Unbelievable. The NYTimes reports today on the very strange choice made by Anglican archbishops visiting the Tanzania:
Seven archbishops who say they represent more than 30 million Anglicans worldwide refused to take Communion here on Friday with the new head of the American Episcopal Church, to protest her support of gay clergy members and blessings for same-sex unions.
Their action demonstrated the deep gulf between conservative and liberal wings of the Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest Christian denomination, with 77 million members. Conflict over the American branch’s acceptance of an openly gay bishop and same-sex unions has dominated a high-level Anglican meeting here.
Disagreement is one thing, but refusing to sit down and share communion? This type of a theological posturing is truly sad. Even if one disagrees with another, even if one actually believes the person at the table is a sinner of the worst kind (as these right-wing cone-heads obviously do), then certainly a cursory reading of one’s own scriptures would reveal the example of a simple Rabbi who not only ate with sinners, but entered their homes to do so.
But we’re not talking about sinners here. We’re talking about bishops refusing to share the Eucharist with bishops. Has it really come to that? Again? And again?
Hats off — or miters off — to the American Anglican bishops who have the courage to stand by their convictions and reach out to all in love.
And shame on the Tanzanian Seven who refused Christ.
How sad, and how silly it all is.
As an active liberal American Episcopalian, I’m outraged at the behavior of the Tanzanian Seven, but this has been brewing for ages. These bishops are probably equally annoyed that the Episcopal Church in the United States, aka ECUSA, has elected a woman as presiding bishop. They aree a great group of Christians, all right. Homophobic, sexist and divisive; a really unbeatable combination! What many observers don’t know is that these same bishops have offered to embrace and oversee American congregations which wich to obtain a divorce from ECUSA. It’s a very complicated situation; the repercussions will be felt for years to come and these bishops have escalated it. In my parish during the seventies we used to sing a hymn which began, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.” We’ve come a long way in the right direction, but there are many who would like a quick reversal. The African bishops who are acting in such a divisive manner are too similar to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells in their beliefs an behavior for this Episcopalian to be comfortable. These are not attitude I ever expected to see and hear in my church.
I was so upset when I wrote the comments above that I didn’t proof before submitting. Since then, things have gotten worse. It appears at this writing that ECUSA will be kicked out of the Anglican Communion although there seems to be no mechanism in place to do this. It will probably resemble an Amish shunning on a very large scale. If cooler heads don’t prevail, it will get ugly. There will be court battles over church property, etc. All this because ECUSA is trying to accept all human beings as God made them. This is a sad and shameful state of affairs. When will we Christians stop claiming what belongs to God alone; judgement of our fellow human beings?