Beyond the pomp of yesterday’s service and the buzz, it is too early to predict the future of Minns’s group and the conservative movement in general, clergy and scholars say.
The Washington Post has a page A01 story on Saturday’s installation of Bp. Minns by Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria:
In the past decade, more than a half-dozen Anglican organizations have sprung up to support disaffected Americans, and there is a good deal of debate about who really represents them and who has clout.
“Most Episcopalians can’t sort out all these groups. They overlap, change names, fall in and out of favor with one another. It’s a major mapping exercise keeping them straight,” said the Rev. William Sachs, a Richmond minister who recently served as director of research for the U.S. church.
Even some conservatives who theologically agree with Minns still disapprove of the way his group was created — without seeking consensus among U.S. conservatives or other Anglican leaders.
“This isn’t the right way, setting this up and then claiming it. It’s unilateralist. It creates distrust,” said the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a senior fellow at the conservative Anglican Communion Institute in Colorado.
Akinola initially said he created the group to serve Nigerians in the United States who were turned off by the U.S. church, but the group quickly shifted last year toward serving all conservatives and possibly being in position to became another branch of the communion — if communion leaders approve such a dramatic change.
Read more here.