News and Views edited by Rev. A. Hocking
March 6, 2008 at 9:53 pm (News and Views)
Rev. A. Hocking
BISHOPS PLAN BOYCOTT OVER GAY DEBATE
Nearly two thirds of the Church of England’s bishops are considering boycotting next year’s Lambeth Conference because of the row over gay clergy. The conference, held every 10 years at Canterbury, is the formal meeting of the world’s bishops and Archbishops and is the setting for some of its most profound decisions.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had hoped that next year’s conference would form the beginning of a healing process for the Church, which has been torn apart by the row over homosexuality over the last nine years.
The Church’s 880 bishops were invited to the conference. But by the end of July -the deadline for replies - only a couple of hundred had accepted the invitation. Although the American Episcopal Church decided in late-September to halt appointments of gay bishops and same-sex blessings temporarily, many bishops are expected to join the boycott.
The Bishop of Winchester, Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, told the Church of Irelond Gazette that as many as six in 10 senior English bishops would consider a boycott if the US did not back down over blessings for same-sex unions. And according to The Church of E gland Newspaper, up to a third of all bishops worldwide will boycott Lambeth if Dr Williams proceeds to invite the US and Canadian bishops who consecrated Rt Rev Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire.
The debate over the ordination of practicing gay priests erupted at the last Lambeth conference in 1996, where homosexual practice was rejected as incompatible with Scripture and churches were advised against “ordaining those involved in same gender unions”.
But in 2003 controversy was stirred with the appointment of Robinson. Later that year, the Archbishop of Canterbury set up the Lambeth Commission to look into the crisis. Its report, in 2004, called for the US Church to “repent” for consecrating Robinson. But the Episcopal Church rejected this.
Dr Williams has asked all Churches to sign a covenant maintaining “biblical standards” of Anglican doctrine. But the debate rumbles on amid fears this autumn that the Church would split by the end of the year, as a leading African archbishop drew up plans to adopt a breakaway group of American dioceses.
