Anglican Church at edge of precipice, says archbishop
LONDON The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the Anglican Church is tottering on the brink of disintegration amid disputes between liberals and traditionalists.
In his most stark comments yet about divisions over issues such as homosexuality, Justin Welby said the Church was coming perilously close to plunging into a “ravine of intolerance.”
He drew parallels between the crisis afflicting the 77-millionstrong worldwide network of Anglican churches and the atmosphere during the English civil war, in the mid-1600s. And he likened the collective behaviour of the Church to a “drunk man” staggering ever closer to the edge of a cliff.
Yet he added that many of the issues over which different factions in the Church were fighting were “incomprehensible” to people outside it.
He spoke out during a sermon in Monterrey, Mexico, which he was visiting as part of a plan to travel to every province of the Anglican Communion at the start of his ministry.
The Archbishop, who took office in February, inherited a Church deeply divided at home and abroad.
At home, he has been attempting to resolve the seemingly intractable disagreements within the Church of England over female bishops. But the worldwide Anglican Church has also been split between liberal provinces, particularly in North America, and more conservative regions for several years after the U.S. church consecrated its first openly homosexual bishop.
The archbishop said the Church had to steer a course between, on one hand, compromising so much that it abandoned its “core beliefs” and, on the other, becoming so intolerant that it fractures completely.
“We struggle with each other at a time when the Anglican Communion’s great vocation as bridge builder is more needed than ever,” he said at the service in Monterrey.