World Anglican leaders rebuke Canadian [and US] church

[iverglas]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050225/ANGLICANS25/TPInternational/Americas

The leaders of the world Anglican Communion rebuked the U.S. <Episcopal> and Canadian Anglican churches yesterday over their acceptance of homosexuality and pushed them to withdraw from one of the global church's top policy-making bodies.

The severity of the rebuke from the primates, or senior bishops and archbishops of the church, was unexpected. Canadian Anglican academics had thought that most primates would let their desire for church unity trump their objections to homosexuality.

And while the move falls well short of branding the Canadian and U.S. churches as heretical and kicking them out of the world Communion, the impact of the primates' announcement on the two churches internally will be explosive.

...The world Anglican uproar over homosexuality erupted a few years ago after Vancouver's Bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham, gave his consent to the blessing of same-sex unions in the churches of his diocese. A year later, the U.S. Episcopal Church (ECUSA) took roughly comparable action and approved the appointment of Gene Robinson, a priest living in a homosexual relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire.

...

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/02/25/anglican_body_urges_us_episcopal_withdrawal/

Anglican body urges US Episcopal withdrawal

The US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have been asked to withdraw from a key body of the global Anglican Communion by conservative church leaders distressed by the election of a gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in the two countries.

Though the requested withdrawal of the two churches would be temporary, it would be the first formal split in the communion over the issues of sexuality and biblical authority.

... The statement said the two churches were asked to withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council, a key body for contact among the national churches, at least until 2008.

... The Anglican Consultative Council is the body through which leaders of the national churches meet and consult in between the once-a-decade Lambeth Conferences. The US and the Canadian churches each send three delegates to the council, which is the only global Anglican body that includes bishops, priests and laity, said James Rosenthal, spokesman for the Anglican Communion.

http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2005-02-24_statement.news
"A Statement from the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada"

http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2005-02-24_acns.news

The Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting
Communiqué February 2005

... 14. Within the ambit of the issues discussed in the Windsor Report and in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference. During that same period we request that both churches respond through their relevant constitutional bodies to the questions specifically addressed to them in the Windsor Report as they consider their place within the Anglican Communion. (cf. paragraph 8)

... 18. In the meantime, we ask our fellow primates to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing for Same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage.

I understood from CBC radio yesterday evening that the two churches have indeed decided to withdraw, which would signal that they have no intention of doing what they were instructed in #18 to do.

The Canadian Anglican Primate's discussion of same-sex marriage in Canada (in light of the legality of such marriages) can be read/heard here:
http://www.anglican.ca/primate/communications/conversations.htm

Apparently the church does not currently perform same-sex marriages (other churches in Canada do). But I found this bit interesting, since I *do* believe that because clergy are acting as agents of the state in performing marriages they should not be permitted to discriminate, any more than driver licensing agents should be permitted to:

That there is a worry that the time may come when they will be obliged to marry people whom their church polity would not otherwise allow them to marry.

Now indeed the legislation that is before the House seems to protect faith communities from that eventuality. But there's an ongoing concern that legislation notwithstanding human rights commissions may eventually be appealed to and oblige clergy to act.

From my point of view, the answer to that is very simple. We are licensed by governments to marry in the name of the state, just as indeed in the name of our faith communities we bless those relationships. If the time ever comes when we are obliged by any authority to marry people whom we do not feel in conscience we can marry, then we simply turn in the license and say the business of contracting relationships is a civil matter that should be executed by the state and we no longer need to function as officers of the state. But in our faith communities we'll bless relationships according to the policies of our faith communities.

So I hope that that concern can no longer loom as a very large one.

Right on.

[electropop]

1. Any organization whose leaders are merely 'primates'

isn't very selective. I mean, one would think at least a particular species would be specified. Why are they getting their knickers in a twist over lax enforcement of homophobia?

[iverglas]

2. well

For background on the debate within the Anglican Communion, see:
http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1998/sept7/8ta032.html

Dang, that's subscription-only, but it's the quickest reference and you get the gist from what's there:

LAMBETH CONFERENCE

Anglicans Deem Homosexuality 'Incompatible with Scripture'

The campaign by liberal bishops for the ordination and marriage of practicing homosexuals suffered a striking setback in August <1998> at the historic Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England.

Anglican bishops from around the globe voted 526 to 70 with 45 abstentions for a resolution declaring that homosexual practice is "incompatible with Scripture." During the past year, several other major Protestant church bodies have issued statements either rejecting ordination and marriage for practicing homosexuals or affirming that sexual relations should be limited to heterosexual marriage.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said, "I stand wholeheartedly with traditional Anglican orthodoxy. I see no room in Holy Scripture or the entire Christian tradition for any sexual activity outside matrimony of husband and wife."

