Global South Anglican

Andrew Proud
Addis Ababa, 27th May 2008

1. Introduction.

This paper is written in an attempt to understand the forces coalescing around the issue of human sexuality as many of the bishops of the Anglican Communion prepare for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. I shall attempt to tease out and then offer some reflections on the main issues and influences that I believe come to bear upon the issue of homosexuality within the Anglican Communion.

At the outset, it should be noted that the 1998 Lambeth Conference was clear in its commitment to uphold the traditional, biblical teaching of the Christian Church on the issue of human sexuality [1] . Since the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, has been consecrated as Bishop in The Episcopal Church (TEC). This has generated a flurry of activity across the whole Communion. In subsequent publications, addresses and articles [ii] , the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Primates have sought to uphold resolution 1:10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference as expressing the mind of the Communion on the issue. Clearly, that resolution was not seen by everyone as the last word and the issue has not been laid to rest. In fact, it is still polarising the Communion, dividing it into the global North, which supports the ordination of actively homosexual people and the blessing of same-sex relationships; and the global South [iii] which opposes both. [iv] As the 2008 Lambeth Conference approaches, it is also clear that intense lobbying is going on behind the scenes and positions have already been taken. Indeed, the absence of 108 bishops from the 2008 Lambeth Conference [v] will mean that important voices will not be heard, assumptions will then be made and victories may well be claimed, probably on both sides. In spite of the absence of the GAFCON Bishops, Lambeth 2008 still provides us with an opportunity to explore, together, the issues that divide us. This will be painful.

I find myself writing as one who has lived most of my life the United Kingdom, but the past six years in Ethiopia. I understand and appreciate the culture of the West and the trajectory of much of its theological exploration over the past fifty years; and I am beginning to understand and appreciate more of the context, aspirations, challenges and values of Africa. I shall attempt to offer some reflections on the forces and trends that I observe to be around this issue: current trends in global Christianity, cultural, political, Biblical and missional.

2. Trends in global Christianity.

Unless they spend time in the academy, or are particularly well informed, Christians in the Global North [vi] have little understanding of the current shifts in global Christianity. In Britain, statistics proclaim and predict decline. For example, the number of active Roman Catholics is said to be falling by 28% every year; the number of Anglicans by 23%. And, if current trends persist, it is expected that the Methodist Church will disappear entirely by 2031. [vii]

Furthermore, this sharp decline in Christianity in the global North has been matched by a moral and epistemological relativism within western society that (sometimes, aggressively) dismisses religion as a source of moral guidance at all. Most people would simply not consider it, appealing more to conscience or cultural mores. Against this background, many churches are becoming inward-looking and, privately, parish clergy struggle. Many find themselves as guardians of beautiful buildings, having to invest huge amounts of energy in preserving ancient churches and the Church’s liturgy for posterity, as if the Church, not just churches, were part of the national heritage. Others, fully committed to mission and evangelism, explore new ways of engaging with the surrounding culture. [viii] Meanwhile, the mission, evangelism and discipleship “market”, in the UK spawns an almost endless stream of publications and conferences, all of which promise to help clergy fill their churches. Others, aware that church and society have long been drifting apart, and so concerned that the voice of the church should be heard once again, appear to be dancing with the “spirit of the age”. Paul Gifford states that Christianity in the United States is no exception to this trend. [ix] Indeed, in his view, Christianity in the States has become little more than a weapon in “culture wars” and a branch of the self-fulfilment industry. That insight could be hugely significant for this exploration.

In 1978, the Roman Catholic scholar, Nicholas Lash, predicted that the tide would go out on Christianity in Europe and North America. [x] Clearly, neither he, nor anyone else at the time, had anticipated that, by the same analogy, the tide of Christianity might rise again, or that such a rise would occur in the global South. On the continent of Africa, it is reported that there are currently 23,000 new Christians every day. [xi] This growth is not a new phenomenon; it was predicted by David Barrett [xii] in 1970 and Andrew Walls [xiii] in 1998. Both thought that the rise of Christianity in Africa would transform Christianity into a primarily non-western religion. Kwame Bediako [xiv] , analysing this trend at the turn of the millennium, described it as “globalisation from below”. [xv] He notes the increased presence of African Bishops at Lambeth Conferences over the years: at the 1978 Lambeth Conference, he notes the presence of 80 Bishops from Africa; in 1988, 175; by 1998, 226 of the Bishops were from the African continent. [xvi] When he wrote in 2000, Bediako predicted that the Anglican Communion will be shaped less, in future, by the Christianity of the global North and increasingly by African Bishops. Further, he anticipates that this shift in Christianity’s centre of gravity may actually be seen to have secured the future of Christianity in the West. At this point in time, it looks as if Bediako’s prediction could fail. Of the 735 Bishops who could be at Lambeth, it is thought that 108 will be attending the alternative, GAFCON gathering in Jerusalem instead. If Graham Kings is right [xvii] GAFCON is more than a one-off, protest. It could be the beginnings of an alternative, break-away, shadow Communion. The Anglican Communion is in danger splitting further apart.

One would still like to believe Kwame Bediako’s prediction, that the shift in Christianity’s centre of gravity may be seen, in the future, to have secured the future of Christianity and, indeed, the vitality of the Anglican Church, in the global North. One wonders, now, eight years on, if his optimism was misplaced. Not only because of the alarming, general trends which Gifford observes. If Philip Jenkins is right, then the Christianity of the global south will have become so strange to many in the North, that the North may well come to define itself against Christianity. [xviii] Should he be proved correct, then we are faced with a very bleak future indeed.

3. The impact of culture on the debate.

To my mind, for both sides, the impact and effect of culture in this debate is of paramount importance. Although it should be noted that, for those who support the ordination of openly gay people and the blessing of same-sex unions, politics has an equal and powerful influence. [xix] Over the past twenty years especially, Christians have wrestled with the relationship between Gospel and culture. On one hand, Christians recognise that, just as the Divine Word was incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, so the Gospel must be in-culturated, so that the peoples of a particular time and place can understand and receive the Good News. It was the South African missiologist, David Bosch, who said, famously, that the Christian faith never exists except as translated into culture. [xx] Perhaps he was following Pope John Paul II in this, who said “a faith that does not become culture is faith not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived”. [xxi] Whilst we all of us exist within a particular culture, we are none of us exhaustively defined by that culture. No particular culture should predominate; all culture stands under the judgement of the cross. But of course, cultural mores shift and change over time. What was acceptable in the past might well not be so today. [xxii] And what is acceptable in one culture today might well be tabu in another. As soon as one uses the language of tabu, one realises that deep things are involved here; the core and essence of our humanity-in-society is being affected. Over the past four or five decades, the cultural landscape of the global North has changed. The liberalism of the 60’s has led to the Post-modernism of the 00s. Christians in the North, submerged in the surrounding culture [xxiii] have, on the one hand, found it increasingly difficult to communicate the Christian story as they received it and, on the other, have tended to be susceptible to the values, opinions and priorities of the age. On one level, this has been creative. The Fresh Expressions movement in England is an example of how Churches are attempting to engage with the surrounding culture in ways that make the Gospel accessible to people who simply do not know the Christian story. On the other hand it has, in my view, lent itself to the growing conviction, found even amongst Anglican Christians in Evangelical parishes in the UK, that there are no issues to be addressed around human sexuality. [xxiv] Clearly, the values of the surrounding culture have permeated the Church [xxv] .

