The Church Militant

From the Albany, NY, Times-Union:

GREENWICH -- Over a salad lunch on an outdoor patio, Assistant Bishop David Bena is so positive and chipper it's hard to connect him with the words of a letter to the editor on the table.

"Well, that's interesting," Bena says cheerfully. "I've never been called a guerrilla warrior."

This is life on the front lines of an emotional rift cleaving the Anglican Communion, the 77-million-member Christian federation that encompasses the U.S. Episcopal Church.

Five years ago, Bena was serving as assistant bishop in Albany when Episcopalians took what he considered a misguided step: electing the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Bena was one of three people to stand up and protest at the consecration ceremony where Robinson, who has received death threats, wore a bulletproof vest.

Today, Bena still wears a bishop's ring, but he no longer belongs to the Episcopal Church. Since last March, the Mechanicville resident and former Marine has worked as assistant bishop in an upstart group called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

The Virginia-based outpost of the Nigerian church was established to shelter breakaway conservative Episcopalians, who were outraged over Robinson's consecration and clash with the Episcopal Church on doctrine and interpretation of scripture.

Bishop Bena serves under the authority of the staunch anti-gay Archbishop Peter Akinola, leader of the Nigerian Anglican Church, who apparently believes that he is contaminated by the mere touch of a gay person:

ABUJA, Nigeria, Dec. 20 — The way he tells the story, the first and only time Archbishop Peter J. Akinola knowingly shook a gay person’s hand, he sprang backward the moment he realized what he had done.

Archbishop Akinola, the conservative leader of Nigeria’s Anglican Church who has emerged at the center of a schism over homosexuality in the global Anglican Communion, re-enacted the scene from behind his desk Tuesday, shaking his head in wonder and horror.

“This man came up to me after a service, in New York I think, and said, ‘Oh, good to see you bishop, this is my partner of many years,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh!’ I jumped back.”

Whence such fear?

In the Albany diocese, Bena helps run the Welcome Home Initiative, a Christian healing program for combat veterans held at the diocese's spiritual retreat here in rural Washington County.

The bishop draws on his experience as a former Marine bombardier/navigator who flew 252 missions in Vietnam. He dropped 3 million pounds of bombs over 13 months. Over a 27-year military career, he also served as an Air Force chaplain.

Bena was in his element leading prayer during a recent retreat, his right arm elevated and his podium surrounded by symbols of the two institutions that dominated his life. A flag- and gun-bearing honor guard stood behind the altar, while a cross hung on the wall overhead.

The church militant, indeed! While I applaud Bishop Bena's outreach to combat veterans, I would have hoped that he could have done without the "gun-bearing honor guard" behind the altar during the service.

UPDATE: I see that I neglected to give credit to my good friend, Fran for the link to this article.