MORE ON THE ANGLICAN SCHISM

The controversies swirling within the Episcopal Church of the United States, acronym ECUSA, I believe, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, have not, thus far, washed very far into our parish.

Our diocesan newspaper, a thin sheet indeed, has precious little to say about them.

There are no study groups actively pursuing this or that position on this or that ‘heresy’.

We are a conservative parish and we go about our business. I have no doubt that we are known as such down at the Diocesan Center. Most of us share a consensus, toleration, a mutual caring.

We guess at what the various opinions are within our group. We surmise about what ideas might be lurking within our company. We worship together. We do not fight with each other. We are a community. We get along and we need each other.

I suspect that the ECUSA used to be like that on a much larger scale. Or that it wanted to be. A while ago.

Not today.

The blogs and newsletters and news reports tell a different story. So do the law suits and the threats and the ‘intrusions’ of authority of ‘alien’ bishops into our greater American Church.

Some ECUSA leaders say and do things which the general church-going public finds to be bizarre and shocking, offensive to community standards.

Well, to what used to be community standards.

Community standards can be wrong. They have taken a long while to form. They are being challenged and are changing at an ever-increasing pace. A breakneck pace.

It occurs to me that if the generals of the Christian ‘soldiers’ get too far out in front of the troops, the army might not be able to keep up.

A leaderless army will not remain so for long.

A new reality will form. The word in current political parlance is...change.

Perhaps that is how it has to be.

Perhaps nothing stands still. Perhaps time itself is defined as change.

Sir Winston Churchill once said that if you are going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs.

That is all well and good if you are not part of the eggs involved. And if the omelet is a good one.

I really wonder if those seeking all this change in the ECUSA have thought about the change they are wreaking on the Anglican Communion.