For those of us who are Episco-geeks, news this week of a divorce between the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) is like the Rose Bowl for Wisconsin Badger fans–we’re lovin’ it!

But for those who aren’t, here’s a bit of explanation, and I’m doing it off the top of my head, so chances are I’ll get some details wrong, but probably not the overall gist.

The issue of the ordination of gays and lesbians has been around for quite some time. Conservatives bristled at the prospect, even before Gene Robinson’s election as Bishop of New Hampshire. Chuck Murphy was Rector of a large parish, All Saints’ Pawley’s Island. From encounters with members, children who grew up there, and seminarians who came out of that parish, it was clear to me that All Saints’ commitment to Anglicanism was tenuous at best (My wife once had a student who was raised there ask her what the Book of Common Prayer was).

Murphy retired and at some point was ordained Bishop by the Archbishop of Rwanda, who was deeply opposed to developments in the Episcopal Church. The AMiA developed something of a parallel structure to the Episcopal Church, attracting some conservative parishes and planting congregations in various places, hoping to pick off disgruntled conservative Episcopalians (this was especially true in South Carolina).

Now, it seems, Murphy and the AMiA have run into conflict with the Anglican Church of Rwanda. Apparently, they are no longer connected. Murphy was called out for insubordination and the like and has gone his separate way. The story can be followed in various places, including Episcopal Cafe.

It may be that as George Conger puts it, “It’s just a sad, sad case all around,” Conger said. “There are no doctrinal or theological issues. It’s not about women priests or homosexuality or race. It’s entirely about egos.”

Here’s an article from Christianity Today on the break.

Apparently, they will be seeking a “council of archbishops” who will provide them with some sort of concrete link to the Anglican Communion. We’ll see how that works out.

I put “restructuring” in the title of this blog post, because this division is really about restructuring. Murphy and others, including those American clergy who sought episcopal ordination in the Anglican Church of Nigeria, or the Southern Cone, or Uganda, were (and in many cases, still are) attempting a radical restructuring of Anglicanism in North America. But as the AMiA example, demonstrates, restructuring is a difficult thing.

On one level, I have no problem with people seeking out like-minded people in other countries to help build institutions and to provide some legitimacy. I thought it somewhat odd, and particularly in the case of Rwanda, which, when Murphy was ordained Bishop, was only a few years after the genocide and had enormous issues of its own to deal with. I always thought that the Americans were exploiting a church, and a nation, that was weak and vulnerable. I also found it ironic, even tragic, that Southern descendants of slaveowners, and parishes created by slaveowners, were  looking to Africans for authority. In other words, I thought it all a mess.

But now, it seems, we see what it really is all about, and once more, the loser is the Church of Jesus Christ. I hope that whatever conversations occur in the Episcopal Church about restructuring develop in more productive directions. May God have mercy on all of us.