1) The Anglican system of national churches in a communion of equals will end up discredited. That will leave the choice one between radical decentralization along Baptist lines, with every congregation in principle independent, or radical centralization along Roman lines.

2) Conservatives will add the destruction of the Anglican communion to their bill of particulars against progressives, another in their list of bad things that happen when you insist on equality.

3) Gay men and Lesbians will end up with no support at all in the new conservative grouping of churches. If you like the Southern Baptist view of sexuality and equality, you’ll love the Southern Anglicans.

If we have the love and charity to make a split bloodless, then logically we should have the charity to stay together in communion. I don’t think we have explored every possible means to stay together, and until we have done so, I consider it inappropriate to resign ourselves to such a split.

Thank you making such an eloquent case for a kind, peaceful separation.

As a member of an Episcopal parish in the LA Diocese (a church far smaller than All Saints, but also quite progressive), I have come to believe that separating from the Anglican Communion is the best choice for all concerned. While I part ways with you on the matter of conservative American parishes, this post has given me a lot to think about.

I’m wondering now about the word “schism”. Maybe “schism” is always wrong, but that’s not what you’re proposing.

As one who agrees that denominations have run their course and may be a relic of a past expression of Christianity best left behind, I see their dismantling as a healthy thing. Perhaps, a better way to describe your proposal then is as a “dismantalist” (if I can coin a completely ridiculous new phrase). You are one who would like to see a previously helpful structure be taken apart in the face of its present unhelpfulness. So the question for the communion becomes how to deconstruct itself for the sake of justice (and maybe even unity), instead of blowing itself up tragically.

What a new metaphors would be for this process I don’t know (changing out the plumbing of an old house, or pulling down the Berlin Wall fall sort on both sides) but I’d be interested in your thoughts.

You’ve ditched All SS Pasadena, at any rate, for reasons of your own.

I myself an an imperfectly recusant liberal (AffCath) Episcopalian in a monderate-to-conservative diocese, so I have no grounds to criticize, except that I’m at Compline every Sunday.

Curious that you’d venture an opinion now.

And the fights over property will be painful. They always are (as I’ve said, I’ve been divorced.) In the end, if both sides try and outdo each other in the effort to win the battle to appear more grace-filled, more irenic, more congruent with the agape love of Christ, the better off we’ll be. But I don’t pretend it will be easy.

If all that a schism accomplished was to segregate irreconcilable factions, then I’d agree. The problem is what said factions tend to do after splitting. That’s why I specifically mentioned the East-West Schism, though I might have done better to reference the Baptist/Southern Baptist infighting (i.e. the latter’s steeplejacking campaign).

That said, it’s not like my complaints are coupled with any solutions (other than abandoning denominationalism, which obviously won’t happen).

We would live in a far more peaceable Anglican world if your vision became reality. There are two considerable obstacles to achieving that vision:

1. Communion with Canterbury — Although there are people on both sides who do not consider it essential to be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, many other Episcopalians know the doomed nature of trying to create an Anglicanism apart from this historic office.

So far, both sides have drawn back from a full rejection of Canterbury’s importance. I’m afraid, though, that some of my fellow conservatives have shown the stronger tendency to walk away. Perhaps that will work for them, but most breakaway Anglican bodies soon find themselves on the margins of Anglican life. I think they are perceived, rightly, as the Lefebvrites of Anglicanism.

2. Property. With rare exceptions, both sides have been willing to invite secular courts to settle their respective claims to property. Sometimes the property is as gorgeous as the cathedral in Durham. Sometimes it is much plainer, but in all cases it’s a place where Christians have been baptized, married and remembered fondly at funerals.

Both sides justify their court battles in the name of Christian stewardship. Both sides are willing to spend millions of dollars to keep their property, if that’s what it takes.

My way of coping with this is to ask myself, regularly, what sort of vocation I may have as the member of a theological minority within The Episcopal Church. Some basic starting places are civility, patience and a determination to keep whining to a minimum.