Postponing Armageddon
But no end to Anglican civil war
David C. Steinmetz
Special to the Sentinel
Posted May 11, 2006

Last Saturday more than 1,000 Episcopalians packed into Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to elect a new bishop for the Diocese of California. Their choice was Mark H. Andrus, a suffragan or assistant bishop from Alabama.Bishop Andrus is a white heterosexual male and the father of two college-age daughters. His election as the bishop of San Francisco would have been unremarkable in 1956, probably meriting only a brief story in Bay Area papers. But in 2006 the election of Bishop Andrus was followed by news organizations around the world.

The reason for the increased attention is the turmoil created in the worldwide Anglican Communion -- of which the Episcopal Church is a part -- by the election in 2003 of an openly gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, the 77 million-member Anglican Communion has teetered on the verge of schism.

Which is why the election in San Francisco worried so many Episcopalians outside California, not all of them conservative. After all, San Francisco is the center of a very liberal diocese. Three of the unsuccessful candidates for bishop live in gay- or lesbian-partnered relationships. One of them might very well have been elected as the second openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Such an outcome, had it occurred, would undoubtedly have split the Anglican Communion in two. But it did not happen. The election of Mark Andrus postponed the threatened showdown to another day. the rest