Anglican rightwingers move to form anti-gay power bloc

[ruggerson]

"Anglican conservatives, frustrated by the ongoing stalemate over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, declared Sunday that they would defy the church's historic lines of authority and establish a new power bloc within the church that will be led by a council of predominantly African archbishops.

The announcement came at the close of an unprecedented meeting in Jerusalem by conservatives, who contend that they represent a majority of the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion.

They depicted their efforts as the culmination of an anti-colonial struggle against the church's seat of power in Britain, whose missionaries first brought Anglican Christianity to the developing world. The conservatives say that many of the descendants of those Anglican missionaries in Britain and North America are now following what they call a "false gospel" that allows a malleable, liberal interpretation of Scripture.

After more than 1,000 delegates to the meeting at a Jerusalem hotel affirmed their platform statement, African women, Australians, South Americans and Indians danced and swayed to a Swahili hymn and shouted full-throated hallelujahs."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/29/europe/anglican.php

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. And the tentative name for them: Foca

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/30/anglicanism.religion1

Stop sniggering at the back, there.

[gratuitous]

2. "Who contend that they represent a majority"

No, they represent a very small minority, and in about seven years or so, when their money runs out, they'll come slinking back to Canterbury which will welcome them back with far more grace than they deserve. But that's one of the hazards of following Jesus: You kind of give up the extremely satisfactory feeling of telling some jerk who comes to his senses "I fucking told you so, numbnuts."

[ruggerson]

3. Maybe Tutu can talk some sense into them

but somehow I think they're beyond hearing.

[GreenInNC]

4. Already had the chance to say "I fucking told you so, numbnuts"

A good friend of mine is a member of one of the churches that left the Episcopal Church a couple of years ago over this issue. Well, now they are having second thoughts. They have no money, they have to rent space to have their services, they have no seminary, no retreat center, no youth camps or national support. As a member of an Episcopal Church who decided to work out our differences and stay in communion, I don't have a lot of sympathy for them. I know this un Christian but it is how I feel.

[annabanana]

5. It's quite sad, really.

The Episcopal Church (And the Anglican Communion) have no tradition of Scriptural inerrantcy. They have always said that God did not require them to check their brains at the door. The three legged stool of tradition, scripture and reason was the device I learned.

It is a small God indeed that cannot expand in our understanding to include man's increased knowledge of the Universe and human nature.

[davidinalameda]

6. this is one of the reasons I left the Episcopal Church

I want to belong to a Church where I can visit any congregation and know that I will be welcomed

[Beregond2]

7. Anglicans

I got angry at the Epscopal church about this too, because I wanted them to tell these right-wing assholes to get the hell out. But in the long-run, they are probably right to give them every opportunity to stay in the fold. What I don't understand is how the African clergy got so far out-of-line with the majority thinking in the church. Don't they attend the same seminaries?

[dsc]

8. probably not

In many religions in this country there is a fairly big difference between seminaries in one region and those in another. Continents would likely lead to even bigger differences.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. My theory on it is this:

Most African branches of the Anglican church were established in Victorian times, and converts had to give up polygamy, female genital mutilation, free adolescent sexual experimentation, or whatever other sexual practices the missionaries found offensive.

Many of the African churches are still living in the Victorian era, while the Western branches of the church have adopted more liberal attitudes toward sexuality. Having been taught a Victorian sexual morality, the Africans feel that the West is changing the rules on them and expecting them to go along. It's also possible that they have been influenced by the many fundamentalist missionaries who roam the Third World.

One of the former priests at my church, an out lesbian, said that a Ugandan observer at the 2003 General Convention told her that there was no homosexuality in Africa.

In answer to your question, there have been seminaries in several African countries for a long time. It's not as if an African who wants to be ordained has to go study in England or the U.S. They most likely preserve a more Victorian approach to doctrine and practices. Even within the U.S., different seminaries have different "corporate cultures."

[yardwork]

10. Me too.