Having recently used the conflict between religious fundamentalism and Cartesian skepticism to observe that tolerance is in short supply, I had not, at the time, anticipated that is could be found in a relatively closed community. However, according to a Reuters report from Dar es Salaam by Katie Nguyen, this is precisely what is happening at a convention of Anglican leaders:
Seven conservative Anglican archbishops refused to take communion with the head of the U.S. branch of the church on Friday, in protest at her pro-gay stance in a row pushing the Church toward schism.
"This deliberate action is a poignant reminder of the brokenness of the Anglican Communion," said a statement posted on the Web site of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, led by Archbishop Peter Akinola.
"We are unable to take the Holy Table with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church because to do so would be a violation of the traditional Anglican teaching," it said.
Now while I am unfamiliar with the details of Anglican practice, I know that if you strip the word "communion" of its religious connotations, you are left with communication and social contact. Thus, to draw upon the practices of a smaller religious group that we tend to associated with rural Pennsylvania, these seven conservative archbishops have decided to make their point by shunning Katherine Jefferts Schori, the above-cited presiding bishop for the United States. By turning their back on Bishop Schori in the setting of a central Anglican ritual, these conservatives a denying any possibility that differences can be resolved through communication and social contact. By then calling the ritual itself broken, the conservatives seem to be saying that differences cannot be resolved with the entire Anglican community. Once again, we can find the metanarrative simply by examining the choice of words!
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