Church politics in Northern Virginia

The Washington Post details today a development in the Virginia diocese of the U.S. Episcopal Church, which is home to 193 congregations, two of which are among the church's largest. Those two congregations, in Falls Church and Fairfax, are now engaged in a bitter dispute about whether to leave the U.S. arm of the international Anglican Communion in reaction to the ordination of a gay bishop some three years ago. If they do vote to leave, the Northern Virginia congregations will join a Fairfax-based mission that follows Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, supporter of a law in his own country that would jail homosexuals.

Particularly notable about these inner church politics is the context: many had pointed to the region's rejection of the so-called "Marriage Amendment" to the Commonwealth's constitution last month as evidence of a further division in the cultural values between "NoVa and RoVa" (or Northern Virginia and the rest of the state). The Falls Church City Council and Chamber of Commerce had both passed resolutions against, and Falls Church voted 74% against, the gay marriage ban; 54% of Fairfax citizens voted "No."

But intensity of the reaction against gay clergy in Northern Virginia indicates that the religious conservatism message still holds sway in the suburban communities, perhaps enough to tear asunder an historically resilient relationship.

"The difference between the Episcopal Church and the others is that Episcopalians are really loath to split about anything," said Diana Butler Bass, a U.S. church historian who believes politics, not theology, has been driving divisions in the Episcopal Church since the 1980s.

The congregations are set to vote next week.