In the wake of the Primates’ meeting and the subsequent decision by the Primates to ask the Episcopal Church to withdraw from voting in international bodies for three years, there has been no shortage of commentary. From Facebook to Twitter to blogs, the Anglican social sphere has been awash in opinion. My concern at this point is less about the decision itself than our reaction to it.
We have taken an action that runs contrary to the deeply held convictions of Anglicans worldwide and is a frankly dramatic shift in an understanding of marriage that was embedded in human social relations before Christians called it a Sacrament. To deny that fact – that this openness is an innovation – is to engage in creative myopia.
Now, acknowledging that fact does not mean that it is an innovation whose time has not come. There are good and even holy impulses that are leading to this discussion. I do not believe that this change is Satanic as some have charged nor do I believe that it is simply a capitulation to the spirit of the age. As more is revealed to us of creation and human nature through the reasoned observance of science, sociology, and more, one can begin to see where a case can be made. When paired with faithful prayer and the attentive reading of Scripture, an acknowledgment of the holiness of loving same-gender relationships may be a thing to be embraced, even among the tradition-minded.
However, all good reasons on the table, it is an innovation that is moving with remarkable rapidity when situated within the context of the arc of Christian history. I have a number of LGBT friends who are saying that they are not sure about this shift – not yet.
I have many friends of all sides of these issues. They are all faithful people who strongly desire to follow the will of God and the guidance of the Spirit. What troubles me deeply though is that those who do not hold the same mind about this as the majority of the Episcopal Church are being called bigots and worse.
I looked up the definition of bigotry, and found this, “Intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.” We might, indeed, feel that a certain intolerance (a bigotry) has been expressed toward the Episcopal Church (and towards LGBTQ Christians) by the Primates. Yet, I fear many are now engaging in pernicious bigotry by assuming the direst of motivations and machinations of those who disagree with the direction that The Episcopal Church has taken.
The Episcopal Church – this supposedly high-minded and elevated form of rational Christianity – has succumbed to the nastiest abusiveness of fellow Christians. Whether it is the veiled racism of referring to “the Africans” or the copious use of various forms of the word “bigot” or casting the acts of the Primates as devious and underhanded – we are reacting in ways entirely out of proportion to the sanction that we have received.
We are reacting in ways that actually imperil communion – in ways that are more dangerous than a sanction or reprimand from the institutional arm of the Church. The Church is the Body. It is a mystical union as well as an institutional entity. Our reactions – our words and deeds – have the potential to undermine the mystical union we share for we are literally saying to one part of the Body, “We have no need of you.”
It is difficult to remain in communion with someone when he or she is saying that you are a bigot. I would hasten to add that I hope that those who are on the more traditional end of this conversation would also work hard to curtail and contain those voices who denigrate and deny the faithful witness of LGBTQ Christians around the world.
There might be hurt over this reprimand but, look closely, we were not ejected, nor were our orders declared null and void, nor was Bishop Curry thrown out of the meeting. I understand that many are angry over the rebuke– yet we walked away from them – not the other way around. Anglican brothers and sisters gave repeated and clear statements that pointed toward an outcome like this if we moved ahead and yet, we did so.
Now that we have received a rebuke (not an ex-communication or expulsion), there is comment after comment from fellow Christians talking of bigotry, promoting schism, and advocating financial retribution. As a friend of mine used to say when the Church got twisted up, “Jesus is so lucky to have us.”
If this is prophetic work – then do what prophets do – bear the disapproval and move ahead. This caterwauling is beneath us as a community of Christians. Should we ferociously decry the abuse, murder, and torture of LGBTQ people across the globe, particularly at the hands of fellow Christians? Absolutely!
However – to act as if every Episcopal and Anglican blog is another forum where we can cast invective against those who disagree is beneath dignity. More dangerously, it is against the expressed prayer of Christ for unity. The image I have of a prophet is of Elizabeth Eckford, in the midst of a screaming crowd at the height of school desegregation in Little Rock. Amidst anger and rage – she held her head high.
