Of course one would be a fool to place any hope in any "or else" laid down by the Anglicans, but it certainly does seem that the prelates have sent Bp. Jefferts Schori back home with her wings severely clipped. According to the Times account, the special provision made for the more conservative Episcopalians is seen by some as an unusual restriction on the PB's authority:
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, but then the American Episcopal Church went pretty far off the reservation, very much counter to what the Anglican Communion said was its policy,” said David Hein, a religion professor at Hood College in Maryland and co-author of the book “The Episcopalians.”
“It is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented action.”
ECUSA liberals are certainly not going to take this lying down. How can formal schism possibly be avoided now? As an outsider, I don't see what ECUSA really gets out of being part of the Anglican Communion. They certainly don't share the same faith, as a general matter (individuals do, of course). Would most Episcopalians prefer to stay with ECUSA, or does membership in the worldwide Anglican church mean more to them? One thing's for sure: though ECUSA pushed this schism by flagrantly ignoring the rest of the communion and its wishes, to say nothing of Scripture and tradition, the church left will blame the vast majority of world Anglicans, who stand on Scripture and Tradition, for being the communion-breakers.
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Splinterers tend to keep splintering. There is already movement among some of the conservative groups, now that they've "won" in their marginalizing of gay church goers, to try to win back their "loss" in the debate on ordaining women. And on and on it will go.
"Is that the same Jim Naughton who wrote Catholics in Crisis?" It is the same man and he quit the Catholic Church for TEC a few years back. It is highly interesting to read his excoriation of Cardinal Hickey and the Archdiocese of Washington following canons to a T, stifling the spirit, etc. etc. and now, as the paid shill for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, he makes all sorts of appeals to church canons and ecclesiastical process (Oh how we love process!), councils, and la-de-da. What humbug. My friend Michael Winters got his number long ago in his devastating book review of "Catholics in Crisis." http://www.tboyle.net/University/Crisis_Book_Review.html
Very interesting review. I read the book about four years ago and couldn't for the life of me tell which side Naughton was on, but it was clear that what he was presenting as representative was not much different from the situation I was leaving (ECUSA). If he was trying to present the liberal side as the "correct" side, his approach backfired with this reader, because I was absolutely horrified at how up for negotiation nearly every aspect of the faith was presented as being, and that was the "crisis" I assumed the title had as its referent. Richard
"As for the middle of the road Episcopalians in the pews, many of them are pretty malleable when it comes to doctrine and will follow where the clergy lead. " This is a problem that I have with the whole denominational thing. You have people going to a church where they may or may not believe what the church is teaching. My hope for this schism is that people will find spiritual truth that goes beyond the political machinations of denominational big-wigs.
Some defend tradition from a different perspective. Spong springs to mind as a very effective advocate for 'the other side'.
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