First Things: Anglican Confusion
October 1, 2007
By Jordan Hylden

No one can deny there is plenty of disagreement in the Anglican Communion, but right now straightforward confusion is carrying the day.

Around the world, Anglican primates have been asking the Americans to provide the rest of the church with clarity about their position on gay bishops and same-sex blessings. And so the question arose at the pivotal meeting last week in New Orleans of the bishops of the Episcopal Church. After much hard work and wrangling, a statement was finally produced.

Unfortunately, as reaction to it has shown, even the clarity of disagreement is still a long way off in the Anglican world. It is not just that people do not agree on what to do next; it is rather that no one even agrees about what is going on.

The New York Times last Wednesday morning reported “Episcopal Bishops Reject Anglican Church’s Orders.” There is a case to be made for that, and the reporter made it finely, but the London Telegraph saw quite the opposite: “For Now,” it claimed, “US Anglicans Give In to Archbishop.” The London Times, for its part, thought that the “Bishops Rejected Same-Sex Blessings,” but the New Orleans Times-Picayune claimed that the “Episcopal Bishops Decline to Roll Back Inclusion of Gays.” Prognosticating a bit, the Boston Globe surmised that the “Episcopal Leaders Act to Avert Schism.” And that was all very nice, but the BBC thought otherwise: “Threat of Anglican Schism Still Looms,” they concluded. The Economist, wisely, scratched its collective head and simply called its readers’ attention to “The Turbulence of Priests,” probably the most accurate headline of them all. the rest