Is the split here?

There's been a lot of talk about an Anglican communion split, with the news that Anglican leaders are asking U.S. and Canadian churches to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council until 2008 because of their stance on homosexuality.

Well, I'm dummy enough to not even know what that council is. Luckily, my Episcopal Voices listserv posted some information.

According to a BBC Q&A program on "Anglican Church Split":

It is a body of bishops, priests and lay people from national Anglican churches who meet and consult in between the once-a-decade Lambeth Conferences.

It is one of the Anglican communion's four "instruments of unity", as
they are called, the institutions which link the autonomous Anglican
churches into a federation.

The others are the Archbishop of Canterbury (the leader of the mother
church), the regular meetings of primates (the senior bishops who head
the communion's 38 provinces), and the Lambeth conference, the meeting
every ten years of all Anglican bishops.

The ACC has no legislative powers, but provides a way for the
different churches to act together.

And, why have US and Canadian Anglicans been asked to withdraw from it?
Answer: The conservatives wanted the North Americans to admit their error over homosexuality.

Does that mean if we don't admit our "error," promise not to do it anymore and remove Bishop Robinson from his post, we will be kicked out of the communion?

I've been reading the comments on Father Jake's blog with interest. Many think this is the first step to real schism and a "trial separation" in preparation for a divorce. Most aren't too sad about it.

My concern is living in a Network diocese. Will the Network try to pull us under a foreign province, as some of its leaders have been itching to do? Our bishop is being noncommital about the whole situation until he confers with the rest of the good old boys Monday. So, we'll have to wait and see.

As far as the Anglican Communion, I'm starting to feel like Rhett Butler: "Frankly, I don't give a damn." Let the ones who want Bob Duncan in charge of the Episcopal Church under someone like Archbishop Peter Akinola get a taste of what it's like, and a lot of them will want out, pronto.

I just don't want my parish being dragged into some awful African or Asian or whatever homophobic, sexist and Calvinistic province, or becoming an AMiA church. I don't want my parish split apart, as many parishes will be, with such a move.

The people engineering this crap obviously don't care about the people. They care about the "purity" of their doctrine and their political ambitions.

What do they think Christ values most? What does he demand of his shepherds?