Unity in the Anglican Church
by Charles Raven, The Latimer Trust:
For the media, what makes the Anglican Church, or to be more precise, the Anglican Communion, newsworthy is its potential for schism and we cannot dismiss this as mere sensationalism. Journalists may not always have a strong theological grasp, but most of those I have dealt with over the past twenty years have had high standards of reporting and always a strong instinct for the real human dynamics at work behind the spin.
All this can be endlessly diverting, but it is tragic to see a Church turned in on itself in this way. The current leading item of Anglican news focuses the issues with stark clarity. As I write, William Love, the Episcopal Bishop of Albany, New York, is on trial before an ecclesiastical court for violating his ordination vows to ‘conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.’
Not unreasonable, one might think, until it is realised that Bishop Love’s offence has been to prevent same-sex unions being solemnised as marriages in his diocese. So we have the deeply disturbing paradox that the discipline of this Church, through its canons, is being used to outlaw the law of God as revealed in Scripture and as held universally to be the teaching of the Church until less than a generation ago.
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