First Things: The Episcopal Declaration of Independence
By Jordan Hylden
Monday, March 26, 2007

Last week, the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops met and let the world know just what they think of the rest of the Anglican Communion. The official text of their resolutions ran to several thousand words, but for the effect they are likely to have on the church’s relations with the rest of the Anglican world, the bishops could just as well have taken a page out of General McAuliffe’s playbook, saved everyone a lot of time, and issued a simple one-word response: “Nuts!”

At last month’s meeting of Anglican primates in Africa, the Episcopal bishops were asked to do three things: participate in the creation of a church-within-a-church for Episcopal conservatives, promise not to consecrate any more actively homosexual bishops, and promise not to conduct any more church blessings of same-sex unions.

If they did not, the African meeting clearly suggested, the Americans would in effect be choosing to “walk apart” from the wider Anglican Communion. It was rightly described as an ultimatum but nevertheless was quite measured—no one asked Gene Robinson (the actively gay bishop of New Hampshire) to step down, and no one required anything of the Episcopal Church’s numerous openly gay priests. Essentially, the Anglican primates told the Episcopal Church that it would be allowed to push the boundaries, but within limits.

Unfortunately, last week the Episcopal Church apparently decided that it will be bound by nothing beyond itself—not Scripture, not tradition, not worldwide Anglican councils, not anything. And it said so with a vehemence that was surprising, even to many of its supporters. the rest