The Anglican Church--and, specifically, the Anglican Church in America--is going through a schism that isn't easily defined, as one will note after reading a couple of posts at GetReligion.
The first post by Mollie, includes this paragraph from one of Mollie's usual sources:
Many of my sources tell me horror stories about being mishandled by reporters. Just this week I was talking to a friend of mine, a former reporter who goes to Falls Church Episcopal, one of the churches that just split from The Episcopal Church. I asked her what she thought of the media coverage of the story and she said, “Well, what do you expect? Of course they get the story wrong.” Without getting into the merits of the coverage, she said her frustration is that the story is being portrayed as about homosexuality when she considers the story to be about being in a church that confesses the Gospel correctly.
Indeed, the coverage about the split in the Episcopal church has been tied largely to only two issues: homosexuality and female priests.
But the schism is much more complex than that, if what my Episcopal friends say is correct. A better umbrella description of the problem is overarching liberalism in a church where a significant minority doesn't accept it.
In tmatt's post, he tells an old joke (from the 1980s!) that epitomizes the problem:
But if you really want to grasp some of the subtleties of what is happening, please pause for a moment and consider this joke that I first heard back in the mid-1980s, although I assume it is older than that. It’s a joke that says quite a bit about First World Anglicans on the left and the right. It’s a joke that is sure to offend folks on both sides, and this is how I heard the joke told long ago:The year is 2010 and two graduates of the very conservative Anglo-Catholic seminary called Nashotah House are standing in the back of the Washington National Cathedral as the church’s latest presiding bishop and her lesbian partner process down the long center aisle, carrying a statue of the Buddha aloft while surrounded by a cloud of incense.
As they watch this scene unfold, one of the priests leans over and quietly tells the other: "You know, one more thing and I’m out of here."
Note that this is a joke traditionists tell on themselves, one that produces bittersweet laughter. The joke is rooted in the fact that Anglicanism is famous for its ability to compromise on almost every doctrinal issue faced in the Communion.
It is this willingness to compromise on virtually every aspect of doctrine that is causing the splintering of the Episcopal church in America.
Then again, as the joke suggests, maybe not. As a conservative bishop once told me, Episcopalians have become so skilled at compromise that they struggle when asked to face an issue on which compromise is impossible.
It goes like this: One side says that sex outside of marriage is a sin. The other says that sex outside of marriage is not a sin. The Anglican compromise? Sex outside of marriage is occasionally a sin. Here’s another: Salvation is through Jesus Christ, alone. Salvation is not found through Jesus Christ, alone. The compromise? Salvation is occasionally found through Jesus Christ, alone, which means that the right was wrong in saying that salvation is found through Jesus Christ, alone, in the first place. Or something like that. The debates, in the end, center on how fast to move toward a modernized or compromised version of the faith. The method only allows change to move in one direction — away from ancient absolutes.
It's curious that as the Anglican church has compromised its principles, it has lost large numbers of members. It is the churches that compromise less which are gaining membership.
Be that as it may, one needs to recognize that the latest split in the Episcopal church is more complicated than merely being about homosexuality.
If you want to compare the competing views of events on Sunday, all you have to do — once again — is read the accounts in The Washington Times and The Washington Post. Read the stories and then ask yourself these questions.
• Can churches remain in sacramental Communion with one another when they disagree over creedal and sacramental issues?
• Would Episcopal liberals agree or disagree that the church’s doctrines have been changed in recent decades? If it is wrong to say that the doctrines have become more “liberal,” what is the accurate word to use that is not slanted? “Modernized”?
• We have to ask the big question again: When did the fighting begin?
• Is the fighting about one issue, homosexuality?
• Will the conservatives essentially become congregationalists? Will they become members of different or even competing American networks or churches?
Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.
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