Anglican Church Can’t Avoid Row

Amazing how one tries to avoid the division and it just won’t go away. Read the headline from Saturday May 6, 2006 from the BBC News.

Bishop vote avoids gay clergy row
Mark Andrus, a Suffragan Bishop in Alabama, was elected after three rounds of voting by lay and clergy delegates.

Three gay candidates, whose nomination sparked fears of a Church split, failed to make the impact that was predicted.

The election of openly gay priest Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire three years ago caused great division.

Just 3 days later (ironic isn’t it) that the issue rises once more. Read this headline from the Christian Post.

Anglican Head to Appoint Advisory Team for Gay Row Resolution
A Special Commission of the Episcopal Church has also been created, consisting of clergy and laypeople, with the goal to recommend a way for the church body to tackle the problem. In April 2006 it reported back that the denomination should be extremely cautious about making any new consecrations of homosexual clergy, and that it should make a fresh statement of repentance, and apologize for the trouble it had caused the worldwide Communion.

Specifically the group explained that it was split over whether it should go a stage further and tell the 2.3 million-member church body to ???refrain??? from consecrating gays at all. Instead it has settled on telling members to use extreme and ???considerable caution??? before committing another consecration such as Gene Robinson???s.

Anglican leaders across Africa and Asia have called for the ECUSA to be expelled from the Communion unless it repented for its consecration of Bishop Robinson, and also to fall in line with traditional Church theology on the matter.

It appears that the pacification process of hiring a man who happens to be married didn’t stop the row. Nor should it. The division has already occurred.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; - 1Ti 3:2

The division came when they chose to ignore listening to Jesus and the teaching of his apostles. The world may live however it choses. They will face a day where they will be accountable. Today we accountable, if we claim to follow Jesus Christ and we refuse to listen to the teachings he gave us.

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. - Luke 12:51

What happens when conservative followers of Jesus Christ get stuck in a religion? If there are any left it will be time to leave the religion and find greener pastures. The church is already split despite the form of religion. Those who listen and then those who don’t.

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