Anglican Church Asks U.S., Canada to Leave

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=529325

Anglican Leaders Ask U.S., Canadian Churches to Withdraw Temporarily From Councils

The Associated Press

LONDON Feb 24, 2005 — Leaders of the global Anglican Communion declared Thursday that they want the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw from the communion's councils temporarily, and to explain their attitudes toward gays which have split the church.

The statement was issued by primates a day earlier than planned, following their meetings this week at a Roman Catholic retreat in Northern Ireland.

The U.S. church precipitated the most serious rift in the communion's history when it affirmed the election of V. Gene Robinson, who openly lives with a male partner, as bishop of New Hampshire. Both churches have been criticized by conservatives for sanctioning blessings of gay unions.

The statement emerged a day earlier than planned from a meeting of church primates in Northern Ireland. It called for the U.S. and Canadian churches to explain their thinking at a meeting in Nottingham, England in June.

:shrug:

nt

(Hurling feces)

damned fools.

Leave the church.

but I wouldn't say it's in America or Canada.

Under the terms of the "Windsor Report" issued earlier this year, the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada were "invited" to stay away from the conclaves of the Anglican Communion until they apologized and repented for having the temerity to ordain a gay bishop and/or bless the marriages of same-sex couples.

Neither church has "repented" of their actions, although they have apologized for creating controversy. Sort of a "I'm so sorry your knickers got in a twist" kind of thing.

So the primates (pronounced pri-muhts to avoid confusion) of the Global South are simply re-iterating their previous demand and delaying any sort of action until further discussions can be had.

...because they have taken the stand that gay people belong in the life, worship, and ministry of the Church. I know Christianity in general has a fairly awful history with sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular, but I'm encouraged by the positive directions taken by these churches.

OK, I'm kidding.

...especially if you get a "high church" crowd knocking at your door. Lots of lovely vestments, incense, bells, and other liturgical bric-a-brac.


<spelling correction on edit>

ringing my doorbell? I open the door to find these three dressed in 'loverly vestments' and threatening me with the terrifying combination of the 'comfy chair' and 'fluffy pillow'.

I guess the Pythons and I share an opinion of organized religion.

The Anglican Communion is far less important than affirming the worth of each individual in the church.

I was heartened by my bishop's support for Gene Robinson, but then he knows Robinson personally, and that helped him enormously in that support. Time will be needed, and an evolution away from very outdated ideas about homosexuality.

...of this action, I'm pulling back from my initial "no big deal" response. Banning the US and Canadian churches from the worldwide Anglican conclaves could be the penultimate step to schism.

But I'm so convinced that time is right for Christians to repent from centuries of oppression against gay people that I would rather see the Anglican churches of North America go their own way and pioneer a way of love and acceptance.

And hope and pray that's what happens. Eventually the others will see the light. Until then, ceding to their bigotry is a giant step backwards.

BBC


Anglican leaders have asked the US and Canadian Churches to withdraw from a key council temporarily because of their stance on homosexuality.

They want the North American Churches to "consider their place within the Anglican Communion", a statement said.

The Anglican community has been divided since 2003 when the US Church backed an openly gay bishop and same-sex unions began to be blessed in Canada.

If the two Churches agree, it could be a first step towards a permanent split.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4296859.stm

Some of these are strange little Anglican congregations, aligned with Howard Ahmenson and Richard Scaife. They are receiving money from those guys.

...who are opposed to the inclusion of gay people are funded in part by Howard Ahamanson through such vehicles as the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and the American Anglican Council (AAC). Ahmanson's home parish (St. James, Newport Beach) recently announced they were withdrawing from the Diocese of Los Angeles and aligning with a conservative Ugandan bishop.

(Without going into great detail about the governance of the Episcopal Church, this is somewhat like a division of a company -- say, General Motors -- telling the CEO, "We're staying here in the factory, but we're going to work for the CEO of Honda now!)

For more details about Ahmanson, see this excellent (and entertaining) article:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/06/ahmanson/

For more details about the IRD's efforts to promote "orthodoxy" in the Episcopal Church, see:

http://www.ird-renew.org/Episcopal/Episcopalmain.cfm

And for the scoop on the AAC, check out:

http://www.americananglican.org/

Notice that the president of the IRD -- Diane Knippers -- is also on the board of the AAC.

More commentary on this action from the BBC:

The threatened split between conservative and liberal Anglicans over homosexuality is now almost complete.

The decision by Anglican leaders to ask North American Churches to withdraw from a key body for three years appears to buy time to resolve the divide.

However, it is widely seen as a victory for the traditionalists.

More at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4296373.stm

It seems to me that many DU topics mentioning a Christian religious body or leader draw a score or more of posters making (in my opinion, rightful) condemnations for Christians' regressive attitudes toward GLBT persons. Some of these criticisms even spin off into inflamed insults and gratuitous personal attacks. Clearly, there are heated opinions about Christianity and gay issues.

Yet here are two major Christian bodies standing up for the unequivocal inclusion of GLBT people, including the blessing of same-sex unions. And not only are these churches leading Christianity in a long-overdue direction, but they are often out in front of secular society in their attitudes and actions.

And the reaction on DU is relative silence.

I don't want to read anything more into this than I should. I'm not issuing a call for a pile-on of "attaboys" directed toward the ECUSA and ACC.

But I find the relative lack of visible DU support for these churches' stands curious.

Others work from a script that declares that all religion and religious people are always and everywhere very, very, very bad, and events like this one don't fit the script.

Christian values of INCLUSION and ACCEPTANCE.

Hope that helps :D

Times
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, made it clear yesterday that the Anglican churches of the US and Canada will have to admit that they are in the wrong over homosexuality if the unity of the Anglican Church is to be preserved.

Dr Williams, speaking in Northern Ireland at the end of the week-long primates’ discussions of the crisis that has brought the Church to the brink of schism, said: “There is no painless solution.

“Any lasting solution will require people to say, somewhere along the line, that they were wrong, wrong about something. What, I do not know. That is for them to determine. It is perfectly possible to take a decision in good faith and afterwards to think, ‘I had not counted the cost’.”

His remarks, at a press conference at the Dromantine Roman Catholic retreat centre to present the primates’ concluding unanimous communiqué, clearly referred to the decisions by the US Episcopal Church to ordain a practising homosexual, Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire, and by the New Westminster Diocese in Canada to authorise same-sex blessings.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1500909,00.html

I may be tempted to convert.

:raspberry:

When those who wear the sacerdotal vestments call themselves 'primates' ? ....

Does the Primate shit in the woods ? ...

Is the Primate catholic ? ...

I know where the term pontiff had arisen ... but I have no idea where 'primate' became the term for church leader ....

Faith is the most over-used word in the English language, if you ask me.

and all sin is equally odious in the eyes of God, then why is a gay Bishop any worse than a lustful, greedy or covetous one? Just curious.

Don't get me started...

Just the Facts About
Sexual Orientation & Youth:
A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel
http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/justthefacts.html#2

At the Center for Family Values and the CMA who know GOOD SCIENCE doesn't require actual research, it only requires opinions offered up by people with the proper moral outlook.

*barf*

to the 'official gay/lesbianism is really bad' way of thinking.

This is not the business of the church, the government, or anyone one else except the parties who are gay/lesbian. Jesus warned us all to "judge not lest ye be judged". Matters of conscience are between a person and their God or whatever/whoever they happen to believe in.

I have always found it fascinating that the biggest area of interest in human relations always boils down to sex. Forget whether or not a person is safe, fed, or sheltered. Who's he sleeping with, now that's the big story.

Another fellow who scandalized the religious authorities of his day by sitting down with tax collectors and prostitutes, and who publicly said that the "dregs" of society were every bit as deserving of God's love and entry into the Kin-dom as anyone else.

Jewish chap in the Middle East. Name escapes right now . . .

then they might have the moral standing to critique the rest of the Communion.

There's some powerful irony in bishops bringing their multiple wives to the Lambeth Conference while accusing others of disobeying church teachings.

Peter Akinola and his confederates are hatemongers, nothing more.

And you seem to have too much vested in other's sexuality. Check yourself.

A little history:

1) Before founding the Church of England, Henry the VIII was such a solid Catholic, he was known as "defender of the faith."
2) Henry the VIII was unable to conceive a child with his queens.
3) He "divorced" each queen who failed to bear royal fruit.
4) When he hit his 4th or 5th discarded queen, he heard from a previously tolerant Pope who said, "enough already, you're violating every rule we have on marriage."
5) Henry took offense at being told he wasn't allowed to throw away his childless queens SO HE STARTED THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
6) The Anglican Communion, known as the Episcopal Church in the US, was founded directly as a result of Henry's problems with conception.
7) Historians argue with some merit that Henry's conception problems were due to syphilis.

OK, DUers, take the leap of logic, if the The Church of England was founded Asa result of Henry's problems with conception AND if his conception problems were based on syphilis, then what role did that condition play in the founding of the Church of England?

(This clever logical reverie caused me to be removed from my Sunday School class for a few weeks when I was 11, although they never were able to prove to me that I was wrong.)

Who are these arrogant frauds, apologists and enablers of colonialism, who are they to tell the Episcopal Church of the US anything?

not that they affect the criticisms of the Church of England much, but just for historical accuracy:

It was Henry VIII's first marriage that was the problem. He and Catherine of Aragon had had one child - a girl, Mary, as well as stillborn babies and sons who died within a few days. He wanted a boy to succeed him, and thought he'd never get one with Catherine, so wanted to annul the marriage (since Catherine had been married to Henry's elder brother before he died aged 15, there might have been a chance of this, because some say the Bible says you shouldn't marry your brother's widow). But Catherine's nephew Charles V of Spain was in control of Rome, so the Pope was never going to declare her child a bastard.

By this time, Catherine was 41, and Henry not sleeping with her. So the split from the Roman Catholic church began, to annul the marriage whatever the Pope said.

Henry had a further daughter by Anne Boleyn, and a son by Jane Seymour, plus some reputed illegitimate children, so it's unlikely that his syphilis was the main cause of the problems getting live heirs (unless the syphilis had, perhaps, affected Catherine's health too - I don't know if that's thought to be the case or not).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII

http://www.historyonthenet.com/Chronology/timelinecatherine.htm

...should keep Anglicans (and their heirs, the Episcopalians) very humble. The Catholics and Orthodox claim that JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF started their respective churches. No such luck for the Anglicans.

BTW -- the Anglican Church of the 14th and 15th centuries was perfectly awful in their treatment of Catholics. In many ways, I think it was worse than the Spanish Inquisition.

I've studied a lot of church history and one theme rings loud and clear in all places at all times -- when the Church and State are intertwined nothing but misery occurs.

I love my church -- despite its ancient sins -- but I love freedom of conscience and a strict separation of church and state more. Religion goes rotten and the state becomes corrupt when they are linked.

...the Anglican Church's beastly behavior to British Catholics was most prevalent in the 16th/17th century, not the 14th/15th as I stated. Just a brain slip there.

And, it should be pointed out that many English universities would not allow Catholics on the faculty until the 19th century and even, in some cases, into the early 20th century.

Plenty of very bad behavior in that church.