Why Not A Velvet Divorce? The Honesty Of Schism.
As of late - especially with news of Bishop Steenson’s recently announced planned Romeward journey - I have been left wondering about a small, subtle, yet telling idea that just keeps nagging at me while I follow the Anglican Crisis Part… (anyone remember what chapter we are up to?)
While their is much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of some parties hoping to use what almost appears to be an imminent rupture in Anglican Communion unity between the Global South and the West to bring TEC back into the fold and reverse certain of the recent moves looked upon so unfavorably in other parts of the world… Well I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a bit more artificial concearn here for the sake of leverage on the part of the more conservative and orthodox parties in TEC. Making appeal to the sensibilities of the Afro and Asian Anglicans seems odd… Why now?
Whatever do I mean? 
Well in reality and praxis, shared faith accross the board in the AoC isn’t something that one can easily recognize - with wide lattitude between the high, broad, low, Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, Anglo-papalist, pro-WO, anti-WO parties, etc. (bear in mind, those monikers can be widely mixed and matched…)
Well in reality and praxis, shared faith accross the board in the AoC isn’t something that one can easily recognize - with wide lattitude between the high, broad, low, Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, Anglo-papalist, pro-WO, anti-WO parties, etc. (bear in mind, those monikers can be widely mixed and matched…) 
I can’t help but wonder if branch theory has not made these parties more comfortable with the proposition of further division. Already accepting of the notion that the AoC is not in communion with bodies of the “church catholic” including Catholics (Rome), Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, some of the Old Catholics and (depending upon who you ask) some of the Lutherans and most of the continuing Anglicans.
I am thinking that when conservatives and company make appeal to a vague notion of preserving the Anglican communion as it is aligned right now, why won’t they be rebuffed by the the liberals who could point out with some consistency “We have always NOT been in communion with some of the faithful in the church catholic, and at this time we have generally realigned with the ELCA and implicity with the Euro Lutherans and Ultrajectines!”In point of fact now, the idea of communion and intercommunion is so very open that on the face of it, the Lutheran ministers and bishops of the ELCA and Scandanavia and Germany are in communion without being in communion with the Anglicans of Nigeria or Uganda.
(For the record, in as much as Canterbury didn’t break communion with the Ultrajectines who have readily been ordaining practicing homosexuals for years, one might argue that this cross-communion or intercommunion of diametrically opposed philosophies is coming to a head rather curiously now… I digress)
From a utilitarian perspective, communion between TEC and the ELCA has doubled the ministers available to each other’s congregations in the US. The utility of that, on the face of it, far exceeds the value of communion with broad-church African Evangelical Anglicans. When Canon Jennifer Smythe is ill or needs to go out of town, who is of more use - Pastor Susan Larson at All Saints Lutheran, or Rev Michael Okufu of Kenya?
Having tacitly accepted fractured communion as part of branch theory,and certain of the national churches entering into full communion with third parties altogether, what would be terribly upsetting or unsettling about the sort of realignment that MAY happen? What response can be offered to the low-church liberal who offers “Well, we have come up with a working praxis of NOT being in communion with the majority of the other baptized. That we are not in communion with the Global South Anglicans just reflects a re-alignment.”??
If the de facto working praxis has been that laboring in division with the rest of the “church catholic”, why would the faithful be so desperately concearned about a different or new division? If these parties share disagreement and persist in seeing each other’s attitudes as problematic (”Why can’t the Global southerners accept our new understandings?” ” Why can’t the Global westerners maintain our traditional understanding?”)
Short of having something or, I dunno, someone to straighten out this quarrel with a binding judgement… Why fight all that hard to maintain something that has little bearing on the various parties of global Anglicanism? Frankly, I am no fan of schism, but given that it is a working part of their ecclesiology, admitting this much - that an impasse has been reached and no amount of negotiation could likely help them “meet in the middle”… Well it adds an element of honesty.
David Bennett
Jennifer
asimplesinner
Fr. J.
Chad Toney
Jorge Flores
Jonathan B
carmelbennett
nicenehobbit
Jason S
jaybird68
papaz
September 25, 2007 at 8:08 pm
That’s essentially what I’ve been saying lately in the polite liberal Episcopal blogs, where I get the well-meant answer, ‘let’s ignore our differences on this and go to Communion together’ (shut up and let us have our gay weddings), or when bored, one of the popular in-your-face ones where people are rude to you.
Anyway, I tend to agree with the Episcopal presiding bishop that at least 90 per cent of Episcopalians would not be affected in any way if their church is no longer in the Anglican Communion.
This would not close down the Episcopal Church nor in a free society, which I believe in, should it.
So why not just let it go?
I think this obsession with Anglican polity in the shrill element among the liberals is really to do with their pride and wanting to stamp out the American conservative Episcopalians as a group. They’re totalitarians at heart.
And they’re hypocrites about that polity historically: when they break the rules (like when they ordained women in 1974) it’s ‘prophetic’; when conservatives do it (like when some of them leave the Episcopal Church to join African Anglican churches) it’s ’schismatic’.
Also, Broad Church doesn’t describe the African Evangelical Anglicans. Broad Church and Evangelical are mutually exclusive. Broad Church means liberal and is a category that is, well, broad, covering everybody from former Anglo-Catholics and former Evangelicals who are credally orthodox but OK with women clergy and the gay thing to the fringe like John Spong the atheist.
Evangelicals historically are Calvinists and otherwise stray beyond Anglican thinking, believing the episcopate is optional. Like Anglo-Papalists (Anglicans who believe the papal claims and now use modern RC services) they are nearly unknown in America. Today they can include charismatics and similar happy-clappy folk.
Old-fashioned Central Churchmen, classic Anglicans not on board with gay weddings (I know some), are endangered as are Anglo-Catholics.
The credally orthodox and even liturgically conservative person who accepts (and sometimes is) women clergy and the gay thing is the new centre in the Episcopal Church.
There is a generational divide between old radicals and young relative conservatives there much like in the Roman Church. The people in their 20s and 30s have more in common with me than the elderly Spong or middle-aged Gene Robinson or Katharine Jefferts-Schori.
What a wonderful photo of the Bishop of the Rio Grande - I regret he won’t find nearly as nice in mainstream RC. I knew Dr Steenson long before he was a bishop - he is a gentleman.