Challenges for Lambeth 2020. The end of the Anglican Communion?

In 2020 Anglican bishops from around the world are coming to Canterbury for the great gathering of the Lambeth Conference. A lot of work is even now going on to try to make sure that this meeting is an occasion of mutual encouragement for all these bishops. It is always a positive thing if a Christian leader is allowed time out, with the opportunity to look at the Christian faith from a different cultural perspective. Our British dependence on the English language and a Western world-view through which to apprehend the Christian faith, creates a somewhat narrow perspective. African or Asian perspectives can enrich the outlook of our British bishops just as we hope that the bishops from overseas will take something of our culture back home with them.

Lambeth 2020 should be an outburst of joyful celebration of this diversity of the international Anglican witness to the Christian faith. But there are various clouds that have appeared. In the first place, following the lead taken by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, a contingent of African bishops are declining the invitation to attend. A similar boycott took place at Lambeth 2008. An alternative assembly of Anglicans gathered in Jerusalem to coincide with Lambeth and formed what came to be known as GAFCON (Global Anglican Futures Conference). This was supported by bishops from Africa and Asia and there was considerable practical and financial support from Australia and the States. One English Diocesan, the Bishop of Rochester, supported the event. The issue that was then said to be dividing Anglicans was the failure by many parts of the Communion to adhere to traditional doctrine and Scripture. This was a coded way of saying that some Anglicans did not agree with conservative perspectives on the gay issue. This has long been a key stumbling block across the Anglican world, especially since the consecration of an openly gay Bishop in the States in 2003.

The issue of gay marriage is probably peripheral to the lives of most ordinary lay Anglicans, especially in places like Africa. But it has been made a cause celèbre by Christian leaders across the Anglican world because it is the chosen arena of conflict for the so-called culture wars in the States. Enormous sums of money, much of it provided by wealthy American Right-wing foundations, have been spent on convincing as many as possible across the Christian world that the gay issue is a salvation matter. In summary we could claim that the same energy that is going into supporting the dubious right-wing Christian causes backed by President Trump is being expended on undermining and dividing the Anglican Communion. Anglican leaders are constantly being pressured to agree with conservative views on Scripture.

The dilemma for our Archbishop of Canterbury is acute. One line he might take is to say that Anglican Church is founded on principles that have nothing in common with the crude political theology of the American conservative Right. Anglicanism has always tolerated fundamentalism in its midst but, at the same time, it has always rejected any attempt ever to make this the compulsory option for everyone. Any Anglican appeal to Scripture has always been coupled with a balancing recourse to tradition and reason. Thus, Anglicanism is always open to newness and an evolving articulation of the Christian faith. The GAFCON conservative approach has always wanted to shut down discussion by saying that Scripture is always decisive and clear in its teaching. To deviate in any way from what the conservative leaders declare to be in Scripture is to fall into heresy and error. The matter on the agenda is at present, not the remarriage of divorced people or the ordination of women, but the single matter of gay marriage.

Many liberals in the Church of England have been taken by surprise by the way that this one issue of gay marriage has come to dominate so much discussion over the past 50 years. Far from being a core topic, it simply was not even discussed when I was a student in the 60s. It might have been aired in an ethics lecture, but no one, not even among conservatives, would have elevated it to the level of a doctrine or a salvation issue. It is hard for clergy of my generation to see the debate as anything other than as an attempt by conservative Christians to create divisions as a way of obtaining dominance within the Anglican Communion.

We spoke earlier of the culture wars in the States which have brought together right-wing politicians and fundamentalist Christians in a messy alliance. Happily, the conditions for such an unholy marriage do not exist in this country. Nevertheless, we still see growing confidence of conservative Christians within the Anglican Church. Trumpian politics may have indirectly seeded itself into a growing incivility in the debates between Christians. It used to be said that the Anglican Church was moving to a place of ‘good disagreement’ but this term seems to be becoming redundant. What is left is an increasingly rancorous struggle between ideologies. Lambeth 2020 is likely to be the last such conference if these wounds cannot in any way be healed.

Archbishop Welby is encountering an increasingly bitter rhetoric among some members of the Anglican Communion. He faces threats to the unity of the Communion from two sides. On the one side there are the GAFCON churches of Africa, Asia, Australia and both American continents. His aides will be in constant communication with provinces and dioceses, seeking to encourage their attendance. Then there are dissident bishops and groups within the Church of England itself. We have already noted the letter from eleven bishops which was expressing an identification with the GAFCON position over gay marriage. Only four diocesans signed this letter and so it can be assumed that the majority of the English diocesan bishops still support a broader position. But the problem is not just about bishops and dioceses. GAFCON’s supporters are not to be found in particular dioceses in this country but are located in the powerful and wealthy network of individuals and parishes which count themselves as part of the organisation, REFORM. This is a very conservative bloc within the Church of England which maintains ties with a variety of non-Anglican conservative groupings which use the Anglican label. Most of the clergy in REFORM were nurtured and trained within the same theological and social networks which used to support the disgraced Christian leader, John Smyth. Welby has never been identified with a REFORM label but he will have known many of their supporters through his own Iwerne and Christian Union contacts when a student. It is in fact sometimes quite hard to see ‘clear water’ between the REFORM world typified by St Helen’s Bishopsgate and Welby’s original spiritual home of Holy Trinity Brompton. The Iwerne camps certainly seemed to have endorsed both establishments as ‘sound’ and thus suitable for their ‘campers’.

Archbishop Welby is faced with a difficult problem in planning for Lambeth 2020. He is caught between two expressions of Anglicanism. The one that he has embraced since ordination is what we would describe as a flexible and even liberal version of the Anglican tradition. At the same time he is still the product of a tradition which is inflexible and strongly into intransigent Church politics. The right-wing model of politics in church and state knows only the need to dominate and control. Bodies like GAFCON want to create the whole Communion in their own image – a uniformly monochrome body, affirming the ‘unchangeable’ message of Scripture. The fundamentalism espoused by GAFCON (and the 11 bishops) cannot and will not tolerate differences. The problem for Welby is that, while he can claim to belong to a broader form of Anglicanism today, these older strands of thinking still claim part of his loyalty. His major task must be now to try and reconcile the warring factions which exist in the wider church but these rivalries also struggle inside himself. Can he provide the leadership that will hold things together? Will he be tempted to succumb to the intense lobbying and pressure from his old conservative friends? The battles being fought before and during Lambeth 2020 will define the nature of the Anglican Communion for ever. Will it become more like a conservative right-wing sect as many desire, or, will it be the place of inclusion and generosity which many of us also long for? The stakes are high, and we must pray that Archbishop Welby rises to the challenge of providing the leadership that Anglican Communion needs at this critical time.

About Stephen Parsons

Stephen is a retired Anglican priest living at present in Cumbria. He has taken a special interest in the issues around health and healing in the Church but also when the Church is a place of harm and abuse. He has published books on both these issues and is at present particularly interested in understanding how power works at every level in the Church. He is always interested in making contact with others who are concerned with these issues.

36 thoughts on “Challenges for Lambeth 2020. The end of the Anglican Communion?

  1. Paul once wrote, We however possess the mind of Christ. This seems to be the eye of the hurricane to my mind. I recall Job’s experience after all the arguments had been aired – Then God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind (38:1). Fun!

  2. As a non church-goer, would I, watching this conference on telly, decide to visit an Anglican Church, or not?

  3. Stephen, I do have some understanding of the free, more fundamentalist churches’ position on this. Your college may have shrugged at the idea of men having sex. But at my Uni, NOBODY had sex! Probably not true! But that was the general presumption. We weren’t allowed into the men’s half of hall after hours. So, as a salvation issue, it’s sexual immorality, innit? And I’ve said before, if I had heard some good teaching on how maybe there are other ways of looking at the Bible, making the transition from a very strict understanding of what is really a Victorian view of sex to a more nuanced view would have been easier.

  4. Our nation is divided on a vexed question. Many hours of rancorous debate have ensued. Both sides are entrenched. Neither side will concede to the other. I have my own preferences, but this would neither be the time nor the place to disclose or discuss them.

    I refer of course to the jam v cream first argument on scones.

    If an entire nation cannot agree on something so simple, how can two opposed gatherings of church leaders make any progress on the intricacies of sex and its “57 varieties”?

    It is not possible. Trying again and again over 2000 years to resolve the unresolvable is Institutional neuroticism.

    We love rules, but rules won’t help us much here. Principles might.

    On the scone debate, aren’t we forgetting to enjoy some wonderful things? Too much would be harmful; to share and consider the other, beneficial.

    Many of us believe we will one day have to give an account of how we have lived. Were we Good Samaritans or did we live pharisaically? Were we kind or abusive to people unlike ourselves? How did we use the gift of sexuality? Were we greedy, selfish, envious?

    The principles we live by define us. Not the rules. An increasingly disinterested society looks on. What will they think?

  5. Leaving aside Trump who is sadly part of a growing trend for radical right politics, surely there has to be a cultural element to what religious leaders can condone. In countries such as Africa that have been completely decimated by AIDS any behaviour that is seen as compounding the problem must be treated with caution and integrity. In Australia the indigenous population still struggle to control the spread of AIDS. Look back a few years and when living in fear of the disease ourselves, UK religious leaders could not have actively promoted same sex marriage. Being able to be liberal is often a luxury of financial inequality.

    1. Marriage enshrines the principle of faithfulness. The Church could usefully promote this in all relationships.

    2. It is my understanding and observance that AIDS is a result of promiscuous sexual relationships generally. That means hetero just as much as gay. This is not being liberal. It is being factual.

      1. In Africa, I understand that a good proportion if those who are HIV + are the wives and children of men who use prostitutes.

      2. No. This is one of the most massive misconceptions. What you assert is all true – the error lies in what you deny. The elephant in the room. Men who have sex with men (certainly in the USA, a very large database) have per head more than 1000 *times* the chance of contracting HIV compared to those who don’t. That is not a misprint – and anyone who ignores this colossal stat or knowingly favours less striking ones is thereby dishonest. US Centers of Disease Control ongoing research. See the analysis of http://www.peter-ould.net/2013/09/16/some-staggering-statistics.

    3. Errr…. slightly confused here. How does same-sex marriage tie in with concerns and fears about the spread of AIDS.

      1. It doesn’t really tie in at all. The debate here is about an authoritarian Christian group using a single issue debate to try to destroy the Anglican Communion. Similar methods are being used in the States to try to destroy democratic (i.e. discussing) institutions in favour of a right-wing theocratic approach to religion and politics. This blog (ie the editor) is against anything that tries to shut down debate and discussion in any area of life.

        1. As HIV is not part of the original discussion on this blog, I am going to delete any attempts to go on discussing it. We have started some red herrings which do not help the issue that I wanted to raise.

          1. So Stephen, you are against anything that tries to shut down debate and discussion in any area of life but you are in fact going to delete any comments that discusses an area of life!!

            That is not being facetious, I genuinely find such paradoxical comments deeply confusing and unsafe and they are so often made by the clergy, to control situations they feel uncomfortable with I assume.

            This is just an observation and not meant to be rude or nasty.

            1. Trish. I think you misunderstand the point of a blog. The original post is to introduce a topic and allow a discussion to take place. It is natural for there to be some limits on the boundaries of this discussion. The current blog post is about Lambeth 2020 and the possibility of the break-up of the Anglican Communion. The topic of gay marriage is not the major focus and this is also not a forum for text quoting or bringing in new issues. If discussions become too off point, people will stop reading them. That is a judgement I, as editor have to make. If comments go off piste, I have noticed that my regular readers go quiet.

              1. Yes, I am a regular reader and I enjoy the sharing of ideas among the contributors when they are relevant to the post. When things go off at a tangent I become uncomfortable and stop reading.