If you are in the majority in the Episcopal Church (and the minority in global Anglicanism) who supports this opening of our understanding of marriage – then feel free to hold your head high if you are feeling persecuted. Don’t scream back. And for the sake of all that’s holy, let’s stop calling someone a bigot because they read Scripture, pray, and reason differently than we do. Among these “bigots” are friends who disagree, family who are still praying, parents who are trying, and Christians looking for signs of hope in a divided and divisive world.
Perhaps, though, there is also something that can be learned in this – even among those who feel themselves to absolutely be on the right side of this. How can we be patient in difference and encourage one another in the fundamentals of the faith? How can we seek the will of God together in such a way that we never again doubt one another’s motives and faithfulness even if we come to a different sense of where God is calling us?
There is much that unity teaches as we bear with one another. The news before the Primates gathered was all about the impending dissolution and collapse of the Anglican Communion. Yet, gathered together, they committed themselves to unity and reaffirmed our connection in Christ. They did not, however, say that one part of the Communion could act without regard for another part nor act without ramifications. This is simply the cost of being accountable to one another in any system. So now is our chance, as Episcopalians, to be an instrument of unity – to be an instrument of Communion.
There are so many moments in my own life when I have been so sure only to meet someone with whom I disagreed – someone whom I might even have castigated at another point in my life – and they changed me. Grace has a way of doing that.
So let’s take a breath and heed Psalm 37, “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.”
Robert
A Desert Father 
There’s rather more to talk about here than suggestions that the Episcopal Church take a stand by boycotting the Anglican Communion’s common purse. Let’s talk about Anglican complicity in the persecution of LGBTs in Uganda and Nigeria. Let’s talk about polygamy. Let’s “walk together,” surely, but talk together honestly.
And also, let’s be clear about where our greatest connection and unity lie in the Anglican Communion–in the shared experience of common prayer, and in the ability to break bread together. The Elizabethan Settlement was about people who shared RADICALLY different theological views being able to worship, if not together, by using the same texts. It would be good if we could all remember, and practice this, for starters.
I also remain really concerned by folks who say, “Well, we can pull all our financial support and go home.” I see this as arrogance, and not at all enabling ongoing conversation, much less reconciliation. On the other hand, I think if the communion thinks we are such noxious sinners, I wonder that they are so willing to take our filthy lucre. (Somewhat tongue in cheek, but there you have it.)
And as Michael Redmond says, in the US, we need to remember that LGBT folks in other parts of the communion like Uganda and Nigeria–who aren’t alone in these practices–live in constant peril and danger because it is illegal to be gay.
I don’t support the withholding of financial support, a crass and mean-spirited response that’s likely to achieve nothing but harm to innocent parties. But I wonder whether TEC should not stipulate that Anglicans seeking support need come directly to TEC now — in other words, bypass AC or national church agencies and come straight to us, during the period of TEC’s suspension. We’ll happily rejoin the common kitty when we’ve been restored to full AC participation.
And while I’m at it: TEC should also consider letting it be known that we will not be attending future sit-downs to which ACNA & such has been invited, even in a non-participatory role. TEC does have to “walk with” canonical GAFCON churches with whom we may be in disagreement, but we do not have to countenance AC dalliance with noncanonical bodies. We should be quite firm on this point.
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Fantastic reflection, Robert. Thank you.
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Thank you for your wisdom Robert. It is sorely needed.
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An interesting article, but I am puzzled by the choice of image used to illustrate an argument against making charges of bigotry. After all, the screaming crowd surrounding Eckford in that photo WERE manifestly and undeniably bigots, and while screaming back at them may have been counterproductive, I’m not sure what purpose would be served by not naming them what they were.
Well, count me among the myopic then. It’s not at all clear to me that ECUSA could have made any less dramatic a shift than it has by the course it has taken. On the contrary, the alternatives pursued in other parts of the Communion – inventing new sacramental rites out of whole cloth specifically for same-sex couples, or simply leaving them to “live in sin” (with or without ecclesiastical collusion) – strike me as far more serious ruptures from traditional Christian faith and morals around human sexuality. That tradition has usually been taken to mean that marriage is the only appropriate outlet for sexual activity, which ECUSA has upheld and the “majority” is repudiating.
