Bishop: Anglican Communion Finally at Critical Point
'Something Has Got to Happen Soon' in the Anglican Communion
By this time next year, the Anglican Communion will "certainly" not be where it is now, said the Bishop of Durham ahead of the critical Primates meeting.
Tom Wright, bishop of one of the oldest dioceses in England, told UK's The Times online edition that every meeting has looked like a "make-or-break" one for the last three years, since the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. This time around, however, the global Anglican church seems to have finally come to its critical point.
"We are closing in on the fact that something has got to happen soon," said Wright in the interview with the UK news agency.
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Invitations are already out for next week's global meeting with the head bishops of each Anglican province and soon the Archbishop of Canterbury has to send out invitations for the 2008 Lambeth Conference – a decennial meeting that could see the absence of the Church of Nigeria and conservative Anglicans in the United States if the Communion does not resolve the issue over homosexuality soon.
"That is a way of saying that by this time next year, we will certainly not be where we are now," said Wright. "Some lines will have hardened, one way or another. There is so much sound and fury in many different directions that it is a matter of several different pressures from several different corners – trying to hear them and listen to the voice of God in the middle of it all and make some sense of it."
Amid divisions across the globe over scriptural authority and the issue over homosexuality, Wright said it is "clear that the split is coming from those in the American church who are insisting on doing something that the Lambeth Conference and the rest of the Communion had asked them not to do."
A Lambeth resolution approved in 1998 states that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and a later Windsor Report had called parties that violate the Anglican doctrine to repent - a report that Wright said has held the global body together after the Episcopal Church consecrated openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in 2003. The U.S. Anglican arm has yet to fully respond to the Windsor Report.
The Primates meeting scheduled four hours to discuss the Episcopal Church and its response to the Windsor Report.
Less than a week away from the key meeting, U.S. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the people of the Episcopal Church on Wednesday to remember the mission that is their reason for being as the Anglican Communion – "God's mission to heal this broken world."
"The ability to know each other and understand our various contexts is the foundation of shared mission," the controversial female head further stated.
Four U.S. bishops will be attending the Primates meeting that opens Feb. 14 in Tanzania. Although only Jefferts Schori will be at the Primates table, the other three bishops were invited to present their stance as representatives of the widely varying views among Anglicans in the United States.
"The more sharp-edged question is who is seen to be speaking for the American evangelicals," Wright posed.
One of the invited U.S. bishops is Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. Although still an Episcopal bishop, Duncan is a Windsor bishop and heads the Anglican Communion Network which is comprised of parishes opposed to the Episcopal Church's actions supporting homosexual ordination.
Wright says Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will listen to everyone and think and pray through everything he hears.
"His commitment is to work for the unity of the Church and the advancement of the Gospel," he added. Williams, who had recently expressed fear that a schism may occur in the Anglican Communion, will be chairing next week's Primates meeting.
Like many other bishops, Wright cannot predict the outcome of the Primates meeting. He hopes, however, that the recommendations of the Windsor Report will be followed through and that it would thus renew the Episcopal Church rather than split it, although Wright admits that not many will like the renewal.
