CHICAGO: LIBERAL TEACHINGS BRING CHURCH SPLIT

LIBERAL TEACHINGS BRING CHURCH SPLIT

ORTHODOX EPISCOPALIANS FORM OWN CONGREGATION

By Geneive Abdo

Tribune religion reporter

June 6, 2004

Disillusioned with the liberal teachings of the national Episcopal Church, a group of orthodox Episcopalians will hold its first service Sunday at the Church of Christ the King in Evanston, a new congregation born of a nationwide conflict.

Wes Schneider, one of the founders, hopes the breakaway church--believed to be the first in Illinois, if not the Midwest--will draw similar-minded Episcopalians from throughout the Chicago area.

The congregation, being launched in a rented 74-year-old gothic church on Sheridan Road that is lined with Tiffany stained-glass windows, is one of dozens of breakaway churches sprouting across the United States as conservatives part ways with the Episcopal Church USA.

The division in the national church over social issues, including gay rights and the ordination of women, has been widening since leaders approved V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay cleric, as bishop in New Hampshire last year. The split has left liberals with a church dwindling in numbers and facing doubts over its place in the more conservative worldwide Episcopal body, the Anglican Communion.

For conservatives who believe they represent the true Episcopal Church, the challenge will be whether to try to join the Anglican Communion as a separate group or try to reclaim the Episcopal Church USA.

Bishop William Persell, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, said the new congregation is "unfortunate" and a "distraction" from the mission of the Episcopal Church. But he said the diocese would not take measures to oppose it.

Schneider said he was inspired to establish a church because his former congregation, the Church of the Holy Comforter in Kenilworth, had become too liberal.

His parish pastor, Rev. Robert Myers, endorsed Robinson's consecration.

Then, in January, Myers delivered a pastoral address saying the Bible is not the direct word of God, Schneider said.

"When Rev. Myers said the Bible is not the word of God, I knew I had to leave the church," said Schneider, sitting inside the Church of Christ the King, located five miles from his former congregation.

Repeated requests for an interview with Myers and other church administrators went unanswered Friday.

The theological debate between liberal and orthodox Episcopalians is primarily over the degree of authority of Scripture.

Other faiths are locked in similar conflicts. Traditional and modernist Muslims are split over whether the Koran should be literally interpreted and applied to modern life, and the divide among Christians surfaced after the debut of the movie "The Passion of the Christ." Director Mel Gibson and his supporters argued the film represented a literal interpretation of the Bible. But others said the Gospels were not meant to be taken at face value.

Rev. David Anderson, president of the conservative American Anglican Council, a national organization, said the dispute in the Episcopal Church has reached a new phase.

"How one lives out their sexual life is only the symptom of our dispute," said Anderson. "The underlying cause is the authority of Scripture. The orthodox give it serious authority and the revisionists do not.

"What we have in liberal dioceses is bishops who no longer believe what Christianity has taught for 2,000 years but have put a New Age spin on things."

Canon Kendall Harmon is part of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, a breakaway movement that wants to reclaim the Episcopal Church in the United States. Some of the new churches in the United States have joined the network, founded earlier this year, primarily in protest of Robinson's consecration.

Harmon, a scholar, accused the Episcopal Church USA of repudiating the Bible.

"Some think you should stand in judgment of the Bible. But in fact, the Bible stands in judgment of us," he said.

The controversy sparked by Robinson's appointment is global.

At least nine of the 38 Anglican provinces worldwide have ended relations with the U.S. church.

In Evanston, the new Church of Christ the King is leasing a building that for 60 years had housed an evangelical church. Rev. Joseph Murphy, formerly the rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Reedville, Va., will lead the congregation.

"We are following a traditional Christian approach to liturgy and life," Murphy said.

The church's founders said they have not decided if they will join the breakaway Anglican network.

They plan to wait until a congregation is formed, and they are uncertain how large it might be.

But they said one thing is certain: They no longer consider themselves Episcopalians, but part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

That is a claim Bishop Persell challenged.

"Episcopalians in the United States are part of the Anglican Communion," he said. "Thus, if they no longer consider themselves Episcopalians, they can't be part of the Anglican Communion."

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune