The State

Columbia, SC

Posted on Thursday, Jul. 06, 2006

[emphasis added]

Debate over the soul of the Episcopal Church

By PHILIP C. LINDER

Guest columnist

The Episcopal Church is certainly at a crossroads in its history, perhaps like none other since our beginnings at the founding of our nation and independence from Great Britain.

Unlike so many of the predictions of our denomination’s demise, I believe that the Episcopal Church emerged from the 75th General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, with a stronger will, hope and vision for the future. I say this as one who was there as a deputy, fighting for her soul, representing the Diocese of Upper South Carolina. And I believe it is the very soul of our great Anglican heritage that is at stake.

Three years ago, the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, by consenting to the election of Gene Robinson — a partnered gay man — as bishop of New Hampshire, acted unilaterally and without regard for the challenge that this action would pose to the majority of Anglicans throughout the world. The ramifications were as immediate and severe as many had predicted.

Above all, what was at stake was the mutual understanding that no member church of the Anglican Communion could on its own accord make such a decision and not expect it to have serious consequences for how that member church would be regarded in the fellowship.

For the past year and a half, the bishop of Upper South Carolina, Dorsey Henderson, co-chaired the special commission that would offer at the convention a formal response to the Anglican Communion’s Windsor Report on the election of Mr. Robinson. This commission, which represented the broad spectrum of the Episcopal Church, offered a serious response to Windsor. However, during this same time many others worked to break up the Episcopal Church.

On the floor of the House of Deputies in Columbus, I witnessed the extreme factions of our church — represented in the dioceses of Newark and South Carolina — working from the posture of extreme liberalism and extreme conservatism for the same purpose. I believe that their goal coming into convention was to fracture the Episcopal Church’s place in the Anglican Communion to suit their own objectives, and that breaks my heart. I was stunned to see these two extreme sides actually voting in unison for opposite purposes.

Neither Newark nor South Carolina was interested in coming to what Episcopal priest and former Sen. John Danforth claimed as the “higher calling of reconciliation” and consensus for the greater good of the church.

Since the convention, this has been further proven in the proclamation of the Diocese of

South Carolina that it could not be under the authority of new Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Newark, too, stayed true to form by naming an openly gay candidate as one of the four nominees for bishop within its diocese, thus defying the resolution of General Convention that asks dioceses to refrain from such nominations and elections.

What is at stake here is the very soul of the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism. Our Anglican theology and heritage has held for centuries against radical liberalism or radical conservatism, maintaining that God’s truth is to be ultimately found in the tension of those extremes, and not in the extremes themselves. Today, human sexuality has become the front where those seeking to undermine Anglican identity for their definition of truth are waging the battle.

The extreme conservatives claim it is about biblical truth and homosexuality. Yet is it not also

about the role and place of women in the church? How have these same conservatives reconciled biblical literalism with passages on divorce, tithing and working against the unity of Christ’s church?

On the other side, the extreme liberals keep pushing the envelope of human sexuality further. It is now not just about gays and lesbians, it is also about bisexuals and transgender persons. Are they asking the church to argue that God creates people as bisexuals as well as of the incorrect sex?

True Anglicanism holds to the authority of scripture, tradition and reason. We are a church that believes that God’s truth is best discerned in the tension of extremes. We are also a church that invites all people of God to the one table as equals, and as such we believe in the full inclusion of gays, lesbians and women within the life of the Episcopal Church. All of this is hard at times and involves being with those with whom we differ and disagree. Yet when I read the Gospels “literally,” that is the place where I find Jesus Christ.

The vast majority of bishops, priests and laypersons at the convention came together as the broad middle, in a spirit of reconciliation and hope for this kind of identity and truth found in Anglicanism. And the vast majority believes we have a hope-filled future under the guidance of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is already boldly calling us to dynamic mission in Jesus’ name to a world crying out; a world where dying, hungry children in Africa are concerned about bread and not human sexuality.

Dr. Linder is the dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia.