The Economist: Two weddings and a divorce

Jun 19th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Storm clouds gather as Anglicanism prepares for its high noon

IT USED to be said that Anglicanism was open-minded on almost every theological question, but rather strict when dealing with marital breakdown. More recently, though, most Anglican priests have grown emollient on that issue too: they accept that, in some circumstances, the least harmful course is to bring a civilised end to an arrangement that is causing pain to all concerned. There is, they reluctantly concede, little merit in staying grumpily together for the sake of the children, or indeed for the sake of anything else that the family may once have jointly possessed and treasured. Has the time come for the Anglican Communion to apply that lesson to itself?

The depth of the crisis facing Anglicans was underlined by two recent ceremonies, one discreet and the other flamboyant. Both involved a sealing of the relationship between pairs of men. Gene Robinson, the openly gay American bishop whose consecration in 2003 plunged Anglicanism into crisis, formalised his partnership with Mark Andrew, first with a civil ceremony, and then with a service of thanksgiving at a New Hampshire church that was described as private but “absolutely joyful”. the rest