For the Soul of the Church

When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, we had the Bible in our hand, and they had the land.

—Jomo Kenyatta, Kenyan independence leader and first president

Harold Lewis, an African-American priest who once served as national director of black ministries for the Episcopal Church, finds an irony in the fact that white, conservative Episcopalians collaborate closely with African and Asian bishops, but, “coming as they often do from lily-white environments, they have little by way of relationships with African Americans.”

The Episcopal Church is a small but significant Protestant denomination that has struggled mightily with sexuality, race and authority—and the reverberations have been felt across the world. This battle has played out most visibly in the wake of the election in June 2003 of a white, openly gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as a bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire.

Lewis and many other prominent African-American Episcopalians supported Robinson’s election. But many members of their congregations are opposed to gays in the church, reflecting a sharp division on this issue in the black community here and abroad. That dissension, combined with the sense of many people of color that racism in the church is being ignored while gay and lesbian issues are being addressed, has opened a wedge that conservatives have exploited.

Lewis now heads Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., a liberal parish (congregation) in one of the church’s most conservative dioceses (regional groupings of Episcopal congregations). Robert Duncan, a white bishop who heads the Pittsburgh diocese, was a vociferous critic of Robinson’s ordination. As part of his work with conservatives who oppose gays and lesbians in church leadership, Duncan serves as president of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, a traditionalist effort to reclaim the church from its “liberal leanings.” The Network, founded in January 2004 by four white, male bishops in response to Robinson’s election and other recent events, has sought to have the Episcopal Church kicked out of its worldwide church body and replaced by the Network. And to do so, in an unusual twist with racial implications, they went to people of color — abroad.

The denomination has seen new alliances built between global church leaders, often with the appearance of fighting racism and discrimination, but for varying agendas. In Pittsburgh in 1999, in partnership with the evangelical international relief organization World Vision, Duncan initiated a diocesan project to support Rwandan refugees. To help make the connection, refrigerator magnets with images of Rwandan children were provided to participating church members. In his travels around the diocese, Duncan frequently pointed to the magnets as evidence of the diocese’s commitment to eradicate racism. “It’s doing nothing of the kind; it may even be perpetuating racism,” stated Lewis, arguing that a churchperson may point to one of their magnets to “prove” their anti-racism commitment, when in fact they may never have had a black person in their home. Emmanuel Kolini, the archbishop of the Rwandan church, visited Pittsburgh to support this project, but as Lewis noted, at the end of the day, “The Kolinis of the world are going home. I’m not; I live here.” In November 2004, the diocese ended its Rwandan project, and launched a new one in Uganda with Henry Orombi, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, who has been one of the most vocal critics of gays and lesbians in the worldwide church.

Infighting Among Progressives