A group of orthodox Episcopalians is circulating a survey to lay people across the nation to assess how the 2.4-million member US Episcopal Church might divide in the weeks ahead.
The Anglican Laity Fellowship (ALF) - formerly known as Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion - sent out the survey to gauge the magnitude of the changes in the Episcopal Church as the denomination remains divided over homosexuality and Christian orthodoxy."For the first time in 40 years, the crisis has produced a really clear sense of where the opposing sides stand," said a statement by ALF.
While still a minority, a growing group of parishes have voted to dissociate from the Episcopal Church - the US branch of Anglicanism - and joined conservative offshoots set up in the United States by African Anglican leaders. Those that left said they want to remain faithful to the worldwide Anglican Communion and therefore cannot remain in the Episcopal Church, which conservatives say has departed from Anglican tradition.
ALF had earlier proposed a new orthodox Anglican structure in North America that would essentially replace the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. Other conservative and breakaway Anglicans have formed a Common Cause Partnership and will hold a September 25-28 meeting to discuss the next step in forming a separate Anglican structure in the United States with predictions that the Episcopal Church will "walk apart" from the global Communion.
"We know that many of these leaders are reluctant to enter into open rebellion against the Episcopal Church," ALF expressed in a statement along with the release of the survey, "but we also know that their parishes, whether conservative or liberal, are experiencing tremendous losses as their members struggle uncomfortably to straddle the fence.
"There is enough information out there now to convince parish leadership to make up their minds and to lead their flocks in one direction or the other. The question is whether they want to maintain their allegiance with the majority of the Anglican Communion, or follow The Episcopal Church as it 'walks apart'."
The survey is directed exclusively to the laity, not the clergy, of the Episcopal Church. It asks lay Episcopalians how much their fellow parishioners are aware of the "problems in The Episcopal Church" such as the "Episcopalian/Anglican controversies over theology and doctrine" and "lawsuits by the Episcopal Church against its own parishes". Other questions ask for their stance on the singular saving Lordship of Jesus Christ, biblical authority, and the Bible and homosexuality.
