A Missionary Bishop for Europe

Yesterday saw the consecration at Wheaton College in the United States of the Reverend Canon Andy Lines as Missionary Bishop for Europe, following the decision of the Scottish Episcopal Church to amend canon law on marriage to permit same-sex unions. A graduate of Durham (University College, 1982), Lines served in the British Army from 1983 to 1988. He was ordained for the South American Missionary Society in 1997 (at the age of 37), having worked as a missionary to Paraguay since 1991. He has been General Secretary of Crosslinks and chairman of the Anglican Mission in England.

Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America had this to say:

After the American revolution, the new Anglican Church here - then called the Protestant Episcopal Church - could not get the establishment in England to provide a bishop.  It was the Scots who came to the rescue and consecrated Samuel Seabury in 1784 as the first American Bishop.  It is a privilege to now return the favor to those in Scotland who are crying out for oversight.

 

It will be interesting to see whether such a move will dramatically alter the prevailing dynamic within the Church of England. The statement of support from Bishop Rod Thomas of Maidstone, whose appointment was supposedly intended to reassure conservative Anglicans that the Church of England remained a broad tent, suggests that "border crossing" may be here to stay (and not in Scotland alone).