Bridging the Anglican Rift 


A voice in the wilderness explains what's happening in the Anglican Church. 

Much in the news this week has been the six day 2007 Primates meeting being held at Jangwani Beach in Tanzania Feb. 14-19. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is chairing a meeting of 38 Senior Bishops, Presiding Bishops and Moderators of the Anglican Communion. Present at the meeting is newly-elected Presiding Bishop of the The Episcopal Church USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori. Included in the agenda for this meeting is a response by Jefferts Schori for criticisms by the Church against ECUSA for not honoring the recommendations of the 2004 Windsor Report, which called for a moratorium on the ordination of openly gay bishops, this in response to the election of Gene Robinson in 2003 as the Bishop of Vermont.

Jefferts Schori has publicly stated that she supports the full inclusion of gays and lesbians into the Church, and it is clear from her remarks that she does not view homosexual behavior per se as sinful, just another variety of sexual expression. This has outraged many Church leaders from developing countries. Particularly vocal in his criticism of ECUSA and Jefferts Schori has been Peter Akinola of Nigeria, but she has had a good share of criticism from those in the USA, for example, Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh. In fact, a small group of the primates attending the Primates meeting, including Akinola, is boycotting the eucharists held for the primates there. They "will not share table with" Jefferts Schori.

Recently I came across the writings of Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, through an article by Tom Heneghan for Reuters, "Anglican split goes far deeper than gay dispute." The article was published on the Virtue Online website. I found this piece to be particularly refreshing, if only to serve as a contrast between the usual news headline that sees the Anglican controversy as a pitched battle between uppity, sinful homosexuals and their defenders, on the one hand, and traditional, conservative true defenders of the Word and Truth of Jesus Christ, on the other.

Jenkins points to the fact that many members of the Global South—as the coalition of Anglican Churches in Africa and other parts of the developing world is called—read the Bible in entirely different ways from many "Liberal Anglicans in rich countries." These two groups have disparate views of the nature of authority. Moreover (according to the Heneghan article) "While liberals base their beliefs on the New Testament's message of love and inclusiveness, Christians in Africa focus more on the Old Testament with its plagues, visions and healings watched over by a stern and demanding God, [which] corresponds more to the world they live in."

Some church leaders in the Global South tend to read proscriptions in Leviticus as literally forbidding homosexual behavior, while liberals think these Old Testament writings have nothing to do with them.

The lesson that I take from this is quite different from the one that some of my liberal church friends would have me take. The first thing I would say is that we must all resist demonizing the other side of our debate. Akinola and Duncan are no more of Satan than are Jefferts Schori and PB Frank Griswold before her. They are, in fact, human beings, Christian ones at that, struggling to make sense of the world and to do God's work in it. My comfortable world looks quite unlike the drought and famine cursed lands of parts of Africa. My theological views are not laden with Torah-like strictures. But, I can only dimly perceive in the divine, compassionate way that God intends and Christ modeled for us.

I am proud of my Christian leader, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and her calm, strong, sure proclamation that she intend for the full inclusion of homosexual people into the Church. But my conscience tells me, at least, even if my heart and my gut argue about it, that we need to be missing those who boycott our table. And so, I'll say it, and maybe one day, I'll believe it. I'll give thanks for those like Rowan Williams, who try to maintain one Body of Christ. And I'll understand, if the split occurs, that we all have not quite realized our goal of Christian understanding and compassion. 

Posted: Sat - February 17, 2007 at 05:29 PM          

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