I should note, at this point, that we are not immune to the impact of the surrounding culture on Christianity in Ethiopia. The issue of polygamy amongst the people groups we work with has caused pain and difficulty on all sides. For semi-nomadic pastoralists, like the Nuer, levirate marriage is a way of taking responsibility for and caring for the clan. If your father or your brother dies, you have a duty to marry his wives and have children by them, even if you are already married. This is regarded as a sign of respect to your immediate family, ensures the survival of the clan and fulfils a moral duty to a wife and children who might otherwise be left behind when the tribe moves on with the cattle. Lambeth 1988 addressed this issue and concluded that, if you come from a polygamous culture, you should not cast off your wives when you become a Christian but that, once you are baptised, you should not take on further wives. It further concluded that, if you are an ordained leader, you should be the husband of one wife. This is now part of official policy in the selection and training of candidates for ordination within the Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. However, before it became such, we faced the painful situation of having to remove two ordained leaders from their posts for trying to conceal their polygamous marriages. Both were suspended initially, pending investigation. One, removed from his post, is still a deacon but is now working happily as the administrator of our parishes in the western region of Ethiopia. The other caused us great difficulty [xxvi] . Since then, a further case arose, but in this instance the man, fully understanding our position, resigned his post as soon as his father died, because he wanted to be free to fulfil his clan obligations by adopting his father’s wife as his own. We are in no position to throw stones.

Both these cases illustrate some fundamental principles involved in balancing Gospel and culture; principles which require both wisdom and discernment. It was David Bosch who said that the Church has to remain identifiably different from the world, or else it will cease to be able to minister to it. [xxvii] In fact, Bosch’s insights are so pertinent to this debate that it is worth taking time to record some of them here. To begin with, he notes that, like the other Semitic religions, Christianity takes history seriously, because that is the arena of God’s activity. However, at once, this begs the question of how we are to interpret God’s activity within history, so we can participate in what he is already doing? What are the signs in history that reveal God’s presence and activity? Quoting Knapp [xxviii] he asserts that the heart of the problem lies in the fact that Christians tend to sacralise “the sociological forces of history that are dominant at any particular time, regarding them as inexorable works of providence and even redemption”. It is not, says Bosch, the facts of history themselves that reveal where God is at work, but those facts illuminated by the Gospel. We have a responsibility to interpret the signs of the times. He also observes that in the North, the inculturation process has often been so successful, that Christianity has, in effect, become the religious dimension of the culture. When society listens to the Church, all it hears is the sound of its own music. He continues, the North has often domesticated the Gospel in its own culture while making it unnecessarily foreign to other cultures. [xxix]

We should observe, at this point, that the Gospel is foreign in every culture; that it will always be a sign of contradiction. Kwame Bediako offers some helpful reflections on the use of power at this point. [xxx] Looking to Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate and his subsequent crucifixion, Bediako points out that Jesus “de-sacralised” all power. In his day, this was the power of the Empire and the Temple, which are neither, any longer, absolute or ultimate. [xxxi] Whilst recognising that the cross is about sacrifice and atonement, he asserts that it is also about concrete social realities, in that the cross of Christ “judges” all the human institutions that shape history and human relations: family, blood, kinship, nation, social class, race, law, politics, economy, culture, custom, tradition and religion. Clearly, the Church should neither be a hostage to the dominant, contemporary cultural paradigm in the global North, any more than it should be a hostage to the cultural paradigms of any place or age. In this section, I have suggested that the Church should always be wary of “baptising” every cultural norm. It would follow that the Church should not assume that the ordination of practising homosexuals, or the blessing of same-sex unions is right, simply because of political pressure from the surrounding culture. Again, the forces of any culture are only rarely the work of divine providence or redemption.

