Conservatives tell parishioners to be patient on split

<p>Two of the most vocal Episcopal leaders against the recent consecration of an openly gay bishop urged parishioners Monday to be patient as they planned their next move in a possible split in the American church.</p><p>One of them indicated that the division would be proceeding rapidly.</p><p>Things are happening. Some early skirmishes will be within the next 60 days, said the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, vice president of the American Anglican Council, a network of conservative Episcopal leaders.</p><p>If you can see where this is going, if you can see the Promised Land, then be patient, Duncan said. Its not going to take 40 years, like with Moses.</p><p>Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, and AAC president the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, spoke to about 600 people in Atlanta to outline recent developments in the internal unrest prompted by the Nov. 2 consecrecation of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.</p><p>Duncan would not be more specific on what he considered skirmishes.</p><p>The decision by the Episcopal Church USA to consecrate Robinson, as well as some bishops approval of blessing ceremonies for gay couples, has deeply divided the church. Duncan and Anderson reaffirmed Monday to the Georgia chapter of the AAC that a split between conservative and liberal factions seemed inevitable _ although that may be years down the line.</p><p>In the meantime, the conservatives are working on establishing an independent organization called the Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations, which Duncan and Anderson described as a church within a church.</p><p>A lot of what you see going on is not Anglican. It is not Christian, Anderson said. It is not Anglican in the last 2,000 years of tradition, and youre not allowed in the last two decades to reinvent the Christian faith.</p><p>The national denomination of the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.</p><p>U.S. conservatives who believe gay sex violates Scripture have said they want Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, to authorize a separate Anglican province for them in North America.</p><p>Earlier this month, bishops overseas announced they were in a state of impaired communion with the Episcopal Church _ a step short of declaring a full schism. International church leaders are not expected to announce any sort of permanent break until after a commission formed by Williams reports next year on whether a split can be averted.</p><p>Duncan said that he and other AAC leaders had not met with Williams since October, when the archbishop had expressed a commmitment to keeping the church together. He said bishops, lawyers and AAC strategy committee were meeting weekly to keep us out of trouble.</p><p>Both he and Anderson invoked battle imagery in their talks Monday night.</p><p>We will wind up fighting pew to pew and steeple to steeple, Anderson said.</p><p>Clearly history is pivoting before our very eyes, he said. Let us go out and set the world aright.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/11/182873