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In her inaugural sermon as the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop-elect, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada turned to images used by church mystics such as Julian of Norwich.

"That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained labor of the Cross bears new life," Jefferts Schori preached during the church's triennial General Convention, which met in June in Columbus, Ohio. "Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation—and you and I are his children."

For Jefferts Schori, this language was "straight-down-the-middle orthodox thinking," according to The Washington Post.

For David Roseberry, founding rector of the 4,500-member Christ Episcopal Church in Plano, Texas, it was the final outrage.

Jefferts Schori preached her sermon on June 21. Three days later, Christ Church's vestry (its governing board) voted to leave the denomination. Roseberry's bishop, James Stanton of Dallas, has shown openness to letting Christ Church leave with its property. "They bought it. They paid for it," Stanton told The Dallas Morning News.

"When the presiding bishop–elect had a chance to build consensus, she chose to interweave the Cross with radical feminism. It seemed gnostic," Roseberry told Christianity Today, adding that he's aware of English mystic Julian's 14th-century writings.

Roseberry and Jefferts Schori attended the same seminary, Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, but they were separated by 12 years (Roseberry graduated in 1982, Jefferts Schori in 1994) and plenty of theological differences. For one, Roseberry is an evangelical who emphasizes vigorous parish growth. Starting with a group of 240 people in August 1985, he helped Christ Church become one of the largest parishes in the nation. (The average Sunday attendance at Christ Church is about as large as the whole of Jefferts Schori's current diocese.)

Roseberry has been active in conservative Episcopal movements since the early 1990s. But the latest General Convention convinced him that the denomination has destroyed its ability to preach a transforming evangelical gospel in American culture.

"There will always be a niche for a liberal catholic chaplaincy," Roseberry said. "Our bellwether is that we have to get out of [the Episcopal Church] and into a more direct relationship with the Anglican Communion."

Roseberry and Christ Church are not alone. Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, Texas, and his diocesan standing committee announced during the General Convention that they had asked Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, for oversight from another of the worldwide Anglican Communion's 38 primates. Globally, there are more than 70 million Anglicans.

In weeks after the General Convention, six other dioceses—Central Florida, Dallas, Pittsburgh, San Joaquin (based in Fresno, California), South Carolina, and Springfield (Illinois)—have asked for something similar.

The seven dioceses say they are not leaving the denomination. But they wish to disassociate themselves from the latest decisions of the General Convention. They believe the convention responded inadequately to the Windsor Report.

The Windsor Report of 2004 asked that the Episcopal Church not allow further blessings for same-sex couples and that it not consecrate another bishop engaged in a same-sex relationship. (In 2003, the church consecrated an openly homosexual man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.)

In response to Windsor, the convention urged bishops and standing committees to "exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." The convention did not respond to the Windsor Report's request for a moratorium on same-sex blessings.

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August 2006, Vol. 50, No. 8