Anglicans slam US branch over gay marriage

The Anglican Church has slapped sanctions on its liberal US branch for supporting same-sex marriage, a move that averted a formal schism in the world’s third-largest Christian denomination but left deep divisions unresolved.

The Anglican communion, which counts some 85 million members in 165 countries, has been in crisis since 2003 because of arguments over sexuality and gender between liberal churches in the West and their conservative counterparts, mostly in Africa.

Following four days of closed-door talks, the heads of the world’s 38 Anglican provinces said the liberal US Episcopal Church would be barred for three years from taking part in decision-making on doctrine or governance.

Episcopal Church presiding bishop Michael B. Curry said on a church website that the decision would “bring real pain” but told fellow bishops he was “committed to ‘walking together’ with you as fellow primates in the Anglican family”.

Ahead of the talks, convened by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Anglicans, some African primates had threatened to walk out unless “godly order” was restored, and there were widespread fears of a formal schism.

That was averted by the formal slap on the wrist for the liberal Americans, but early reaction suggested deep divisions remained and would continue to disrupt the communion.

Peter Jensen, the conservative former archbishop of Sydney, called the primates’ statement “inadequate” for not reaffirming traditional Christian teachings on marriage strongly enough. He did, however, approve of the sanctions.

“This represents something of a warning to liberal-thinking Christians,” Bishop Jensen told BBC Radio 4. “They need to repent and turn back from this to what the Bible says.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Alan Wilson, the bishop of Buckingham in England, said the primates’ statement was “a triumph for ecclesiastical politics and diplomacy” but the people at the heart of the issue had been forgotten. “The unity of the church includes LGBT people,” he told BBC Radio 4.