Two good pieces on the Anglican conflict

Jason Byassee reports on the state of post-Episcopal Anglicanism in one of it's hotbeds, the area around my alma mater, Wheaton College.

And the must-read: a beautiful piece of first-person reportage and reflection, in which Garret Keizer teases out some of the major tensions w/ which the whole subject is fraught. He makes clear that his essential loyalties are to TEC's position, but also that his instinct is to see the world fundamentally in terms of socioeconomic inequality, not doctrinal integrity or sexuality or anything else. I'd describe myself similarly, so naturally, I'm predisposed to appreciating his analysis. Here's an excerpt:

My tendency--at least my temptation--is to see the church crisis, at least in America, as I see most other political disputes between bourgeois conservatives and bourgeois liberals: as cosmetically differentiated versions of the same earnest quest for moral rectitude in the face of one's collusion in an economic system of gross inequality. It goes without saying that by touting this stark binary, I, too, am seeking to establish my rectitude. Still the question remains: How does a Christian population implicated in militarism, usury, sweatshop labor, and environmental rape find a way to sleep at night? Apparently, by making a very big deal out of not sleeping with Gene Robinson. Or, on the flip side, by making approval of Gene Robinson the litmus test of progressive integrity, a stance that I have good resaon to believe would impress no one so little as Gene Robinson himself.

This is, of course, a bit hyperbolic. (I cringe at the idea that the difference between alligning yourself with the U.S. church and w/ Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola is a mere cosmetic one.) Still, it's pretty damning, and elsewhere in the piece Keizer asks more questions than he makes pronouncements. It's a tour de force, full of sophisticated analysis, ambiguity, and personal voice.