Anglican Church in Crisis

Newly elected
leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church, Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori, has declared she believed
homosexuality was no sin, and homosexuals were created by God to
love people of the same gender.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

Jefferts Schori, Bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected
on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member
Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican
Communion. She will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin
to be homosexual. "I don’t believe so. I believe that God
creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this
world with a different collection of things that challenge us and
things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around
us," she said. "Some people come into this world with affections
ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people
come into this world with affections directed at people of the
other gender." (Read Romans 1:24-32 - Editor)

Jefferts Schori’s election seems certain to exacerbate
splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided
over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening
to break away. It could also widen divisions with other Anglican
communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow
women bishops.

In the worldwide Anglican church, women are bishops only in
Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The Robinson issue has
been particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a
growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.

The 52 year old Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman
Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate
specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration
of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in
more than 450 years of Anglican history.

Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with
specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between
men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in
a very different historical context by people asking different
questions. "The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to
live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us
about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -
there are rules in the Bible about those that we don’t
observe today," she said. "The Bible tells us about how to treat
other human beings, and that’s certainly the great message
of Jesus — to include the unincluded." Reuters -
Washington