Contrary to attention-grabbing, click-baiting headlines, last week’s meeting of Anglican Primates did not suspend The Episcopal Church (TEC). That’s what a lot of people hoped would happen, and many predicted would happen, but it didn’t. It is not even something that the Primates can do. Even what the Primates claim to have done overreaches what they have authority to do. What they actually claim to have done may be realised, but not automatically by virtue of their decision. They just do not have that power.
After hearing very little from the official news presence of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (ACANZP), suddenly our church’s news site had the heading: “PRIMATES VOTE TO SUSPEND TEC”. I thought this was over-egged – unhelpful at the least; at worst, untrue. In the (twitter) conversation that ensued I discovered that the Washington Post (not a formal Anglican news source) had an expanded version: “Anglican Communion suspends the Episcopal Church after years of gay rights debates”. I was referred to the post by Andrew McGowan of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale who makes similar points to my own.
Read Full Article »