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furrbearJim Naughton's Face to Faith column for The Guardian is now live:
Click the link above to read the full article.Our church has not sought to increase the strain in the communion, but to redistribute it. The suffering on all sides of the debate over homosexuality must be borne by the entire church. Ideally, it would be borne by the entire communion in the form of generous pastoral discretion and respect for the discernment of individual provinces, but Williams and a majority of the primates have rejected this most Anglican of accommodations in favour of a single-issue magisterium on the issue of homosexuality.
Gradually, tentatively, the Episcopal Church has begun to push back. The result, in Anaheim, was a pair of resolutions that attempted to be firm yet conciliatory, recognising the need to move, but move slowly, in order to bring along as much of the church as possible. A resolution that touches obliquely on the consecration of gay bishops is best understood as a description of the conflicted state in which we find ourselves, and the tortuous road we took to get here. It recognises that gay and lesbian Christians are called to ministry in our church, notes that some people oppose their participation at certain levels, and makes clear that as we work through this issue, we aren't in a position to guarantee the outcome.
