Canterbury kerfuffle and the collapse of the Church of England

Well, I have been watching the fall out from the debacle in Canterbury, where the primates of the Anglican Communion (the leaders of each of the individual churches in this loose federation) , plus the leader of a schismatic American group met and an effort of dubious legality was made to censure the Episcopal Church because of Teh Gayz. (There is less to this than the headlines imply, however.)  This intended to placate the strident anti-gay voices of some of the African churches that advocate criminalization of homosexuality, or at least, homosexual acts.  A three year "punishment" is presumably intended to allow General Convention to come to its senses (not gonna happen.....)

Archbishop Justin Welby of the Church of England, the symbolic leader of the Communion, wrung his hands and apologized for hurting those poor LGBT people but really it came across as an abusive parent who apologises to his child as he beats her. There was no effort to scold the African primates for their anti-gay language.  By all accounts the only person to come out of this well is TEC Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.

Here's a good summary of the whole thing.

Coincidentally, at the same time, a new survey was published about the collapse of the Church of England in the UK:

A POST-CHRISTIAN era has dawned in Britain, with most white Britons now saying they have no religion, according to a new survey. The increase is most pronounced among those aged under 40 and comes amid claims that they feel alienated from the church’s conservative social values.

There's a tendency here in the US to think of the C of E as a fellow traveller, but although many British Anglicans are very gay-friendly, the C of E institutionally is not.  The bishops argued in the House of Lords to prevent legalization of same sex marriage last year, and when that was inevitable, they put in place multiple legislative bits that actually prevent the C of E from marrying gay people (the so-called quadruple lock, which can only be undone with further parliamentary action).  And, gay priests who marry have lost their ability to officiate.

Andrew Brown (who has a new book coming out, That Was The Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People) surveys the collapse  in the Guardian:

But at the same time as people have been growing less religious, the Church of England has been growing more religious: more exclusive, more of a club for self-conscious believers, prouder of being out of step with the people it once served. 

Only last week, Justin Welby was boasting to the other leaders of Anglican churches that the Church of England had secured exemptions from equalities legislation – and then complaining that he operated in an “anti-Christian culture”. What does he expect, when the church he leads systematically violates the moral intuitions of most of its own natural constituency?

How can the C of E continue as an established church (with, one might add, guaranteed seats in the House of Lords), when it has lost the British people?

In any case, I prefer to focus on the exemplary leadership and grace of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who truly is the right face and the right voice for this time.  And of course, all these Anglican shenanigans have exactly no effect on the average Episcopalian, who is far more concerned with getting on with doing what needs doing, than with hot air blowing in Canterbury.

Will Dr Welby be the right medicine for the C of E?

Another election has been going on, that of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, current Bishop of Durham.  Of course, it's really only an election within the Super Secret Crown Nominations Committee.  And we found out early,  because the bookies in England saw a run up on his name;  apparently some people did the equivalent of insider trading prior to the announcement.  Yet the British find our democratic polity "unseemly". Go figure.

From the Guardian

Bishop Welby is an interesting guy, very Establishment (Eton and Cambridge), with a distinguished career in the oil business.  So he had a profession apart from the Church, reminiscent of TEC Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori.  It seems that his path started to change with the tragic death of his infant daughter 30 years ago.  Since ordination in '93, he's had a meteoric rise, including Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, and has only been Bishop for a year.

He represents the "Evangelical" side of the Church of England, not to be confused with the American definition of Evangelical (which in the US is often paired with "fundamentalist" or "wingnut").  It's apparently traditional to go back and forth between the Evangelical and Catholic sides for ABC;  think of this as the long-standing balance between low Church and high Church, Roundhead and Cavalier, Wesley and Newman, Cambridge and Oxford....

He also has a strong background in conflict resolution particularly in Africa, which he'll need to wrangle the Anglican Communion and the disparate parts of the Church of England.  I suspect this is a huge part of his nomination.

Welby is pro-women bishops and while he has been an opponent to marriage equality in the past, apparently his views are "evolving". Really?  Hmmmm.

This matters in the UK, where there are robust civil unions but a strong movement (driven by the Tories, believe it or not....take a lesson, Republicans) for civil marriage.  The CofE has been adamantly opposed.  Welby's a supporter of the emphatically negative Bishop's statement, as discussed in these comments at The Lead, and has reaffirmed his support for it.  So perhaps he's just being politic.  Yes, I'm a cynic.

