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Midwest Conservative Journal reports on several Episcopal dioceses requesting alternate primatial oversight, plus this little gem from the Province of Nigeria:

The Primate of All Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Rev Peter Akinola has announced the election of new Bishops in the Church of Nigeria.

The election was conducted at the Episcopal Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), which met on Wednesday, June 28 2006, at All Saints Church Wuse Abuja.

The Bishops-elect are:

The Rev Canon Christian Ideh, of Igbudu Christian Centre, Emevor, for the Diocese of Warri.

The Venerable Musa Tula, of St Stephen’s Anglican Church Wange-Tula, Gombe State, for the Diocese of Bauchi.

The Very Rev Adebayo Akinde, of the Cathedral of St Peter Ake, Abeokuta, Ogun State, for the newly created Diocese of Lagos Mainland. The inauguration of the diocese will come up in August.

The Rev Canon Martyn Minns of Truro Parish in Virginia, USA was also elected Bishop in the Church of Nigeria for the missionary initiative of the Church of Nigeria called Convocation of Anglican Churches in North America (CANA).

Yup, you heard that right.

It’s been really, really interesting bouncing around the Anglican blogosphere and reading the reactions to what’s going on from traditionals as well as progressives.

I couldn’t help but dive into the comments on this post, after reading the paragraph:

Jesus seems to have been completely indifferent to the "manner of life" of those he called to serve, and those who served him — as long as they served! (Remember the woman who washed his feet with her tears, and Simon’s pious reaction?) You know, Jesus never mentions personal holiness at all; it’s part of the purity code he rejected. He talked about prophetic righteousness and not judging others. Hmmm… could sure use more of that in the Anglican Communion!

And that’s from a parish vicar in the Bronx.  Wow.

Having read the arguments of many different people, I honestly don’t see how this denomination in the United States can remain one. 

What’s the proper Christian attitude towards what’s going on with the Anglicans?  I think it’s really, really tempting for Catholics to be smug about it.  "See?  It just goes to show the inevitable consequences of rejecting centralized authority."  Well, intellectually that’s not inaccurate, but smugness isn’t charitable, and it isn’t helpful.  Should we be pleased or not pleased?  Is this a good thing or a bad thing, that the body of Christians is splitting further? 

The key to figuring this out is to realize that the split (between "progressive" Episcopalians and the greater Anglican communion) has already happened.   It happened in the minds and hearts of individuals, of whole Episcopalian parishes, of seminaries, long ago.   What’s going on now is the admission and acknowledgment of the split, probably leading to its actual manifestation in organizational structure.  We can never, ever rejoice that people have fallen into heresies.  But we can be glad when a heresy is exposed and when, by cutting it adrift, an orthodoxy is preserved.

Not every instance of heresy is necessarily an indication that a "split" has occurred.  Sometimes it can be corrected without schism.  As long as there’s reasonable hope of that, splitting is ill-advised.  But there comes a point when excommunication is the most hopeful act.  It forces a decision.  Heresy that can say truthfully that the guardians of orthodoxy accepts it is a much more dangerous kind.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has issued a thoughtful response in the wake of The Episcopal Church’s actions.  Looks like a split is a real possibility. 

Other bloggers have commented on the text, notably the repeated statements that the Bible is the source of the Anglican Communion’s churches’ doctrine — which can’t be read in any other way than a criticism of The Episcopal Church’s endorsement of same-sex unions, really. 

I was interested in this bit (line spacing edited by me to highlight the structure of the argument):

We do have a distinctive historic tradition–

      a reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine,

     a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons,

    and a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly.

….The different components in our heritage can, up to a point, flourish in isolation from each other. But any one of them pursued on its own would lead in a direction ultimately outside historic Anglicanism.

        The reformed concern may lead towards a looser form of ministerial order and a stronger emphasis on the sole, unmediated authority of the Bible.

       The catholic concern may lead to a high doctrine of visible and structural unification of the ordained ministry around a focal point.

     The cultural and intellectual concern may lead to a style of Christian life aimed at giving spiritual depth to the general shape of the culture around and de-emphasising revelation and history.

