Church is split, declares Sydney Archbishop

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/church-is-split-declares-jensen/2006/06/28/1151174269458.html

AUSTRALIA'S leading conservative Anglican has pronounced the global church officially "separated" after the Archbishop of Canterbury conceded it may have to break apart to survive the fractures over gay clergy.

The Sydney Archbishop, Peter Jensen, aligned with rebellious evangelical prelates in Asia and Africa, said it was a historic, if not sad, moment for the church torn apart by gay clergy and gay marriage. "To use an analogy, partners have separated although they have not divorced," Dr Jensen told the Herald yesterday.

But the Australian primate, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, said Australian Anglicans should not despair. The Anglican Communion's long journey was "worth it, because the Anglican faith is worth it", Dr Aspinall said. "The Australian church has never shied away from the real difficulties caused by the sometimes great differences in certain parts of the Anglican Communion."

...has been considered way outside the mainstream of Anglicanism for many years. It's far closer to fundamentalism in both theology and practice, and almost split Anglicanism itself a few years ago when it started sending clergy to establish "mission congregations" in other Australian Anglican dioceses, so that they could establish "true Biblical Christianity" (read: ultraconservative neo-fundamentalism) as opposed to the "rampant liberalism" of those dioceses. (For those who aren't aware of it, sending clergy into another bishop's diocese is considered one of the most serious breaches of fellowship imaginable, and could easily get the former diocese excommunicated.)

Few people in Anglicanism outside of the ultraconservative African and Asian provinces take anything Sydney does seriously, most certainly including other Australian Anglicans.

Sydney is alligned with Nigeria and Kenya, which by the way constitute the majority of the Communion's practicioners, Africans, that is!