March 2, 2005

Leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion say they want the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw from the communion's councils temporarily and explain their attitudes toward homosexuals.

The U.S. church precipitated what many see as the most serious rift in the Communion's history when it affirmed the election of Vicki Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. The openly homosexual Robinson left his wife in the 1980s and currently lives with a male partner. Both the U.S. and Canadian churches have been criticized by conservatives for sanctioning the blessing of same-sex unions.

It is an issue that has caused deep division within the global Anglican Church. The statement from the Anglican Primates demanding a clarification of the churches' attitudes was issued following a retreat in Northern Ireland.

Pittsburgh's Bishop Bob Duncan, who heads the Anglican Communion Network, believes Western attempts to reinterpret the Primates' statement indicate a deep split -- a split with implications much broader than the suspension of the North American churches. "This is a defining moment for us in the Anglican Communion," he says, "and I think it's a defining moment, by extension, for much of Western Protestantism."

Duncan feels the statement from the global Anglican Communion leaders was "breathtaking" in its clarity and commitment to biblical authority. He says it indicated that the Anglican Communion "will stand firmly with the universal Church in terms of both the faith of the church vis-a-vis how man was created and what man's and woman's role is in terms of marriage and sexual intimacy, [and] that that's God's expressed plan for His creation."

In addition to asking the Canadian Anglican Church and the ECUSA to withdraw and explain themselves, the Anglican Primates are calling for a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same-sex unions as well as on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside traditional Christian marriage.

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a news reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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