Seven Episcopal congregations in Virginia — including perhaps the two largest and most influential in the Commonwealth, Truro in Fairfax County and the Falls Church in, you guessed it, Falls Church — have just voted overwhelmingly to secede from the the U.S. Episcopal Church, believing it to have drifted too far left. More are expected to so shortly.
Most of the breakaway churches in Virginia are joining the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, an offshoot of the Nigerian church led by the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter J. Akinola.
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Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia, where the Episcopal Church has had roots for nearly 400 years, said his diocese had worked to keep the disaffected churches in the fold.
“The votes today have compromised these discussions and have created Nigerian congregations occupying Episcopal churches,” Bishop Lee said. “This is not the future of the Episcopal Church envisioned by our forebears.”
Well, no, it isn’t. But then neither is the church they are leaving. It is not for me, however, to give theological, Scripture-interpreting advice to Episcopalians, or anyone else.
But not to be totally deterred from commenting, I would like to say that there is one element of the Episcopal schism that deserves more comment than it has received. Before the recent secessions (these in Virginia are not the only ones), the U.S. Episcopal church had about 2.2 million members, not much weightier than a fly on the back of the camel of the international Anglican Communion, which has about 77 million members. A substantial majority of those 77 million communicants around the world regard the emerging orthodoxies of the U.S. Episcopal Church (not just the ordaining of gay bishops) to be heresies, and yet, so far as I know, we’ve heard not a peep from those who usually miss no opportunity to criticize the United States for “ignoring world opinion,” “going it alone,” “insisting on a morality the rest of the world rejects,” etc.
When the impending conflict over who owns the property of the seceding churches reaches the courts, it will be interesting to see how many judges think it relevant to consider the views of foreign tribunals, both secular and ecclesiastical, in interpreting the dictates of contemporary morality.
