Episcopal News Service Thursday, August 03, 2006
Via Media USA groups connect people, focus on mission
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[ENS] When Christopher Wilkins thinks about healthy church communities, one metaphor he considers is that of a harp.
The individual strings "learn how to play themselves together to make harmony." If the harp is broken, the strings can't sing together.
There is dissonance in Episcopal dioceses whose leadership struggles with the Episcopal Church, Wilkins said. Those who don't agree or don't want to be part of that struggle feel isolated and filled with grief.
"A lot of the dynamics you see are grief dynamics. Part of that is an intense anger about having lost something valuable," said Wilkins, the facilitator of Via Media USA, a nationwide alliance of Episcopal laity and clergy formed in 2004 to offer a counterpoint to efforts to "realign" the Episcopal Church along more conservative lines.
There are Via Media USA-affiliated groups in the dioceses of Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Rhode Island, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina, Southwest Florida, Springfield and Tennessee.
Wilkins is also the vice president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP), a Via Media USA affiliate. Joan R. Gundersen is PEP's president.
Pittsburgh has been a focus of efforts to "realign" the Episcopal Church. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan is the moderator of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN). Formed in 2004, the ACN - also known as the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDP) - is a group of diocesan leaders and congregations who oppose recent decisions made in the Episcopal Church, including the 2003 election of an openly gay priest as the diocesan bishop in New Hampshire. The ACN's website says that 10 of the Episcopal Church's 111 dioceses - Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield -have "ratified their affiliation" with the Network.
The Network concluded a two-day Annual Council meeting August 2 at Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh.
"What troubles us about how some of the Network folks who operated, is that they kind of exacerbate that tension in an effort to bring people onto their team to solve the problem they have then created for them by breaking their church," Wilkins said. "That's beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned. That's completely
-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.
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