Associated Press – June 30, 2008
LONDON – The spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans raised questions Monday about the legitimacy of plans to create a global network of conservative Anglicans that would challenge his authority and the teachings of liberal North American churches.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said the proposal to form a separate global council of conservative bishops who will train priests and interpret Scripture would create more problems than it solves.
A council “which consists of only a self-selected group … will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion,” he said.
The plan emerged from a weeklong meeting in Jerusalem of conservative Anglican bishops, clergy and lay people from Africa and some north American and British churches. In a declaration Sunday, they announced plans for the fellowship as a “church within a church,” stopping short of a complete break with the communion.
Conference participants expressed outrage at what they consider a “false gospel” that has led churches in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere to accept gay relationships. Long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret the Bible erupted in 2003 when the U.S. Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
On Monday, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, said that “much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission” from the Jerusalem conference.
“Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable,” she said. “This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers.”
In recent years, overseas conservatives have taken leadership of the more than 60 Episcopal parishes that have split from the denomination. The Episcopal Church includes more than 7,000 parishes.
As part of their new fellowship, the conservatives said they would continue to take in breakaway churches.
Williams warned that the conservatives’ plans to intervene when congregations or priests around the world complain about the teachings of their local bishops would lead to the church being used to settle personal scores.
“How is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where are underlying non-theological motivations at work?” he said.
In their official statement from the conference, the conservative groups said they “do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury.” They also called the current setup for the communion, with the archbishop of Canterbury at its center, “a colonial structure.”
The Anglican Communion is a 77 million-member family of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. It is the third-largest grouping of churches in the world, behind Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and has always held together different views.
The Jerusalem meeting was held just ahead of a once-a-decade gathering of all Anglican bishops, called the Lambeth Conference. Some of the more than 200 bishops in Jerusalem plan to boycott Lambeth, which begins July 16 in England.
—
AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted June 30, 2008 at 6:17 pm
This makes the internal Anglican problems, to me, even more interesting, because it really points to a crisis in the central leadership. The liberals do not respect the authority of the larger church—if they did, they would not openly violate traditional Anglican theology. Neither do the conservatives seem to have any faith in the leadership, or they wouldn’t be breaking the structuring rules and arguing against the very legitimacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And of course, once the central power loses authority, the whole group has to eventually fall apart.
God bless.
posted June 30, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Ah if only this urge to unmerge would take hold in the RCC! With its anti-effective birth control campaigning it’s caused untold misery and the world would be better off without it. We really don’t need at least the conservative part of the Anglican whatever, either.
posted June 30, 2008 at 7:41 pm
To say “we really don’t need at least the conservative part of the Anglican whatever” is to say “we don’t need Christ” so if the liberals are saying the same thing as the atheist there is something to be said for the conservatives, they must be the “true believers.”
posted June 30, 2008 at 7:59 pm
We don’t have “Christ” and we’re getting along (so far, but global warming really does have me worried) so I’d say it’s true, we don’t need Christ. But that’s a different thing from saying we don’t need a church or part of one.
posted June 30, 2008 at 9:31 pm
‘there is something to be said for the conservatives, they must be the “true believers”‘
That’s commonly thought and in some sense surely true. But it’s no complement to a person to say they believe in something even with no evidence for its truth and even when it’s harmful to other people.
posted June 30, 2008 at 10:19 pm
This alas, is not really about theology or gays but power. A group of third world bishops along with a group of first world leaders are wanting more power akin to the Roman Catholic system. They believe they only have the right interpretation of the bible. They, and they alone are the ‘gate-keepers’ who know who is in and who is out.
Their theology and worldview is decidedly fundamentalist. Rightly have they been called ‘Christian Taliban’!
Peace
jeff
posted June 30, 2008 at 11:27 pm
ENUF OF THIS JABBERING!!!!
I say it is high time that denominational officials (no exceptions or excuses) and delegates got into the Spirit of Summer. If we really want to test Power, I suggest a Greased Watermelon contest. It is no more slippery than their words, and at least SOMEONE will get something to eat. If not this, then Capture the Flag in a Cathedral – sort of a combination of that classic game with Hide & Seek – extra points for palying it in the dark and with flashlights. If we need to get into the ecclesiastical spirit, then how about Pin the Mitre on the Bishop – lots of funny places for THAT to go! I am sure each faction would delight in crafting a Pinata of the othr faction representatives – and they will get rid of some of that aggressive energy.
And if all else fails – GO BUILD SOMETHING. All this energy that goes to waste while they yack and chat ought to generate something productive. Each faction should go build a Habitat House or two. The fastest or most or best (Ty Pennington judges this one) wins – and so do the home owners. That or feeding the most homeless or street people.
After a while all this back and forth is as exciting as – well, its not. If nothing beneficial comes from all this hot air and slipped spit, then what is the use?
posted July 1, 2008 at 12:40 am
Oh, I disagree Jeff it is about homosexuality and the Bible and the sinful nature of same sex, but I do agree with jest it is non-productive and the world would be better served if the money used for all of the flying and fighting would go to feed and educate some poor folk, but then they would be doing what Christ commanded them to do and nobody wants to do that.
posted July 1, 2008 at 8:25 am
Count me, too, among the more productive uses crowd.
posted July 1, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I think jeff is very close to the truth.
Jestrfyl, that was a creative post and truthful, too. I especially like the game “Pin the Mitre on the Bishop”! LOL
You could sell that game!
posted July 1, 2008 at 6:37 pm
The fact that they refer to the ABC as a “colonial” structure indicates what is really going on. The third-world bishops resent feeling like change is being thrust upon them by the Western churches; so it is as much about power and identity as Scripture and Christianity. Akinola, in particular, is trying to secure for himself some kind of position as the Archbishop of the Third World, criticizing our church for Bishop Robinson, while completely ignoring the polygamy known to exist in the Nigerian church.
posted July 2, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Just split already….and then they each can finally get down to following their own version of the “sacred text”. Everyone seems to want to be “right” and there is no “right”.