Getting Unfriended

Now that the worldwide Anglican communion has voted to suspend the Episcopal Church USA from voting on decisions made by that body, we need a bit more balance in our conversation than what we get from news headlines.

Time for more calm

For one thing, we aren't the Roman Catholic church, in the sense that the Archbishop of Canterbury (who, by the way, seems very sympathetic to our point of view) is not the head of the USA church. At its best, the international body is a body of cooperation, not of legislation, so nobody is telling us that we must change anything.

On a different level, we don't receive money or anything else tangible from the worldwide body, so we aren't damaged by any kind of a economic boycott.

A little perspective

Over the centuries, our ecclesiastical ancestors had a lot of schisms, so division has become a very troubling idea to Episcopalians. This is why we allow so much breadth of opinion on issues that other denominations would split over. And the issue of gay marriage has become another of those issues that could have split the church (indeed, some delegates seems to have wanted that), but instead we ended up with a three-year cooling period.

It's also worth noting that the strongest opposition to both the idea of ordaining women and the idea of accepting gay marriage came from the African churches, who have the most members (at least on the books) after the Church of England. While the USA is seeing increasing civil rights for gay people, it's still a crime to be gay in Africa, especially in Nigeria, home of the largest Episcopal body. So in a sense, we are seeing a battle between liberal American values and ultra-conservative African values.

Though we have been accused of simply bending our theology so it is more politically correct, we do not make decisions (such as the ones concerning ordination of women or acceptance of gay people) quickly or lightly. It takes a lot of conversation and voting on several levels for the ECUSA to change long-standing practice. We've been working on this one for years.

We still have friends

Several leaders within the Anglican Communion have issues supportive statements, and other USA denominations (such as the UCC) have also made encouraging comments. The screaming headlines that predicted disaster don't tell the whole story.