4. The politics of human rights.

No one would deny the impact that the human rights movement has had globally in the past. From the abolition of slavery, through to the abolition of Apartheid in South Africa, we all rejoice at the fact that lives have been changed and injustices have been corrected. For many in the global North, homosexual practice is a simply an issue of human rights. Lamenting the passing of what she sees as its liberal beginnings, relaxed discipline and “loose” approach to governance, Marilyn McCord Adams [xxxii] , addressing the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) [xxxiii] finds fault with resolution 1:10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference on a number of grounds. McCord writes as a political scientist, stating that “These are troubled and troubling times for two reasons. Illiberal winds are blowing pernicious policy and polity our way” [xxxiv] And, “the Church’s sex and gender policies have been abusive”. Using the tools of political discourse, she attacks what she sees as the abuse of power within the Church. Departing radically from traditional ecclesiology, she rejects the image of the Church as the Body of Christ, saying “The Body of Christ imagery is not apt for the human side of the Church, however, as a moment’s reflection on ‘pop’ political philosophy shows. The organic body is a fascist/Marxist political model.” Developing her argument, she asserts that “the best model for the human institutional side of the Church is not the organic body, but the liberal state, whose minimalist institutions exist to create a context in which to allow individuals and groups to pursue their extra-systemic ends” [xxxv] Clearly, the LGCM is a political movement, which has arisen in a cultural environment where the issue of human sexuality has been politicised. [xxxvi] Furthermore, “political correctness” exerts a powerful influence, to the extent that it is now very difficult for people to express a view contrary to the received, contemporary, political wisdom. It is salutary to reflect upon the way that McCord presents her argument: the Church is now seen, not as the community of faith, but as abusive. On one level, she is right; the Church is often imperfect. Everyone who loves the Church and what it stands for, is also pained by it as it is in reality. I would agree with David Bosch, who asserts that the answer lies not in discarding the Church, but in reforming and renewing it. [xxxvii] In a radical departure from universally received, ecumenical orthodoxy, McCord wants to split what she considers to be the divine side of the Church from what she calls its human, institutional side. The fact that Mc Cord, an ordained Anglican priest, can apparently dismiss a Biblical image of the Church out of hand, in support of any argument, is breathtaking. To Christians in Ethiopia and, I am sure, elsewhere in Africa, it would be utterly incomprehensible. Hers is an anthropocentric and, I would assert, politicised theology, as opposed to a Christo-centric one; and she is not alone. To assert, as the LGCM does, that sin is, to borrow a phrase from Marx, simply a matter of alienation between humans, is to believe that salvation does not come about through change in individual lives, but through the ending of unjust structures and attitudes within society. The LGCM clearly believes her arguments carry authority. When activists shout “foul!” at this year’s Lambeth Conference, the media will pay attention and points will be notched-up in Western society’s collective sub-conscious.

The other standpoint that has gained prevalence in this debate is what might be called “Social Darwinism”. Those who endorse the ordination of openly gay individuals and the blessing of same-sex unions believe that the global South will eventually catch up. That all they (the Americans) are doing, is being prophetic and beating the trail across previously unchartered territory, along which the rest of the Church will follow. This attitude is not new. Indeed, Bediako, in his article, [xxxviii] draws attention to the fact that the so-called missionary image of Africa [xxxix] was not a missionary invention. “There was a widely held intellectual consensus in Europe that Africa was a tabula rasa, and that Africans featured as a type of the “savage and barbarous heathen” presumed to be at the bottom of a so-called “Great Chain of Being”” [xl] David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, expressed this kind of thinking as early as 1753, when he wrote:

“I am apt to suspect the Negroes, in and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation.” [xli] [xlii]

One cannot help wondering Social Darwinism is itself building its arguments upon a contemporary “Great Chain of Being” and whether it is really any more than veiled racism. Perhaps not surprisingly, racism cuts two ways. In a lecture delivered to the University of Addis Ababa and the Addis Ababa Rotary Club, Mengistu Ditu reflects upon The Psychology of the White Races. [xliii] In a wide ranging discourse, covering the writings of Pavlov and Freud and touching on parapsychology, dreams and consciousness, Ato [xliv] Mengistu draws upon his experience of contact with white foreigners, to conclude, somewhat disturbingly,

“Indeed, many foreign intellectuals and rare the (sic) so-called experts in Africa (I have never seen one except those gangsters, drunkards, sexual perverts, outcasted inmates, quacks, bread-hunters, conspirators and wishy-washy effeminate bastards) are gravely prejudiced in determining the social structure of Africans.” [xlv]

As if to make sure he has not been misunderstood, he continues, “The white man is temperamental, intuitive, unstable, sissy and very delicate.” [xlvi] I think the point is adequately made. As they say on this continent, “When you point a finger at someone, you can be sure there are three fingers pointing back at you”.

