Abstract

Letter From London

The author discusses the schism developing in the Anglican Church over the election in New Hampshire of an openly gay bishop. Early on the crisp morning of October 15, the archbishops of thirty-seven of the thirty-eight provinces of the Anglican Communion gathered in closed session at Lambeth Palace for two days of meetings. The unusual conference was called by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of 70 million Anglicans worldwide. Williams acted after conservative provinces in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean--the "global South"--and the vocal, well-organized conservative minority of the American Episcopal Church (the US Anglican Church) threatened schism this past summer in response to the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, and the decision of the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster to bless same-sex unions. The split between the generally conservative evangelicals and the generally liberal Anglicans goes back more than a hundred years, to a colonial moment when two Church of England missionary organizations divided the African continent. Until now the Anglicans' historical flexibility has allowed diverse thinking regarding sexuality and gender relations, but in the past decade this traditional pluralism has come under attack from the right. In the 1990s conservative and reactionary forces in the United States began to make common cause with conservative Anglicans in the global South. On November 2, Gene Robinson was consecrated before a joyous congregation of 4,000 in the University of New Hampshire sports arena. And Episcopal conservatives were laying the groundwork for seceding to start their own province.