Sunday, May 07, 2006

Episcopalians Dodge Bullet.

For now.

The California Diocese elected Mark Andrus as its next bishop. There were seven candidates; of those, two were gay men and one was a lesbian. One of the men was black. So this was, as these things go, a very diverse slate.

[Note to self: Aren't you sick of using "diverse" so superficially? For all I know, the whole group held the precise same social and theological views, exercised the same leadership in the same way, and so forth. There are other kinds of diversity than race, sex and nookie -- but mainline American Christianity doesn't care about anything else anymore.]

Anyway, the Spirit moved the diocese to choose Andrus, thereby postponing -- sorry, I meant averting -- a schism in the Anglican Communion. That was, surely, not the purpose of the vote -- the people needed a bishop, and sought the best person for the job. Averting schism was just a happy side effect. (Which is why, sooner or later, there will be a schism.)

Meanwhile, the
Anglicans in Canada have come out against the proposed Nigerian law that would restrict basic human rights not only for gay people but for churches that serve them and newspaers that write about them. They "disassociated" themselves from the Church of Nigeria, which supports the law. Oh, yeah. There's a schism coming.

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