Writing as I do from Ethiopia, it looks to me as if any Social Darwinist argument, however politicised and well hidden, is at best a form of neo-colonialism and, at worst, a latent form of racism. We should be very suspicious of those who assert, confidently, that the rest of the world will eventually catch up. It begins to look as if those who want to re-open the debate on sexuality at the 2008 Lambeth Conference would do so out of political motives. Furthermore, I would appeal to those who would even contemplate a division within the Communion on this issue, on political grounds, to think again. This is much more than a matter of contemporary politics; it has the potential to divide the Body of Christ itself.

5. Use of the Bible.

I have left this to this point in my exploration, not because I consider the Scriptures to be the least important aspect of the debate, but because they have become the battle ground where all these other issues are played out. The two sides of the debate are polarised. On the one hand, there are those who uphold a traditional interpretation of Scripture and two thousand years of Church tradition, with their emphasis on sexual holiness. And on the other are those who believe, strongly, that homosexual orientation has a genetic causation and suspect those who hold any view contrary to that, of adhering to “obsolescent” Scriptures in an attempt to support an antiquated worldview. In their view, the entire debate should be conducted in light of what they see as the “Christian virtues” of tolerance and inclusion. There is not space here to examine, in detail, those Biblical texts that refer to homosexuality. In my opinion, those from either side of the debate cannot afford to ignore Robert Gagnon’s thorough treatment of the Biblical texts and contexts in this debate. [xlvii] I do not pretend, either, to have read exhaustively the writings of those who support the view of the LGCM. However, it is illuminating, at this point, to draw the reader’s attention to one particular article, which reveals some of the presuppositions behind their approach.

Terri Murray [xlviii] reveals two of the suppositions behind their approach. Firstly, that in the Gospels, Jesus urged his disciples to “pick up their crosses and follow him, not to rest assured that they would be made holy by his generous sacrifice on their behalf.” Clearly, for her, life is about struggle, hardship and choice; just as she sees Jesus as standing for liberation from the conventions and mores of his time. Secondly, she believes that Paul’s entire writings are pervaded by what she describes as “anthropological pessimism”. She writes, “Time and again we find Jesus criticizing the hypocrisy of those who insisted on using conventional Jewish rules of external behaviour as a measure of moral purity” And, “from reading what certain evangelists recorded about the life and teachings of Jesus, we know that his ethic was not reducible to exterior rules of normative behaviour, but emphasized the intention of the agent over the rightness of the act”. She goes on to assert that, “In Pauline Christianity” by contrast, “as in Islamic Sharia law, we need not look at agency at all, because intention does not matter.” Not surprisingly, she concludes by challenging the unity of the New Testament and insists that LGCM, at any rate, should not make any “unnecessary concessions to the Christian authority figures who equate Christianity with the Pauline doctrines.” For her, those who follow the received interpretation of Scripture and tradition [xlix] are guilty of being uncritical and championing outmoded forms of thought because their entire hypothesis is informed by homophobia, the quest for power, intolerance and, with the introduction of the notion of Sharia Law, violence, too. Such labels, which are often used in this debate, seem to me to be designed to intimidate and belittle those who hold traditional beliefs and which, in turn, stifles any meaningful debate. I would also note that according to this anthropology, humankind is no longer seen as being created in the image and likeness of God. In fact, it reduces human beings to their instincts and tendencies. We could further note that not only might tolerance not be the Christian virtue after all [l] , but that, following Wesley Carr, there is nothing is intolerant as a liberal.