Remember,  there is no separation of Church and State in the UK.  The bishops of the CofE sit in the House of Lords, along with life peers and hereditary peers.  (Think of our Senate not being elected, but full of Bishops and Romneys and Bushes!)   And if you are the average Brit, pretty much you are entitled to get married in the Church if you want to, so they can't just send you along to the registrar's office for not being a formal member.  And therefore, they get to make the rules for all the other churches too.

I have many friends in the UK, most of whom are scientists and basically small-r republicans.  They don't really like the idea of the Queen, and most are not believers or practitioners of faith.  The CofE is relevant to them only as a residual cultural identity. For the Church to adamantly opposed civil marriages is infuriating to them, and driving the church into complete irrelevance.

It's the challenge of how to be prophetic in a modern world, rather than wistful for a past long gone.

Generally, people seem to be hopeful about Welby.  And he has a sense of humor.

“I’ve got a better barber and spend more on razors than Rowan Williams.”

I hope he has a better idea of how to unite his fractious Communion than Williams did.

Not everyone hates TEC

From The Zimbabwean:

Christian leaders in Africa have more to think about than gays and lesbians, the Bishop of Angola (Anglican) Rt. Rev. Andre Soares has said.
Speaking before the start of the annual general meeting of the Mozambique and Angola Association (MANNA) that links Anglican churches in Britain to their counterparts in those two former Portuguese colonies, Bishop Soares said: “The African churches continue to believe in the Bible. We must continue to follow the teachings of the Bible. We can perfect our understanding of our readings of the Bible but it does not mean that we can do things that the Bible, for a long time, has been teaching us. It is important to understand that we are many, but we exist in our diversity.”

And from the Rt. Rev. Dan Edwards, bishop of Nevada, reporting on the House of Bishops meeting in Phoenix:

Last night we heard from the Suffragen Bishop for Anglican Communion Relations and also a Bishop from Africa. Very interesting. They stressed that most African Anglicans value their relationship with us. Diocese to diocese, parish to parish, and person to person relations are where the Anglican Communion is communing. They said 90% of the African bishops want to preserve our relationship and some of them act on that at real risk to themselves because of the hostility of their archbishops. It turns out that one African parish is in partnership with the Diocese of New Hampshire (home of Gene Robinson) but it isn’t public because that parish would be in major trouble with their archbishop if it were known. While hostility is in the press, partnership is going on behind the scenes. The hostile archbishops are nearing the end of their terms. What we need to do is just be patient and wait. Most African Anglicans disagree with us on matters of women’s ordination and gay inclusion. But they want to remain in relationship anyway.

ABC speech on video

Watch and listen to the speech:

If you can't run the race, change the rules

Just when you thought it was safe, the Anglican Wars pop up again. The usual suspects have come with a new scheme designed to force and outcome of their own liking.

Read more in the Andrew Plus blog posting If you can't run the race, change the rules.

[H/T to Göran Koch-Swahne]

Everyone is talking about Scott Gunn

And for good reason. In his blog, Seven Whole Days, he writes a brilliant post Anglican Communion Woes? Be not afraid.

Here are some choice excerpts:

I continue to maintain that the Covenant is not needed. We have the Bible, the Nicene Creed, the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and Anglican liturgical life as our standards. Any relationship which cannot be sustained by those pillars will not be strengthened by a Covenant. Moreover, the Covenant is powerless. Any Covenant which the Church of England can sign will not be able to perform the tasks that the secessionists want it to accomplish. Nigeria wants a sledgehammer to crush progressives and England wants a doily to cover the stain of open disagreement.

Remember, the sin of ECUSA and Canada is not that we have a gay bishop or that same-sex blessings are performed. Those things happen in several other provinces. The sin of ECUSA and Canada is that we are honest about who we are and what we are doing. If Anglican leadership wants to move toward a church of deliberate ignorance and puritanical moral teachings, they will find themselves without much company.....

The more that lay people share in ministries across the Communion, the greater our bonds of affection become. The more we ensure that all voices are heard, not just mitred megaphones, the greater our sense of Communion becomes. The more that we bloggers shun angry fear-mongering and invite thoughtful conversation, the greater our ability to embrace Christ’s call for costly discipleship and wide-embracing evangelism.

So, dear friends, be not afraid. The Anglican Communion is alive and well. So long as we cling to hope and not fear, all manner of things shall be well.

This aligns with Mark Harris' recent considerations of the Year of the Tiger:

The Episcopal Church is a vocation within the Christian community, it is part of the Anglican Communion, we are Anglicans, and we are, even in our most Tyger moments made by the one who made the Lamb. The confidence that such is the case has been missing of late, but it is returning. This year will be a year of the Tyger, a year of prophetic sensibility hopefully for the Anglican Communion as a whole, but surely for The Episcopal Church in its witness in the Communion.

