Friday, February 25, 2005

Outed

The world is moving too fast for the Anglican Church.
BOP reports on the Anglican Communion Primates’ Meeting Communiqué
The Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopilians in the US have been kicked out of class for the next three years - ie, they are being asked to withdraw from church administration until the next Anglican conference in 2008.
In the meantime, they are supposed to visit the principal's office - ie, appear at a church conference in June to justify their decisions to bless gay marriages (Canada) and elect a gay bishop (US).
And they are supposed to write on the blackboard one hundred times "We're sorry, we didn't really mean it, we take it all back" - ie, the Canadian bishops who have supported gay marriage are supposed to apologize and to refuse to allow any more gay ceremonies, while the Americans are also supposed to apologize for electing a gay bishop.
Now, I have only skimmed the recommendations of the Windsor Report but I did not get a sense that the report's authors grasped the momentum of this issue -- that such announcements would be tatamount to demonizing gay people and would send gay people the very clear message that they are not welcome in the Anglican church. Or maybe they actually just don't care -- maybe gay people are actually NOT welcome in the Anglican church.
The report mentions in a couple of places how important it is to be inclusive to gay people, but these are formulaic declarations. Overall, the report is much more concerned about the feelings of congregations upset by these bishops than about the feelings of congregations supporting them.
I'll be watching the news to find out how the New Westminster dioscese reacts.

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