wfn.org | Tension brewing as Anglican leaders gather for annual meeting

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Note #6410 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

2-March-2001
01083

Tension brewing as Anglican leaders gather for annual meeting

by Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service

NEW YORK - A year has passed since the Anglican bishops of Rwanda and
Southeast Asia ordained two priests as "missionary bishops" to minister to
conservatives in the Episcopal Church. Since then, some 30 parishes have
bolted from the U.S. church and requested guidance from the two bishops as
part of the "Anglican Mission in America."

	Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold already knows what he plans to
say when he encounters Rwandan Presiding Bishop Emmanuel Kolini this week in
North Carolina.

	"I am glad to see you, Emmanuel," Griswold said with a forced smile. "A
great deal has happened since the last time we were together. I hope you're
well."

	As the 38 Anglican leaders, or primates, meet privately at a conference
center near Hendersonville, N.C., March 2?9 for their annual gathering, the
discord between the liberal First World bishops and conservative Third World
bishops is reaching a fever pitch.

	Conservative bishops - led by Drexel Gomez of the Bahamas and Maurice
Sinclair of Argentina - are at odds with the U.S. church because of its
positions on human sexuality and women's ordination.

	They plan to present a proposal that would reprimand the U.S. church -
including the threat of excommunication - if Episcopalians do not change
their positions.

	They have the support of a small but vocal band of U.S. church members,
some of whom have launched a petition drive to seek oversight from foreign
bishops. "Many Orthodox Episcopalians are intensely frustrated and
discouraged by the state of our church," said the Rev. David Anderson,
president of the conservative American Anglican Council.

	Griswold said he is confident he can derail the proposal, and says he has
the backing of George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury and head of the
communion, to ship the proposal off to an Anglican theological panel.

	In a statement, Carey seemed to fire a warning shot across the bow of both
camps, saying "much will be lost by action which challenges lawful authority
in the body of Christ."

	Griswold acknowledges the strains within his own church and the
70-million?member communion. A radical power shift has altered the dynamics
and strained the authority between the 38 largely autonomous churches, and
Griswold conceded the old rules no longer apply.

	"I think we've lived a life of Anglican politeness for a number of years
and we've simply sort of smiled at one another and had cups of tea,"
Griswold said in an interview at the church's national offices.

	The central question going into the North Carolina meeting is whether any
church within the global communion can discipline another church, or whether
Carey himself even holds that power. Griswold maintains it is a "lived
authority rather than a defined authority."

	As far back as 1878, the communion declared each province must respect the
"duly certified action" of other provinces. But 100 years later the
communion admonished member churches in 1978 "not to take action" on issues
that could affect Anglican unity without first consulting other members of
the communion.

	That was the same message to come out of last year's meeting of the
primates in Portugal, where they scolded the U.S. church for threatening the
unity of the church "in a profound way" by ordaining homosexuals, while also
admonishing the illicitly ordained bishops as "damaging to our mutual
trust."

	One of those two bishops who is now heading the Anglican Mission in
America, John Rodgers, said conservatives can no longer stand and watch as
unorthodox teaching and practice is permitted by the church hierarchy with
no disciplinary action.

	"There is a pervasive cancer" in the church, Rodgers said in an interview.
"It's something you can't do an operation on. It's more a question of
chemotherapy - it has to go through the whole system."

	At a recent summit in the Bahamas, conservatives asserted there is a
"pastoral emergency" in the U.S. church. When asked if that description is
accurate, Griswold responded with an uncategorical "no." There is, he said,
a "deeply grounded graced confidence."

	"We know who we are, we know what God is calling us to participate in as
part of God's larger project," he said. "So let's get on with it."

	The primates are expected to issue a joint statement at the end of their
meeting. Perhaps the more interesting meeting will be immediately after,
when Griswold will summon his own House of Bishops to the same North
Carolina conference center and look to the future.

	Since the primates hold no legislative authority, even the conservatives do
not expect the bishops to announce a major change in policy. Even
Argentina's Bishop Sinclair said overly zealous primates could be dangerous.
"We're not looking for trouble. We're not wanting to have an exaggerated
policing of the communion. ... That would be a nightmare for everyone," he
told The Church Times, the communion's official newspaper.

	Griswold said the bishops at the North Carolina meeting need to learn to
make room for everyone - regardless of ideology - at the table.

	"We are members one of another, like it or not, and we learn to live
together," he said.

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