Here Come the Churches

By Mark Tooley
6.5.09

Is acceptance of same-sex unions in the liberal dominated, Mainline Protestant churches inevitable? Not necessarily....

...Opponents of traditional morality have been active for nearly 40 years in all the Mainline churches, which, coincidentally, have all suffered continuous membership decline over the last four decades. Perhaps most famously, the 2 million member Episcopal Church partly caved to the sexual revolution, with its 2003 election of openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson.

Several formerly Episcopal dioceses have quit the denomination, along with over 200 congregations. Together they are forming a new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), with over 100,000 members and 700 parishes, whose founding provincial assembly will convene late this month outside Fort Worth, Texas. Former Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan is expected to become its first Archbishop. ACNA will be recognized by numerous Global South Anglican primates, if not by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

The old Episcopal Church will itself convene in July with its triennial General Convention in Anaheim, California. Somewhat surprisingly, even after Bishop Robinson's election, the denomination has not formally ratified rites for same-sex unions. Reluctance to further offend the nearly 80 million member global Anglican Communion, most of which is now rooted among conservative Africans, is one factor. The 2006 General Convention, hoping to mollify the Communion, had even called for not electing new bishops "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

Of course, some liberal Episcopal dioceses have unilaterally touted same-sex rites. But formal ratification by the General Convention, speaking for the whole denomination, would more directly provoke the Anglican Communion and still numerous conservative dioceses, local churches and individuals who remain in the Episcopal Church. The church's House of Bishops, pledged in 2007 "as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions." This pledge has not precluded some individual bishops from blessing same sex unions. Likely the General Convention will fall short of openly ratifying same sex rites, while permitting local dioceses to continue as they please.

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