I don’t think marriage equality is the only possible solution, or that anyone who favours another is necessarily a bigot. But I think it’s safe to say that many of the Global South primates acted as they did not because they think SSM is bridge too far from “holy unions” (indeed, many of them also complained when those were first on the radar), or a good idea down the road but in need of further prayerful study. Rather, from their rhetoric it’s clear that many of them view all gay couples – no matter how virtuous, how exemplary in their Christian communities, how diligent in seeking to conform their family life to the church’s marital discipline (whether under that name or not) – as having no part in the kingdom. And to them I would have to say the shoe fits.
Exactly. Their hypocrisy is astonishing. Why we are in a tizzy about what they think is beyond me. Whether or not they want to be in communion with us is their choice.
I keep finding this sermon from Cardinal Newman before his conversion to be apropos for everyone:
“Now it is plain how this doctrine applies to these times, and to us. Alas! I cannot deny that the outward notes of the Church are partly gone from us, and partly going; and a most fearful judgment it is. “Behold … the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation.” “All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over them, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.” [Isa. xiii. 10. Amos viii. 9, 10. Ezek. xxxii. 8.] This in good measure has fallen upon us. The Church of God is under eclipse among us. Where is our unity, for which Christ prayed? where our charity, which He enjoined? where the faith once delivered, when each has his own doctrine? where our visibility, which was to be a light to the world? where that awful worship, which struck fear into every soul? And what is the consequence? “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.” [Isa. lix. 10.] And as the Jews shortly before their own rejection had two dark tokens—the one, a bitter contempt of the whole world, and the other, multiplied divisions and furious quarrels at home—so we English, as if some abomination of desolation were coming on us also, scorn almost all Christianity but our own; and yet have, not one, but a hundred gospels among ourselves, and each of them with its own hot defenders, till our very note and symbol is discord, and we wrangle and denounce, and call it life; but peace we know not, nor faith, nor love. And this being so, what a temptation is it to those who read and understand the word of God, who perceive what it enjoins and promises, and also feel keenly what we are—what a temptation is it to many such to be impatient under this visitation! Who indeed is there at all, who lets himself dwell upon the thought of it, but must at times be deeply troubled at it? and who can be startled, not I, if a person here or there, painfully sensitive of this fearful eclipse of the Sun of Truth, and hoping, if that be possible, to find something better elsewhere; and either not having cherished, or neglecting to look for those truer tokens of Christ’s presence in the Church, which are personal to himself, leaves us for some other communion? Alas! and we, instead of being led to reflect on our own share in his act, instead of dwelling on our own sin, are eloquent about his; instead of confessing our own most unchristian divisions, can but cry out against his dividing from us; instead of repenting of our own profaneness which has shocked him, protest against his superstition; instead of calling to mind the lying and slandering, the false witness, the rejoicing in evil, the ungenerousness and unfairness which abound among us, our low standard of duty and scanty measures of holiness, our love of the world and our dislike of the Cross; instead of acknowledging that our brother has left us because we have left God, that we have lost him because we have lost our claim to keep him; we, forsooth, think we “do well to be angry,” and can but enlarge on his impatience, or obstinacy, or wilfulness, or infatuation. Or if we are alarmed, as well as indignant, we dream of foes and traitors among us, when the foe and the traitor is within us; and we look any where but there; and we wonder, to be sure, that we cannot find what it implies so much address to conceal; and we are restless till we have traced the guilt some whither, to any one but ourselves,—like the Prophet beating his ass because she saw, what from him was hidden, the Angel with a drawn sword. “Thou hypocrite; first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!” “Thou satest and spakest against thy brother, yea, and hast slandered thine own mother’s son.” “Thou which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? … thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? for the Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.” [Matt. vii. 5; xxiii. 24. Ps. l. 20. Rom. ii. 21, 23, 24.]”
Well, we all know how that worked out, don’t we?
As I have observed this as a Pastor from another tradition, it has given me pause to consider what it means for us to be able to be both “in communion” and able to disagree. I believe this is a pressing matter for all Christians and have, thus far, settled on the exhortation found in Ephesians 3:1-6, which may be some of the greatest advice we could hope for.
Good thoughts. What amazes me about this is that people seem to care about the opinion of Anglicans from the Southern Hemisphere. Africa isn’t exactly the exemplar of moral authority.