“The vast majority of Anglicans are embarrassed, shocked, horrified and feel betrayed,” says the Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon, Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina and editor of the Anglican Digest, described as “the largest circulation publication for the communion, worldwide.”
I called Harmon after he sent an e-mail message thanking me for my column (“Homosexual Ordination No ‘New Thing,’” The Pilot, Aug. 20) condemning the ECUSA’s ordination of V. Gene Robinson, 56, as bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. The ECUSA’s House of Bishops voted (62 to 43, with two abstentions) to ordain Robinson, an openly homosexual priest, on Aug. 5 in Minneapolis.
“It was a deeply divided vote of a highly fractured church,” says Harmon, who attended the Minneapolis convention. “Those who opposed the ordination have deep convictions.”
Harmon, 43, a father of three who was born in Lawrenceville, N.J., earned a doctorate from Oxford and lives in Summerville, S.C., says the ECUSA’s 2.3 million members are only part of the 70-80 million Anglicans spread throughout 160 countries.
“Because of my studies and travels, I can see how the U.S. Episcopal Church is radically unrepresentative of world Anglicanism,” Harmon says. “There are 17.5 million Anglicans in Nigeria, and the Primate of Nigeria is utterly horrified at what’s happened. The leaders of the global South are determined to discipline the ECUSA. We have repudiated scripture and arrogantly dismissed world concerns.”
Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola said, “We are astonished that such a high-level convention of The Episcopal Church should conspire to turn its back on the clear teaching of the Bible on the matter of human sexuality…They have chosen the path of deviation from the ‘historic faith’ once delivered to the saints.”
“The decision…to elect and confirm an active homosexual man as a bishop is wrong,” Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said. ”It is against Biblical teaching. It is a sin, and it damages the Body of Christ…It makes it difficult for people to understand what ‘family’ means.”
Bishop Mouneer Anis, the Bishop of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa, said: “This decision will unquestionably damage our interfaith relations with our Muslim friends among whom we live…(and) have a negative impact on our relations with the Orthodox and Catholic Churches…We will definitely be seen by them as heretical.”
Harmon says that some “like-minded orthodox Anglicans who believe we’re in a crisis,” plan to meet at Christ Church in Plano, Texas, on Oct. 7-9. He notes that the Archbishop of Canterbury has called for an “unprecedented, extraordinary meeting of the 38 Anglican world primates” for an Oct. 15-16 meeting in Lambeth, England, to discuss the controversy. I also received e-mail from Paul Morton, 82, a “cradle” Episcopalian from Pinehurst. Morton wrote: “I can’t help feeling that the decline in our church’s membership from some 5 million-plus, 50 years ago, to its present membership of 2 million-plus can be traced to its tendency in trying to be all things to all people and ending up being nothing to anyone…I hope and pray that someday our church will return to its founding faith.”
Some ECUSA leaders’ views on homosexuality reveal their disregard for many of the Bible’s plain statements and their tendencies to interpret Bible passages to accommodate society’s moral meanderings. The ECUSA can perhaps return to its “founding faith,” but it may take a deluge of Anglican orthodoxy to wash away the sins of some ECUSA Fathers.
Steve Crain may be reached at crain207@earthlink.net.
