Christ Church

Morningside

Lent II

The Anglican Communion?

        I would imagine that everyone, or at least almost everyone, is aware of the meeting of Anglican leaders that took place in Newry , Northern Ireland this last week.  A great deal was at stake in at this meeting – no less the integrity of the Anglican Communion itself.  Will there be an Anglican Communion this time next year?  Will the 38 member churches be able to stay together despite clear differences of opinion?

I have to say that I very mixed feelings about the meeting and the ‘discussions’ that have taken place over the last year or so leading up to this meeting.  On the one hand I am enormously proud and hopeful on the other I am filled with a sense of sadness, pessimism and even disgust (and I don’t use that word lightly).

I am proud and hopeful for a number of reasons:

  • The member Churches of the Anglican Communion have had the courage to talk about and grapple with the issue of homosexuality and the authority of the Bible- very difficult and contentious issues - in the open.  We have not, as a Communion, tried to cover anything up or engage in spin.
  • We have given people/churches/leaders from all parts of the world an equal voice in these discussions. The Anglican Communion, as an international organization, we may be unique in this fact.  Not even the United Nations (with its Security Council) can boast of such radical equality.
  • There seems to be a real desire to stay in communion with each other, despite grave differences.

I am filled with a sense of sadness because:

  • Some in our Church have sunk to the level of personal attacks and abuse in characterizing those on the other side of the debate.  In some ways this debate has taken on all the negative aspects of party politics.  It was quoted in the Guardian newspaper on Friday that;

“Last night the [liberal North American Anglican’s] leading critic, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, was said to be entertaining his supporters among the archbishops and the traditionalist American and English evangelicals who have circling the meeting clandestinely all week to what was described as a ‘celebratory’ dinner party, paid for by the American [traditionalists].”

I would have thought the breaking of our bonds of affection in the Church would have been more an occasion for ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ than celebratory dinner parties.  What is there to celebrate about one might ask?

  • Of the way in which people of differing opinions have demonized (by both ‘sides’ of the debate).
  • That after two thousand years of inter-Nicene squabbling Christians in a least one major denomination might find a better way to settle differences of opinion – the jury is still out on that one – but right now it looks as if it is ‘business as usual’, with schism, withdrawal of communion and casting out being the order of the day.
  • That American and Canadian Anglican Churches have been asked to voluntary withdraw from Communion-wide events and decision making bodies until the next general meeting of Anglican leaders in 2008 (the next Lambeth Conference).  How will ceasing to talk help matters?

The question is where do we go from here?  Speaking personally I think there a number of ways forward.

  • Agree to disagree.  Agree that we can disagree.  That because the Anglican Communion is so vast in scope – represented in 164 countries across the world – that there can be, and indeed needs to be, toleration (and perhaps even celebration of) differing:

Ways of ‘doing’ Church
Methods of interpreting the Bible
Liturgical and ritual practice

  • Have an understanding – and an minimal one at that – of what unites us:

Common, shared history
Link to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England
Agreement on the Canon of Scripture (what makes up the Bible)
Use of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion
Belief in the Trinity

  • Base our common life not on doctrine and dogma, but on the person of Jesus Christ.  In other words to focus, not on each other (how our neighbor’s spiritual life is going so-to-speak) but to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.  Sounds a bit vague, I know, but I think that this is probably the best we can manage this side of the Kingdom coming.  Christians have spent two thousand years trying to convince, cajole and persecute each other into doctrinal agreement.  So far the exercise has proved to be a dismal failure.  The only time when Christians have ‘agreed’ is when they have had to because of fear of physical harm inflicted by a ‘Christian’ governmental regime. 

I think, at least for now, this painful issue breaks down into four areas of prayer and work: the local, the regional, the national and the international. At the local level (what you and I can do and say) I would hope that we will do a couple of things.

  • First, keep this issue and our beloved Anglican Communion in your daily prayers.
  • Second, is write to our Bishop/me and let him/me know how you feel about all of this.  Make your voice heard.

At the regional/Diocesan level, I would personally hope that we would find a way of expressing our solidarity with the Churches in America and Canada, and express our dismay at the desire expressed by some to ‘expel’ from the Communion people with whom they disagree.  I think we need to be a lot more tolerant than that!

At the National level – again my hope is that the Episcopal Church of Scotland will not allow the North American Churches to be demonized or ‘hung out to dry’ without our making a protest.  I don’t think we even have to agree with what they have done over the homosexual issue.  But rather to say that we stand with them and that we disagree, in principal, with the desire by some conservative elements in our Communion to want to hold on to the fiction of a ‘pure church’ from which ‘undesirable’ parts need to be cut off.

At the International level, I hope that the leaders of the North American Church will not voluntarily withdraw from the governing bodies of the Communion.  Rather I hope that they stick around and bear witness to everything that I have been talking about this morning.

Of one thing we can all be sure and find agreement on.  The issue of the place and status of gay people in our Churches is not going to go away.  It simply isn’t, and all the wishing in the world won’t make it so.  Besides which, we are not talking simply about an ‘issue’ but about other human beings.  And as I said, base our common life as Christians not on doctrine and dogma, but on the person of Jesus Christ.  In whom,  “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Galatians 3:28)

It is only in, through and by Jesus, that we are brought and can stay together.  To Him be the glory, forever and ever!
                           Simon Justice,
                                Lent III, 
                                               27th February 2005
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