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Episcopal Church faces divisions over gay issues
 A new conservative African-led group will provide a home for members of the splintered U.S. Episcopal Church who are upset over gay issues and looking to leave, the head of the new group said on Thursday. The body, under the auspices of a Nigerian archbishop, is an alternative for American followers who do not support the 2003 elevation of the first gay Episcopal bishop and other liberal stances.I'm feeling really old. When I was a lad, missionaries used to go to Africa to convert the heathen. Now Africa's sending them here. "We are what the church used to be," said Bishop Martyn Minns, who on Saturday will be installed -- over protests from the Episcopal Church leadership -- as head of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. "Our desire is not to interfere with what they're (the Episcopal Church) doing. We just don't agree with it," he said in a conference call with reporters. So now they're gonna have their choice of being an Episcopalian or an Anglican? The U.S. branch of the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Church has been splintered since the Americans consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican church history. It felt good, so they did it. Hilarity ensued. Or maybe it was just that everybody laughed at them. Some parishes in the 2.4-million-member U.S. church have already formed alliances along orthodox lines, and others have placed themselves under the jurisdiction of conservative bishops in Africa. The group Minns will head was put together by Nigeria's Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, who will formally install him as "missionary bishop" of the group in a ceremony on Saturday in Woodbridge, Virginia. Posted by: Fred 2007-05-04 |
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