Anglican Heads Prepare for a Make or Break

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Monday, February 12, 2007

Most Anglican bishops in the Global South have already expressed their firm stance against homosexuality and made a call to resolve the issue soon. But the head of southern Africa is arguing for harmony and acceptance.

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane described the 77-million member Anglican Communion as a place of tolerance.

"The marks of our church are grace, tolerance and living with difference," he told the New York Times. "We need to make a distinction between issues that are fundamental to the faith and second-order issues. This is not a church-dividing issue."

Many on the African continent, however, say the issue of homosexuality must be resolved before the decennial Lambeth Conference in 2008. And the issue may soon determine the split or continuing communion of the Church of Nigeria, reportedly the largest Anglican province.

This week, bishops from the 38 Anglican provinces will convene at the Primates meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Some have said they will refuse to sit at the same table with U.S. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who supports the ordination of homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions, when the meeting opens on Feb. 14.

Ndungane called it "absolute nonsense," according to the Times, and expressed support for the new U.S. Episcopal head.

Echoing a similar concern that openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire had also raised recently, Ndungane drew attention to the sidetracked global issues of AIDS and poverty. The consecration of Robinson in 2003 had heightened the controversy within the Episcopal Church and Ndungane is the only African archbishop to argue that the Episcopal Church was within its rights to consecrate Robinson, according to the Times.

If Robinson were in most other provinces, however, he could not be bishop, said Bishop Tom Wright of Durham in an interview with UK's The Times online edition.

Meanwhile, the U.S. arm of Anglicanism is losing members. More parishes have voted to split with the Episcopal Church over the denomination's departure from scriptural authority.

Jefferts Schori said membership in mainline denominations overall is down and that the highly-publicized departure of the congregations that left only make up a small minority of the denomination – one-half of one percent of the 7,200 congregations.

While much of the discussions have been devoted to the Episcopal Church's controversial actions toward the acceptance of homosexuals, the average Anglican does not "care about the lifestyles of the people in America," said Ndungane, alluding to the larger issues of poverty and disease.

A lot of people in America's churches, however, are not really caught up with what is going on, said Wright. "The idea of doctrinal indifferentism is a very recent idea which has sprung up in some parts of America."

Wright does not see how the Episcopal Church can reconcile with most of the Anglican provinces which had agreed that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture in the 2004 Windsor Report. The report also called the global body to minister to all, regardless of sexual orientation. Wright hopes the U.S. body will not be cut off but instead "pruned."

As Jefferts Schori prepares for what The New York Times called a "hostile reception" this week, Ndungane says he's prepared to speak out if need be. And so are three other invited U.S. bishops, some of whom will be representing the conservative end of the Anglicans in the United States.