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RELIGION: Episcopal Leaders Forestall Split over Gays

Lisa Vives

NEW YORK, Sep 27 2007 (IPS) - A compromise has been worked out over the consecration of gays in the Episcopal Church that may mend what has been nearly an unraveling of the third largest Christian community worldwide.

This week, at a crucial meeting in New Orleans, Episcopal bishops overwhelmingly agreed to step back from the controversial blessings of same-sex couples. They also agreed to "exercise restraint" in the selection of candidates for bishop and avoid choosing anyone whose "manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church."

An official response from the Anglican Communion, a worldwide affiliation of Anglican Churches with over 77 million members, headquartered in England, could take months.

The Episcopal Church, the U.S. body of Anglicanism with 2.3 million members, was facing pressure from conservatives in the worldwide communion since its consecration in 2003 of the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a gay man, as bishop of the U.S. state of New Hampshire.

But an intractable anti-gay doctrine among some U.S. clerics is unlikely to be appeased by the New Orleans declaration and defections now underway may increase towards churches in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria where anti-gay beliefs are rampant in some religious sects.

Four or five of the 110 U.S. dioceses, led by theologically conservative bishops, are reportedly eyeing a break with the church, joining 32 congregations now affiliated with churches in Africa. Another 23 have voted to leave – out of more than 7,600 congregations in 110 dioceses in the United States and 15 other countries.

Ideological divisions within the church had been foreseen in a 2001 study by the Institute of Democracy Studies of the conservative "renewal movement" within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, calling it "part of a broad right-wing movement within mainline Protestant denominations nationwide."

Entitled "A Church at Risk: The Episcopal &#39Renewal Movement&#39," the study by Lewis C. Daly observed that the Episcopal Church is "under attack" by a conservative movement that "is seeking to uproot [it] from its historic role in American public life."

"The consecration of bishops for the Anglican Mission in America, self-described as a missionary movement of Rwanda committed to reaching the unchurched in North America, has political implications that go well beyond the church, and it is important to understand how Anglican evangelical networks overlap with political and social policy objectives in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere," Daly wrote.

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola is one of the ardent critics of the U.S. church. In an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from the House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria, issued on Sep. 14, Akinola and his colleagues stressed their concern for what they called "this current crisis in our common life".

He was also behind a proposed bill in the Nigerian National Assembly that would impose five-year sentences on same-sex couples and would outlaw all "political organising on behalf of gay rights."

In 2007, Akinola formed the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a U.S.-based missionary branch of the Nigerian Church. Under African bishops like Akinola, conservative U.S. clergy are consecrated as their bishops in the United States.

Just last month, Rev. Bill Murdoch and Rev. Bill Atwood from Massachusetts and Texas, respectively, were consecrated as suffragan Anglican bishops in All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, in a ceremony conducted by the Archbishop of Kenya.

The New Orleans resolution signed by the Episcopal House of Bishops addressed these so-called "boundary violations". It called for an "immediate end" to the practice of foreign bishops&#39 consecrating conservative U.S. clergy to minister to breakaway congregations in the United States.

Issued Tuesday, the resolution was not wholly rejecting of gays. It called for "unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety and dignity of gay and lesbian persons." It has drawn mixed reviews.

"Clearly, they did their best to respond to those of us who felt we needed to hit the pause button," says the Rev. Russell Levenson, a conservative pastor of St. Martin&#39s Episcopal Church in Houston, the largest Episcopal church in the United States.

"I think this is far short of what was asked for. It&#39s a technical slide-by at best," said Martyn Minns, a former Episcopal rector who jumped ship to take a position in a competitor Virginia-based Anglican "convocation" under Nigeria&#39s Akinola.

Bishop Robinson, the lightning rod for the church schism, said that he still believes the Episcopal Church is moving toward greater support of gay rights.

"Chicago has nominated an openly gay person [as bishop], and there will be other dioceses that will do so – it&#39s the way the world is moving, and it&#39s the way the church is moving," he said. "It&#39s anyone&#39s guess as to when that will happen, but, in the meantime, it&#39s a little lonely."

A meeting of all Anglican Bishops is slated for their once-a-decade Lambeth conference next July. With liberal Episcopalians and the Communion conservatives so fixed in their positions, the prospect of a definitive split may again arise.

Meanwhile, in Africa, governments have been hardening their policies regarding gays and lesbians. In Zimbabwe, a "sexual deviancy" law passed in 2006 makes it a criminal offence for two people of the same sex to hold hands, hug, or kiss. Other countries criminalising homosexuality include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, among others.

Criticism of the New Orleans declaration has already been heard in Kenya and Uganda.

"What we expected to come from them is to repent – that this is a sin in the eyes of the Lord and repentance is what me, in particular, and others expected to hear coming from this church," said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya&#39s Anglican Church in a BBC press interview.

It was "not a change of heart", said Ugandan David Zac Niringiye, assistant bishop of Kampala, and showed the church was already split.

A gathering of conservative Anglican Churches, some of which are still part of the Episcopal Church and some of which have broken away, will take place this week in city of Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania to discuss their future.