The worldwide Anglican Communion may have to accept a "two track" system in which churches can hold different opinions about gay clergy and same-sex unions, the Archbishop of Canterbury said Monday in a bid to keep the church unified.
Rowan Williams outlined his thoughts on the future of the deeply divided church body on his Web site in response to the recently completed General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the communion’s U.S. branch.
At the meeting, Episcopalians authorized bishops to bless same-sex unions and research an official prayer for the ceremonies. The church also voted to effectively drop a pledge that it would act with "restraint" when considering any more openly gay candidates for bishop.
The moves dismayed more traditional Anglicans, and Williams, the communion’s spiritual leader, is now trying to keep the communion unified.
He wrote that "a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole," but suggested there may have to be a "two-track" model where the church allowed different viewpoints on certain issues.
He said there could be "two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out, but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion." He urged that such an arrangement not be spoken of "in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication."
The 77 million-member Anglican Communion is the third-largest grouping of Christian churches worldwide, behind the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches.
The Episcopal Church caused an uproar among some Anglicans in 2003 by consecrating the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and Williams has struggled since to keep the church from splitting.
Four conservative U.S. dioceses and dozens of individual Episcopal parishes have voted to leave the national denomination since 2003. Many have affiliated with like-minded overseas Anglican leaders. The Anglican Church of Nigeria started a Convocation of Anglicans in North America, including breakaway Episcopal churches in Virginia.
Anglican leaders had pressed Episcopalians for a moratorium on electing more gay bishops, and asked the church not to develop an official prayer for same-gender couples.
But the Episcopal Church noted last week that a growing number of U.S. states allow gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, and gave bishops in those regions discretion to provide a "generous pastoral response" to couples in local parishes.Williams said in his article that homophobic violence and prejudice was "sinful and disgraceful," but that the church’s Bible-based teachings on homosexuality could not be overturned easily. He compared the state of those in gay relationships to heterosexual couples living together without being married.
"Whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivities such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions," he wrote.
Williams’ article drew a mixed response in the U.S.
The Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, the Episcopal gay advocacy group, said she was disappointed that Williams portrayed the U.S. moves toward inclusion for gays and lesbians as "solely a political or rights-based position" when the Episcopal Church has cited a theological basis. But she welcomed keeping the communion together in a way that would not classify branches as superior or inferior.
"What the archbishop is really stating is the reality: that the structures that have served the Anglican Communion historically need some work," Russell said. "The 21st century is different than the 16th century."
Canon Kendall Harmon, a traditionalist leader in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, said while there are positives in Williams’ latest attempt to hold the Communion together, the Anglican leader left unanswered key questions about how a two-tiered system would function.
"It’s going to increase the chaos in the province of the American church, and in the Anglican Communion," Harmon said.
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