Gagnon readily admits that Biblical texts must indeed be read in context, but notes that the trajectory of Biblical scholarship does not lead inexorably to an endorsement of the LGCM view. Indeed, he asserts, at more than one point in his book, that the burden of proof lies with those who want to convince the Church to abandon the evidence of Scripture and 2,000 years of Church tradition, in approving the ordination of openly gay individuals and the blessing of same-sex unions. There is rather more at stake here than the issue of sexual politics. If the Church adopts such a radically politicised reading of the Scriptures, it will be in danger of losing its moorings entirely and all credibility in the global South. One also has to wonder to what extent, if any, such a Church would be regarded, here in Ethiopia, as part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ.

6. Missional perspectives.

It is important, as we draw this exploration to a conclusion, to consider some of the impacts the last few years have had on the Anglican mission in Ethiopia, which is my present context. I begin by reaffirming a basic missional assumption, that the Church can be missionary “only if it’s being-in-the-world is, at the same time, a being-different-from-the-world”. [li] There are many I have come across over the past six years in Ethiopia, who regard the Anglican Church with some suspicion, precisely because it is seen to be influenced by the values of the world; dancing with the spirit of the age. It should be remembered that, like much of Africa, north and south of the Equator, homosexual practice in Ethiopia is outlawed and still attracts severe penalties. In a country where due legal process often means suspects are arrested and imprisoned first and only investigated by trial, later, homosexual practice is an issue none should take lightly. As the Archbishop of Canterbury’s apokrisarios to His Holiness, Abuna Paulos, [lii] I have become increasingly aware that, however gently and politely, the consecration of Gene Robinson has brought the Anglican/Oriental Orthodox dialogue to a stand-still. Ground gained in the Christological agreement, reached by the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission, in Armenia, November 2005 [liii] may not be entirely lost, but may take some time and patient effort to recover.

Islam in Ethiopia is not as learned as it is in Egypt. [liv] Whilst 40% of the population of Ethiopia is Moslem [lv] , the majority of Moslem clerics are un-educated. In the north of the country, Christian and Moslem have existed side-by-side for centuries, often within the same family. In the south and west of Ethiopia, the situation is different. In the west, Islam is spreading as Gurage Moslem, traders move into the Gambella regional state. Within the past year, also in the west of Ethiopia, fifteen churches were burnt by Mahdist Moslems from Sudan. In the Oromia region, to the south, Indonesian missionaries, with Saudi money, are actively building schools and clinics and targeting (often) Orthodox women, who convert and bring their families with them. Young men are being taken to Saudi Arabia to train as sheikhs, before being brought back to Ethiopia and monetary rewards are being offered to the poorest families, to buy retail businesses. The Roman Catholic Church is responding by strengthening its parishes along the border with southern Sudan where, because of the discovery of oil deposits, the Chinese are building roads, connecting Ethiopia to the Sudan. They expect that these new roads will bring new traders who will, in turn, bring Islam. Within this context, it should be noted that relations with the Moslem community are never easy. Over the past six years, attempts to involve a Moslem cleric in the annual Remembrance service in the British War Graves Cemetery have only been successful once. [lvi] Despite personal calls on the office of the President of the Moslem Supreme Council of Ethiopia, it has only been possible to gain an interview with him once, when Bishop Mouneer visited.

Much of our work in Ethiopia is in the Gambella regional state, 750 kilometres from Addis Ababa, on the border with southern Sudan. Since 1996, when the first Anglican Church was established in the region, to serve nearby refugee camps [lvii] , the number of churches has expanded to 37. We have 12 full-time paid, ordained clergy and lay leaders and 16 full-time, paid TEE tutors. [lviii] Whilst we have worked predominantly with Ethiopian Nuer in the past, we have begun a significant work amongst the Ethiopian Annuak alongside what are now minority Sudanese tribes in the refugee camps in Ethiopia. [lix] Through the TEE programme, initially, we have begun to gain access to two previously “unreached” people groups, the Opo and the Olam. Such is the zeal for mission among our clergy that they have plans to go even further afield, to reach the Majanger, an animist people in the mountain forest south east of Gambella. In Addis Ababa, we have begun pioneering work amongst the Ethiopian highlanders, the Amhara, through St. Matthew’s, the international Church in the heart of the city. [lx] Once again, the consecration of Gene Robinson and the subsequent, on-going meetings and debates within the Anglican Communion have had a negative impact. In Addis Ababa, key members of a promising group of Amharas [lxi] left the TEE programme because, to their minds, what was happening called into question our entire theological enterprise. Even in the remote Gambella region, close to the border with southern Sudan, two days drive from Addis Ababa, many of our clergy, listening to “Voice of America” and the BBC World Service, regularly pick up news of developments as they unfold. Confused, anxious and clearly under some pressure from the Nuer Council of Churches and other denominational groups, they turn regularly to me to seek information, benchmarks to help them interpret what they hear and, above all, reassurance.

