sin? What needs redemption? Where is judgment, atonement, and where is the cross of Christ?”

In the United States, the Rev. John A. M. Guernsey of the American Anglican Council warned orthodox believers in the Episcopal Church to be ready for whatever comes next.

“We don’t know what we will face in standing for Jesus in our church,” Guernsey said in a November sermon. “We don’t know what will come; we don’t know what it will cost us. It may cost us our reputation, as we are vilified and ridiculed. It may cost the church buildings, which we and the saints before us have sacrificially labored and given to build. It may cost us our ministries, as some may even seek to strip us of our priesthood.”

Journalist David Virtue said he sees “growing signs of convergence” among conservatives in the midst of “increasing fragmentation in the North American Anglican scene.” A three-day conference in December drew 50 conservative bishops, priests and laity from splinter Anglican groups and the Reformed Episcopal Church, as well as two orthodox bishops from the Episcopal Church, Virtue said. The conference was held at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in the Diocese of Central Florida under the spiritual authority of the Rev. John Howe.

“A new realignment is in process,” the Rev. Todd Wetzel said at the meeting. He is executive director of Anglicans United (formerly Episcopalians United), the group that brought the conference together.

Howe has called for Griswold and all the bishops who participated in Robinson’s consecration to resign.

Religionjournal.com.

Published by Keener Communications Group, January 2004

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