A Plague Upon Both Your Houses
Last week the Anglican Primates (these are Archbishops not monkeys!) met in Ireland to discuss whether or not the Anglican Communion can survive the crisis prompted by the ordination of a gay Bishop in the USA and the authorization of same-sex Unions in a Diocese in Canada. The battle is between self-styled ‘orthodox’ Anglicans (an unhelpful term because most Anglicans when asked would describe themselves as orthodox) and those of a more progressive disposition. It’s probably better to see it as a contest between Traditionalists and Progressives. The former are a rather odd combination of traditional Anglo-Catholics who are wedded to the maintenance of Catholic order, discipline and tradition (and paradoxically have a significant proportion of homosexuals amongst their clergy), and Evangelicals who are committed to the primacy and often the inerrancy of Scripture.
Everyone had been expecting some kind of a fudge to emerge, because that is the way the Anglican Communion has generally proceeded on such matters. Anglican experience suggests that instant decisions are frequently unreliable, and that one must take time to discern the mind of the Church on weighty and contentious matters. So last Friday’s Press Release pleased nobody. The American and Canadian Churches have been asked to voluntarily and temporarily withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council, a body whose significance is doubtful, and which meets only every three years. But then the Canadians and Americans were immediately invited to the next meeting of the Consultative Council so that they can explain their views!
There were a few crumbs offered the Progressives, particularly that a process urged upon the Church at the last Lambeth Conference (the ten-yearly meeting of all Anglican Bishops) that churches should listen to the testimony of gay and lesbian Christians, should be pursued with some urgency. While some of the Western Progressive churches have addressed this process seriously (my former diocese of Oxford is a good example) the Traditionalist dioceses, particularly those in Africa and Asia have consistently failed to do so. This is because many refuse to recognise that their congregations include gay Christians in a situation where homosexuality is still spoken of in terms of being ‘the white man’s disease’ and in cultures in which homosexuals, if recognised, are treated brutally.
Progressives could also take heart from the pledge in the Press Release that dioceses would ‘would neither encourage nor initiate to cross-boundary interventions’ pending further discussion on the issue. This refers to the way that African bishops have taken under their Episcopal authority congregations in the USA dissatisfied with their own bishop’s stance. This proposal was rendered dead in the water, when in a prior statement Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria had declared that asking him to desist from such activities was colonial arrogance, and that he would continue to offer his services to Anglicans everywhere.
The Traditionalists appeared cock-a-hoop at the temporary suspension of two of Anglicanism’s major churches (and sources of finance) from the Consultative Council. USA-based Virtue Online, which claims to be ‘THE Voice for Global Orthodox Anglicanism’ trumpeted ‘Conservatives Win!’ At mass on Sunday, something the preacher said reminded me that in these situations there are no winners or losers but everybody loses.
The sermon, addressing the event in John’s Gospel where Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well, pointed out that both the Jews, whose religion focussed on the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans, who had built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim, were absolutely convinced that they and they alone possessed the truth. But Jesus’s teaching was about something quite different; that religion governed by place and by tradition, was making way for a new situation in which religion is to be freely embraced in spirit and in truth.
It is a tragedy for Anglicanism that neither the Traditionalists of Mount Zion, nor the Progressives of Mount Gerizim have thus far understood the implications of Jesus’s innovation.
Everyone had been expecting some kind of a fudge to emerge, because that is the way the Anglican Communion has generally proceeded on such matters. Anglican experience suggests that instant decisions are frequently unreliable, and that one must take time to discern the mind of the Church on weighty and contentious matters. So last Friday’s Press Release pleased nobody. The American and Canadian Churches have been asked to voluntarily and temporarily withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council, a body whose significance is doubtful, and which meets only every three years. But then the Canadians and Americans were immediately invited to the next meeting of the Consultative Council so that they can explain their views!
There were a few crumbs offered the Progressives, particularly that a process urged upon the Church at the last Lambeth Conference (the ten-yearly meeting of all Anglican Bishops) that churches should listen to the testimony of gay and lesbian Christians, should be pursued with some urgency. While some of the Western Progressive churches have addressed this process seriously (my former diocese of Oxford is a good example) the Traditionalist dioceses, particularly those in Africa and Asia have consistently failed to do so. This is because many refuse to recognise that their congregations include gay Christians in a situation where homosexuality is still spoken of in terms of being ‘the white man’s disease’ and in cultures in which homosexuals, if recognised, are treated brutally.
Progressives could also take heart from the pledge in the Press Release that dioceses would ‘would neither encourage nor initiate to cross-boundary interventions’ pending further discussion on the issue. This refers to the way that African bishops have taken under their Episcopal authority congregations in the USA dissatisfied with their own bishop’s stance. This proposal was rendered dead in the water, when in a prior statement Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria had declared that asking him to desist from such activities was colonial arrogance, and that he would continue to offer his services to Anglicans everywhere.
The Traditionalists appeared cock-a-hoop at the temporary suspension of two of Anglicanism’s major churches (and sources of finance) from the Consultative Council. USA-based Virtue Online, which claims to be ‘THE Voice for Global Orthodox Anglicanism’ trumpeted ‘Conservatives Win!’ At mass on Sunday, something the preacher said reminded me that in these situations there are no winners or losers but everybody loses.
The sermon, addressing the event in John’s Gospel where Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well, pointed out that both the Jews, whose religion focussed on the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans, who had built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim, were absolutely convinced that they and they alone possessed the truth. But Jesus’s teaching was about something quite different; that religion governed by place and by tradition, was making way for a new situation in which religion is to be freely embraced in spirit and in truth.
It is a tragedy for Anglicanism that neither the Traditionalists of Mount Zion, nor the Progressives of Mount Gerizim have thus far understood the implications of Jesus’s innovation.
posted by MichaelElliott @ 3:40 PM
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