INFLUENTIAL RESOLUTION: Once a decade, the bishops of the world's 55 million Anglicans, known in the United States as Episcopalians, gather for the Lambeth Conference, held this time at the University of Kent in Canterbury. The meetings are advisory in nature and nonbinding, but are nevertheless highly influential.

It was unfortunately the African bishops who were most virulent in their anti-equality discourse.

The Canadian and USAmerican churches (Anglican in Canada, Episcopal in the US) have been ordaining gay men and lesbians and blessing same-sex unions for a while, on a diocese-by-diocese basis. In Canada, this has led to unseemly behaviour on the part of a couple of right-wing bishops, who went sticking their noses into the business of other dioceses that were not living up to their homophobic standards.

A few years ago, a friend of mine was considering applying for ordination in the Anglican Church of Canada (she has the requisite degrees, but I don't think she's got around to getting ordained yet). She was living with another old friend of mine, a politically/theologically lefty Jew. They decided to get married. The way he put it was that they figured the Anglicans would be okay with her living with somebody without being married (despite the formal church rule about sex being for inside marriage only, which is the formalistic objection to same-sex union blessing and gay/lesbian clergy) ... and they would be okay with her living with a Jew ... but living with a Jew without being married would just be a tad too much to ask them to get over.


Oh ... and "primate" comes from the Latin meaning "of the first rank", so it's what we call ourselves among mammals, and what Anglicans call archbishops among bishops.

[Brian_Expat]

3. The concern about being "forced to marry gays" is a fake one

When was the last time a church was required to marry ANY two people protected by law?

The Roman Catholics, for instance, refuse to marry two legally divorced people if they've not been annulled. Has a couple denied a service EVER sued them in Canada and won? Nope.

How about individuals for whom one of the couple is an atheist? Religious believe is protected under the Constitution of Canada. Has anyone ever sued a church for refusing to marry an atheist and won? No way.

Now, the law before Parliament even explicitly provides them the right to refuse any marriage and they're still pulling this fake excuse out of their bums. Why? Because they hate homosexuals and don't want them to have the right to get married, period.

[iverglas]

4. exactly

... nonetheless, I do maintain that anyone who is acting as an agent of the state -- which clergy *are* doing when they perform marriages under commissions granted by the government permitting them to do that -- may not violate laws that prohibit discrimination.

That would mean that they could not refuse to perform marriages for divorced people, people of colour, people of any or no religion, people seeking to marry someone the same sex or the opposite sex, people who use wheelchairs, people born abroad, etc. etc.

They would not have to provide them with religious marriages, just with civil marriages, which is precisely what the state has commissioned them to perform. The state doesn't commission them to perform religious marriages, after all.

Marriages are a service provided by the state, just like the issuing of driver's licences is. In Ontario, we delegate the issuing of driver's licences to private agencies, and we delegate the performing of marriages to other private agencies that happen to include churches.

If the churches don't want to act as agents of the state -- which requires that they abide by the non-discrimination rules that the state is bound by -- then they can turn in their commissions. As the Anglican guy said.

It can actually be rather difficult, already, for people who do *not* want religious marriages to find someone to marry them, in Ontario. (That's true whether they would be happy being married by clergy but can't find a clergyperson to perform a non-religious marriage, or don't want to be married by clergy period.)

BC, for instance, has marriage commissioners, private parties with authority to perform marriages. (And it has instructed *them* to perform same-sex marriages or turn in their commissions.) Ontario doesn't. City Clerks are apparently going to be doing this, but municipalities aren't set up to do it yet. So the non-religious, and obviously the same-sex, are already being discriminated against by not being provided with equal access to this service. And that ain't kosher -- or, as they say in Quebec, it isn't very catholic. ;)

And I'd certainly argue that it doesn't matter what Parliament's law says on this point. If the law creates a situation that violates rights without justification, it is constitutionally invalid.

It may not be politic to say it, but sooner or later somebody's going to anyhow, and the homophobes in the religious communities are just going to have to lump it if they don't like it. They just don't get to claim authority to do something on behalf of the state that involves providing a public service to members of the public, and then discriminate about which part of the public they're going to serve.

[dsc]

7. Can't judges marry people up there?

Here any judge can marry you as well as many executive elected officials. I think expanding the number of people who can perform marriages is better than forcing people to marry who they don't wish to marry.

[forgethell]

5. It was obvious at

the time of the ordination of a gay bishop that the Anglican Church would split. Why is anyone upset? Let the conservatives kick out the progressives, or vice versa. Then everybody can be happy.

[xchrom]

6. indeed -- in this case change is good.

not in the short run -- but in the long run i think what will emerge for liberal episcopaleans/anglicans will be vibrant.

but it's a struggle to get there.

i guess rowan will have to decide if he sits with those being honest with themselves or with the oppressive liars and hypocrites?
this could be very liberating for christians.