August 10, 2008

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 13     Luke 16:19-31

The once-in-a-decade Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops is over. It has gone far better than the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams or even the most optimistic observers could have imagined. There has been no formal schism. No one made a show of walking out. There have been no angry public speeches, accusations, hissing and booing. This episcopal banquet was satisfying and successful. Some 670 bishops and their spouses, lobbyists, and journalists can now all go home and the Church can return to normal.

Actually the Anglican Church never left normal. For contrary to what many think, and what a number of Lambeth Conference attendees want them to think, bishops do not set policy or rule the Church. Even in England and central Africa the Church is hesitant to ascribe sole decision-making power to the episcopate. Any and every Lambeth resolution has to be adopted in each individual Province before it has authority, and most never make it.

One of the cultural and theological divides between England’s Anglicanism and New Zealand’s is that of authority. Generally speaking the English model, shaped by their monarchical legacy, is of bishops discerning the will of God and telling the people what it is. They are rulers. They are therefore to be respected and shown due deference.

New Zealanders on the other hand have a history of ‘discriminating irreverence’ towards authority. We corporately discern the will of God. Elected members make up a majority of the General Synod who rule our Church. The role of our bishops is to articulate the vision, spur us to think, and empower us to act. Respect is earned and deference unusual.

These and other cultural and theological understandings of authority converge at Lambeth and add some tension to the menu.

Lambeth 2008 was what it has been since 1867: an opportunity to confer, discuss, encourage, get to know each other, and talk about differences. Compared with 1998 this conference though saw some notable changes. Gone were the copious piles of papers, motions, amendments, votes, and statements. As the Archbishop of Canterbury wryly noted producing resolutions does not have a direct correlation to acting upon them.

In their place there were small discussion groups called indaba [a Zulu word]. The formula was simple: in small diverse groups they listened, built trust, and encouraged each other in the tasks of leading mission. They talked too about differences between them and the pain it caused. Friendships developed. The result was a rich collegial feast.

And there were no resolutions. There were no resolutions condemning the homophobia of Nigerian, Ugandan and Sudanese bishops. There were no resolutions condemning the many gay bishops in the Church either. There were no resolutions advocating a return to ‘biblical principles’ [a catch cry of fundamentalists]. There were no resolutions promoting justice grounded in self-giving love either. No wonder the evangelical Bishop of Nelson is reported as saying that it was all an expensive waste of time. There was nothing saying black is black, white is white, right is right, and Rowan is wrong. For the media the conference had all the colour and consistency of porridge, served of course in beautiful Canterbury china.

Lambeth 2008 had a long-term strategy. The majority of Western societies now accept that homosexuality is not a disease, a deviance, or even an evil. Although it is not plainly talked about lest it sound patronising, there is a widespread liberal belief amongst the majority of bishops that slowly in time other societies that currently don’t share this view will become more tolerant and accepting of the human rights of gay and lesbian people, which includes the right not to be discriminated against. The Church though by its nature is a conserving and conservative organisation. It is slow to change. But eventually it will. Rowan Williams’ task at this point in history is to try and hold everyone together, reproving those who have embraced change too quickly, comforting those who find it repulsive, and encouraging all to pray and read the Bible together, as slowly the majority of the Anglican Communion drifts towards change. It might take decades but eventually the Church will get there. This is why so many fundamentalist Anglicans boycotted the conference: they knew that this tacit ‘revisionist’ agenda would be present. As Theo Hobson writing in the Guardian says, “The whole event is an incredibly delicate exercise in long-distance liberalism.”

It is also an exercise that extols, nay venerates, unity.

Outside the gates of Lambeth sat one uninvited bishop, Gene Robinson. His election was, unlike the election of English bishops, the popular choice of the parishioners and clergy of his diocese. Unlike English bishops his election was also confirmed by his Province’s General Assembly, the majority of who were democratically elected. His crime though in the eyes of Rowan Williams was that he dared not only to publicly declare his sexual orientation but also his commitment to his same-gender partner, Mark. His diocese and General Assembly knew this. He is an honest man who is paying a big price for honesty. He was shut out of Lambeth, out of the collegiality, out of the indaba huddles, and out of the rich banquet of interchange and fellowship. In the Bible there is a story of a poor man, Lazarus, sitting, excluded, at a rich man’s gate. Bishop Robinson was the Lazarus of Lambeth.

The message to the world was that for the Church unity comes before the inclusion of gay and lesbian Anglicans. And the world got the message. There was also another message: that the wellbeing of the institutional church comes before the wellbeing of its mission in Western societies.

Archbishop Williams believes that the global Anglican Communion is something sacred given by God. It is a precious vessel and his task is to care for it. He believes that the divisive issues that seek to crack and splinter that vessel need to be moderated. Although he knows it is unjust, at the end of the Lambeth Conference Williams spoke supporting moratoria on gay blessings and bishops. He seems to believe that justice for gay and lesbian Anglicans needs to be delayed and denied in order that unity is preserved. The value called ‘unity’ takes precedence over the value called ‘justice’.

The Church however is not intrinsically sacred. Like other institutions – marriage, democracy – much good has been done through it, but so has much harm. It is a vessel but it’s the quality of its contents that matter. At its best the contents of the vessel called the Anglican Communion are the concrete manifestations of the unconditional love and justice of Jesus. By focusing on unity, a theme that Jesus said little about, the mission of the church to include the excluded, which Jesus said and did a lot about, is diminished. The longer the Church maintains its prejudicial views and policies towards gays and lesbians the more irrelevant and less credible it becomes. The priority of unity compromises our priority for mission.

While the tenor of Lambeth 2008 and its indaba process is worthy of support, it was seriously and fatally compromised before it began. By excluding bishops – and here I include not only Gene Robinson but also those of an ultra-conservative hue – it sent out a clear message that this was not ‘an open table’. Only the select could commune. Gays need to wait outside and be grateful for any crumbs. Inside the bishops might have felt good about being there, feasting up large like the rich man’s guests, but they were seemingly ignoring the Lazarus cost of structural exclusivity. That cost is credibility. And the hell awaiting them is irrelevance to the majority in the secular Western world.