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The 2.1 million U.S. Episcopalians will have to ponder three urgent questions now that their General Convention in Minneapolis has approved the election of an openly homosexual cleric as next bishop of New Hampshire:

1. Will their tiny denomination (there are fewer Episcopalians now than convicts in jail) remain in communion with the rest of the world's 70 million Anglicans? Their chances are slim, given the warnings of the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, archbishop of Lagos and primate of Nigeria, who has of late become the world's most forceful Protestant voice.
   
   
2. How will the Minneapolis decision impinge on ecumenical relations with much larger partners, especially the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, to which Episcopalians are in a sense married by a treaty titled Called to Common Mission, or CCM? Great is the danger that it will accelerate the ELCA's expected implosion over the issue of—guess what?—homosexuality.
   
   
3. Is the Episcopal Church USA still a church in the historical and theological sense of the word? Since Minneapolis there are solid reasons to doubt that the ECUSA as a denomination can seriously make this claim (this does not mean, though, that its faithful dioceses and denominations, a minority, should be read out of the Body of Christ).
   
   

What is a church? The Greek word, ek-klesia, defines it clearly: "called out" (of the masses)— by God, not libido. "Church" is not an assembly of the elect chic with the right to decide which political, sexual or other preference, or any fad for that matter, may be considered holy.

"Church" is not an organization whose clerics—representing Christ at the altar—can declare their same-sex partnership "sacramental," as did the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson before his election to the New Hampshire bishopric was confirmed. Protestantism, Anglicanism included, affirms "two sacraments instituted by Christ our Lord in the Gospel-Baptism and the Lord's Supper," we read in article 25 of the Anglican Church's 39 Articles of Religion. Whims of concupiscence do definitely not fall under this rubric.

In article 19 of the same 16th century statement of faith we find these words: "The visible church of Christ is a congregation of believers in which the pure Word of God is preached and in which the sacraments are rightly administered according to Christ's command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration."

"The pure word of God"—both in the Old and New Testaments—proscribes divorce and certain types of sexual activity. Before Monday's crucial vote, Robinson's supporters spoke much of being guided by "the Spirit." No doubt, they were. But whether it was the Holy Spirit is quite a different question. All sorts of religious fiends, especially those following the example if the 16th-century enthusiasts led by the blood-soaked Thomas Muentzer, claimed adherence to the free-blowing Third Person in the Trinity.

Since Episcopalians are ecumenically wedded with Lutherans—and actually imposed their form of ministerial oversight on them—please let's give Luther a voice here. He said that the only safe way to probe such a question is to test it against Scripture. Had the ECUSA's House of Bishops done so in Minneapolis, the Rev. Robinson would not be given a miter, but the sound advice to repent.

The selfishness and arrogance of the Minneapolis vote are astounding. It was a decision based purely on North American—and perhaps Western European—preoccupations with their bodily wants. Not only did the General Convention of the "Church of Good Taste" ignore the beliefs of fellow Anglicans in Africa, Asia and South America, about whose faithfulness U.S. prelates such as John Spong, the former bishop of Newark, N.J., snigger haughtily.

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August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47