Friday, June 29, 2007

And then there were 12...

With the election of the Reverend William Murdoch to the episcopate of the Church of Kenya, there are now twelve American bishops under foreign jurisdictions providing alternative episcope to conservative Episcopalians in the United States.

Bishops Murphy, Rodgers, Barnum, Greene, and Johnston (Anglican Mission in America - Rwanda and Southeast Asia)

Bishops Minns and Bena (Convocation of Anglicans in North America - Nigeria)

Bishops-elect Atwood and Murdoch (North American Anglican Coalition - Kenya)

Bishop-elect Guernsey and Bishop Fairfield (Uganda)

Bishop William Cox (Southern Cone)

It has been noted by comparison online that the entire Church in Wales has only six bishops and the whole Scottish Episcopal Church has only seven.

The post-1976 Continuing Church movement began in Denver with only four.

We can expect more elections and consecrations from other Global South jurisdictions in the days to come. The questions for us today are - 'when will it end?' and 'how can sacramental and ecclesiological unity be maintained in the face of so many competing jurisdictions?'

2 comments:

Jim said...

Doesn't the picture get even more complicated when you consider the number of parishes who have placed themselves under foreign bishops with no American bishops?

It would be wonderful to see more parishes join the continuing provinces in North America, but my understanding is that for the most part these are parishes who could accept most of the innovations of the last 30 years, and were only tipped by the most recent changes.

Anonymous said...

One Bishop likes lemons much more than limes!

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