Move Hints at Breakaway by Conservative Episcopalians

In a defiant gesture rooted in the battle over homosexuality, two Third World Anglican archbishops on Sunday consecrated four conservative American priests as bishops.

The elevation of the four priests on U.S. soil by foreign archbishops sent shock waves through the worldwide Anglican Communion and its U.S. member, the Episcopal Church. It was decried by the Archbishop of Canterbury as trespassing and brought the 2.3-million-member Episcopal denomination closer to formal schism.

The dissenting archbishops said the Episcopal Church’s tacit acceptance of the ordination of non-celibate gay men and lesbians and the blessing of same-sex unions was evidence of a broader “crisis of faith.” The church has not officially allowed the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians or the blessing of same-sex unions, but some local bishops in the U.S. have permitted it.

The issue of homosexuality has dogged virtually every major Protestant denomination, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Tensions within the Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s most historic and influential denominations, have been especially sharp.

In the last several months alone, conservative parishes in Maryland and Pennsylvania have fought publicly with their local bishops over issues of biblical truth and human sexuality. Parishioners at Christ Church in Accokeek, Md., physically blocked Suffragan Bishop Jane Dixon of the Diocese of Washington from entering the church.

But the coming to America of conservative Anglican archbishops to ordain bishops was unprecedented in the church’s history. Both sides agreed it laid the groundwork for a breakaway Anglican denomination in the United States, one that would exist parallel to the established and decidedly more liberal Episcopal Church.

The four newly minted bishops and two other Americans consecrated early last year in Singapore by the same group will minister to disaffected Episcopalians in 28 congregations that have already bolted from the Episcopal Church, as well as nine other congregations that have been started. All are in a group called the Anglican Mission in America.

The conservative group’s leaders said they would welcome other disaffected Episcopal congregations into the fold. They also said their bishops would consider invitations to minister to any of the 7,368 parishes that are still in the Episcopal Church.

“I believe this is the opening round in what will become a realignment in the Anglican Communion along the fault line of biblical truth,” Bishop Charles Murphy, ordained by Archbishop Emmanuel Mbona Kolini in Singapore, said in an interview. “More and more people are going to decide whether they are going to go the way of truth or unity.”

In ceremonies held at the nondenominational Colorado Community Church here Sunday night, Archbishops Kolini of Rwanda and Datuk Ping Chung Yong of Southeast Asia, bedecked in flowing red vestments, laid their hands on the heads of the four American priests and ordained them as Anglican bishops.

Those ordained were three former Episcopal priests--Douglas Weiss of Campbell, Calif., Thad Barnum of Pawleys Island, S.C., and T.J. Johnston of Little Rock, Ark.--and one current Episcopal priest, Sandy Greene of Denver, who was expected to leave the church immediately.

The consecrations marked a dramatic missionary role reversal in which foreign bishops had come to America to correct what they see as the “manifest heresy” of a Western church that a century ago had carried the Gospel to them.

The issue, they charged, went beyond the immediate controversy over human sexuality to the heart of Christian belief itself. They accused the leadership of the Episcopal Church of either not believing in “the lordship of Jesus Christ,” or remaining silent in the face of those who challenged the historic teachings of the church.

The consecrations were denounced in unusually blunt language by Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey, who leads the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is an independent self-governing member. Carey said he could not accept the new bishops until they are reconciled with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

In a letter Tuesday urging Kolini and Yong to desist, Carey warned that their defiance would undermine Anglican unity worldwide and bring a new renegade church in America “perilously close.”

“Let me make no bones about it,” Carey wrote the rebellious archbishops. “I regard last year’s consecrations in Singapore as at best highly irregular and at worst, simply schismatic.”

“Are you . . . aware that action of this kind takes you perilously close to creating a new group of churches at odds with the See of Canterbury and the rest of the Communion?” Carey asked the archbishops. He also said they had acted in “blatant disregard” of Anglican governance. Anglican bishops are not permitted to minister in another bishop’s diocese without the home bishop’s permission.

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold III, called the consecrations an “invitation to schism.”

Liberals said references to broad theological issues by the conservatives only masked their focus on homosexuality.

“The litmus test of whether you agree with their interpretation of the authority of Scriptures and the lordship of Jesus Christ is whether you are willing to see all gay and lesbian people as created by God as gay and lesbians. That’s where their red lights go off,” said the Rev. Edmund Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.