Latest Anglican News                        Volume 1, Number 15,                             14 November 2007

After years of threatening the breakup of The Episcopal Church (TEC), direct action has finally begun.  Both sides of the aisle have taken steps to part the ways.  And it may be the beginning of the end of the Anglican Communion (AC) as we now know it.

From David Virtue’s November 2nd  VirtueOnLine column, “We are reaching new levels of public acrimony as never before seen. Things being said in the back rooms on both sides are now being made public for all to see. The long knives are out. The purging of the orthodox from TEC has now begun in earnest.”

Dioceses that wish to secede from TEC because of disputes over doctrine and discipline will be given an ecclesiastical home in the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone if they desire it.  Meeting Nov 5-7 in Valparaiso, Chile, the Southern Cone synod voted to allow dioceses and other ecclesial entities in North America to affiliate with its province.  Under Archbishop Gregory Venables, The Provincia Anglicana del Cono Sur de América is comprised of the dioceses of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. 

In a letter to his members, dated 2 November, 2007,  by Bishop-elect David Anderson, President of the American Anglican Council (AAC), said, “The Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) is approaching the time when he also will have to choose which path he will walk: one of orthodoxy and faith or one of heterodoxy and accommodation.”

On this note, an editorial appeared in last Saturday’s London’s Guardian newspaper entitled “Anglican Communion  – Beyond compromise”.  “Commenting that with some Primates asking the ABC to postpone the Lambeth Conference, planned for next summer, and with the Primate of the Southern Cone (see above) offering affiliation to disgruntled U.S. entities, the fragile Communion may be beyond saving.”  They state it has “always been a loose and unwieldy alliance.  The Communion has survived since the age of empire only because of the effective acceptance that each church was sovereign in its own land.  Dr Rowan Williams, the ABC, has responded to this pressure by seeking compromises. His difficulty is that, as the head of such a loose confederation, he does not have the power to make deals stick…  Dr. Williams is a liberal who is instinctively supportive of gay people. His desire to hold the communion together, however, has already led him to support a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops and to suggest that Anglican churches should not recognize same-sex unions through public rites. These concessions have not, however, checked the communion's unraveling. The fence on which Dr Williams has been sitting has collapsed.” They end their piece with this statement, “It is time for him to preach what he believes.”

Here in the U.S. the Presiding Bishop of TEC (Katherine Jefforts Schori) has sent letters to both the Bishops Pittsburgh (Bob Duncan) and Ft. Worth (Jack Iker) advising them that if they take specific action to leave TEC, which they both have subsequently done, she will be forced to take legal action to stop them.  Her letters went into considerable detail as to what she may do. 

 The response from Bishop Duncan was very brief, parroting Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I can do no other. I will neither compromise the Faith once delivered to the saints, nor will I abandon the sheep who elected me to protect them.” 

Iker’s response was much lengthier, stating in part: “I…am… rather surprised by your suggestion that I have… abandoned the communion of the church and may be subject to ecclesiastical discipline. Such a charge is baseless. I have abandoned nothing, and I have violated no canons…  The threatening tone of your open letter makes no attempt to promote reconciliation, mediation, or even dialogue about our profound theological differences. Instead, it appears designed to intimidate our delegates and me, in an attempt to deter us from taking any action that opposes the direction in which you are leading our Church…  It grieves me that as the Presiding Bishop you would misuse your office in an attempt to intimidate and manipulate this diocese…  In closing, let me be very clear. While your threats deeply sadden us, they do not frighten us. We will continue to stand firm for the unchanging truth of the Holy Scriptures and the redeeming Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whatever the costs.”

In an email dated 13 November, Dr. Robert S. Munday, President of the Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary in Nashotah, Wisconsin, commented in an op-ed piece entitled "A Church Out Of Control" for VirtueOnLine, "The only way to save the AC is to discipline TEC for its departure from AC norms. The ABC can accomplish this discipline through his prerogative of invitations to the Lambeth Conference. The Primates can accomplish this discipline by censuring the American Church and limiting TEC's participation in the instruments of unity. If this does not happen, not only TEC, but the AC fly apart under the centrifugal forces of the orbit into which the anarchic deviations of the American Church have cast it - and it will happen sooner rather than later. Are you listening, ++Rowan Williams (ABC)?"

Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners