This was the week in which the Anglican Communion was supposed to split apart. Divisions within it over homosexuality were, it was said, just too great for the worldwide communion to stay together.
Yet a formula was found to keep the show on the road. Neither side is happy. So would it have been better for them to acknowledge their differences and go their separate ways? Or are gay issues simply not important enough to sunder an institution that agrees on so much else? And how much should any of this matter to the vast majority of British people who are not active members of the Church of England?
Sex has long been a problem for Christian churches. Only last year the liberal-minded Pope Francis called the second of two month-long meetings of bishops in an apparent attempt to loosen Roman Catholic doctrine on issues such as contraception and the ban on the remarriage of divorcees in church, only to come up against an unrelenting traditionalist opposition. For Anglicans the problem has been homosexuality.
For the thirty-nine provinces of the Anglican Communion, of which the Church of England is just one, albeit the most senior, divisions over gay sex have been tearing it apart for decades. In simple terms, the northern churches of the developed world in England, Canada and the United States (where the Anglican church is called the Episcopal Church) have taken an increasingly liberal view. Many of its clergy are themselves gay; many of them are in civil partnerships. In 2003, a gay clergyman in the Episcopal Church, Gene Robinson was consecrated the Bishop of New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Anglican churches in the developing world where congregations are growing unlike those in the north which are declining, take a very different view. Not only were they appalled that a gay man should be made a bishop, but they are opposed to homosexual activity altogether. Some African Anglican churches, such as those in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, have supported moves to recriminalise homosexual activity in their countries. They express resentment that their old colonial masters should pressure them to take a more liberal view which they believe is not only Biblically indefensible but counter to public opinion in their countries.
Attempts to find a compromise everyone can accept have failed – unsurprising given that opinions are so diametrically opposed over something so fundamental. Each side claims it has God as an ally. Conservative evangelicals cite scripture and the need for the church to be steadfast in upholding what it regards as unchangeable doctrine. Liberals argue that scripture alone has never been sufficient and that it is the role of the church permanently to reinterpret scripture. They believe they are guided by the Holy Spirit.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, called a special meeting of the primates of all the thirty-nine churches within the Communion it was widely believed he wanted to cut the Gordian knot. He was said to be in favour of turning the Anglican Communion into a looser confederation of Anglican churches within which there would no longer have to be unity of doctrine. In this way the two sides could agree to differ on homosexuality but carry on cooperating with each other on issues where they agreed. Archbishop Welby was said to be keen to concentrate on issues of religious violence and climate change.
Just before the meeting began, there were briefings that the African leaders would probably walk out, effectively bringing about the split. But this didn’t happen. Only one African primate, the archbishop of Uganda, walked out, complaining that he was being manipulated and that the American and Canadian churches should have volunteered to quit.
Instead the primates issued a statement in which they rebuked the Episcopal Church for presiding over gay marriages saying that ‘it was a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our provinces on the doctrine of marriage’. They banned the Episcopal Church for at least three years from representing the Communion at inter-faith meetings and from taking part in discussions on doctrine. And they reaffirmed the ‘traditional doctrine’ that sexual intercourse should take place only between a man and a woman united through marriage in a lifelong commitment. The statement added: ‘It is our unanimous decision to walk together’.
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, said ‘this decision will bring real pain. For many who have felt and been rejected by the church because of who they are; for many who have felt and been rejected by families and communities, our church opening itself in love was a sign of hope. And this will add pain on top of pain.’
However, the conservative group called Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), said: ‘this action must not be seen as an end but as beginning’. So the divisions will get even wider. Each side called on the other to repent.
Any hope that the church will be able to turn its attention (and ours) to anything else seems vain. For traditionalists the sexual revolution of the last fifty years has been bad for individuals and bad for society and the whole point of the church is not to follow trends but to resist them when they seem counter to the faith. For liberals the sexual revolution is a fact of the changing world. Gay men and women in loving relationships who are discriminated against (appallingly so in some parts of Africa) should see the church as a sanctuary from such discrimination not another source of it. To both sides the issue is as important as the issues that split the Catholic church at the time of the Reformation. So a similar split still seems inevitable.
But does any of this matter to the great majority of British people who are not active members of the Church of England? Many will think not. Their own attitudes to gay marriage have changed remarkably fast, with a substantial majority supporting David Cameron’s legalisation of gay marriage.
But the furore in the Anglican Communion cannot be ignored quite so easily by those outside it. That’s because the Church of England is the established church, closely integrated into the state itself. The Queen is the church’s Supreme Governor. Its most senior bishops sit in mthe house of lords. For a state institution to affirm its belief that sexual intercourse should take place only between married heterosexuals may to most people seem at best quaint and more likely simply laughable. Most people do not seem to believe that the world is falling apart around them because heterosexuals, never mind gays, tend to sleep with each other without being married.
They may also reflect on the fact that the next Supreme Governor of the Church of England, in the person of Prince Charles, divorced his wife and married his mistress. He has also expressed the view that at his own coronation he should not swear the oath his mother did to be ‘defender of the faith’, but instead commit himself to be ‘defender of faiths’. To many that seems like a change taking us fast down the road to disestablishment of the church.
In other words, if the Church of England wants to stop talking about sex and instead concentrate on what it believes it can contribute, then perhaps it should not only encourage the splitting apart of the Anglican Communion but cease to be the state church as well.
What do you make of it all?