In Chinese Astrology,

the Year of the Tiger is one filled with drama and there is often tension & unpredictability in the air. Events can happen quickly.

So there you have it: several predictions for the new year, and what to expect. Let's see how prophetic they truly are.

Anglican Follies, next Act: the Vatican Steps In.

Honestly, this has me chuckling. The Times of London leads with the headline, Vatican moves to poach traditional Anglicans. Apparently this is quite a surprise to the ABC, who found out two weeks ago this was underway. Doesn't look too happy, does he?

From the Guardian:

The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, informed journalists that he only heard about the apostolic constitution "a couple of weeks ago" and that there was no input from or consultation with Lambeth Palace. His face reddened as he spoke and, at one point, the archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, answered questions relating to Williams's leadership and authority.

What it MEANS apparently is that those of Anglo-Catholic bent (and their married priests) can use familiar liturgies etc but be actual RC. (Those with a better understanding please correct me in the comments.) As the Times put it,

The Roman Catholic Church today moved to poach thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops....

The announcement paves the way for thousands of Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic church while maintaining elements of their own spiritual heritage.

Although Dr Williams knew that talks had been taking place in Rome, he was unaware until two weeks ago of the radical nature of the proposals being drawn up by Rome.....

Traditionalists, including up to six Church of England bishops, had visited and pleaded with Rome to provide some sort of structure inside the Catholic Church for their wing of the Church of England because of liberal moves towards women bishops and gay ordinations.

One aspect of the announcement by Rome is that it clears the way for women bishops in the Church of England.

The General Synod and Parliament are unlikely to approve a legal structure to “protect” Anglo-Catholics from being “tainted” by the hands of a woman, if Rome is showing them an open door.

....The proposals will also regularise the place of former Anglicans in the US who already worship under the auspices of the US Catholic bishops by bringing them also into the new, central canonical structure of the Apostolic Constitution.....

There were signs of haste at the Vatican press conference, which was only announced on Monday evening instead of several days ahead, as is the usual practice.

For more, check out Ruth Gledhill's blog and a variety of views at Madpriest's site. As George Pitcher says in the Telegraph

Pope Benedict has effectively provided a province that the Anglican Church couldn’t. Traditional Anglo-catholic Anglicans can go there, under the oversight of former Anglican prelates; married Anglo-Catholics might even be ordained into the Roman Catholic Church. There really is no excuse for Anglo-Catholics who can’t accept women bishops now. They must accept the Pope’s offer, or stay in the Anglican Church and accept women bishops. It’s no longer a case of put up or shut up, but rather go with an Anglican blessing, or stay with the Anglican way.

This seems sensible, overall. Just as there are numbers of liberal Catholics moving to TEC, the conservatives may move back. If they prefer their women to cover their heads and be silent, their gays closeted, go for it. I suspect that the yoke of Roman authority might be a little harder to bear than they think, but whatever. Via con dios, amigos. Oh, and I'm sure they'll be leaving the keys. After all, the RCs have plenty of emptying church buildings, and as an episcopal structure themselves, they aren't going to advocate stealing churches lest someone do it to them. And this may be a way of cracking open the door towards non-celibate clergy for the RC. I suspect they might one day embrace the Orthodox view that clergy can marry but bishops can't. Of course, those of liberal bent who want to stay RC may be somewhat dismayed by the effects of an influx of fractious conservatives.

Still, don't underestimate the liberals who go the other way. I am confident that a significant fraction of the population in all of the Episcopal churches we've visited have been RC by background.... there are certain little "tells" in the handful of words that differ. (For example, in the creed, the occasional word change, e.g., "in fulfillment of the scriptures", vs. "in accordance with the scriptures". ) BP isn't the only one, not by a longshot. The number of people greeting BP at coffee with "I used to be RC too!" including one former priest....! And as BP has found, it's an easy transition to make, liturgically speaking.

No, I think the interesting thing HERE will be the schismatics. Because it's quite clear you can't be married and a bishop in the RC church....priests are one thing, bishops quite another. So those with power have no incentive to move. But the people they ostensibly represent....THEY might.

So pick up the popcorn.

And wait to see who gets assimilated.

Update Andrew Sullivan's take:

For now, however, it seems an almost baldly political move, made at a pace more reminiscent of modern politics and public relations than the traditional ecclesiastical creaking of the wheels. That is troubling to me. Churches are supposed to be about eternal truths and freedom of conscience, not what amounts to an unfriendly take-over bid for a franchise.

