SEX AND THE ANGLICANS
KNIPPERS, DIANE
SEX AND THE ANGLICANS By Diane Knippers Bill Clinton isn't the only one who's apologized (or feigned an apology) for sex this summer. Anglican bishops formed their own mea culpa choir at the...
...Nevertheless, some American bishops did speak...
...Several other U.S...
...Perhaps they will yet come to appreciate the orthodox view: that, for all the pomp a group of Anglican bishops can still muster, the church is ultimately guided not by their opinions but by an altogether different sovereign Power...
...One African bishop asked a reporter, perhaps not so innocently, whether it had anything to do with "chloroform...
...The media spokesmen for the conference frequently sounded like Clinton White House aides, asking plaintively, "Can't we put this sex stuff behind us and talk about real issues...
...Put my name down," he told a reporter from the American paper United Voice...
...In an interview in the Church of England Newspaper in July, John Spong, bishop of Newark, portrayed himself as a scientifically minded modern intellectual and dismissed Africans as "fundamentalists" who have "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity...
...Describing himself as "shell-shocked and traumatized," Buchanan apologized to his fellow bishops for failing to consult them...
...The same horror of "correctness" in personal ethics may have motivated Bishop Griswold's incomprehensible effort to explain the church's "pluriform [pluralistic?] views...
...Robert Johnson, bishop of Western North Carolina, told the United Voice, "We realize that the rest of the world thinks this is our issue...
...It warns against blessing same-sex unions or ordaining those involved in them...
...It was a Yankee who precipitated the first round of apologies, even before the conference opened...
...Roskam asserted that in her region, it was "evangelistic suicide" to condemn homosexual practice...
...The center of Anglicanism is now in the southern hemisphere...
...Most of their regret was sex-related...
...Picture these liberal American bishops, who came of age in the sixties and once fancied themselves on the progressive edge of every noble cause...
...Utah's Carolyn Tanner Irish bemoaned an "undercurrent of fearfulness concerning homosexuality" that overshadowed the discussions at Lambeth...
...As finally adopted, the resolution "upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage...
...Today's statistically typical Anglican is not drinking tea in an English vicarage...
...What Westerners on the right and left are learning is that Anglicanism has been geographically and demographically transformed...
...That created another firestorm, and so Holloway too apologized...
...After a lengthy debate, the invitation was rescinded by a 2-1 vote...
...Catherine Roskam, bishop of New York and one of eight American women bishops at Lambeth, opposed the amendment condemning homosexual practice...
...The Western churches were vastly overrepresented at Lambeth...
...Richard Holloway, archbishop of Scotland, said, "I feel gutted, I feel betrayed, but the struggle will go on...
...Over 750 bishops attended, about 130 of them Americans...
...Stephen Noll of Trinity seminary near Pittsburgh noted that the average American bishop represented up to 10,000 lay men and women, the average Nigerian bishop up to 200,000...
...Spong made matters worse by reiterating his remarks...
...He has insulted you...
...It was his experience in Kenya, he said, that "people who were relatively uneducated" were coming from "animistic religions" into "a very superstitious kind of Christianity...
...Conservatives might have the votes to pass the amendment, she said, but it would be "a Pyrrhic victory, and we will have a divided church...
...church had foisted this debate on Lambeth in the first place by tolerating, though not officially sanctioning, the ordination of practicing homosexuals in its more liberal dioceses...
...Conservative leader John Howe, bishop of Central Florida, explained his silence saying, "I wanted to be sensitive to the charges that the Americans always come to throw their weight around...
...Participants in the sexuality subsection protested Buchanan's highhandedness and preferential treatment of pro-gay advocates...
...Most bishops were unapologetic about the final resolution on sexuality—which the London Times called a "surprisingly and uncharacteristically trenchant dismissal of the liberal position...
...This innovative wording was met with confusion and derision...
...Interestingly, although the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church, Frank Griswold, abstained, a majority of the American bishops voted for the resolution—despite the fact that the U.S...
...The bishops pledged "to reflect, pray, and work for [homosexuals'] full inclusion in the life of the Church," while acknowledging that the signers differed on what full inclusion meant...
...Anglican bishops formed their own mea culpa choir at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England in July and August...
...Spong himself came under increasing pressure to apologize...
...During the last week of the conference, after prolonged back-room machinations and fervent prayer, the bishops considered a resolution on human sexuality, along with a series of amendments...
...Perhaps conscious of the offense Bishop Spong had caused, the American bishops, both conservative and liberal, were unusually quiet during the debates on sexuality...
...In a public debate, a (white) South African bishop accused him of "intellectual racism...
...Despite the imbalance, the orthodox Anglicanism espoused by Africans, Asians, and South Americans carried the day at Lambeth...
