In Texas, A Tall Order: Episcopal dissidents meet to form a network and a plan

BY DOUGLAS LEBLANC

January 23, 2004

The name does not trip off the tongue, but maybe that’s just as well. There is nothing easy about the task that the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes has set for itself.

The fledgling organization held its inaugural meeting this week in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, attracting about 100 people--roughly half laity and half clergy, including 11 bishops. The Rev. Kendall Harmon of Charleston, S.C., a participant, said that the delegates, at first, felt insecure and anxious. But by the second day they managed to agree on a founding charter. What happens next is unclear. The network is the latest expression of resistance to the Episcopal Church's novel approaches to theology and ethics. When the General Convention, the Episcopal Church’s governing body, last summer approved Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in Episcopal history, it did so despite warnings that this would separate the American church from Anglicans world-wide. There was even the possibility that conservative Episcopalians might break away.

Such a breaking away hasn’t happened, of course. But is the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes a sign it will In the shorthand of many religion reporters, the networks raison d'etre is--ominously and only--to unite dissidents who reject Mr. Robinsons consecration as a bishop. Some go further, saying its founders want to foment a schism within the world's 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

These feverish theories found some support last week when the Washington Post discovered a strategy memo by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman of Sewickley, Pa., a member of the new network. The memo discussed, as a form of protest, the faithful disobedience of canon law.

Father Chapman did not define that phrase precisely, but in the same document he referred to conservative bishops crossing into liberal dioceses to perform services and alienated parishes withholding money from the parent church. (Liberal bishops have engaged in their own civil disobedience for the past few decades by ordaining gay priests and blessing gay unions, but they claim the mantle of social justice, so no one seems to mind.) In response to the Post piece, Bishop Don E. Johnson of Memphis, Tenn.--who had actually voted against confirming Mr. Robinson--wrote a scathing pastoral letter to Episcopalians in his diocese, urging any with ties to the American Anglican Council to sever them. (The new network has arisen from the Washington-based AAC.)

All this served as a backdrop to the gathering in Plano, creating a certain tension among the participants, who had to wonder just what kind of organization they were forming. In fact, the network has divisions within itself. By the end of the inaugural sessions, various factions had agreed to disagree about, for instance, the ordination of women. And various concerns were smoothed down, like those of Bishop John W. Howe of Orlando, Fla., who had worried aloud that the network could become a shadow province within the Episcopal Church.

Still, the groups’ conservative purpose is clear. It approved Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh as its first leader. The day after the network adjourned, he boarded a jet for Uganda, where network members will be the only Episcopalians welcome to celebrate the enthronement of that nation’s newest Anglican archbishop.

The inaugural sessions also made clear that the networks dissent has to do with more than sexual ethics. The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Mount Pleasant, S.C., is typical of many members. He feels increasingly alienated from the Episcopal Church’s image as Trinitarian on paper but Unitarian in practice. Like others, his greatest concern is for the authority of Scripture in Christians daily lives. Critics of conservative Episcopalians claim that some are guilty of Donatism, a heresy in which Christians question the validity of sacraments, such as Holy Communion, if a priest or bishop teaches errant doctrine. Im not questioning whether the sacraments are still valid, Father Wood says. Im questioning whether we worship the same God.

The network will face various tests in the months ahead. It will contend with Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold about what sort of pastoral care he can provide--i.e., what sort of protection--to conservative congregations that may suffer under punitive liberal bishops. And the network will undoubtedly form liaisons with Global South archbishops--the orthodox clergy in the Third World--who no longer consider themselves in communion with the Episcopal Church.

Some critics may have hoped to bury the network as stillborn this week. Instead, it seems to have emerged as a newly baptized baby--with, naturally, an uncertain future.

Mr. LeBlanc is an associate editor of Christianity Today magazine.