Amid Rift, U.S. Episcopalians Look to Other Continents
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The Anglican archbishop of Rwanda was first, then his counterpart in Nigeria. Now, Kenya’s Anglican archbishop is taking a group of American churches under his authority, and Uganda’s archbishop may be next.
African — and to a lesser extent, Southeast Asian and Latin American — prelates are racing to appoint American bishops and to assume jurisdiction over congregations that are leaving the Episcopal Church, particularly since its consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003.
So far, the heads, or primates, of Anglican provinces overseas have taken under their wings 200 to 250 of the more than 7,000 congregations in the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism. Among their gains are some large and wealthy congregations that bring international prestige and a steady stream of donations.
“It can either be read as the next step in a grand plan to replace the Episcopal Church, or it can be read as a splintering of the conservatives and a competition for who is going to be the real leader of disaffected U.S. congregations,” said the Reverend Ian Douglas, a professor of world mission and global Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.
Bishop Martyn Minns, former rector of Truro Church in Fairfax City, Va., who left the Episcopal Church and was installed last month as a Nigerian bishop, denied that the African prelates are competing for leadership, prestige or donations. He said they are working together to help Americans who want to remain faithful to the church’s traditional teachings.
“This is not just one province sticking its nose in,” he said. “It’s the Global South collectively saying ‘We’ve got to do something’ because of the crisis in the U.S. church.”
But a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, James Naughton, said the proliferation of “offshore” churches “makes it clear how difficult it is going to be for the conservatives to unite, because each of these primates wants a piece of the action, and none is willing to subjugate himself to another.”
Last week, Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi announced plans to consecrate a former Episcopal priest in Texas, Bill Atwood, as a suffragan, or assistant, bishop of his Nairobi diocese.
