The spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, Dr Rowan Williams, has set the dates for an urgent crisis meeting of American Episcopal bishops to be held from 11 to 13 September 2006.
The meeting will convene in New York with the firm focus set to be the accelerating demise of the Episcopal Church of the USA, as tensions continue to build up between liberal and conservative members of the Church with regards to homosexuality.The Episcopal Church of the USA is the American wing of the worldwide Anglican Church, which has been steeped in controversy since the consecration of the first openly gay bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
The situation has deteriorated even further since the members of the Church have continuously refused to bow to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s requests to show “repentance” for operating entirely against the traditional biblical views of the Church on the issue.
In July the latest rebuttal from the Episcopal Church in the US was given, when the Church at its Convention again refused to issue any type of apology for the path it had taken.
In response to the July Convention, Dr Williams has said the Episcopalians had “not produced a complete response” to Anglican concerns.
In fact, the General Convention, rather than allaying fears and divisions, actually increased tensions, as the June meeting also elected Katharine Jefferts Schori - an outspoken supporter of gay relationships - as the Church's next Presiding Bishop.
Since then, 7 conservative dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Fort Worth, have rejected Jefferts Schori's leadership and asked Williams for oversight elsewhere.Some individual parishes have also announced plans to leave the American Episcopal Church, which has about 2.3 million members.
Dr Williams has already proposed a new two-tiered system for the Communion, to keep those churches with the traditional biblical views on homosexuality as full members and to offer a lesser role to those with new ideals on the matter.
Though the idea has received praise from some corners of the Communion, there is still a large proportion of the Church who say they cannot accept being in “communion” with those promoting Scripture in a way that is in complete contrast to their own beliefs.
The six representatives called to the September New York meeting by Dr Williams, will correspond to the range of beliefs currently existing across the American Church.
Virginia Bishop Peter Lee, who is one of the six U.S. invitees, said the participants “have agreed not to talk at length with the press” about the gathering.
“The archbishop of Canterbury is encouraging American bishops to try to work on these questions,” Lee said in a phone interview, according to AP. “We're trying to hold together people who have differing views and to respect those differing views.”
Other participants set to attend the September meeting are Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, Texas; Southwest Florida Bishop John Lipscomb; and Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, head of the Anglican Communion Network, an association of 10 conservative Episcopal dioceses and more than 900 parishes considering splitting from the national church.
