Anglican Agonies

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/BillMurchison/2007/02/27/anglican_agonies

[Townhall.com] 27 Feb 2007--When Johannes Gutenberg wound up before the Great Judgment Seat, some six centuries ago, one can only imagine he got a suspended sentence, pending assessment of how well this printing press thing was likely to work out. And here we are still wondering.

For instance: Is homosexuality the root of the Episcopal Church's and the Anglican Communion's well-advertised anguish, as the media -- Gutenberg's heirs -- seem to believe and teach? Or, as with so much the press spews out half-digested, does something else go on -- something deeper

True, the latest squabble finds Asian- and African-Anglicans sternly warning their American and European cousins to disengage from the quest to normalize same-sex relationships or else. But as Peggy Lee inquired, "Is that all there is?"

Not as Laurie Goodstein, in The New York Times, reports the matter -- moving at least part of the way toward a surer understanding of the theology, instead of the politics, presently at stake. "The underlying differences [between Anglicans]," she writes, "are over the basic understanding of tradition and Scripture. The conservatives say they are something sacred and fixed, while the liberals say they can be open to interpretation and responsive to new information." Not a perfect formulation, but better than "conservatives refuse gays their undoubted rights."