Number: 5772 Date: June 10,
The Scottish Episcopal Church this week attempted to heal its divisions over homosexual ordinations and blessings by promising further discussion on the subject.
But this week’s commitment to debate is unlikely to mollify traditionalists and evangelicals who were outraged over its April statement that revealed that ordinations and blessings of practising homosexuals were already taking place in the Episcopal Church.
The statement appeared to side the Scottish Episcopal Church with Anglicans in America and Canada who had come under censure from the Primates’ Meeting at Dromantine in February.
The bishops said that between now and the Lambeth Conference in 2008, “we are committed as a Province to sharing in the wider debate taking place across the Anglican Communion.” They called for a ‘spirit of generosity’ to appreciate the full range of views.
They said that the issues to be debated were the place of practising homosexuals, their ministry, and how the Church can hold together people of differing views.
“The members of the College of Bishops recognise that they have a teaching and pastoral responsibility. They, therefore, wish to create an environment in which passionately held views can be expressed and heard in an atmosphere of charity acceptance and honesty,” they said in their statement.
Although an informal grouping of Scottish Anglicans who have been in intensive discussion with the Bishops has not yet released a response to the new statements, conservative sources suggest that the statement does not go far enough in satisfying their concerns. They believe that the Bishops should have repudiated their earlier statement and have also complained that the Bishops do not spell out what form the discussion they are calling for will take.
The Bishops’ statement follows news that the Irish Diocese of Connor is currently reviewing its companion relationship with the Diocese of Edinburgh. In the controversy over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion a number of partnership relationships between Anglicans in Africa and America have already been affected.
Recently a Caribbean Bishop withdrew an invitation to the Bishop of Chelmsford, John Gladwin, to preach over his views on the crisis.
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