By Patrick B. Craine
ANAHEIM, California, July 14th, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Worldwide schism within the Anglican Communion appears to be imminent after the US Episcopalian Bishops voted Monday 99-45 to officially allow and affirm the ordination of practicing homosexuals “to any ordained ministry” at their 76th General Convention in Anaheim, California. The decision is being interpreted as allowing the consecration of openly homosexual bishops, which has been a question of especial tension in the Anglican Communion.
Referring to homosexuals in “lifelong committed relationships,” the Bishops resolved to “affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church.”
The US Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has been embroiled in controversy since 2003, when they elected the Anglican Communion's first openly homosexual bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who had left his wife and two children and was at the time in a 13-year-long same-sex relationship. Since that point the Anglican Communion has only tenuously been held together by dint of last-ditch measures – including the adoption of a temporary moratorium on consecrating homosexual bishops by the ECUSA.
In 2006, at their 75th General Convention, the Episcopalian Bishops initially rejected the Anglican Communion's 2004 Windsor Report, which had instituted a total ban on consecrating homosexual bishops. They then partially reversed their decision less than 24 hours later, hoping to avoid a schism – although they used alternate wording to that handed down by Canterbury.
At the time they resolved “to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.”
While not consecrating another openly homosexual bishop in the intervening three-year period, ECUSA has obstinately persisted in their promotion of the homosexual agenda and made clear their desire to consecrate homosexual bishops, despite pleas and ultimatums from the Anglican hierarchy.
At a February 2007 meeting of the bishops of the Anglican Communion in Tanzania, the bishops demanded ECUSA repent of its promotion of homosexuality, issuing them an ultimatum. “At the heart of our tensions is the belief that the Episcopal Church has departed from the standard of teaching on human sexuality” by ordaining Gene Robinson, the bishops wrote, and “by permitting Rites of Blessing for same-sex unions.” ECUSA was told not to consecrate anymore homosexual bishops and to cease blessing same-sex unions, as well as to issue a public acceptance of the Windsor Report. They were given until September 2007 to meet these demands in order to maintain full membership in the Communion.
In March 2007, however, ECUSA rejected the ultimatum, including the demand to cease consecrating openly homosexual bishops, asserting they would leave the Communion before rejecting homosexuality. The ultimatum, they said, “harks back to a period of colonialism from which The Episcopal Church was liberated. It replaces local rule by laity with a curial model.”
Further, when the ultimatum's deadline came up, ECUSA Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori stated that they would continue to embrace homosexuality, blessing same-sex unions, and consecrating homosexual bishops. “[We are] not going backward, but willing to pause,” she said. “All people, including gay and lesbian Christians and non-Christians, are deserving of the fullest regard of the church.”
In a section of explanation attached to their resolution yesterday, the bishops admitted that “The acceptance of the ministry of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons is not settled in The Episcopal Church or in the Anglican Communion.”
They justified themselves, however, stating, “While the church continues to discern God's will in these matters, it is important to remind ourselves that sacramental theology since the time of Augustine of Hippo has affirmed that the validity of sacraments does not depend on the character of the ordained person celebrating those sacraments.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressed his disappointment in the decision. Speaking to the General Synod of the Church of England, he said, “I regret the fact that there is no will to observe the moratorium in such a significant part of the Church in North America.”
The debate over homosexuality has already led to major splits within the Anglican Communion, and this most recent decision has many fearing another break. In 2005, the Nigerian Anglican Church, representing the second largest population of Anglicans in the world, announced its break from the Communion over the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of homosexual clergy.
Before the split, the Nigerian Church's leader, Archbishop Peter J. Akinola, had stated, “In the context of our part of the Church and society, we see [homosexuality] as a behaviour that is expressly forbidden and roundly condemned in scripture. Moreover, homosexuality is flagrant disobedience to God, which enables people to pervert God's ordained sexual expression with the opposite sex. In this way, homosexuals have missed the mark; they have shown themselves to be trespassers of God's divine laws.”