...But there was no celebration, simply quiet relief...
...We are ashamed for him, we are ashamed for ourselves," Dickson said...
...The Africans responded by embracing the Americans in individual acts of reconciliation...
...It condemns "irrational fear of homosexuals" (amended from "homophobia"), commits to listening to the experience of homosexuals, and assures all "baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation," that they are "full members of the Body of Christ...
...sentatives of outside caucuses of gay and lesbian Anglicans "to tell their stories...
...We want to enter this in a good spirit and not come on like gang-busters...
...The resolution was adopted by a resounding 526-70, with 45 abstentions...
...The majority thought the first draft too weak and voted 2-1 to add the phrase "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture...
...She is a 26-year-old African mother of four...
...James Stanton, bishop of Dallas, who leads the conservative American Anglican Council, called the resolution "good news for the American church and for our ministry in American society...
...Spong tried again...
...The canceled hearings then took place unofficially—and English bishop Peter Selby seized the occasion to apologize for the cancellation...
...He continued, "It is time for those bishops who seek to revise orthodox Christian teaching to submit to the mind of the whole church and the teaching of Scripture...
...Frankly, the African church needed that vote to take back with them," he said...
...Duncan Buchanan, another (white) South African bishop and the chairman of the conference "subsection" on sexuality, unilaterally invited reprePERHAPS CONSCIOUS OF THE OFFENSE BISHOP SPONG HAD CAUSED, AMERICAN BISHOPS WERE UNUSUALLY QUIET DURING DEBATES ON SEXUALITY...
...If he wants a scholarly paper, I am happy to challenge him...
...The statement "apologize[d] for any sense of rejection" that gays and lesbians felt because the Lambeth Conference had made it impossible for their voices to be adequately heard...
...They are under a great deal of pressure politically because the Muslims are watching...
...If any personal testimony were to be heard, they said, it should include that of former gays and celibate gays...
...Supporters of gays and lesbians were stunned by the vote...
...He characterized the archbishop of Canterbury's speech supporting the resolution as "pathetic...
...SHE IS A 26-YEAR-OLD AFRICAN MOTHER OF FOUR...
...Although the conference has no controlling power over the U.S...
...A second contretemps also flared before the conference...
...History is passing this generation of clerics by, and they hardly know what's happened...
...A previous speaker from Nigeria had warned that condoning homosexuality would be evangelistic "suicide...
...We ask your forgiveness, and we assure you he does not speak for us...
...Jerry Winterrowd, bishop of Colorado, claimed his vote for the resolution was strictly pragmatic...
...As the Lambeth Conference ended, Ronald Haines, bishop of Washington, D.C., made public a "Pastoral Statement to Lesbian and Gay Anglicans" signed by over 100 bishops, half of them Americans...
...The "oppressed" whose plight they so long championed have taken over their church and rejected their liberal legacy...
...TODAY'S TYPICAL ANGLICAN IS NOT DRINKING TEA IN AN ENGLISH VICARAGE...
...bishops were also quick to signal their dissent...
...The largest Anglican church is in Nigeria...
...This brought outrage from the Kenyans...
...The first apology came from retired American bishop Alex Dickson...
...Every 10 years, Anglican bishops from all over the Diane Knippers is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy...
...But sex was the most riveting topic, and the most divisive...
...Bishop Catherine Waynick of Indianapolis also opposed the amendment, saying, "Our call is not to correctness...
...At a pre-Lambeth spiritual retreat for some 400 bishops and others, Dickson asked the 50-plus Americans to join him in confessing how grieved and ashamed they were of Spong's insult to African Christians...
...Episcopal church or the Anglican churches in other nations, it sets a broad direction...
...In the process of saying that," he explained, "I've been heard to insult Africans, for which I am really sorry...
...He had only been attempting to clarify how cultural differences between the developed and developing worlds require that the Gospel be communicated differently...
...He said he had been referring to the archbishop's speech and its impact, not to the archbishop himself...
...This year, the gathering lasted three weeks...
...One result is dismay for those who long championed multiculturalism and Third World causes...
...It is to love...
...His views put him squarely at odds with the leaders of the dynamic and growing Anglican church in Africa...
...When it finally convened, the Lambeth Conference dealt with a wide range of issues, from international debt to technology to religious persecution...
...Probably the most radical Anglican bishop, Spong not only advocates same-sex marriages and the ordination of homosexuals, but also seeks to jettison basic Christian doctrines such as the divinity and resurrection of Christ...
...world gather in Canterbury to discuss matters of importance to the 76-million strong church...
...Bishop Eliud Wabukala said his church's converts to Christianity included thousands of university graduates...
Vol. 3 • September 1998 • No. 49
