US bishop to take on tension at major Anglican meeting

Posted on July 18, 2008 
Filed Under Gay News Blog

NEW YORK — Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was installed as head of the U.S. church less than two years ago, inheriting a mess not of her own making.

The global Anglican Communion was in an uproar over the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Long-simmering differences over Scripture and the global Anglican fellowship erupted into a threat of full-blown schism.

Jefferts Schori, a theological liberal who supported Robinson’s election, has tried to ease the tensions in meetings with other Anglican leaders.

Starting next Wednesday, she will be explaining the church’s actions in her broadest venue yet: the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world. Jefferts Schori said she’s looking forward to the “face-to-face conversation” at the event.

“We’re far more diverse than we’re presented in some quarters,” she said in a recent interview with The Associated Press at Episcopal headquarters in New York. “We have people all over the theological spectrum and liturgical spectrum.”

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It won’t be an easy sell.

About 200 conservative Anglican bishops won’t even be there. They are boycotting the 18-day event outside London because the U.S. bishops who consecrated Robinson were invited. (For the sake of unity, the Anglican spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, barred Robinson and a handful of other bishops from the assembly.)

But that won’t mean a conflict-free Lambeth for Episcopal bishops.

Tradition-minded church leaders who want the Anglican family to stay together despite its rifts will attend. They will undoubtedly ask Jefferts Schori about complaints that the 2.2 million-member U.S. church is mistreating its conservative minority.

Of the tensions within the American church, Jefferts Schori said “we’ve attempted to deal with it in the Christian community” but haven’t always been successful.

US bishop to take on tension at major Anglican meeting
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