A House Divided

By Claudia Wallis

For many of his 28 years as an Episcopal priest in New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson has specialized in helping congregations and clergy grapple with painful conflicts. So perhaps it was divine destiny that Robinson would become the focus of the biggest and most painful conflict to afflict the Episcopal Church in decades--one that threatens the very integrity of the 2.3 million--member U.S. denomination and the 70 million--member worldwide Anglican Communion to which it belongs. Robinson seems to see his role in terms of a divine plan: 17 years ago, "I answered God's call to acknowledge myself as a gay man," he has explained. "Now God seems to be calling me to another journey."

That journey officially began last week, when Robinson, 56, became the first actively gay person to be approved as an Episcopal bishop. On the evening of Aug. 5, 62 of 107 bishops convening in Minneapolis, Minn., voted to support the canon, a divorced father of two grown daughters who has lived openly with another man for 13 years. The vote, which confirmed Robinson's earlier selection by the New Hampshire diocese, came just hours after he was cleared of last-minute charges of sexual misconduct.

Within moments of Robinson's confirmation, a quiet but furious storm began to shake the denomination. A procession of about a dozen grim-faced bishops admonished the assemblage. "With grief too deep for words, the bishops who stand before you must reject this action," intoned Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, Pa. "May God have mercy on his church." That evening, while Bishop-elect Robinson met briefly with the press to pronounce it "a very good day," members of the conservative American Anglican Council (AAC) held a press conference of their own in a nearby Lutheran church to announce their dismay and allude to plans for a possible rift.

"We consider Gene Robinson's election invalid, null and void," AAC leader David Anderson later told TIME. "When those 62 bishops voted, there was a shattering of the Episcopal Church as we know it. The structural disengagement of the church has begun."

Conservatives were further inflamed on Thursday when the bishops in Minneapolis addressed the controversial practice of blessing same-sex unions, which is permitted in some dioceses and banned in others. Although the bishops rejected a movement to write a formal liturgy for such ceremonies, they officially affirmed that such rites are "an acceptable practice within the church" and recognized that some parishes had already begun to "explore and experience" liturgies for gay unions. On Friday, the final day of the meeting, the AAC announced it would formally seek to create a new and separate Episcopal province in the U.S. The group plans to meet in Plano, Texas, in October to discuss the matter. Anderson denied that the group was splitting from the church. Rather, he told the New York Times, "they have split from us."

Conservative prelates in far-flung corners of the Anglican Communion, which consists of 38 independent provinces around the world, felt the same way. Response to Robinson's appointment from church leaders in Africa and Asia, the fastest-growing areas of Anglicanism, was especially swift and stern. "We cannot be in fellowship with them when they violate the explicit Scripture that the Anglican Church subscribes to," said Peter Karanja, provost of the All Saints Cathedral Church in Nairobi, Kenya. "It's outrageous and uncalled for." Bishop Lim Cheng Ean, leader of the Anglican Church of West Malaysia, was only a bit less blunt: "Practicing homosexuality is culturally and legally not acceptable here." He indicated that the bishops in the nine-nation Southeast Asian province may consider severing relations with the U.S. church when they meet this week.

The delicate task of keeping peace within the worldwide communion will fall to its spiritual leader, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Though the Archbishop does not have the authority of a Pope, he is primus inter pares. Williams narrowly evaded a rift over a gay but celibate bishop on his home turf in July, when that bishop-appointee, after meeting with the Archbishop for six hours, declined the office, citing concerns about church unity.

The Archbishop cannot talk the American church out of a done deal, but he may be able to broker a peace plan. Anglicans officially declared homosexuality to be "incompatible with Scripture" at their most recent Lambeth Conference--a once-a-decade meeting of the world's Anglican bishops--in 1998. Still, dioceses have traditionally been granted generous latitude in deciding their local practices. Archbishop Williams announced last Friday an emergency meeting of the 38 primates from around the world to consider the actions of the U.S. church. "I hope," he said in an official statement, "we will find that there are ways forward in this situation which can preserve our respect for one another and for the bonds that unite us."

Such a meeting of the church's leaders on a single, urgent topic is "very, very rare," says the Rev. J. Robert Wright, official historiographer of the Episcopal Church. "To my knowledge it has never been done before."

Other Protestant churches are carefully watching developments in the Episcopal Church. "In the past the struggle around homosexuality in one denomination has presented a template for the struggle in other churches," says the Rev. Eileen Lindner, a historian with the National Council of Churches. Lindner points out that Presbyterians, United Methodists and Evangelical Lutherans all have "substantial, active, gay faithful caucuses" that now will push to re-examine the question of gay clergy. In fact, Reverend Wright, who escorted "ecumenical observers" from other churches at last week's conference, said the prevailing view was that "a logjam had been broken."

Scholars feel that mainline U.S. Protestantism has been on a long, anguished but inevitable path toward completely including homosexuals. "Many people say, well, it's a matter of time," says Lamin Sanneh, professor of religious history at Yale. But fast-growing churches in the Third World and evangelicals are unlikely to follow this path. Some Protestants, he says, take their cue from evolving "cultural standards," others from set ideas about Scripture and tradition. For the Anglicans, it will take a considerable leap of faith to bridge the divide. --Reported by Simon Crittle/Concord, N.H., and Marguerite Michaels/Minneapolis

With reporting by Simon Crittle/Concord, N.H., and Marguerite Michaels/Minneapolis