Six bishops are shocked - so maybe we should change ....

Six Anglican bishops are shocked - shocked I tell you - that Bob Duncan (pictured at far right) is now the former bishop of Pittsburgh, PA. Read all about this in Archbishop of Canterbury urged to create new province for US conservatives here at the London Times.

How shocking that a church led by a woman could act with such robust forcefulness!

How shocking that the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church could take such decisive action!

How shocking that those American Anglicans would try to preserve such an ancient notion as the geographical integrity of dioceses.

After all, doesn’t The Presiding Bishop know women are supposed to be weak, submissive?

Doesn’t she know women like her are supposed to obey the pronouncements of patriarchs like the former Bishop of Pittsburgh?

What is the Anglican Communion Coming to when men like Bop Duncan can be held to account by a woman?

It is enough to make the all male Apostles weep.

Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury should allow cross border intervention across the Anglican Communion. All of the Anglican Communion. Then, progressive Anglican Bishops could include in their dioceses affluent liberal congregations that are located in other diocese. Perhaps a parish in Tottiscliffe would like to join the Diocese of California. Or a congregation in Borough Green would like to be part of the Diocese of New Hampshire. Or the Church of All Saints in Alton would like to be in the Diocese of Washington, DC.

But this principle of allowing cross-diocesan affiliation should, of course, be limited so it only applies to wealthy congregations. And it must include not only the people and their priest but also the buildings and any finds they hold in trust. As the Province of the Southern Cone has so gracefully demonstrated, there’s no point to acquiring missions or small churches that can’t spin off enough cash to help balance the diocesan budget.

What’s really exciting about this is the opportunity for Canadian, American and European dioceses to minister to progressive Anglicans in dioceses like Blackburn, Chester, Chichester and Exeter. Wouldn’t it be grand to have representatives at the next London Pride Festival from new Anglican parishes from the geographical areas these old dioceses encompass?

Really, the Bishop of Rochester is right – we need to cast off the traditional way of organizing the church and move to a new form, one that allows congregations to bond together based on their core theological beliefs instead of grouping them based on accidents of geography. Think how much larger a diocese like New Hampshire could become if this non-traditional approach were adopted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of course, if we don’t uphold the traditional line for organizing the church now, if we allow diocese to be based on theology rather than geography, we’ll be hard pressed to draw a line later when dioceses that claim God’s truth as their exclusive property decide they need to form their own province or national church or worldwide denomination.

But why worry about preserving an international Communion when it is so much more important for these bishops to gain personal prestige and power. So what if the Bishop of Rochester would have sacked a liberal priest who was as far out of line as Bob Duncan? As that great gay icon Oscar Wilde said before being destroyed by the righteous wrath of conservatives, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” And if there is one thing we can all agree upon, it is that neither the former bishop of Pittsburgh nor GAFCON is “unimaginative.”