[Dialogue] Spong on the "Anglican Problem"

[KroegerD at aol.com]

 (http://click.atdmt.com/AGM/go/ain00800001agm/direct/01/) Ian from The 
Anglican  Church of England writes: 
" I live in the United Kingdom.  I am an Anglican Christian in the Diocese of 
Canterbury. We have been  asked to provide voluntary help in staffing and 
supporting the 2008  Lambeth Conference. This set me thinking about the nature of 
that meeting  and what might transpire. I am feeling more and more that the 
Anglican  Communion is being forced by the vocal minority of bigots into a 
position  where almost the only topic will be homosexuality and whether the 
Anglican  Communion should be inclusive or exclusive. Any vote on that issue can  
only be divisive and could result in schism. I and many others would value  your 
thoughts on this matter.  
Have we reached the place where schism of some sort would actually be  
beneficial to the Anglican Communion? Would we, in the words of a retired,  
high-ranking Church of England Clergyman of my acquaintance who was not a  bishop, 
have a purer form of Christianity as a result? He and I are united  on the 'side' 
of inclusivity? I am a member of something called 'The  Inclusive Church 
Movement,' designed to change attitudes here in this  diocese. My experience is 
that although this matter is acknowledged as  vital for the future of the 
Anglican Church, no one is prepared to discuss  it.  
One of our bishops (Graham Cray of Maidstone) is the Episcopal Advisor  to an 
organization known as "Anglican Mainstream," whose chairman, Dr.  Philip 
Giddings, led the witch hunt against Dean Jeffrey John, the openly  gay priest who 
was appointed as an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford in  which, as you 
rightly say, the new Archbishop bowed to the bigots. Bishop  Cray is conducting 
a parish visit here next month. I want to raise this  issue at the Church 
Council meeting which will bring his visitation to a  close. I will have the 
support of some of the council and the tacit  support of at least two of our clergy 
- the incumbent and our retired  curate. Is this occasion the best in which 
to tie a bishop down? The  Church of England faces financial meltdown as a 
result of many bad  investment decisions taken over the decades. These decisions 
violated all  the Old Testament laws on usury, financial manipulation and 
abuse, of  which there are many more than those laws in the Old Testament which 
refer  to homosexuality, which nevertheless has been placed in the forefront of  
the present debate in the church.  
Can you suggest ways forward that will ensure that the Church remains  
inclusive - as established by Our Lord - and retains the last shred of  integrity in 
the eyes of the country it is said to represent? I am excited  and haunted at 
the moment by words from the introduction to the book,  'Anglicanism: The 
Answer to Modernity' written from the perspective of  theologians and priests 
working in universities. One passage talks about  the deep dissonance between the 
students expectations of dialogue and the  paternalistic dogmatism of the 
church which the students see or sense not  far below the surface. These are the 
words: 'What they (the new students)  yearn for is wisdom and to be good. What 
they are told by the Church to  desire is to be saved and to be obedient.' 
Where do we go from here?  
I write in great admiration of your stand and ability to communicate it  with 
such vigor and integrity - long an inspiration to me and many others.  "  
Dear Ian, 
I think you should raise the issue with your bishop. Silence never  solves 
problems, it only represses them.  
I too watch the Anglican Communion with a sense of deep despair and  
hopelessness. Let me trace some of the history that has led this church to  its 
present dreadful situation. We were plunged into this state first by  the reckless 
appointment of the Bishop of Bath and Wales, George Carey, to  be Archbishop of 
Canterbury in 1991. It was an irresponsible act of  political revenge by the 
deeply opinionated Prime Minister, Margaret  Thatcher, who had become 
increasingly angry with Robert Paul's Cathedral  in London to mark the end of 
England's war with Argentina over the  Falkland Islands that brought Ms. Thatcher's 
rage into full public view.  Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Carey 
was appointed to succeed.  Archbishop Runcie had led the Church in a critical 
attack on both  Thatcher's urban tactics and her participation in increasing the 
gap  between the rich and the poor. It was, however, at a victory celebration 
 in St. Since Argentina is also part of the Anglican Communion Archbishop  
Runcie thought it appropriate to include in this service prayers for the  
Argentinian dead. Prime Minister Thatcher was livid and quite vocal at the  door of 
the Cathedral that day and vowed that she would never let a  representative of 
the church embarrass her again.  
She got her chance for revenge when the time came for a new Archbishop  of 
Canterbury to be appointed. The Crown Appointments Committee, made up  of a 
significant group of church dignitaries plus members of Parliament,  traditionally 
puts forward two names from which the prime minister makes a  choice. While 
the prime minister is free to reject both of the nominees  that is very rare. 
