It's not about gays.Episcopalians keep insisting it's not.
But, as American Episcopal bishops return home from an international religious conference this week, it's clear that the "gay issue" is one that continues to split the Episcopal church.
Since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, Anglicans have been divided over their approach to gay priests, gay marriage and who holds ultimate authority in the communion of 77 million followers around the world.
The once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, which ends today, showed no ability to suture those wounds. Although the conference was not intended to make binding decisions, the strife within the church was so deep that more than 200 conservative bishops from Africa, Asia and North America boycotted the meeting entirely, convening in Jerusalem instead.
While liberals offered a compromise to hold off consecrating gay bishops or accepting gay marriages, conservatives weren't buying. Many, like Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, said conservatives would not be pacified by delays. "We talked about marriage and said no marriage of the same sex," he said, referring to the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which decreed homosexuality incompatible with scripture. "But still they went ahead and consecrated somebody who was gay."
That "somebody" was Robinson, who arrived at this year's conference with a body guard, and whose election has sparked the secession of the "Connecticut Six" churches from the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.
Those churches, including a group that split from Christ Church in Watertown, disagree with Diocesan Bishop Andrew Smith's insistence on accepting gay clergy. In January about 50 of them formed New Hope Anglican Church, which is now allied with the Cathedral Diocese of Nairobi, Kenya.
The Rev. Christopher Leighton of St. Paul's Church of Darien, another of the "Connecticut Six," said that Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury will not be able to hold the church together.
"What we'll see is the continued rise of the Global South leadership. The axis of power is shifting from the rich and the white to those who have less material resources, but have the spiritual resources necessary to lead the communion further," he said.
Nigeria, for example, has 18 million active Anglicans.
At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 80 percent of Anglicans lived in Britain, and only 1 percent lived in sub-Saharan Africa, reports the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Today, 55 percent of the world's Anglicans live in sub-Saharan Africa while only 33 percent of Anglicans live in Britain — and few of those are in church most Sundays. In the United States, mainline Protestant churches like the Episcopal Church have been steadily losing members since the 1960s. The number of Anglicans in the United States, has declined to 2.2 million.
A shift to the Global South
Nigeria's Archbishop, Peter Akinola, has condemned homosexuality as an abomination against God's teaching.
"All these people brought Christianity to us, but now the church is growing here like wildfire," Akinola has said. "It's spreading everywhere while the Church in England is withering; while the church in the states is going (away) completely."
How that growth will affect Episcopalians in the United States — 80,000 of whom live in Connecticut — remains unclear. At Lambeth, Williams acknowledged that the church faces "one of the most severe challenges" in a history that dates back to Henry VIII. "It is not an option to hope that we can somehow just carry on as we always have," he told the bishops.
"In my view, the split has already taken place," David Steinmetz, an expert in Christian history at Duke Divinity School in Charlotte, N.C., told The Associated Press. "The interesting question — still unanswered — is how wide and deep will it grow?"
"The Episcopal church, as an organization, is changing its teaching and theology and is moving away from the traditions of the church," New Hope member Paul LePine said. "It's been slowly accelerating over the years and it picked up steam when they began blessing same sex unions a few years back," and that is driving conservatives to the African communion.
History of schisms
Although most believe England's King Henry VIII established the Anglican church after Pope Clement VII's refusal to grant his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, church historians insist Henry spent much of his reign challenging Rome's authority.
The newly separated Anglican church began to gain structure in the 1500s under the reign of Elizabeth I.
The Episcopal Church is the official name of the Province of Anglican Communion in the United States, and was formed shortly after the American Revolution in the late 1700s.
This is not the first time the Episcopal church has encountered division. It split over slavery and 30 years ago separated over the ordination of women, which the full Anglican Communion still does not universally accept.
The Rev. Jim Bradley, of St. John's on the Green in Waterbury, said homophobia seems to be acceptable discrimination.
"If it was a black person or women (in Robinson's place) some may be upset, but not say it out loud, but because he's gay, they say it out loud," he said.
Theology of Episcopal Church
Comedian Robin Williams once said the Episcopal faith was "Catholic light — same rituals, half the guilt."
Episcopalians recognize freedom of conscience, which is defined as a person's moral judgment upon oneself. The religion is considered to be half-way between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and has played a leading role in the progressive movement since the 1960s.
The Rev. Alex Dyer, a gay minister at Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, said freedom of conscience is what drew him to the faith.
"One of the greatest strengths about the Episcopal church is the whole diversity of views," he said.
"The Episcopal Church, in its history, has not been a very dogmatic church. It's been a church that's allowed people to question, to have doubts and fears, and all that, I think, is a part of a healthy and mature faith," Dyer said.
Bradley agreed. "We have never, unlike most churches, never defined ourselves by theology or doctrine, we defined ourselves by how we worship."
This too shall pass?
Balmer believes the debate over sexuality will pass.
"I think we'll weather this. A lot of people make a lot of noise and I think in the end, people have a kind of attachment to the Episcopal Church."
Not according to Benedict. He is adamant that conservatives are willing to divorce from the Episcopal Church.
Kallsen agreed. "There is no mechanism in the church to help us discipline a branch of our church that is teaching and practicing heresy," he said.
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