Bitter Fudge
Anglicans have come close to an open split but baulk at schism
February 19, 2007

At the heart of Anglicanism lies a terrible dilemma. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, as the commission exploring the possibility of unity between the two traditions reminds us, the Anglican Communion is not a single Church demanding adherence to a disciplined codex of canon law. It is a fellowship of 38 provinces, each with its own prayer book, traditions and legal structure, bound together only by bonds of trust and fellowship. When any one of those provinces takes a step considered by others to be morally or theologically unacceptable, there is no legal or institutional method for dealing with the breach. Tolerance and compromise — loving or begrudging — are the only way that the communion can be preserved. The alternative is schism.

The communion now stands on the brink of schism. The pretext, which has racked the Church for more than a decade, is the split over ordaining gay priests. But the issue now goes far deeper. It has become a test of whether the Episcopal Church, the small but influential American branch of Anglicanism, has broken the bonds of fellowship with other churches, especially the conservative African and Asian provinces in the “Global South”, in ordaining a homosexual bishop. After agonising debate, an extraordinary conference in Windsor in 2004 decided that the Episcopal Church had indeed broken these bonds and should apologise. The Americans have since done so — but in terms that appear to many conservatives to be insouciant. the rest