This is why the church (Not just the Episcopal Church, but the Christian Church as a whole) is dying. Those of us who have grown up in and lived our lives in the 20th and 21st centuries...centuries of war, fighting, death, destruction, division, hatred, and chaos...are exhausted. We want peace, reconciliation, understanding, justice, and just an end to all of the fighting. The world is weary of it. The church preaches all of these things, but, when people enter the church, they don't find communities of hope, peace, love, acceptance, and good-will. They find the same garbage, fighting, division, attacks, and petty hatreds that they have in the rest of the world outside. People are unconvinced by the church's message, when the people that are the church don't live it.
It is not the "gays, liberals, and feminists" who are killing the church. It is all of us. Maybe, if we learned to live with each other and our differences with a little grace, understanding, and willingness to dialogue without resorting to division and infighting, we might actually see the commonwealth of God on earth. Until then, as one of my atheist friends has said, "the church will continue to be a relic of a dark and evil time. It will continue to be pulled into obscurity and irrelevance by its own hands."
It's time to wake up, stop letting "issues" divide us, and to truly live by faith (trust) in God.
I would suggest to you though that it is actually just this attitude - let us just love one another and not worry about differences in belief - that has caused our present position.
Not all kinds of disagreement or argument are bad - some are actually good. It is a good thing when a group like the Anglican Communion can have a discussion on a new issue which presents itself, and eventually come to some resolution. This has often happens in the past. THe Communion is structured so that on higher level issues, no one makes a change until the decision is made, so that it can be done clearly, honestly, and with some surety that it is a well thought out and long term decision.
If some disagree with the final decision, they may choose as individuals or a group to go somewhere else. And there can be unpleasentness over this. But it is, I think, ultimatly an honest parting of ways. People can be fairly sure they really do differ on something important. and once the decision has been made affected individuals are able to see that and make a decision for themselves.
That is not what has been going on in the 20th and 21st century. There has been for one thing a push to say more issues are decions for lower levels than the communion as a whole, even when they are issues that would ultimatly make actually worshiping together difficult. There has been a strong tendency for groups to go ahead making changes before an agreement has been reached. There have been instances where changes were instituted in practice without saying so, in order to avoid contentious discissions (and perhaps discussions that would not get the result those in the leadership wanted.) And there has been little respect for the Instruments of Communion - and arguably the ABC has not stepped in to sort anything out.
THis has resulted in bad differences and disgreements. People do not feel sure about what is actually being taught, they cannot make decisions in regard to it. They find differing, and contradictory things being taught about the central tenants of the faith. They feel they are being bamboozled, or pushed out by differing views which have no official legitimacy. In many cases they don't feel they can be sure that an Anglican parish they are not familiar with is one they could really accept the teaching of. Parishes leave but bitterly divided because both sides think what they are doing is what Anglicanism really teaches.
This is the sort of thing that is causing such angst. People are conflicted, confused, and feel they are being manipulated. And when their own parish or national church makes decisions that they are told to wait on, they feel abandoned by the higher authority of the Communion which their own church
says they respect.
It seems counter intuitive, but I think that it is in fact the refusal to engage substantively and to enforce some kind of organized decision making on what we believe that is making our situation in the Anglican world right now so bloody. And it is bloody, we are bleeding membership like there is no tomorrow, and people feel terribly wounded as you said.
I think it is terribly hurtful to a more traditional Anglican when his parish, with no authority proclaiming it as right, begins teaching things like the Resurrection is a myth. It is a teaching that flatly contradicts the core of his faith. I think the new members who are a gay couple who are welcomed into a parish, and then move and find themselves told by the priest that they cannot carry on as they are, are potentially going to be terribly hurt too.
The two kinds of parishes both exist here - they essentially are like parishes of different denominations, because they can only really interact on that level. So I don't see it as allowing closer friendships to happen
I cannot see how this attempt to not offend anyone or disagree is going to be helpful or kind or peaceful for anyone.
Funny, I don't remember saying that.
