Post by angli_fan on Jan 4, 2007 20:28:08 GMT -5
[from the website of Duke University]
By the Rev. Jo Bailey Wells
The conversations and commissions that have unfolded within the Anglican Communion since the consecration of a practicing homosexual as bishop continue to be misunderstood by Americans, both the liberals and the conservatives. Taught by Jefferson to claim an inalienable right to liberty in all religious matters, it seems that American Anglicans on both sides find defending their autonomy more urgent than defending the ‘communities of discernment’ and ‘global interdependence’ that are characteristic of Anglicanism. The ordination of Gene Robinson was viewed, in some other parts of the Anglican Communion, as a case of ecclesiastical imperialism by the American left. Now the departure of some churches from the Episcopal fold is seen as a corresponding act of congregational imperialism. Even the conservatives are proving themselves liberals deep down: more committed to their consciences and convictions --to being ‘right’ -- than to the wider body of the Church in which they find themselves.
www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/01/jowells_oped.html
By the Rev. Jo Bailey Wells
The conversations and commissions that have unfolded within the Anglican Communion since the consecration of a practicing homosexual as bishop continue to be misunderstood by Americans, both the liberals and the conservatives. Taught by Jefferson to claim an inalienable right to liberty in all religious matters, it seems that American Anglicans on both sides find defending their autonomy more urgent than defending the ‘communities of discernment’ and ‘global interdependence’ that are characteristic of Anglicanism. The ordination of Gene Robinson was viewed, in some other parts of the Anglican Communion, as a case of ecclesiastical imperialism by the American left. Now the departure of some churches from the Episcopal fold is seen as a corresponding act of congregational imperialism. Even the conservatives are proving themselves liberals deep down: more committed to their consciences and convictions --to being ‘right’ -- than to the wider body of the Church in which they find themselves.
www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/01/jowells_oped.html