On that occasion the Appointments Committee put forward  the names of the 
Archbishop of York, the favorite of the church leaders  but one who had ruffled 
Mrs. Thatcher's feathers on other issues. To try  to encourage his selection, the 
second candidate was generally regarded as  unqualified. An old line 
evangelical, who thought the Bible contained the  answer to every question and who was 
known to speak in tongues. The Church  leaders thought this candidate, George 
Carey, was too bizarre a choice  even for Margaret Thatcher. However, the 
Prime Minister's anger was such  that she decided to teach the Church of England 
a lesson. George Carey  became the designated Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
Anglican Communion was  about to embark on the most incompetent Arch-Episcopacy 
in its history.  The Church of England News, an ultra-right fundamentalist 
publication,  cheered the appointment. It should be noted the senior reporter on 
the  staff of this Journal was Andrew Carey, the new Archbishop's son, whose  
career revealed an unprecedented ability to distort truth and to violate  
ethical standards of journalism. So now this new Archbishop of Canterbury,  who 
serves as the chief spokesperson and the public face of the Anglican  Communion, 
was suddenly occupied by an embarrassingly ill-informed person,  one who was 
overtly hostile to gay and lesbian Christians, and an  unthinking 
fundamentalist. He was also destined to chair the once every  ten year Lambeth Conference 
in 1998, that brings together the Anglican  Bishops of the world. We met at 
Kent University and it was the worst  church political spectacle I have ever 
watched. Right wing ultra  conservative bishops from America, who had lost on 
every major issue of  the century, on race, women and homosexuality, began to 
lavish money on  conservative evangelical third world bishops, flying them from 
all over  the world to Dallas to plot strategy for turning the Anglican 
Communion  into a battlefield on homosexuality, which they, of course, identified  
with evil and proclaimed it "contrary to Holy Scripture." The mood was  ugly. 
Character assassination of liberal American, Canadian and Scottish  bishops was 
carried out with no regard for truth. Bishops like Robert  Ihloff of Maryland, 
speaking on behalf of his gay and lesbian clergy was  booed and hissed by 
other bishops on the floor of the conference. Leading  African bishops, who had 
the advantage of world class educations like  Desmond Tutu (in absentia), 
Njongonkulu Ndungane of South Africa and  Khotsu Mkullu of Central Africa tried in 
vain to stem the tide of  homophobic Bible quoters. Archbishop Carey sat on 
the front of the stage  cheering on this travesty. Homophobia reigned supreme. 
The liberals were  routed. The last photograph that graced the front pages of 
almost every  newspaper in the United Kingdom at the end of that conference 
showed a  Nigerian bishop breaking through a crowd to lay his uninvited hands on 
the  head of the Rev. Richard Kirker, the Executive officer of the Lesbian and 
 Gay Christian Movement, "to cast the demon of his homosexuality." out of  
him. I have never been so embarrassed before to be an Anglican. The  saddest 
thing of all was that George Carey never saw this behavior as  anything but 
"being faithful to scripture." There are two kinds of  ignorance in this world. One 
is the ignorance of not knowing. That kind of  ignorance can always be 
remedied by simply getting the facts. The other  kind of ignorance, however, is the 
ignorance of not knowing that you do  not know. This was George Carey's 
ignorance and it will take the Church of  England at least a decade, maybe a quarter 
of a century, to recover from  his abysmal term as the head of the Anglican 
Church.  
In 2002 the Church of England and new Prime Minister Tony Blair were  taking, 
I thought, a step into wholeness when they chose as George Carey's  
successor, Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of Wales, and now the  new Archbishop 
of Canterbury. Williams was a recognized scholar with  liberal and open 
leanings, who had supported women priests and gay priests  at an earlier time in 
his career. The one thing they did not count on is  that Rowan Williams has no 
backbone and, quite obviously, no core beliefs  except to seek unity at any 
price. Whereas George Carey was the least  competent Archbishop of Canterbury in 
recent history, Rowan Williams has  turned out to be one of the weakest.  
That combination will haunt the Anglican Communion for years. The  current 
battles-- threatened breakups, schismatic movements and angry  rhetoric-- that 
mark this church today are the direct result of these two  destructive leaders 
serving in succession: the first incompetent, the  second weak. One sign of 
hope for this Communion is that the United States  has elected a terrific woman, 
Katharine Jefferts Schori, to be our primate  and the Australian Anglicans 
have elected to lead that church an  incredibly bright, open and competent young 
man, still in his 40's, named  Philip Aspinall. These two leaders have a 
chance to bring sanity back to  this communion or at least to turn away from the 
insanity that now  embraces it. The election of a new primate in Canada next 
year and in  South Africa when Njongonkulu retires will be crucial to Anglican 
health.  I, for one, insist that truth always be placed above unity and I do 
not  care to be a member of a Christian body that is mired in an unchallenged  
sickness called homophobia.  
Leadership matters. The combination of a weak Rowan Williams in  Canterbury 
and an out of touch Benedict XVI in the Vatican is a double  tragedy for world 
Christianity. Both of these chosen church leaders are  signs that we are in a 
new dark age. My hope resides in the fact that  sometimes the world is darkest 
before the dawn. I pray that this will be  true of the Anglican Communion.  
Thanks for writing.  
-- John Shelby  Spong
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