AC to ECUSA: Shape up, or else.

Various reports from Dar es Salaam suggest that the Anglican Communion came quite close to a split. The deal that ABC Williams brokered puts The Episcopal Church on a much shorter leash than the Windsor Report did and provides the prospect of significant relief for the orthodox American parishes. (Details to follow on the primatial vicar, but Bp. Schori surely knows how risky it would be to try to run roughshod over the orthodox on this matter.) Rod, I agree that formal schism appears inevitable. It is still likely to take a while to happen, because there are a lot of Anglicans in many parts of the world who continue to see it as a last resort. Plus, murky compromise is an Anglican specialty. But the compromises are becoming less murky, so that won't go on forever. A point of nomenclature: the denomination no longer uses "Episcopal Church in the USA" (ECUSA). It now uses The Episcopal Church (TEC), which apparently emphasizes the fact that it has non-US components (the American Church in Paris, for example). There's some speculation that the change also is in preparation for the time when TEC is a worldwide organization that's outside the Anglican Communion. Why do liberals within TEC want to stay in the Anglican communion? They earnestly believe that they are right and are on the cutting edge, and that the rest of the communion will agree with them one day when it's outgrown its backward prejudices. They are encouraged by the fact that they have a lot of theological company in Canada, in the UK (which is really mixed, with some strongly liberal elements and some very conservative elements), and elsewhere (e.g. parts of Australia). 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. Many of them are also mighty attached to the familiar place and the familiar people. Ideally, they would like to continue to have a link with Canterbury, but if they are forced to choose, most will stay with TEC rather than go with go with a breakaway group that is part of the worldwide Anglican communion.

Is that the same Jim Naughton who wrote Catholics in Crisis? Richard

"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

"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.