[Dialogue] Spong warning: very wonky Anglican politics enclosed( but 2nd coming is good!)

[KroegerD at aol.com]

June 20 2007 
The Lambeth Conference of 2008  and the Curious Behavior of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury  

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Honorable and Most Reverend Rowan  
Williams, announced recently that he would not invite the Rt. Rev. V. Gene  
Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, to attend the Lambeth  Conference 
scheduled for the year 2008 in England. It was the latest in a series  of 
decisions made by this primate that has succeeded in destroying the integrity  of 
the Anglican Communion. The tragedy is that Rowan Williams probably believes  
that he is trying to save that communion's integrity. Though a Welshman, he 
is  in fact acting in the manner of the ruling class of English society and he 
seems  to forget that if Lambeth is to have any moral authority (it has no 
legal  authority), it must not be subject to the whims or the desires of the 
Archbishop  of Canterbury.  
Like all weak leaders under pressure, Rowan Williams has positioned himself  
to look even-handed. He has not only declined to invite Gene Robinson but he  
also stated his unwillingness to invite the newly consecrated bishop who was  
recently installed by the Archbishop of Nigeria to head up the movement of  
dissident Episcopalians in the United States. The two cases are not comparable  
though a gullible press that loves to report ecclesiastical disputes is likely 
 not to understand that. Let me spell out the differences.  
Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of New Hampshire by a concurrent majority of 
 the clergy and lay people of that diocese, voting separately. He was 
nominated  for that election by a search committee composed of the clergy and lay 
leaders  of New Hampshire, the process of which included a background vetting not 
 dissimilar from that through which a nominee to the Supreme Court of the 
United  States must go. In addition he was required to undergo extensive physical 
and  psychological testing that might cast doubt on his fitness. That 
election was  then confirmed by the highest authority in the Episcopal Church, the 
General  Convention. At that gathering Gene Robinson was, according to the 
Canons of this  Church, required to receive concurrent majorities of the bishops, 
the clergy  deputies (four elected by each diocese) and the lay deputies (four 
elected by  each diocese). Once again, each of these bodies votes separately.  
In the balloting of the House of Bishops he received approximately 60%  
positive vote, his lowest rate of approval. People need to understand, however,  
that in this body, retired bishops retain seat, voice and vote for life.  
Normally, however, it is quite difficult for most retired bishops to attend the  
General Convention because there is no fund to cover their expenses and the size  
of their pensions makes their presence at a two-week event in a major 
convention  center city all but impossible. A group of well to do southern 
conservative  church leaders has, however, undertaken to raise sufficient funds to cover 
the  expenses of only the retired bishops, who are conservative and willing 
to attend  and to vote at this Convention. Since this retired group frequently 
makes up 20%  of the voting members of the House of Bishops the vote in this 
House is the most  conservative of the three decision-making bodies. A 60% 
approval was, therefore,  a very strong endorsement from this body.  
In the balloting among the clergy and lay deputies at the General Convention, 
 the vote was more resoundingly positive with an approval rate of more than 
70%.  People still do not understand, however, that a positive vote among 
clergy and  lay deputies represents not a simple but a super majority. This process 
was  deliberately established to make change difficult and to protect the 
rights of  the minority. Let me explain this voting process yet once again. The 
four  elected clergy and the four elected lay deputies from each diocese do not 
cast  eight votes as many people think. They cast one clergy vote and one lay 
vote for  each Diocese. So the four elected deputies in both the clergy order 
and lay  order must caucus and decide how to cast their single vote. A 
positive vote  requires either a 3-1 (75%) or a 4-0 (100%) majority of the 
deputation. A  deputation that is divided, 2-2, has its vote cast as a negative vote. 
So for  Gene Robinson to achieve majorities in both the clergy order and lay 
order, one  needs to recognize that every positive vote represents at least a 
75% majority  in each clergy or lay deputation. The vote was thus not close and 
the  confirmation of his election represented the will of the vast majority of 
the  Episcopalians in this country as expressed through their elected  
representatives.  
On the other hand, this leader of the dissident group who was not invited to  
the Lambeth Conference was chosen by the defeated minority, which represented 
no  one. His election as bishop was not approved by a body that had 
jurisdiction  over anything. His consecration by bishops outside the Episcopal Church 
to work  in the Episcopal Church is a violation of every canon that governs 
this church's  operations. He is not a bishop serving a recognized branch of the 
Anglican  Communion. For the Archbishop of Canterbury to feel that he was 
being  even-handed by refusing to invite both men is frankly nothing more than 
naïve,  pandering to the angry fundamentalists. It was a decision that 
represented  neither character nor leadership. It was, rather, one more pathetic 
abdication  of power by this ineffective and bewildered Archbishop.  
For him to refer to his action as "removing the scandal" that affects the  
unity of the Anglican Communion was little more than an attempt to sprinkle  
perfume on his own cesspools. The Archbishop needs to understand that scandal is  
not produced when rising consciousness rebels against the prejudices of the  
past. It was not a scandal when opponents of slavery broke the unity of my  
nation by declaring that slavery was immoral, though slave owners felt  
scandalized by that action. It was not a scandal when my nation finally amended  its 
Constitution to give women the right to vote in 1920 and 56 years later,  when 
my church finally passed a resolution removing the barrier against the  
ordination of women, though sexist church leaders felt scandalized by that. It  is 
also not a scandal, following the overwhelming data from scientific and  
medical circles declaring that people do not choose their sexual orientation,  when 
both a Church and a nation began to remove its prejudiced exclusion of gay  
and lesbian people, though homophobic people feel scandalized by that action.  
