by Carrie Baker

COLUMBUS, June 25, 2006 - In an historic event earlier this month, cheers of shock and awe were heard throughout Christendom when the news of the new head of the Episcopal Church of the USA was announced at the national convention on Father’s day. You may be asking, “why the shock?”

The new head of the Episcopal Church of the USA is a Nevada bishop named Katharine Jefferts Schori. Not only is the new head a woman, but she is also an African American woman. Better still, she is an African American woman who quite liberal and supports same sex blessings in her church in Nevada.

To her stance on homosexuality, Jefferts Schori’s response has been, “I believe that God welcomes all to his table, people who agree and people who disagree, and the Episcopal Church has always had a strong voice for including a variety of theologies, a variety of opinions, and insisting that all the marginalized are most especially welcomed at the table.”

Her ascent has already sparked a firestorm among liberal and conservatives alike. Many feel that the job of Bishop should be male specific to start with. Others still are afraid of the international fallout of the choice.

One such country that has already begun to condemn the Episcopal Church of the USA is the Anglican Church of Africa. The problem that the Anglican Church of Africa seems to be expressing is less about the appointment of a female Bishop and more about the church’s stance on gay rights. As some of you may remember, this is the same religious body that elected the first openly gay Bishop in 2003.

The Anglican Church is a loose group of churches that represent 77 million congregants throughout the world. Some Canadian Anglicans have started blessing same sex unions causing some African Bishops to fight back against what they believe to be “morally wrong.” They have said, among other things, that the “US church is flouting centuries-old Anglican teaching and must repent for its actions, raising fears of a schism within the communion.”

Bishop Peter Akinola from the African Anglican Church has sent the US Anglican churches a letter this week condemning homosexuality and asking that the US Churches do the same. “We have observed the commitment shown by your church to the full participation of people in same-gender sexual relationships in civic life, church life, and leadership. Our churches cannot reconcile this with the teaching on marriage set out in the Holy Scripture and repeatedly affirmed throughout the Anglican Communion.”

The African Church wants to go so far as to condemn homosexuality within the Anglican Church. Conservatives and Liberals are trying to meet halfway with a compromise aimed at making both sides happy. The nonbinding resolution says that they will try to “avoid consecrating openly gay bishops,” but it did not go as far as to condemn homosexuality.

Bishop Akinola’s letter, however, made it clear that the African Church thought that this was not far enough. He responded by saying, “When we meet with other primates from the Global South in September, we shall present our concerted pastoral and structural response.”

To be sure this is not the only negativity that the Episcopal Church will receive. Change sometimes comes slowly, but at least within this religious body, it is happening at all.