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Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Global Schism: Is the Anglican Divide the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split?
Some of the nation's leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2007 for the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor and one of the first scholars to call attention to the rising demographic power of Christians in the southern hemisphere, analyzed the ongoing schism in the worldwide Anglican Church. While the dispute concerns attitudes toward homosexuality, Jenkins argues the core of the conflict lies in how biblical authority is defined.
Will the current alliances between conservative Western and African leaders endure? Will African leaders begin to press an ultra-liberal economic agenda? Are other mainline denominations in the U.S. headed for similar splits? Jenkins answered these and others questions, while offering a fascinating glimpse into the life of African Christianity.
Speaker:
Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and History, Pennsylvania State University
Moderator:
Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Senior Advisor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
PHILIP JENKINS: The word schism means a split, and the great historical example is what happened in 1054, when the Eastern and Western churches had a tiff over such crucial theological issues as whether priests should wear beards. Everyone knew this was going to be resolved in just a couple of years; 950 years or so later, and counting, they're still divided into the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and it's not likely to be resolved any time soon.
Today I'm going to talk about the Anglican schism, but I want to look at the question of whether this is the first shot in a much larger war and whether instead of an East-West schism, we'll be looking at a North-South schism. I want to start this off with a quote you will find shocking or at the very least surprising. As you're aware, a number of Episcopal churches in the United States have placed themselves under the authority of African and Asian clergy because, basically, they don't trust the leadership of the Episcopal Church....
The U.S. Episcopal Church is not a huge body, but it's a very influential body. Realistically it has maybe two, two-and-a-half million members, yet its influence is far beyond those numbers. It's a very liberal body on issues of gender, sexuality; it's been semi-overtly ordaining gay clergy and carrying out gay marriages for a number of years. The turning point came in 2003 when an openly gay cleric, Bishop Robinson, was ordained. For some years before that, conservatives within the Episcopal Church had been looking to the wider Anglican world, and they'd had a lot of support from those Global South churches. Global South means, in this context, Africa and Asia.
In 2003, the skies fell in. Global South primates from countries like Nigeria and Uganda started using ferociously critical language about the ordination of Robinson. They called it a satanic attack on God's church. The U.S. Episcopal response here was, "Who are you to tell us this?" Then the primates in countries like Nigeria said, "Let us tell you who we are to be telling you this. There's two, two-and-a-half million members of you; the Nigerian church had, back in 1975, five million members, we're currently up to 19 million members; by 2025, we'll be at 35 million members. We're doubling every 25 years or so; what can you say to that?"
But of course, the Anglican Church is not just Nigeria; it's Uganda and Tanzania and Rwanda and all these other countries. Since that point in 2003 the Anglican Communion has developed an ever wider split. Most recently, of course, conservative churches within the U.S. Episcopal Church have placed themselves under the Episcopal authority of Global South churches. The most recent, of course, affected a number of very large, prosperous churches in Virginia, which are now part of a missionary diocese of the Nigerian church under its primate Peter Akinola.
The language, the sentiment, and the depth of hatred in these events has been quite striking. We could have a competition as to which remark is the least conducive to Christian charity. I have a couple of candidates. Candidate one is Akinola's remark that the U.S. Episcopal Church is like a cancerous lump that has defied all treatment, and the time has come for it to be excised altogether. Candidate two is from one of the gay pressure groups within the Episcopal Church, when someone said: "All I can say to you African bishops, is why can't you go back to the jungle you came from and stop monkeying around with the church?" We'll have a vote afterwards as to which is the more offensive remark.
The big turning point is next year when we have what's called the Lambeth Conference, which is the Anglican Church's grand convention that brings all the primates together every ten years. The odds are at the moment that either the U.S. Episcopal Church will not be allowed to participate or that some of the American clergy under African churches will claim the seat of the U.S. Episcopal Church or maybe that the event will not happen, and that instead of Lambeth there will be a separate Anglican convention run by the African and Asian clergy.
The reason all this is so important is how the numbers are proceeding: Christianity is going south very rapidly in terms of numbers.... Simple reason: back in 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians representing 10% of the population; by 2000, that was up 360 million, to 46% of the population. That is the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in the history of religion. A rising tide lifts all boats, and all denominations have been booming. The Anglicans have done very well, and the Anglican Church is going to be overwhelmingly an African body in the near future.
Why are African churches so conservative?
...The more fundamental division is about the authority of the Bible, and there are a lot of reasons for this. If you have ever read Akinola's statements, he makes clear throughout: "I know all this biblical criticism stuff; I know all these arguments made about homosexuality." But there's a more basic thing: if you're in a new church in Africa or Asia, the Bible speaks to you as a more immediately relevant, more direct text, than it does for many Global North people for whom the Bible is basically part of the wallpaper....
Point is, people [in the Global South] take the Bible very seriously as a source of authority. Yes, the Bible accepts the existence of slavery – this is true – but it doesn't order it or command it. And the Bible, as far as they can tell by superficial reading, does describe homosexuality as an evil, therefore it is wrong and therefore if you want to ordain gay clergy, you are running directly against the authority of the Bible. That's the reason for the Anglican split.
One other big issue people failed to pick up is there are lots of different countries in the Anglican Communion in Africa, but the ones who are most militant on the gay issue are the ones who were evangelized by the very evangelical wing of the Church of England, the Church Mission Society....
My guess is that in 10 or 20 years, the Episcopal Church in the United States will be a fairly miniscule body. The Anglican Communion, however, will be flourishing.... It will also be overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, a black and brown organization.
Many people have paid attention to the split within the Anglican Communion. I want to suggest another important angle that is about to hit other denominations. In fact, it is going to hit most other denominations, certainly most liberal denominations, within the United States very soon.... Over the last few years, most of the other denominations have had their heads up over the parapet watching what's happening in the Anglican Church and feeling increasingly nervous. They know it's going to happen within their own bodies.
The prize example of this is the Methodists. The Methodists, in numbers, are the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States, behind the Baptists. Stop me if this story sounds familiar, but the Methodists have stable or declining membership in the United States but they are booming like crazy around the world, especially in Africa. When they next have the United Methodist World Congress in 2008, Africans alone will comprise about 25 percent of the delegates and a lot of others will be from Asia and Latin America. The Africans are extremely conservative on, and very concerned about, what American Methodists are doing about homosexuality. So that's going to be a major issue.
It will hit the Lutherans probably as well. It is hitting to some extent in Europe right now, where a lot of conservative Lutherans in Germany and Scandinavia have placed themselves under the protection of a Tanzanian Lutheran bishop. Once again, so many of the labels that work in the Global North do not work in the Global South. One of the most important religious figures in Tanzania is a Lutheran bishop who is also a famous prophet and healer and charismatic figure. Obvious point, this is not the world of Garrison Keillor; this is a different kind of Lutheranism.