 Their parish, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year, is solid and strong. It has 3,000 members, a historic stone building in good repair and a well-loved minister. But to the Episcopalians at St. Luke's Parish in Darien, Conn., who gathered with their pastor to grapple with the past week's news about their denomination, it was as if their solid stone church had been struck by an earthquake. To them and to many Episcopalians around the country, the long-vulnerable fault line running under the Episcopal Church had cracked wide open in one week. Six traditionalist dioceses and some individual parishes announced plans to break from the Episcopal Church because they could not live with a church that permits an openly gay bishop and ceremonies for same-sex unions.
| In other words, they're Christians, rather than... ummm... something else. Maybe Bacchants. |
In an opposing jolt, the Diocese of Newark named an openly gay priest as a candidate for its bishop, defying a plea for restraint just passed by a vote of the bishops and delegates at the Episcopal Church's triennial convention.
| Which was... what? Last week? |
And the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, weighed in with a plan of seismic implications to ask all 38 regional churches in the Communion to agree to a covenant that could limit each church's autonomy. Those that do not agree could be given second-tier status in the Communion. "So in other words," Martha Cook, a university professor and member of the vestry at St. Luke's, asked her pastor at the gathering, "the conservatives could literally take over our rightful spot in the Communion, and the majority of the American church would be on the outs?" The pastor, the Rev. David R. Anderson, answered that while it was far from settled, "the scenario the traditionalists were seeking could actually come to pass." "The vast majority of the Episcopal Church would be considered the 'off brand".
| That'd be the majority in one country, not in the world. And the conservatives feel like the liberals have bumped them to date. |
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