Pursued far enough in isolation, each of these would lead to a different place – to strict evangelical Protestantism, to Roman Catholicism, to religious liberalism. To accept that each of these has a place in the church’s life and that they need each other means that the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices…

The only reason for being an Anglican is that this balance seems to you to be healthy for the Church Catholic overall, and that it helps people grow in discernment and holiness.

(Emphasis mine.)  Well!  That clears something up.  Now I know why anyone would want to be Anglican.

It appears that it has to do with having your cake, eating it, and also giving it to your neighborhood food shelf, or something along those lines.

I don’t mean to be too facetious, but… It’s impossible to be Catholic, Protestant, and Modernist all at the same time.  Is this really what Anglicanism is all about?  Trying to sail somehow equally among the three strongest opposing currents in Christendom?  I’m surprised that they don’t feel a bit guilty for leaving the Eastern Orthodox out of it.

Well, if Archbishop Williams is correct, I guess it explains the appeal of Anglicanism to so many.  I wonder if he is correct.  Perhaps we’ll learn more after the Anglican bishops meet next year.

Dave Hartline of The Catholic Report scored interviews with two prominent "progressives" and two prominent "traditionals" at the end of the Episcopal Church’s General Conference.  He very nearly managed to get an interview from the Archbishop of York, too, who was Canterbury’s delegate to the convention.

The interviews are very, very telling.

Reverend Canon Ken Harmon:  "There are forces at work in the Catholic Church trying to make this happen but it will never happen in the Catholic Church because you have “Clear Doctrine,” something we haven’t had in a long time."

Reverend Susan Russell:  "I find it odd that the people in the Episcopal Church would talk about scripture as if they were some fringe element fundamentalist.  One of the reasons our church broke with Rome was because of issues like the Magesterium.  Now they want one?"

Bishop V. Gene Robinson:  "To be honest, I have spent more time at this convention talking with conservative people than liberals.  I know there are many who don’t accept me as a bishop. I have no trouble sitting with them.  That’s what the word Communion, as in Anglican Communion, is all about.  You know, I was denied Communion in a conservative diocese.  Now that I thought was beyond the pale."

Greg Griffith:  "I will say this; evil hides whereas the truth comes out in clarity and honesty.  We are upholding the traditions of our church."

Read the whole thing.  Ken Harmon sounds by now like a good candidate for swimming the Tiber.   He’s not the only one, according to Al Kimel (former Episcopal minister) of Pontifications:

Within an hour after the announcement of Jefferts Schori’s election as the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, I received an email from a young Episcopal priest declaring that he now knew that he must become Catholic. What do I now do, he asked?

Going into the General Convention, orthodox Episcopalians said that they wanted clarity regarding the direction of the Episcopal Church. That clarity has now been given. The pending resolutions about the Windsor Report no longer really matter. Clarity has been given.

This convention was bigger than it looked from the outside.

An intense drama played out in Columbus, OH this week at the Episcopal Church (USA) General Convention.  There were a number of significant votes, but the most jarring one for the Anglican Communion has to be the rejection outright of "Resolution A161" in response to the Windsor Report, a call from the rest of the Anglican world for the Americans to stop ordaining bishops who openly refuse to live in chastity, specifically, those who openly assert their right to a sexually active homosexual relationship.   Also, a woman bishop who has asserted her strong opposition to Resolution A161 was elected primate over the entire American Episcopal Church.

It is important to note that this is not just a rift between liberal and conservative U. S. Episcopalians, although much of the talk has made it seem that way.  It’s the apparent implosion of a global communion.  The Anglican provinces in Asia and Africa are not going to be happy about this.

The grief this is causing for traditional Anglicans in the United States is apparent.  Three dioceses in the United States asked for another bishop somewhere in the world to serve as their primate instead of the elected primate.   The election of the female bishop was seen by many as gauntlet-throwing, because (geographically if not by population) most of the Anglican world doesn’t view the ordination of women to the bishopric even as valid, let alone allowable.

TitusOneNine is the go-to source.