Conservative Anglicans: The Divide over Homosexuality
The Lambeth Conference for bishops of the Anglican Communion (held once a decade) will take place from July 20 to August 2. This year, however, a real divide has emerged, and according to an article in the New York Times, “a quarter of the bishops are expected to boycott the conference and attend a rival meeting for conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem.” The schism centers on the debate over homosexuality. Two bishops have not been invited to Lambeth, one Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop from New Hampshire and Bishop Martyn Minns, who ministers to conservatives in the Church of Nigeria, “who want to leave the Episcopal Church.” The rival meeting will not coincide with the Lambeth conference and takes place from June 22 to June 29 – the Holy Land 2008 meeting began on Sunday. According to the NYT article, about 10% of the bishops at the Jerusalem conference (the Global Anglican Future Conference or GAFCON) will also attend Lambeth. 1,200 delegates are in attendance at the Jerusalem gathering, and at the opening session, Rev. Akinola said that GAFCON was not going to break away from the Anglican Communion, but they “had no other place to go.” Also, for obvious reasons, you won’t find much information about GAFCON from the Lambeth conference website.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:50 am
[…] On June 23, this blog discussed the Anglican divide over homosexuality. Now, this week has seen another contentious issue resurface in the Church of England. The General Synod met this year from July 4 to July 8 and voted on Monday, July 7 to approve the appointment of women bishops in Britain. The BBC News website has excellent coverage of the issue, and published on Wednesday, “Q&A: Anglican Church Divisions.” The first question is, “Could recent developments mean the end of the Anglican Church as we know it?” There is also a more topical Q&A on the “Vote over Women Bishops.” The New York Times article, “Church of England Endorses Women as Bishops,” points out that the background to this news is a “deep division between liberals and traditionalists…mainly over the issue of homosexuality.” Despite these two major points of contention, the answer to the BBC question above is rather grim - “About 1,300 clergy say they may leave the Church of England because they cannot accept women bishops.” How that would not “split the church” is beyond comprehension. The BBC website also directs readers to an organization of women, called Women and the Church (or Watch), which is capaigning for women to be bishops. On the other side is the question of the Church of England’s connection to the Vatican. According to the Catholic News Agency’s article, “Unity Impossible if Anglican Church Ordains Women Bishops,” the consecreation of women as bishops should only be done with the “support from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.” If not, “the tone of ecumenical dialogue would change and future talks would no longer have unity as their goal.” This dialogue between the churches is in the context of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which has in the past suffered over the issue of homosexuality and its growing acceptance in the Anglican Communion. […]