Excerpt from a Reader's Viewpoint column by John S. Morgan, a member of All Saints’ Church, Fort Worth, in the January 23, 2005 issue of THE LIVING CHURCH magazine (reproduced at TitusOneNine):
It is ironic that the two most vocal, self-proclaimed guardians of the traditional, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith, disagree vociferously over the validity of women priests. Yet their supporters maintain an uneasy truce, as they exist side by side in the overlapping convocations of the Anglican Communion Network. They can agree to disagree within their network. They cannot agree to disagree with their adversaries in their Church. They can tell you everything you need to know about sexuality but not about the validity of female priests.
It is ironic that these guardians of the traditional cannot find common ground in scripture concerning the validity of women priests but refuse to live in tolerance with those of their brethren who have a different understanding of what scripture informs on same-gender sexuality. If unity means uniformity of doctrine, the network is not united.
The responsive comments (nearly all by traditionalists) are interesting too.
Sadly, the ironies grow as we look around: the Anglican "Communion"? Here we just finished a week of prayer for Christian unity. It is ironic that we even need to spend time talking about disunity. I suppose I need to go back to Jesus' high priestly prayer...
Posted by: Joseph Walker | February 01, 2005 at 08:42 PM