And it does not seem to have occurred because of some deep resolution of the theological disputes between Anglicans and Catholics, but merely by a shared abhorrence of women priests and openly gay ones. If you want to switch churches, prejudice seems a pretty poor reason for doing so. But this is so sudden it will take some time to absorb and it's a little hard to take in.

HatTip Mad Priest for the news and commentary!

The Anglican Covenant: making the Anglican Communion an agent of the US right wing

Remember when TEC used to be called "The Republican Party at Prayer"? That was back when Republicans were sensible fiscal conservatives, before they were highjacked by teabagging, religious wingers, and the ignorant wing of the conservative movement. Jim Naughton nails it in the Guardian:

The Anglican Covenant may never come to pass. Or its doctrinal statements may be so unobjectionable, and its enforcement mechanisms so weak, that every church in the communion will hastily sign on. Or the gay-friendly churches threatened with diminished status may realise that they will always have more opportunities than resources for mission within the communion, and happily agree to run their trains on track number two.

Yet if Rowan Williams succeeds in his misguided effort to establish a single-issue magisterium that determines a church's influence within the communion, a significant risk remains. That risk is run not by the Anglican left, which has nothing practical to lose, nor by the Anglican right, whose leaders embarrass less easily than Donald Trump and don't fear public opprobrium. Rather, the parties at risk are the Church of England and the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which may find themselves at the head of a communion synonymous with the agenda of the American right.

If Americans, Canadians and other gay-friendly churches are deemed insufficiently Anglican, the struggle to determine who speaks for the communion will be waged between the dozy dons and preening peacocks who lead the Church of England, and Episcopal schismatics whose public relations are handled by the folks who operated the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry in 2004.....

[A}warding the Anglican brand in North America to the schismatics would ....[hand] the American right the opportunity to wrap its agenda in the endorsement of a major mainstream religious organisation.
....

The loudest and most frequently-quoted voices in the Anglican communion, then, would be stridently anti-gay and anti-Islamic; supportive of American military adventurism; against a two-state solution in the Middle East; in favour of teaching creationism or intelligent design to school children; sceptical about climate change; and adamant that homosexuality can be cured.

If the Archbishop gets his covenant, he will no longer be portrayed as the harried peacemaking father of an argumentative clan just trying to get everyone to sit down for dinner. He and his church will be the most visible symbols of a communion that has traded its good name to the American right and Peter Akinola simply to avoid admitting the possibility that people in loving, committed gay relationships can preach the Gospel and serve the church.

I suspect there will be consequences.

This isn't just about one denomination. This is about much much more than that.

Emphasis mine. H/T Madpriest.

The imagined community of the Anglican Communion

You should read this essay at The Lead, by Frank M. Turner(John Hay Whitney Professor of History , Yale University), which is even better in toto than the salient bits I've quoted here:

....The so-called Anglican Communion exemplifies a religious version of Anderson’s “imagined community.” At its most banal, the Communion exists to justify bishops traveling about the world on funds contributed by the baptized. At its worst, it has come to represent an imagined community several of whose Episcopal spokespeople now seek to persecute and degrade or relegate into a second track churches who have opened themselves, their process of ordination, and their episcopate to gay and lesbian people. In this respect, it this ecclesiastical imagined community replicates in its drive to exclusion the persecution that ethnic minorities have experienced at the hands of dominant nationalist groups from the early nineteenth century to the present day.

.... The good that the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to achieve is the unity of an imagined Anglican Communion that has virtually no existence in reality. In support of that unity he willingly sacrifices the ordination of women in some dioceses, the appointment of women to the episcopate in some churches, and the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from ordination and the episcopate. For the sake of unity of a communion that does not really exist, he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, dissension, and schism. He has urged the adoption of an ill-conceived covenant for the purposes today of excluding those churches who would embrace as part of the divine creation gay and lesbian people. But whom will the covenant exclude next year? The precedent for exclusion and persecution will have been established, and on the pretext of unity future dissidents and yet to be designated minorities could be targeted.

The Episcopal Church through its long established institutions of ecclesiastical governance, combining lay and clerical voices in equal measure, has chosen to tread the path of Christian liberty. Over the past decades the Episcopal Church has concluded that the perpetuation of unity with an imagined Anglican Communion being increasingly drawn into a reality for the purpose of persecuting and repressing gay and lesbian people is not acceptable and is not Christian. The Episcopal Church has decided to reassert not only that Jesus Christ has redeemed us, but that he has also made us free. In accord with St Paul’s injunction to the Galatians the Episcopal Church has chosen to stand fast “in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free” and not to be “entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Fear of the future

This article, Episcopal battle over homosexuals is about fear has been all over the blogs, and if you didn't read it yet, you should. And then go deal with the commenters.

