This is about ecclesiology
Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 6:29 am
Channel: America
Author: Austen Ivereigh
... The point is, "schism" is not the right word for what is happening. A schism refers to a part of the Christian body separating from another. But the TEC is insufficiently united in itself to break away from the wider Anglican Church; and the Anglican Communion is insufficiently united to constitute something that can be broken away from.
It's much more complex, and messy, than schism. It's full-on balkanisation.
But out of chaos, order is emerging. Anglicans are splitting into two camps: a core of Anglicans -- those committed to the Covenant process -- are coming closer together, under Dr Williams's leadership, while the rest are spinning away from Canterbury and from each other.
The real split is not over homosexuality but between "Catholics" and "Protestants," the key historic tension within Anglicanism. The fissures do not run cleanly between provinces and churches, as the Anaheim rebels show. But this crisis is forcing people to choose. This is the real division: between those who believe in a Catholic ecclesiology and those who do not.
The "Protestants" -- divided between liberals and conservative evangelicals, in radical disagreement over homosexuality, as over much else -- cannot, by definition, come together, and will continue to fragment, leaving the "Covenant" Anglicans to come together around a firmer, more Catholic ecclesiology. Within the "Catholic" camp there will remain strong disagreements over homosexuality, but those are less important than the shared conception of Church.
It's much more complex, and messy, than schism. It's full-on balkanisation.
But out of chaos, order is emerging. Anglicans are splitting into two camps: a core of Anglicans -- those committed to the Covenant process -- are coming closer together, under Dr Williams's leadership, while the rest are spinning away from Canterbury and from each other.
The real split is not over homosexuality but between "Catholics" and "Protestants," the key historic tension within Anglicanism. The fissures do not run cleanly between provinces and churches, as the Anaheim rebels show. But this crisis is forcing people to choose. This is the real division: between those who believe in a Catholic ecclesiology and those who do not.
The "Protestants" -- divided between liberals and conservative evangelicals, in radical disagreement over homosexuality, as over much else -- cannot, by definition, come together, and will continue to fragment, leaving the "Covenant" Anglicans to come together around a firmer, more Catholic ecclesiology. Within the "Catholic" camp there will remain strong disagreements over homosexuality, but those are less important than the shared conception of Church.
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