Feb

16

February 16, 2007 |

The creation of a “parallel” Church for conservatives will be considered by Anglican primates today after a report surprisingly gave American liberals an almost entirely clean bill of health.

The conservatives told the primates’ meeting in Tanzania yesterday that they felt abandoned and even persecuted by the leadership of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism. But they were stunned by an official report that judged that the Church was no longer out of line with official Anglican policy on homosexuality, a verdict they will find difficult to accept. telly

This is, in the sense of being a “social” member of a golf club, my church. And it is being smart about a hugely divisive, non-religious issue.

The response to homosexuality is largely culturally driven. If you are an African, while having several wives at once is just fine, being queer isn’t. If you are an American the multi-wife thing is not going to fly but gay, who the hell cares.

The idea of an Orthodox and a Reform version of Anglicanism makes a good deal of sense. And, to extend the Jewish divisions further, we might want to have a Conservative stream as well.

To take a non-gay example - the Orthodox might hold that divorced persons whose spouses are still alive cannot remarry without an annulment or special dispensation from a bishop; the Conservative could take the same view but extend the basis of annulment and dispensation; the Reform might take the view that the Gospels embrace human error and that this provides ample grounds to marry and remarry as the Spirit takes people. Each view can find Biblical justification; however, culturally each view may violate various cultural understandings.

If there is to be a schism in the Anglican Church it will be between those of us who believe that God begins with a blessing and those who believe that He begins with a curse. I’m with the Pelagians on this. However, as God himself is largely silent, the possibility of reconciling culture with religion through a parallel structure seems sensible.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. EMG on February 17, 2007 12:05 am

    Re. “The response to homosexuality is largely culturally driven. If you are an African, while having several wives at once is just fine, being queer isn’t. If you are an American the multi-wife thing is not going to fly but gay, who the hell cares.”

    I think we might be losing the plot a bit here. The Anglican Church in Africa has performed no polygamous marriages that I’m aware of–and, frankly, I can’t imagine the church-formerly- known-as-ECUSA having any trouble with it if it did.

    I think you’re right about the parallel structure thing, but it’s hardly to be desired from a strict Anglican point of view, as (I think I’m right in thinking) it would mean fracture, not just an impairment, of the communion. Though, of course, that might mean realignment with Rome for the conservatives … (Yeah right.)

  2. Ben (The Tiger) on February 21, 2007 1:14 am

    Yeah, right?

    Maybe, someday…

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