The first votes were close, but the anti-change position has steadily lost ground. Not because the church came under an evil spell, but because people's minds and hearts shifted and their understandings of God and mission changed. That happens.

The anti-change minority fights on, however, for by now their fretful arguments against changing "Thou" to "You" and "he" to "he or she" have advanced to holy war against gays.

The battle isn't about God. It's about fear, control and property.

The anti-change minority wants to reclaim a world that no longer exists.
....
Fear abounds. Fear of offending longtime members and deep-pocket givers. Fear of speaking freely and dreaming grandly. Fear of trying hard and maybe failing. Fear of preaching a Gospel more radical than anything we've said.

But many are determined to get beyond fear -- by taking one brave step at a time, learning to be nimble and to listen, learning from our failures, taking risks.

I argue that it's all about fear. We all dread change, at some level. A hallmark of middle age, I think, is really resenting change. The kids aren't as hard working or respectful they used to be. Society has changed for the worse. The music is awful.... and we may well be right (at least as far as the music goes! ;-) The changes we experience may not be an improvement on everything that we loved or experienced in the past. But the past, as Shakespeare wrote, is prologue.

In Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily we Roll Along*, one character sings,

Charley,
Why can't it be like it was?
I liked it the way that it was.
Charley-
You and me, we were nicer then.
.....
Charley.
Nothing's the way that it was.
I want it the way that it was.
God knows, things were easier then.

Trouble is, Charley,
That's what everyone does:
Blames the way it is
On the way it was,
On the way it never ever was.

I wouldn't want to go back to some parts of the past, even my past, including the lack of opportunities for women, or the criminalization or pathologizing of homosexuality. I wouldn't want to go back to the loneliness and emptiness of my life before BP entered it. Change is scary. It can be painful. It can also be liberating.

The point is, we can't go back. We never can. The wheel only runs forward, and so we have to run with it: good bad or indifferent. We can fight it with resentment, wearing ourselves out, or we can give ourselves up to the movement and adapt constantly, living fully in the present. But that means that we have to give up the fear too, or at least come to terms with it, look it in the eye, and show it who's boss.


*full points for anyone in the comments who can identify the structural conceit of Merrily....Hey, I'm gay,of course I do musicals!

Small steps that reverberate

Lots of folks are hearing about the Episcopal Church in the news because of the recent events at General Convention that made some small movements towards full inclusion of the LGBT faithful in the life of the church. Articles in major dailies around the country, stories on NPR, all far more noticeable than the usual blog-chatter.

Let's review. The consecration of an honest gay man as Bishop in 2003 became the rallying point for conservatives who resist the changes in the church. Indeed, conservative, anti-gay movement in the church is defined solely by their shared disgust with gays and contaminated by the ultra-partisan conservative political movement in the US. Although they point haphazardly at other issues, it's really only about this one.

Why this issue? A conservative saddened by these events, Fr Tim Chesterton, notes:

They could have chosen a couple of other issues, on both of which the Bible is every bit as clear (more so in my view), and which are every bit as relevant to the struggles of people in the modern world.......Sadly, for the vast majority of Anglicans the issue of homosexuality does not carry that personal price-tag. Most of us are straight; we aren't the ones who would be bearing the cross if the church as a whole agreed that same-sex unions are not a legitimate part of a life of following Jesus. Gays and lesbians are an easy target, because there aren't many of them (tho' more, perhaps, than some Christians would like to think).

Personally, I think it's a tragedy that we're drawing these lines in the sand at all. Historically, it's not been our way as Anglicans. On the (equally clear) biblical teachings about war and peace and about usury, we've allowed for a variety of biblical interpretation. Why is homosexuality so despicable that we don't make similar allowances?

It's the "ick" factor-- and the ultimate "us vs. them". The nasty power play of conservatives in the US is now (mostly) over; their effort to take over TEC failed, they've left the Episcopal church. Plan B is to try to replace the liberal TEC with a parallel structure, but their numbers aren't very high, and schismatics make other people nervous.

Those of us watching know that the problem is not that the American church is uniquely friendly to GLBT. The Americans don't have more gay clergy. And they certainly haven't performed more gay blessings (let's remember that full civil unions are legal in Britain). It's just that the Americans are honest about it. So it was only a matter of time before the conservatives flexed their muscle elsewhere. It's a basic schoolyard fact that if you attempt to placate bullies, instead you embolden them.

Well, the conservatives have tried it in England. The Archbishop tried to placate them with a letter in which he disparaged "gay lifestyles" and even disapproved of partnered gay clergy. And despite pleas from activists like Madpriest that they wake from their somnolence, the liberals have for the most part not stood up to the bullies, or for that matter the Archbishop. Until now. As reported in The Times

Pro-gays in the Church of England are planning a survey of all LGBT clergy, in and out of the closet, in London, Southwark and throughout the Church. In the capital, they reckon, it is as many as 20 per cent. They are also intending to survey precisely how many gay blessings have been and are being done. Again, estimates put the number in the hundreds.

After that, bearing in mind the General Synod elections next year, they will make a push for the Church of England to approve gay blessings and gay ordinations to the priesthood and episcopate, as The Episcopal Church has done.

And in a related letter, a wide group of English liberals protests (rightly) against the Abp of Canterbury's missive-- which also compared faithfully partnered gay people to straight people having an affair. Well then. Someone woke up!

The really offensive nature of the Abp's letter is particularly striking given the change in his own views. As quoted by commenter klday in the comments to a previous FoJ thread below, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Wesleyan University says

In an essay entitled “The Body’s Grace” (1989), Williams suggests that the problem with homosexuality is sexuality itself. Unlike heterosexual relationships, which the Church can reduce to reproduction, “same-sex love annoyingly poses the question of what the meaning of desire is—in itself, not considered as instrumental to some other process.” Facing desire itself, we face our own vulnerability—to loss, to humiliation, and to joy. Williams then goes on to sketch non-reproductive desire as an image of God’s (often unreciprocated) yearning for humanity, grounding his vision in Hosea, Samuel, and even Paul. If anyone can still stomach it, then, those who undertake the “painstaking exegesis” for which the Archbishop calls would do well to start with his own.

(More resources on the theology of same sex marriagehere).

But I want to finish with a quote from our regular FoJ commenter counterlight, who in the same thread comments,

The Anglican World seems to be such a separate world sometimes that we forget that this conflict has major consequences far beyond our intramural struggles.

What would be the consequences for the struggle for gay rights? What would be the effect on gay cultural life, if a major historical branch of Christianity dropped its policy of segregation? What would the effect be on the religious conflicts within the lgbt community if this church not only accepted them but actively sought their participation in all aspects of its life including leadership?


What would be the effect on the larger society of such a change? How would the public image and the credibility of Christianity change?

Isn't that a fascinating question? Imagine! The forces of hate would lose the "ownership" of the "Christian card". Religion could become a tool for hope, rather than a weapon of destruction. This would allow all of us to move beyond this stupid obsession with the bedroom. Rather, we would simply apply the same rules of fidelity and integrity to any couple, and instead focus our efforts together on things that really matter, like poverty and peace and justice, like feeding the hungry and healing the sick--things that unite people of faith and secular progressives to improve our world.

And this possibility, so loaded with promise beyond a relatively small (if historically powerful and influential) denomination, explains why the press keeps returning to the question of The Episcopal Church to its new potential of hope, occupying a position at the forefront of justice, rather than following along behind.

If the Episcopalians, the definition of Establishment America, can do it, well then......it can be done.

Imagine...


Cross posted at Street Prophets

Upcoming Conference

Why Homosexuality? Religion, Globalization, and the Anglican Schism
Saturday, October 17, 2009 , Yale University

Rather than restaging the arguments for and against the ordination of openly gay clergy, this day-long conference analyzes the threatened schism in the Anglican Communion in order to examine wide-ranging and interrelated issues of religion, secularism, globalization, nationalism, and modernity. How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?

Sounds interesting, for those in the vicinity.

For more discussion of Homosexuality and the Anglican Debate from a variety of scholars, see the blog The Immanent Frame . (The Immanent Frame is a collective blog publishing interdisciplinary perspectives on secularism, religion, and the public sphere.)

Giles Fraser on the ABC and Anglicanism

From the Church Times. Replace "CofE" with "TEC" and the point is the same.

Another kick in the teeth from the Archbishop of Canterbury comes this week in his reflections on the US General Convention. It looks as if we are heading for a two-tier Anglicanism, with the anti-gay lot being able to have “representative functions”, and the inclusive lot being edged out of any decision-making processes.

Actually, we have been something like a two-tier Church for a while, but the nature of this division is different from the one Dr Williams describes. One tier is called the Church of England; the other is called Anglicanism. Ordinary people in the pews are members of the former; those with “representative functions” — bishops and the like — are often of the latter.

.....Mrs Jones, who has always worshipped at St Agatha’s, knows that there is a wider international side to the Church...but for her, church means St Agatha’s: Sunday eucharist, the choir, the people. Her views may be more conservative or more liberal than the person praying next to her, but that doesn’t matter much. ....