7. Personal conclusions.

Clearly, sex matters. As Gagnon recognises, it occupies significant amounts of our time and energy as human beings, either through satisfying our passions and appetites, or in taming them. Although sex is clearly meant for human good and for human enjoyment, it can also destroy individuals and families. [lxii] It is also clear that everyone has feelings about this issue, as well as thoughts, theories and solutions. Small wonder, then, that so much time, energy and scholarship have been expended on it and no wonder it still threatens to split the Anglican Communion, despite the insistence of the Archbishop of Canterbury that resolution 1:10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference still represents the official mind of the Church on the issue. The Bishops of the 1998 Lambeth Conference stated, in resolution 1:10 “We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.” To engage in that listening process in this context has proved virtually impossible. [lxiii] My wife and I have friends who are homosexual. For us, this is not and can never be an issue of condemning homosexual people. I agree wholeheartedly with Gagnon, that to feel homosexual impulses does not make one a bad person. Indeed, as he says, we all have to manage our own erotic impulses. [lxiv] Furthermore, whilst all Christians have a clear duty to uphold virtuous and godly living we are all, if we are honest, acutely aware of our own imperfections and need for grace.

Any further debate on this issue, if it is to be had at Lambeth 2008 and can be had, in the light of the absence of the GAFCON Bishops, will indeed require the Christian virtues of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. [lxv] Having made a plea for openness, kindness and respect [lxvi] we still need to assert that the culture of the Church is different to the culture of the world. As the Latin American, Roman Catholic symposium on evangelisation put it, “The inculturation of faith and the evangelization of culture go together as an inseparable pair, in which there is no hint of syncretism: this is the genuine meaning of inculturation.” [lxvii] The Church must not be afraid to reassert its core beliefs and values, for the sake of the Gospel, even if many in the North, watching news reports of the Lambeth Conference on their television screens, will understand it to be a debate about human rights and the right of individuals to pursue personal happiness. [lxviii] Increasingly, it looks to me, from here, that the promotion of same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly homosexual individuals, are both the desperate, last-ditch attempts by a sinking Church to stay afloat in an otherwise alien and hostile culture. That, it seems to me, quoting Christopher Clapham, is about seamanship rather than navigation; staying afloat rather than getting anywhere. [lxix] For me, his whole issue is about mission and experience has taught me that, to have an effective mission, we need to be faithful to our apostolic faith in all its fullness.

Thus, I believe that much more is at risk here than personal happiness and self-fulfilment. What is at stake is nothing less than the credibility of the Christian Gospel and of the Anglican Church itself, both of which impact upon the effectiveness of her mission. It is a simple matter of fact that the Anglican Communion is no longer the preserve of the global North. Historical precedence no longer gives those of us from the North the right to direct what the rest of the Communion shall believe or practice. The Anglican Communion is now as much their Church as ours. The voices of the global South [lxx] will make uncomfortable listening for many in the North, but we should all listen. For, as Kwame Bediako suggests, the global South might indeed be in a position to secure the future of Christianity in the North. Africa has changed my own discipleship and renewed within me the sense of call and commitment I felt as an ordinand. It is my prayer, for the sake of the land and people of my birth, that Bediako will be proved to have been right.

Footnotes:

Resolution 1:10