02/10: Mainline Problems
Category: Mainline Christianity
Posted by: an okie gardener
From the Washington Post. Some "Third World" Anglican bishops are calling for the U. S. Episcopal church (the Anglican church in the United States) to go ahead and split. Conservatives in the US, upset over the official Episcopal actions regarding same-sex practice (including consecration of a gay bishop) have already begun a process of schism.
Here are the paragraphs relevant to my point:
A suggestion by African, Asian and Latin American Anglican bishops that the Episcopal Church be turned into two churches because of disputes over gay issues would lead to chaos, the head of the U.S. church said on Thursday.
Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church, said a communique issued on September 22 from Kigali, Rwanda, by conservative bishops of a group known as the Global South "raises profound questions about the nature of the church, its ordering and its oversight."
Bishops at the meeting in the Rwandan capital suggested that it was time for Episcopalians upset with the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican Church history should form their own church.
More below
Notice that it is the American church that is out of step with the Asian, African, and Latin American Anglican churches. (Incidentally, rather than declining, Anglicanism is growing outside the West.) More broadly, the American mainline churches often are seen as too liberal on questions of ethics, and as too materialistic, by their sister churches abroad. (Often these sister churches were founded by missionaries in the 19th century and have now come to maturity.) It remains to be seen if American Christians have the humility to listen to brotherly counsel from outside the West.
Here are the paragraphs relevant to my point:
A suggestion by African, Asian and Latin American Anglican bishops that the Episcopal Church be turned into two churches because of disputes over gay issues would lead to chaos, the head of the U.S. church said on Thursday.
Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church, said a communique issued on September 22 from Kigali, Rwanda, by conservative bishops of a group known as the Global South "raises profound questions about the nature of the church, its ordering and its oversight."
Bishops at the meeting in the Rwandan capital suggested that it was time for Episcopalians upset with the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican Church history should form their own church.
More below
Notice that it is the American church that is out of step with the Asian, African, and Latin American Anglican churches. (Incidentally, rather than declining, Anglicanism is growing outside the West.) More broadly, the American mainline churches often are seen as too liberal on questions of ethics, and as too materialistic, by their sister churches abroad. (Often these sister churches were founded by missionaries in the 19th century and have now come to maturity.) It remains to be seen if American Christians have the humility to listen to brotherly counsel from outside the West.