[T]he genius of the Church of England has been to allow different theological temperaments to worship alongside one other, united by common prayer and community spirit. This was how we recognised each other as members of the same Church. This was our particular charism, and we were widely valued for it.

In Anglicanism, however, the joys of common prayer and community spirit are replaced by ideology. This Anglican Church is a new invention, a global piece of post-colonial hubris, driven by those who feel that a Church that is genuinely Catholic must have outposts throughout the world.

Bishops get on planes and fly to other parts of the world to sit in committees with other bishops, hammering out policy — although no one in the secular world cares two hoots about what they decide. Over time, these meetings have created a new Church with a single-issue magisterium based on an unhealthy fascination with what gay people do in their bedrooms. This, apparently, is how we are to recognise each other as Anglicans.

That is not how Mrs Jones recognises members of her church. She says hello to them in the street. They sit near her in the pews. To replace all this by ideology is the single greatest mistake my Church has ever made.

Guess they didn't get the memo

While human rights activists around the world are calling for a boycott of Jamaica, the Anglican Consultative Council will meet in one of the most dangerous places in the world for gays and lesbians:

The Anglican Consultative Council, made up of lay people, clergy and bishops from the 38 Anglican Provinces of the Communion, meets in Kingston Jamaica May 1 - 13, to consider among other things, mission in the 21st century, the future structure of the worldwide Church, and theological education.
The ACC meets approximately every three years under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will give a presidential address on May 11.

The New York Times reports:

Being gay in Jamaica is not easy. For years, human rights groups have denounced the harassment, beating and even killing of gays here, to little avail. No official statistic has been compiled on the number of attacks. But a recent string of especially violent, high-profile assaults has brought fresh condemnation to an island otherwise known as an easygoing tourist haven.

“One time may be an isolated incident,” said Rebecca Schleifer, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has studied the issue and regularly gets calls from the island from gays under attack. “When they happen on a repeated basis across the country, it is an urgent problem that deserves attention at the highest levels.”

Disapproval of gays is an entrenched part of island life, rooted, Jamaicans say, in the country’s Christian tradition. The Bible condemns homosexuality, they say. But critics say islanders are selective in the verses they cite, and the rage at gay sex contrasts sharply with Jamaicans’ embrace of casual sex among heterosexuals, which is considered part of the Caribbean way.

From Truth Wins Out:

Why boycott? Because Jamaica is on a downward spiral and suffers from collective cultural dementia on this issue. There is clearly a pathological panic and homo-hysteria that has infected this nation at its core. Consider that the Jamaica Cancer Society has raised concerns that the fear of being labeled gay is causing some Jamaican men to avoid prostate examinations, causing one of the highest prostate cancer rates in the world.

The second reason to boycott is because traditional activism has failed. I first read about Jamaica’s horrific violence against gay people in a 2004 New York Times editorial, “Hated to Death in Jamaica.” In 2006, Time Magazine had an article about the island headlined, “The Most Homophobic Place On Earth.”

One would think that such chilling headlines would have spurred worldwide action against Jamaica. Instead, the climate has only deteriorated, with a 2008 New York Times article titled, “Attacks Show Easygoing Jamaica Is Dire Place for Gays.”

A scathing State Department report on Jamaica’s treatment of homosexuals reads like a horror novel:

“The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals, and Gays (J-FLAG) continued to report human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals.”

Questioned by the BBC, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding said that he would not allow gay people to serve in his Cabinet. In March 2009 he added, “We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organizations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalize the laws as it relates to buggery.”

A third reason for a boycott is because we can have an impact in Jamaica. The tropical island earned $2.1 billion from tourism in 2006, with 1,025,000 arrivals from the United States. Clearly, Jamaica is uniquely vulnerable to economic pressure and thus every effort should be made to push for change.

Boycott Jamaica

Ask your representatives to this meeting, why they are silent?

