Anglican Prelate Proposes 2nd Class Membership for Liberal Churches

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is first among equals of Anglican Bishops around the world, has proposed a plan that would deny certain member privileges to churches and dioceses that don't abide by the wishes of the world-wide body:

In a defining moment in the Anglican Communion's civil war over homosexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury proposed a plan yesterday that could force the Episcopal Church in the United States either to renounce gay bishops and same-sex unions or to give up full membership in the Communion.

The archbishop, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, said the "best way forward" was to devise a shared theological "covenant" and ask each province, as the geographical divisions of the church are called, to agree to abide by it.

Provinces that agree would retain full status as "constituent churches," and those that do not would become "churches in association" without decision-making status in the Communion, the world's third largest body of churches.

Conservatives in the American Episcopal church who are unhappy with the direction of the American church were pleased with the Archbishop's proposal, although many conservative churches may decide not to wait the several years it would take for this proposal to be adopted. Some have already announced plans to pull out of the American church and place themselves under the authority of dioceses in other parts of the world.