Word: anglicans
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...that challenge. A job sometimes described as "first among equals" now looks more like lion-tamer-minus-whip. Some think Williams should step back and let the rift happen. "No one is up to this, however gifted they may be," says Chris Sugden, executive secretary of the group Anglican Mainstream. Then again, Mainstream is a very conservative group that might prefer an immediate split; and if the Communion disintegrates, it is not Sugden who could be known forever as its last Archbishop of Canterbury. Says Bishop Idris Jones, Primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church, "You could say [Williams] is occupying...
...Williams seemed prepared to make Canon Jeffrey John, an openly gay man in a committed, celibate relationship, a bishop. But after a tremendous outcry on the right, Williams held a six-hour meeting with John, who withdrew his candidacy. Williams had already called an emergency meeting of the Anglican leadership over the U.S. Episcopal Church's election of Gene Robinson, also gay and in a committed relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire. The months that followed set a pattern. The Americans consecrated Robinson. Williams, facing conservative demands that they leave the Communion, endorsed milder requests such as a promise...
...Certainly it is lost on archconservative Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who has said that God regards homosexuality as the equivalent of humans having sex with various animals, and who has commented, "We don't have to go through Canterbury to get to Jesus." He also set up his own Anglican body in the U.S. - the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (cana) - flouting Communion rules about stealing other bishops' sheep. Last February, when top Anglican archbishops gathered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Akinola extracted major concessions despite initial deft handling by Williams. The gathering attached a strict deadline - Sept...
...perhaps dangerously myopic. Williams reports complaints from Egyptian Christians that their churches are being denounced - or, he hints, threatened - by Muslim clergy because of same-sex relationships, even though the local Christians themselves have never accepted their validity. Williams would like to see a "covenant" or set of core Anglican principles. U.S. Episcopalians have criticized this as a move aimed at forcing liberal churches into Roman-style lockstep, and he acknowledged it could eventually isolate the American church's current stance on homosexuality. "I don't want to accelerate departure, God forbid," he says, adding that he hopes both...
...Anglican parties have talked fairly little, thus far, about the collateral damage if the Communion does dissolve - but it would be real. Valuable links between rich and poor nations would be broken, and people would suffer while northern cash is seeking new conduits to southern need. There will be expensive litigation. That is not to say that the principles of gay rights or biblical fidelity may not be worth the possible costs. But Williams cautions: "There are no clean breaks. It's not as if [the Communion would] just snap apart like a dry biscuit...