Current members are according to the ACC site:
President
The Most Revd and Rt Hon Rowan Williams (England)
Chair
The Rt Revd John Paterson (Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia)
Vice Chair
Professor George Koshy (Church of South India)
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia
The Rt Revd John Campbell Paterson (Chairman and Additional Member)
The Rt Revd Winston Halapua
Dr Anthony Fitchett
The Anglican Church of Australia
The Rt Revd John Noble
The Ven Kay Goldsworthy
Mr Robert Fordham
The Church of Bangladesh
The Revd Sunil Mankhin
Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil
The Rt Revd Maurício José Araújo de Andrade
The Anglican Church of Burundi
The Rt Revd Martin Blaise Nyaboho
The Church of the Province of Central Africa
The Rt Revd James Tengatenga
Mr Daniel Taolo
Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America
Mr Luis Roberto Valleé
Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo
The Rt Revd Kahwa Henri Isingoma
Miss Joyce Muhindo Tsongo
The Church of England
The Rt Revd James Jones
The Very Revd Dr John Henry Moses
Canon Elizabeth Paver
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui
Ms Fung Yi Wong
The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean
Mr Bernard Georges
The Church of Ireland
The Very Revd Michael Andrew James Burrows
Miss Kate Turner
The Nippon Sei Ko Kai (The Anglican Communion in Japan)
The Rt Revd Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu
The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & The Middle East
The Rt Revd Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal
The Anglican Church of Kenya
The Rt Revd Samson Mwaluda
Mr Amos Kirani Kiriro
The Anglican Church of Korea
The Revd Abraham Kim
The Church of the Province of Melanesia
The Rt Revd David Vunagi
La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico
Mr Ricardo Gomez-Osnaya
The Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma)
Mr Saw Si Hai
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
The Most Revd Peter Jasper Akinola DD.
The Very Revd Dr David Chidiebele Okeke
Mr Abraham Yisa
The Church of North India (United)
The Revd Ashish Amos
Mr Richard Ian Thornton
The Church of Pakistan (United)
The Revd Shahid P Mehraj
Mr. Humphrey Peters
The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
Mr Roger Baboa
The Episcopal Church in the Philippines
Mr Floyd Lalwet
L'Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda
The Rt Revd Josias Sendegeya
The Revd Damien Nteziryayo
Mrs Jane Mutoni
The Scottish Episcopal Church
Mr John Stuart
The Church of South East Asia
Dato Stanley Isaacs
The Church of South India (United)
Professor George Koshy (Vice Chair and Additional Member)
The Rt Revd Dr. Yesuratnam William
The Revd Rajendran Vincent Rajkumar
Dr. Mrs Pauline Sathiamurthy
The Church of the Province of Southern Africa
The Rt Revd David Beetge
The Revd Janet Trisk
Ms Nomfundo Walaza
Southern Cone
The Revd Andrew Lenton
The Episcopal Church of the Sudan
The Rt Revd Ezekiel Kondo
The Revd Enock Tombe
The Anglican Church of Tanzania
The Rt Revd Dr. Gerard E. Mpango
The Revd Canon Dr. R Mwita Akiri
Mrs Joyce Ngoda
The Church of the Province of Uganda
The Rt Revd Elia Paul Luzinda Kizito
The Revd Canon Job Bariira-Mbukure
Mrs Jolly Babirukamu
The Church in Wales
The Ven Alun Evans
Miss Sylvia Scarf
The Church of the Province of West Africa
Mrs Philippa Amable
The Church in the Province of the West Indies
The Rt Revd Robert Thompson
Dr Barton Scotland
The Church of Ceylon
The Rt Revd Kumara Illangasinghe
Co-opted Members
The Rt Revd Carlos López-Lozano (Spain)
Head Brother James Tata (Melanesian Bortherhood)
Mrs Maria Cristina Borges Alvare (Cuba)
Ms Candace Payne (West Indies)
Mr Michael Lee Tamihere (Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia)
Primates Standing Committee
The Most Revd Peter Kwong (Hong Kong)
The Most Revd Bernard Malango (Central Africa)
The Most Revd Barry Morgan (Wales)
The Most Revd Orlando Santos de Oliveira (Brazil)
The Most Revd James Terom (North India)
The Anglican Church of Canada
The Rt Revd Susan Moxley
The Revd Canon Allan Box
Ms Suzanne Lawson
The Episcopal Church in the USA
The Rt Revd Catherine S. Roskam
The Revd Robert Lee Sessum
Ms Josephine Hicks

The Velvet Reformation

The Atlantic Monthly looks at the Anglican Communion and Rowan Williams in the March issue. You can read the cover story online here. I'm curious to know what you think.

It is not a church, strictly speaking, but an aggregation of 44 national or regional churches claiming 80 million believers in all. In theory, its leaders have dealt with conflict by trying to follow the via media, the middle way between extremes. In practice, this means that extremes coexist, jostling each other. Sunday service can feature brilliantined choirboys, or an organist, or dancing women in kente cloth. C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot were Anglicans; so are George and Barbara Bush. The Episcopal Church has a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, as its presiding bishop, while the Church of England has no women bishops at all. If this church cannot find a way forward on homosexuality, then none can—and the clash between gays and Christians over marriage and the like may go on for much of the millennium.