The real scandal in our church is not Gene Robinson serving as Bishop of New  
Hampshire, it is that we still treat rampant homophobia, both at home and in 
the  Third World, as if it is an acceptable attitude and we still tolerate 
people  using the literal Bible as a weapon to enforce their ongoing prejudices. 
That is  scandalous behavior in the body of Christ and anyone with any degree of 
moral  backbone knows that and must be prepared to confront that.  
The tactic used by the Archbishop of Canterbury is also quite typical of  
upper class English snobbery. The Royal Family enforces social standards in the  
United Kingdom primarily through the power of exclusion. No invitations to tea 
 are issued to those who do not act in an English upper class style. Perhaps 
the  Archbishop does not understand that the Anglican Communion is no longer 
an  English controlled organization. Perhaps he needs to be reminded that he 
was not  elected to his position as Archbishop of Canterbury by a vote of the 
Anglican  Communion's various national provinces. Indeed he was not elected by 
the vote of  anyone. His position is an appointed position. The Church of 
England can make  recommendations to their government, but that is all. The 
appointment is made by  the Prime Minister with the approval of the Queen. The 
Archbishop has no  authority, therefore, to intervene in the decisions of any other 
province. He is  viewed with respect as the titular head of this Communion but 
his jurisdiction  is over the Church of England alone since he is a political 
appointee.  
In the days of the British Empire, the Archbishop of Canterbury began the  
custom of inviting the Anglican bishops from throughout the world to meet once  
every ten years, not as a decision making body, but for mutual consultation. 
The  Lambeth Conference that grew out of that custom has no decision making 
powers.  It speaks to the churches not for the churches. For the Archbishop of 
Canterbury  now to presume that he has the authority to decide which bishops of 
which  national churches are acceptable to him to invite to this gathering is 
a bizarre  power grab. Yes, people argue, the bishops gather at the Lambeth 
Conference at  his invitation and therefore he is free to invite whoever he 
pleases. If that is  how it works then Lambeth should be discontinued. Either the 
national bodies  determine who their bishops are who speak for them at an 
international  consultation or let us face the fact that while the Archbishop is 
surely free to  invite anyone he pleases to have tea with him, no one should 
suggest that his  tea party has any authority to speak to anyone about anything. 
This is the 21st  century. There is no British Empire. The United States is 
not a colony of the  United Kingdom. The Episcopal Church delights in its 
English heritage but the  unpleasantness of 1776 separated us from the Church of 
England long ago. Even in  that crisis, the Church of England offered no support 
to American Anglicans in  that no English bishop would consecrate those the 
Anglicans in the victorious  former colonies chose to be their new bishops. It 
was the Episcopal Church in  Scotland that finally performed that service for 
us. That is why we chose to  call ourselves today "The Episcopal Church," not 
"The Anglican Church in  America." We used the name of the friendly Scottish 
Church as our own. It is a  bit late for Rowan Williams to seek to interfere in 
the affairs of the Episcopal  Church in the name of his misguided notion of 
unity by telling us who might  represent us at the Lambeth Conference. My 
church has decided that we will no  longer discriminate against homosexual persons. 
I rejoice in that. Bishop  Robinson is one symbol of that decision. As our 
former Presiding Bishop John  Elbridge Hines once observed," When you do an 
audacious thing, you do not then  tremble at your audacity."  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note  from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores  everywhere and by clicking here!_ 
(http://astore.amazon.com/bishopspong-20/detail/0060762071/104-6221748-5882304)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Chris Stevenson of Pinehurst, NC, writes:  
Protestant churches in the U.S. seem to believe in a "second coming of  
Christ." What do you believe?  
Dear Chris,  
I find belief in the second coming of Christ to be generally limited to  
Southern fundamentalist and evangelical churches. I do not see references to or  
hear people speak much about the second coming outside the South.  
That phrase was popular in early Christianity when they came to identify  
Jesus with the Son of Man whose purpose in Jewish mythology was to inaugurate  
the Kingdom of God. Much of the New Testament is written from this perspective.  
The healing miracles attributed to Jesus were in fact designed to be 
understood  originally as signs that he was ushering in the Kingdom of God. Paul even 
called  Jesus "the first fruits of the Kingdom of God."  
However, that expected Kingdom of God did not come in the life of Jesus and  
history moved on. Christians then began to refer to Jesus' life as a 
"foretaste"  of that kingdom. So the idea was born that the Kingdom that Jesus revealed 
would  only be fully inaugurated when he came again. This second coming was 
then  projected to accompany the end of the world.  
I, for one, have little interest in this concept. If I knew that the Kingdom  
of God would come tomorrow, I do not believe I would do anything different. 
No  one knows what any tomorrow will bring. So my concentration is always on 
the  present. I see little value in thinking about the Second Coming of Jesus or 
any  other eschatological event.  
The world will surely end some day. Perhaps the sun will burn out and life  
will become extinct. Perhaps one day we will experience "the big crunch" as the 
 world once experienced "the big bang" and we will fall back into the sun and 
be  extinguished by heat. Perhaps we Homo sapiens will so foul our 
environment that  life will no longer be possible. I see all second coming language as 
symbolic of  the incomplete nature of life and the constant hope and dream of 
fulfillment.  
Second Coming language also always assumes a three tiered universe so that  
Jesus can come out of the sky in the same manner that he ascended into it. That 
 is a nonsensical idea to me. So is the recent suggestion that Jesus would 
come  from outer space. So I concentrate on what I know and what I have some 
chance of  controlling.  
On an even deeper level I think Christ comes each day in me when I live  
fully, love wastefully and dare to be all that I can be. When I assist others in  
the task of living loving and being, I think Christ comes to them. I commend  
that pattern to you.  
John Shelby Spong 



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