The Short Version
- The Anglican Communion is in a mess
- The Archbishop of Canterbury is in Mexico and he has preached a sermon
- It isn’t really a very helpful sermon and is quite offensive
The Long Version
This week the Archbishop of Canterbury (I think we can stop calling him the new Archbishop of Canterbury now) has been preaching in Mexico. He preached a sermon earlier this week which was aimed at the troubles of the Anglican Communion. Though its conclusion is that we must all “walk in the light” which is pretty untroublesome, he has used language to get there which stigmatises fellow Anglicans and which I don’t really think is helpful at all.
The troublesome bit is this, where he speaks of the Anglican Communion in this way:
Like a drunk man walking near the edge of a cliff, we trip and totter and slip and wander, ever nearer to the edge of the precipice.
It is a dangerous place, a narrow path we walk as Anglicans at present. On one side is the steep fall into an absence of any core beliefs, a chasm where we lose touch with God, and thus we rely only on ourselves and our own message. On the other side there is a vast fall into a ravine of intolerance and cruel exclusion. It is for those who claim all truth, and exclude any who question. When we fall into this place, we lose touch with human beings and create a small church, or rather many small churches – divided, ineffective in serving the poor, the hungry and the suffering, incapable of living with each other, and incomprehensible to those outside the church.
It isn’t really helpful to characterize the troubles of the Communion as being “sides” in any case and neither of these images is remotely helpful.
The basic trouble in the Communion is that some of us think that gay people should be treated like anyone else and have our reasons for doing so. Others think that is wrong and have their own reasons for taking that view. The latter sometimes think that they alone believe a view consonant with the bible.
It is deeply unhelpful of the Archbishop to use language which appears to suggest that the risk that those who wish to affirm gay people present is one of a lack or loss of core beliefs. That just isn’t true and is a nasty slur against fellow Anglicans. The US and Canadian churches are not places where God is absent and if the Archbishop needs to find that out, he needs to go there and meet them, something that his predecessor seemed to find impossible to do.
People will read the sermon in the US and Canadian churches and take immediate offence. (I find it offensive here in Scotland, but there it will appear to be a judgement on their national churches). Those who wish to affirm the place of LGBT people do so because of their core beliefs as Christians and as Anglicans, not because of any lack of belief or loss of God.
Does the Archbishop of Canterbury not have anyone on staff from the US or Canada or someone who knows those churches who could look at this kind of stuff and say, “hang on a minute, Father, that might not go down too well?”
I suspect also that those who do not wish to affirm the place of LGBT people in the church may well say that intolerance is something that they experience from those who do. Neither “side” has the monopoly on that trait.
The other uncomfortable notion in this sermon is that it looks as though the Archbishop is painting a scene where there are these two squabbling factions and the bishops tentatively walk a narrow path of balance and moderation between them. Innocently tripping along the cliff edge, fearful of being dragged down one side or the other. (Do cliffs normally have two sides anyway?)
That is not my experience. Bishops are part of our problems. Indeed, the Episcopate is the place where a very great deal of these problems occur in the communion.
Here in Scotland, it sometimes seems as though the Bishops think they should present themselves as only possible “honest” brokers amidst naughty disagreement amongst others. It isn’t true and we all know it isn’t true. Our bishops are not of one mind yet appear entirely unable to model their diversity in a healthy way. What might help would be if they could come out and say, “Well we don’t agree about this but we still respect one another and work together and that is the answer to the Communion’s problems – Anglicans of different views are part of one organic whole, we need one another and are getting on with it”. That would be honest, helpful modelling of how to manage conflict. Instead of which we get a corrosive, conservative silence which is damaging the church and relations within it.
The basic question that bishops need to answer is a simple one and it is this:
Do gay people in their loving relationships have the potential to experience love that can be described as sacramental?
All else will follow from the answer to that question.
The Archbishop of Canterbury needs to be asked that question again and again and again. He seems to think gay relationships are something to be admired – describing some couples as living relationships of “stunning quality”. But does he think they can be godly?
Bishops (and yes, Archbishops) failing to answer basic questions about the godly potential of gay lives is at the core of the problem the Anglican Communion has. That’s true here in Scotland and appears to be true for the Archbishop in Mexico on his travels.
We all deserve answers to those questions.
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