How not to deal with division
Father Jake reports a recent letter from a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the USA. ECUSA is the focus of much debate in the Anglican Communion worldwide because of its tolerant attitudes towards gay people – indeed, they appointed an openly gay bishop a few years ago. For some, this is intolerable and there is talk of expelling ECUSA from the Anglican Communion, or even setting up a new “orthodox” communion, occupied mostly by the churches of the “Global South” and led in a certain African archbishop. There was an official report a while back called the Windsor report that attempted to lay out some groundwork for continued fellowship while the issues were sorted out.
Although flawed, this report is the only official document available to work with. Among its recommendations were that ECUSA not appoint any more gay bishops (to which ECUSA agreed – by saying that they would thus appoint no bishops at all until matters were resolved) and that bishops should not interfere in the affairs of other bishops, particularly bishops in different churches. However, although the Global South call repeatedly for ECUSA and others to adhere to the recommendations of the Windsor Report when it talks about not appointing gay bishops, they do not feel themselves bound by its recommendations themselves, and there are many reports of African and South American bishops (among others) taking parishes in the USA under their wings, as it were, sanctioning their disagreements with their own bishops.
The letter Father Jake quotes includes this phrase, which is very true, it seems to me.
It becomes increasingly difficult to ask one part of the Anglican Communion to observe the Windsor recommendations in their totality while another segment feels free to pick and choose which they will accept and which they will disobey. Such unilateral action only hardens the division now present.
pax et bonum
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