The exclusion of two wayward bishops from joining a major Anglican conference next year has placed all the attention on the invitation list. But one of the bishops says the crisis Anglican churches are facing is not just about a few bishops.
"While the immediate attention is focused on the invitation list, it should be remembered that this crisis in the Anglican Communion is not about a few individual bishops but about a worldwide Communion that is torn at its deepest level," said the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, missionary bishop of CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) - an orthodox Anglican splinter group and offshoot of the Church of Nigeria.Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican Communion's spiritual leader, sent out the first set of invitations to over 850 bishops for Lambeth 2008 - the church body's global decennial gathering - on Tuesday. Minns, who now oversees some 34 orthodox Anglican congregations in CANA that are dissident with the Episcopal Church, and openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire were not invited.
While reports indicate the non-invitation of the two bishops is likely to provoke debate, Williams stated he has to reserve the right to withhold invitations from "bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion."
He also recalled that invitations are issued on a personal basis by the Archbishop of Canterbury and that the conference has "no 'constitution' or formal powers," he stated in the invitation letter.
His invitations go out four months before the US Episcopal Church is scheduled to respond to the requests of the Primates (Anglican leaders) to make an unequivocal pledge not to authorise same-sex blessings and confirm another openly gay bishop.
The Episcopal Church, which currently represents Anglicanism in the United States, had widened rifts in 2003 when it consecrated Robinson and faces a 30 September deadline this year to respond to the Primates.
"The question of Gene Robinson ... I think has exercised the Archbishop of Canterbury's mind for quite some time," said Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, according to The Associated Press.
Although Robinson was duly consecrated a bishop according to the rules of the Episcopal Church, "for the archbishop to simply give full recognition at this conference would be to ignore the very substantial and very widespread objections in many parts of the communion to his consecration and to his ministry," said Kearon.
