There is one small stench awhiff in the Anglican Church, but it betrays a large rot.
The stench is the hot button issue of same-sex blessings. It’s not a particularly difficult issue. It’s not a church dividing issue. In a healthy church, this issue would not exist. One of the signs of a healthy church is that when issues like this arise, they are dealt with in stride and the church *moves on* with its mission of spreading the Gospel.
So what’s the sign of an unhealthy church?
For a start, people are arguing over “Who is an Anglican”. People on all (not “both”, “all”) sides of the issue are staking their “Anglican” claims.
If you acknowledge a Bishop who doesn’t happen to live in your neck of the woods, does that preclude you from being an Anglican?
If you take a novel interpretation of the liturgy, does *that* preclude you from being an Anglican?
If you don’t recognize the Bishop of Canterbury, does *that* preclude you from being an Anglican?
When people start questioning, “Who is, or isn’t, ‘one of us’?”, it’s a sure indicator of dangerous waters. This isn’t to say that discovering an identity is a bad thing… just that it’s a dangerous thing. If you do it wrong, you’re bound to hurt yourself and others.
The most important thing to keep in mind when designing a church divide is that the Church doesn’t divide in the way things normally divide.
Ordinarily, when you divide something, you are left with two or more parts of the previous whole.
“…one holy, catholic and apostolic Church…”
When you divide the church, you are left with two groups of people acknowledging one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
The Church is indivisible.
This is a spiritual and logical truth.
There *is* *one* Church.
There always has been *one* Church.
There will only ever be *one* Church.
Most importantly, we don’t get to assign membership.
When people are breaking up a church that can’t be divided and squabbling over membership that they don’t have authority to assign, something funny is going on.
The easy answer is that this is not a Church issue, that this is an Anglican Communion issue.
Still, I would hope that there’s at least *some* overlap between the two.