              2. Thank you Stephen for explaining to me what a blog is about.

                So you mean in your post you can make comments like this:

                “The issue of gay marriage is probably peripheral to the lives of most ordinary lay Anglicans, especially in places like Africa”

                which is an unresearched sweeping statement completely unrelated to the thrust of your topic, but those of us who are not white, middle class can’t comment.

                1. This is a statement based on a book by an Anglican Ugandan who bitterly deplores the insertion of American right wing values into his country. He particularly mentions the inflammatory visits of one Scott Lively into his country. I have no reason to doubt his perspective. I inserted the word probably because I was not able to verify or quote his words at the moment of writing.

                  1. The option taken by the majority of blog editors is to moderate comments. I have managed to avoid doing this for the five years of this blog but it may be the only way to stop rancorous comments which lower the tone of debate and discussion. This will happen very soon unless the comments remain polite and to the point. People will not join in discussions if there is an over-reaction from someone else. Politeness and kindness are the key to constructive debate.

                    1. Stephen, I re quoted a comment of yours as not being worthy of good debate but I see it has been removed though it was by no means offensive, impolite or rancorous. I will not be such to you.

                2. Trish, I recently got modded on the Guardian’s Strictly Come Dancing blog! For mentioning the latest shooting in America! It was off topic. It was in context, but I had to accept the convention. Don’t stop arguing, will you? I enjoy hearing the way you think. It keeps me on my toes.

                  1. Athena, as a regular reader of this blog I have often thought of saying this to you but never have for some reason. You always strike me as a completely genuine person someone that whatever context or media I spoke to you in would always be the same. You are for me as an abuse survivor a safe person. If you were to know just how rarely I say that to anyone I hope you would feel it a great compliment and if the church does not use you to your full potential then they are truly stupid.

                    1. That’s very kind. On line I’m fine. In real life (!) I’m a Yorkshire woman with a big mouth often full of feet! But I do my best. I hope you won’t be offended if I say you’re on my prayer list!

            2. Yes, I second that. The pattern of immediate shutting down of conversation every time I mention that statistic (or similar ones) has become predictable, and I do not find it honest. If we are actutually truth-seekers, what is there to fear? So are we?

              1. Stephen has repeatedly said that the theme of Surviving Church is power and its abuse. He has a right to remove comments he regards as off topic. He recently deleted one of my comments – quite a lengthy one – and when I thought it over I decided he was quite right. I’d gone off on a tangent.

  6. By a curious coincidence, in the early 80s I was working with some of the first identified AIDS patients.

    As a health care worker I tried to make no judgements. As a religious person I tended to the heuristic that bad things happening must be God’s judgment.

    As a wealthy nation we discovered the virus causing AIDS and that it could also be transmitted non sexually through blood transfusion. There are sufferers young and old gay or straight, virgin or promiscuous.

    Some clever people invented drugs which can help treat and prevent the full blown disease.

    In my ignorance my religious attitude was wrong. As facts unfolded, I could no longer blame one convenient group of people.

    To survive church we must halt these early prejudices and hold the uncertainty of not knowing. Much damage is done by jumping to conclusions.

    With our resources we must assist those less fortunate than ourselves. Otherwise what kind of church are we?

    1. I would hope that we all know in this country that AIDS is not related to any one particular group but that doesn’t mean it is known in Africa. With antiretroviral drugs only recently having been made more accessible to poor communities in Africa ( now under threat from cutbacks) education is a way down the line, determining HIV status and survival has to be a priority. Get that in acceptable limits and challenging the legal and cultural barriers that not only inhibit HIV prevention but place the blame on certain groups can follow. I lost my faith a long time ago but I do understand that religious leaders from countries ravaged by AIDS may not agree with any behaviour that has been identified as a causal factor, along with many others, and of course in our cosy privileged lives we will pass judgement on their ignorance and conservatism.

