“Anxiety in Anglicanism” to be Featured Topic

What:  The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens, Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, and Frank Kirkpatrick, Ellsworth Morton Tracy Lecturer and Professor of Religion at Trinity College and author of The Episcopal Church in Crisis: How Sex, the Bible, and Authority are Dividing the Faithful, will participate in a program entitled, “Anxiety in Anglicanism.” It will be a conversation about the moral, theological, and ecclesiastical issues facing the Church.

When:   Sunday, September 21 at 6 p.m. (Vespers at 5:15 p.m.)

Where: Trinity College Chapel on the Trinity campus, 300 Summit Street, Hartford.

Background: In  2003, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, was consecrated, causing an uproar in the Anglican Communion and creating a deep rift both within the Episcopal Church and between it and the Communion as a whole. That rift exists even now, five years later. Essentially, the consecration of Bishop Robinson created a divide between those who welcome gay and lesbian persons into all the offices of the church – primarily in North America and Europe – and more conservative church people, many of whom reside in Africa and Asia and who believe homosexuality is morally wrong primarily on Biblical grounds.

Bishop Ahrens attended the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference this summer in Canterbury, England, at which Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, urged church leaders to find solutions to the issues that are tearing the Church asunder. Ahrens was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Connecticut in July 2007, and is one of only a handful of female bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion. She was one of 650 bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference, although about one-quarter of the invited bishops – theological conservatives mostly from Africa – boycotted the gathering.

At the Conference, Archbishop Williams acknowledged the discord, saying, “We all know that we stand in the middle of one of the most severe challenges to have faced the Anglican family in its history,” adding that “It is not an option to hope that we can somehow just carry on as we always have.”

Kirkpatrick’s book, which has been hailed as “a must read,” “an important and useful book,” and one that “makes an important contribution to the ongoing discussion,” provides a fair and comprehensive history of the struggle the Church faces over the ordination of gay people to the priesthood and the episcopate. As a member of the Episcopal Church, Kirkpatrick addresses not just the issue of homosexuality, but a variety of contentious issues, such as the nature of Biblical interpretation and the authorities by which belief and practice are guided that have caused turmoil within the body of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion to which it belongs.

Kirkpatrick’s book places the crisis in context: historical, moral, scriptural, theological, cultural, and ecclesiological. He explores how the rift between Episcopalians in the United States originated; how it is being played out; what the issues are; and what the prospects are for resolution.

The event is free and open to the public. For directions visit: www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/VisitingTrinity/DirectionsToTrinity.htm.