Anglican Church Asks U.S., Canada to Leave (church gay bashing)

By ROBERT BARR
Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) -- Anglican primates agreed Thursday that the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada would withdraw from a key body of the global Anglican Communion after failing to overcome internal church disagreements about the election of a gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions there and in Canada.

The agreement marked the first formal breach in the communion over the explosive issues of sexuality and biblical authority.

A statement from leaders of Anglican national churches who met this week in Northern Ireland also called on the two churches to explain their thinking on gay issues at another Anglican meeting in June.

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold, said the debate would continue and that his fellow church leaders had made room "for a wide variety of perspectives."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ANGLICANS_GAYS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

It really is like the world's politest fight, but the feelings are really deep, and outside the UK, the US and Canada, the Anglican communion is much more conservative.

I suspect that we will go it alone, and that will not be a problem

here is what the US and Canada are asked to step away from( same article):

The Anglican Consultative Council is the body through which leaders of the national churches meet and consult in between the once-every-10-years Lambeth Conferences. The U.S. and the Canadian churches each send three delegates to the council, which is the only global Anglican body which includes bishops, priests and laity, said James Rosenthal, spokesman for the Anglican Communion.

how asking us to step away furthers the cause of unity. You don't come to agreement by asking one side to step away from the table and stop talking.

The Windsor Report seems to use the process of women's ordination as their model. Using their reckoning, it took nearly 50 years... and some dioceses even in the Episcopal church still won't ordain women, not to mention the cold shoulder female bishops receive from the larger Anglican Communion. I can't see waiting 50 years for simple justice once again.

The report upsets me, because it seems to fault the US and Canadian churches for upsetting the apple cart. We're to apologize, but there's no call for the "southern" churches to examine their own beliefs and consciences. No implication that we might be right and even doing God's will and that they need to take an honest look at their prejudices.

I feel like a kid, who confronted for the umpteenth time by a bratty sibling, finally gives in and argues. And gets told by the parents that we're both wrong for fighting, and I should go to my room.

I'm betting some of the other bishops start singing a different tune

Third World churches, who have suddenly realized that they're the majority of the world's Anglicans.

One of our former priests (she decided she wanted to be rector elsewhere instead of staff clergy here) is an out lesbian, and she hosted a priest from Uganda for General Convention. This Ugandan priest was genuinely bewildered by her being a lesbian. "In Uganda," he said, "men love women, and women love men. We don't have any of that homosexuality stuff."

Of course, he's in deep denial, but if he's typical of attitudes in Africa, and if the African and Asian churches are feeling their oats, it's no wonder that the Anglican Communion is divided.

I fully support the ordination and consecration of GLBT clergy and bishops who are in committed relationships, because one thing I've learned from nearly thirty years of observing same-sex relationships at every stage from first infatuation to "boring old couple" to break-up or death of one partner, I can say only that the emotions are exactly the same as for heterosexual couples.

The rector of our church is a lesbian, and we have had a number of seminarians who are gay or female or both, and we still have congregations in this diocese that won't recognize women as priests.

We have a very multicultural congregation because of the influx of immigrants from former English colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, but it does not seem that they have brought conservative influences with them, or they would not be in our church.