EPISCOPAL CHURCH Diocese to vote on amendment

Some members say the amendment will split the church.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is expected to amend its constitution so it can ignore national church teachings it believes violate traditional teaching, such as last year's consecration of an openly gay bishop.
Conservative Episcopalians led by Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan say the amendment, to be voted on today, will safeguard the church's historic reliance on biblical authority. More liberal believers say the amendment is divisive, illegal and could lead to a split in the church.
But one expert says the dispute is best understood in American political terms: as a battle of states' rights (the diocese) against the federal government (the Episcopal Church USA).
"For a lot of our history, just like the history of the United States, we were a federated church of dioceses -- read 'states' -- that had their own authority," said the Rev. Ian Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. "The negotiations between states rights and the power of the federal government in the United States has always been a backdrop for the polity discussions of the Episcopal Church."
Split from England
When the Declaration of Independence signaled the country's split from England, it also separated Anglicans in America from the Church of England, whose head is appointed by the British Crown. As the country drafted a Constitution, American Anglicans did, too, creating what has become known as the Episcopal Church USA. Both documents were ratified in 1789, Douglas said.
In response to last year's naming of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, Bishop Duncan helped form the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. Bishop Duncan and others say the network will fight for biblical teachings within the national church framework. The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas last month became the ninth to join.
The Rev. Mr. Douglas stopped short of saying the national church is headed for a civil war. But Bishop Duncan's opponents paint him as a secessionist who is trying to either split the church or form his own.
One group, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, hopes to bring the conservatives back into line with the national church, said Lionel Deimel, the group's president.
Deimel's group is buttressing its views with the research of Joan Gunderson, an Episcopal church historian from Pittsburgh. Gunderson says the national church wasn't formed by dioceses -- they came later or, at best, grew up alongside the national church -- so the national constitution holds sway.
Bishop Duncan has said he's not leaving the church, but that the national church is departing from its roots.
'Compromise'
"What this amendment really is doing is creating a compromise," said Peter Frank, communications director for the Pittsburgh diocese. "We just can't go any farther in the shifting of the focus of [church] authority away from Scripture."
Although Bishop Duncan's conservative network is a minority in the Episcopal Church USA, which has about 2.3 million members, his allies say most of those in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion -- the worldwide group of Anglican churches -- agree with him.
Last month, a 17-member worldwide Anglican commission unanimously told the American church to stop promoting to bishop any people in same-gender unions "until some new consensus" emerges.