  7. Sometimes trying to enforce unity doesn’t work. I have referred here before to the Rehoboam and Jeroboam story in the Old Testament where after the split between Judah and Israel Rehoboam gathered his troops and was intent on reunifying the people by force. Shemiah the prophet came with the message – “This is what the Lord says; do not go up to fight against your brothers . Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing”. How can fracture be part of God’s will? I know this may seem pessimistic to some ears but we have to be clear-eyed about what is happening and the last four words of Shemiah’s prophecy may be the Word of God for today. In the end both segments of the sundered kingdom came under God’s judgement, the North in dispersion, the South in Exile. The future is not ours to know but hearing the Word of God for the present is.

    1. I’m inclined to the view that people being sinful, we don’t always agree. So yes, we end up in separate churches. Sad, but sometimes for the best.

  8. I don’t think Aids is the only factor in why same-sex relationships are so strongly disapproved of in parts of the Anglican Communion.

    Those who ‘misbehaved’ in England were often shipped off to the Colonies. John Smyth was ‘encouraged’ to go to South Africa, where ehe continued his abuse of boys. Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church used to follow this practice; and some of those offenders were sexual abusers. I know of one priest, not yet publicly identified as an abuser, who went to Africa when things got uncomfortable for him here; and then moved several times between African countries. Another went to India. It would hardly be surprising if churches on the receiving end of these ‘missionaries’ developed a hostility to homosexuality, and especially to support of same sex relationships coming from the western Churches which exported their abusers.

    Additionally, in countries where homosexuality is still illegal (and this includes most Muslim countries as well as parts of Africa), Christians are subject to hostility and persecution if they are identified by association with westerners who are more permissive. Our welcoming of same sex relationships can literally cost the lives of Christians elsewhere. Archbishops and bishops attending Lambeth Conferences will have been made vividly aware of this.

    So we have got a situation where God (in my view) is leading us to welcome and celebrate same sex relationships; and the Church’s slowness to do so is costing us credibility at home and hindering the gospel here. But even seeming to soften our stance in this matter is causing real suffering to Christian brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world.

    I conclude that the right thing for the Communion to do would be to split. We could do so amicably and with goodwill. It would be sad, but very possibly the least worst option.

    Obviously this does not help homosexuals abroad, and that is a tragedy. But then, we are not in a position to help and are only likely to make matters worse by trying. If our Churches were not formally linked we might, possibly, still be in a position to share the biblical scholarship which has led us to hold accepting views.

  9. A divorce is an impossible decision, but one that many couples take. Impossible in the sense that it’s a one-dimensional answer to a multi-dimensional problem.

    Using the metaphor of marriage and possibly divorce for the Anglican Communion may help at least to analyse the challenges ahead.

    One way of understanding marriage is: Leaving; Cleaving; One Flesh. In failing marriages, the latter two qualities have long since ended, long before the divorce papers are signed. Forgive me for suspecting that there hasn’t been much communion in the Anglican Communion, for a very long time.

    Sometimes a divorce merely codifies the end of a relationship that was over long ago. In simplicity, a divorce is thus realistic.

    Of course a divorce doesn’t solve the problems a warring couple brings to court. Children, families, finances are deeply intertwined and not so easily rent apart. Ditto the Church.

    That said, the early church was predicated on division. Disagreeing apostles spread the Word in different directions. There are said to be many thousand Christian denominations. Christians disagree and split.

    For me the AC is a misnomer. There’s no marriage and so a divorce is academic. At best it’s a ceremonial assembly. I’ve nothing against ceremonial assemblies. The monarchy is one.

    The way the royals operate has changed. Their roles are still ceremonial, but nevertheless vital in my opinion. Forgive me (again) for using another metaphor. The ceremonial leaders of the church need to bring something different to role. Now. Humanity. Authenticity. Transparency. In expressing more humanity, for example, modern Royals have made a more positive impact.

    Our local bishop got down into the pool, in his jeans, and baptised my friends. In that moment he did more for my opinion of him, than a thousand sermons. I felt he connected with the people. We don’t need much, but we do need something.

    A divorce, another subdivision, a new denomination even. Go ahead if you like. I’m not sure it will make any difference. On the other hand, figure out what representing Christ would look like, and go and do it?

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