Let The Schism Begin

Today, the Primates of the Anglican Communion (of which my church, as part of the Episcopal Church of the USA or ECUSA, is part) officially asked for the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw their representatives to the Communion's Consultative Council. The Primates also asked that they prepare their justifications for their recent actions, for presentation to the rest of the Anglican Communion in June of this year.

For those of you who just joined us, the Anglican Church of Canada stirred up a great deal of controversy when the Diocese of New Westminster declared their intention to perform blessings for same-sex unions. The ECUSA further stoked the fire by consecrating an openly gay priest as the Bishop of New Hampshire shortly thereafter. These two decisions, which were made without any consultation of the rest of the bodies that are part of the Anglican Communion, as well as completely against established Christian tradition and scriptural doctrine, have raised a great deal of rancor within the Anglican Communion as a whole, and within their own jurisdictions.

This is obviously a terribly unfortunate occurrence, one that has pitted Christian brothers and sisters within the same church against each other. At my current church, I heard of long-time friends losing contact when one family left because they did not agree with the rector's stance on this issue. Some churches within the US have even discussed "defecting" from their supervising bishops in their dioceses and seeking "pastoral oversight" from bishops who agree with their own point of view. To make matters worse, so far, neither the ECUSA nor the Anglican Church of Canada has even attempted to present any sort of justification; indeed, the bishops have presented their argument as, "We are autonomous entities within the Anglican Communion and are free to make our own decisions as we see fit." I have yet to see a convincing theological or scriptural argument from either entity regarding their decisions. We have yet to see an argument presented as to why this sort of thing can be somehow justified, how the liberal bishops in the US and Canada may somehow be forgiven for bringing this conflict into the Communion, how they can expect to survive this attack upon some very core beliefs of traditional Christianity without tearing the Communion apart. I don't expect there to be a sufficient argument presented. The gauntlet has been thrown down to these bishops to explain themselves or prepare for the consequences.

My position on these issues is obvious from my previous posts. You can agree with my stance or not, I don't really care. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this IS my blog and not yours. But the way I see it is, the line MUST be drawn. This issue doesn't just come down to rights for gays, it picks at the very core of human morality. It touches on a single question: is some act or some lifestyle immoral just because everyone agrees that it's immoral? Gay rights is one thing, but what do these people really want? They want to justify their choice of lifestyle and force everyone else to accept those justifications and let them do whatever they want to do. In other words, "I want to do it, so that makes it OK, and if you don't understand that, well, you're just a hater (or homophobe or ." I suspect that the "argument" presented this June by the liberal bishops will be along this same line, just couched in more theological terms. They will try to argue about the "context" of the Bible's message. They will discuss vague language and translational issues. Essentially, all of their arguments will point in one direction: "We have the right to interpret the Bible to fit our beliefs and worldview."

Is this where "progress" has led us? To the idea that we can throw away whatever moral rules we have created, or were given by our Creator, to suit our whims? What basis, if any, is there for ANY kind of morality or standards for acceptable behavior? You know, that 7th Commandment is a real downer; I'd argue that it's really out of context for today's world and should just be ignored. After all, I bet there are MANY more adulterers in the world than homosexuals.