This paragraph, I think, drives at part of what is causing these issues.
A large part of the problem here is not that the EC ordained women before the rest of the world was ready, or accepts gays, or *insert issue here*. It is that when there are issues where there is unresolved disagreement, and the rest of the church has asked the EC to wait and not take action until there is some resolution, the EC has taken the attitude of, "Well, we don't need you and we're going to do what we want."
If we really see ourselves as a communion in any meaningful sense we do need each other. We are incomplete without each other. We are impoverished if any move away. And the fact that there seems to be this - forgive me, I can't think of a better word - but this aloofness that says, "We walk alone, we don't need you, and we're doing to do what we want whether it fractures relationship or not," well, that's very hurtful and problematic, and is fuelling events like this suspension.
I can't speak for the Episcopal Church. I don't want anyone to think ill of them because of a badly worded, possibly ill-informed, defense of them from me. So, let me just say that upfront- my words are my own, and my assumptions are only that, assumptions. What I interrupt as motivation may not be the motivation, and so on and so forth.
With that said, my feeling is this: I do think the Episcopal Church values communion. I do think it values it's church partners around the world. If nothing else, as the Episcopal Church becomes an increasingly liberal or progressive church (Not universally down to each diocese or parish, just in a general sense of direction, averaging everything out), I think the Episcopal Church by it's very nature at this point values diversity and different cultures, which the world churches to some degree provide.
Where I think the tension comes in is that at certain points, the Episcopal Church feels that historically they themselves and maybe some other Anglican churches or the Christian Church as a whole, has acted unjustly or discriminatorily in certain cases. While sin is not a word I think they like to frequently bandy about, I think many folks felt they had sinned, and maybe more importantly were sinning by not allowing women to fulfill their vocations as priests in the 70s, or homosexuals as bishops or as married people in the 21st century, and so on and so forth.
It's one thing to feel like one's institution sinned in the past, or that even you personally had sinned in the past, but that those things were really in the past, and everyone had progressed forward, and that the institution or you as an individual could be forgiven and move on, but another to think you are still sinning. And corporate and individual sin start to feel mixed for, say, someone who is a bishop or a lay person with significant institutional power.
So, the Episcopal Church, or the group within it that made these changes, may have felt they were currently sinning by not allowing these things, and every day and every action they took or didn't take to make things right would be one more sin. Maybe in some cases progressives don't like to use the word "sin", or don't believe that things traditionally thought of as sins are always sins, but I think progressives do believe that people can miss the mark, as the Greek translation of sin would imply.
That gave the movement for change probably a certain urgency. Every day they weren't walking what they considered a just course, and were denying women vocations, and denying little girls the opportunity to look up at the altar and know that that could be them and that they were equal in the eyes of God, and allowing an inadvertent message to be sent to those girls that certain opportunities would be forever barred to them, that was another day they felt they were hurting people.
And, in addition to that, they maybe felt not only was the lack of change causing pain in the short run, but that it would never come if it wasn't forced.
Would even the Episcopal Church itself have women priests today if not for the brave bishops in the 70s who ordained 6 or 7 women in Philadelphia against the canons of the church and then forced the Episcopal Church itself to really make a decision?
If the diocese of New Hampshire hadn't elected a gay priest to be their next bishop, and forced the General Convention to vote it up or down and forced the other bishops to follow through a consecrate him or not consecrate him, would the convention have acted on it's own eventually?
Will some of the African Anglican provinces that don't allow gay bishops *ever* allow gay bishops? Let's not even say ever, because that's an awfully long time, let's say, will they allow gay bishops in the next 50 years?
I think the Episcopal Church and the people within it of progressive stripes probably feel like these changes don't come unless they create an environment where they can happen, which may mean not following the letter of canon, or not in the end abiding by a non-binding vote from their sibling churches at Lambeth, and so on and so forth.
I think the Episcopal Church values coming to common decisions together with others a great deal in theory. I think they love some of these Global South churches a great deal in terms of mission type things they do down there. There are a ton of "sister parish" type relationships where Episcopalians go to a parish in Africa or something and build houses or churches or put up mosquito nets or whatever they can do to help at the ground level. I do think they take what the bishops of these churches say seriously.
But if in the end you hit what you think is the end of the road. You think it's a sin not to make these changes, and that people are suffering and will suffer because of you. Your church partners don't think it's a sin to not make these changes, and think in fact it *is* a sin to make these changes. You don't see either position changing. Do you make the changes? I think many in the Episcopal Church felt they ethically had no choice but to make them.
Now, having said that- I do think maybe on homosexuality, say, certainly the western countries would probably have eventually come around, including England in the end. But would Bishop Akinola and his province? Probably not.
On women priests, I think +Libby in England today wears a miter because of what American bishops did in Philadelphia in the 70s. Eventually, there would have been women bishops in England, but it would have been further down the road if America hadn't pushed it. I think the EC thinks they have to push.
Whether they really do have to push or they don't, I don't know. But I think in their hearts, they think they are doing things the only way possible, that some of their partner churches will only come around if they see how something works in practice elsewhere and it moves them to rethink things.
Honestly, it's probably more the third world that wouldn't come around than the west, but even in the west.... There are no Roman Catholic women priests recognized by the Vatican Curia. There won't be anytime soon, it doesn't look like, if ever.
To a certain extent, the other thing the Episcopal Church did by taking a stand was send up a signal flare to progressive Roman Catholics and other similar churches who weren't being spiritually fed that "Hey, here's where the progressives are. Join us, and they'll be more progressives here, and we'll get more progressive yet.". If not for the influx of progressives and moderates after Bishop Pike's comments in Time (Or was it Newsweek?) about the Virgin Birth, and after the Philadelphia ordinations, and everything else, might the church have stayed in a more conservative position? Maybe instead of progressive people coming over, conservative people would have, seeing an unchanging church in the face of societal change, and then there would never have been women priests.
Maybe the Episcopal Church saw that this was their moment. It hadn't come before, and maybe it'd never come again. And they had to act when they acted, both tactically and as a matter of conscience.
Maybe.
I wasn't there and I'm not a mind reader.
It's just a thought (or a series of thoughts
).