20.10.2004

Gay bishop and the bigots

The Church of England is tearing itself apart over its stance towards homosexuals - inside and outside their communion. Michael Malkin reports

Once again the Anglican communion is in the throes of a self-inflicted crisis. Talk of schism is in the air as several of the national churches comprising this 76-million-strong federation are threatening to break away from the parent see of Canterbury. And once again the controversy is about sex - worse still, gay sex.
First a bit of perspective. Ten years ago, as you recall, the issue which seemed to threaten schism was women priests. After spending some 20 years in often acrimonious debate, synod finally decided that women could validly be ordained as priests in the Church of England. Bristol cathedral was the place where history was made in 1994, when 36 women were present to be admitted to the order of priesthood. The trickle became something of a torrent. Women now comprise around 20% of all parish clergy in England. Many hold higher positions of responsibility and some have even become deans. Soon, inevitably, there will be women bishops.

And yet there have been no thunderbolts from on high, nor any other sign of divine wrath. In fact liberal christians might argue that this hard fought and hard won step in the direction of sexual equality was, theologically, a very belated reaffirmation of the doctrine of the incarnation - when god became ‘man’, taking upon himself human flesh, he gave to humankind as a whole, regardless of gender, the chance of participating in his own ‘divine nature and being’. Indeed, they might also tell you that without Mary’s own fiat it could not have happened.

True, around 430 priests either defected to Rome or took a financial package. Those who went over to Rome presented acute problems for the then primate, his eminence Basil, cardinal Hulme. In the first place, the encyclical Apostolicae Curae (1896) of pope Leo XIII declared Anglican orders null and void. So they would technically have to be reordained. Secondly, many of them had wives and children. So if they were admitted to the Roman catholic priesthood, England would overnight acquire married catholic priests. What about his holiness pope John Paul II’s oft reiterated declarations that priestly celibacy was intrinsic to the church and therefore non-negotiable? Naturally, nobody gave much of a damn for those catholic priests who had been dutifully ploughing a lonely furrow all their lives, bereft of the consolations of a wife and family. But - miraculously, you might say - all this was smoothed over in a remarkably short time. The Roman catholic church in England was short of priests, while the Anglicans wanted rid of their troublemakers. If needs must …

True also, there are still inveterately misogynist clergy and parishioners (many, perhaps a majority, of the latter are actually women) within the Church of England who refuse to serve with or be served by female priests. These are the types who say that christ was a man, the apostles were men, so you might just as well ordain a potato as a woman. Hmm. The ‘needs’ of such refuseniks are met by ‘flying bishops’ (not literally, of course) who often themselves fully or partially reject the validity of female priesthood.

I begin with this historical sketch in order to show that the Church of England and the Anglican communion in general has historically operated on the basis of pragmatism, fudges and compromises, through which, albeit very gradually and painfully, you have seen some kind of movement towards a more rational attitude on questions of gender and sexuality. Nonetheless, to put it mildly, the church is still bedevilled by huge contradictions.

Where homosexuality is concerned, the contradiction is most acute. On the one hand there are those who grudgingly acknowledge that the homosexual ‘condition’ (they see it as a kind of disease from which by the aid of prayer you can be ‘cured’) obviously exists. To be a queer or a lesbian is deeply unfortunate of course, but so long as you do not do anything about it, you are all right (sort of). But if, god forbid, you give physical expression to your sexuality - ie, if you live and realise your own identity as a human being - then you are damned. The biblical ‘justification’ for their gay-hatred rests on some obscure passages in the Old Testament and on the rantings of St Paul in his epistles.

On the other hand, there are those christians in the Anglican communion who prefer to point to the ‘fact’ that Jesus was a man who sided with the outcasts of society. Gays are not mentioned in the scriptures, but for those liberals who attempt to square their faith with modern political correctness it is best to ignore the likes of Paul. Surely Jesus would have identified and sided with those who are persecuted, injured, even killed because of their sexual orientation? Any other Jesus in fact is unthinkable for the sort of christians for whom love is the beginning and end of the gospel message.

It was this latter sort, among them no less than 50 bishops who gathered last year at the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican communion. I use the word ‘openly’ advisedly. There are, I am sure, other gay bishops, perhaps many, but it is not my business to ‘out’ them. Gene certainly ‘came out’ - an act which, incidentally required real courage - when I do not know, but everyone knew he was gay and I imagine his election rested on his service and dedication to the church.

But the reaction which followed was quite sickening. For his truthfulness Gene was reviled by those christians for whom love (and conformity to the modern consensus) is not the be-all-and-end-all of their religion. All that mattered to them was that he was gay and therefore, in their eyes, beyond the pale. All the customary, putrid vomit of ‘biblical’ denunciation, prejudice, hate and fear disguised as theology poured forth. And guess where from? Not the quiet confines of some university or college theological faculty, but primarily from the prelates of the Anglican church in Africa - a continent where religion is actually growing. To them Gene Robinson was an offence, an affront. Africa matters. Africa had to be appeased and persuaded not to form its own schismatic branch of Anglicanism.

The ‘solution’ was an attempt at a characteristically pragmatic fudge. Set up a committee. Find a compromise. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, duly appointed Robin Eames, archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, to chair a Lambeth commission of 17 other prelates to deal with the case. Their primary mission was clearly to avoid a split in the communion. But the outcome of their deliberations, delivered at a press conference at St Paul’s Cathedral on Monday October 18, has, predictably, satisfied nobody.

Intended as part of a “pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation”, the so-called Windsor report could have been a real milestone in the ‘rehabilitation’ of homosexuals in the church. It could have told its reactionary wing where to get off - with all due humility, of course. Instead, true to form, it ducked the hard questions and dished out blame on both sides: the archbishops who presided over Gene Robinson’s consecration and installation are ordered to apologise for participating in defying orthodox doctrine (canon law and democracy obviously count for nothing when the stakes are this high) and in effect ‘consider their positions’.

The African prelates who denounced Gene Robinson are criticised for what the report calls their attempts to “demonise” homosexuality: their attention is rightly drawn to the fact that persecuting and ill-treating minorities is inconsistent with “christian charity and basic principles of moral care”. In Africa, where hunger, thirst and disease - especially HIV and aids - afflict a population literally crying out for help, there is perhaps a certain hypocrisy in being more concerned with the sexual preferences of one individual thousands of miles away. Some would say, however, that the call for an apology is not a little hypocritical too.

The Windsor report was a great disappointment to many who thought of it as a window of opportunity. But that window has been left firmly shut by cowards and equivocators who prefer to try and preserve the notional unity of the church at all costs, even if it means dropping their so-called commitment to ‘love’ and ‘tolerance’.

Thank god, if I might use that phrase, the bishops in the USA declined to apologised for Gene Robinson’s election - or did they? Bishop Frank Griswold, primate of the US episcopal church, did reportedly express mealy-mouthed “regret” for having offended ultra-reactionary sensitivities - although the very idea of saying sorry for not having enforced discrimination and disbarred a candidate purely on the grounds of his sexuality is laughable. Still, what can you expect from such fair-weather ‘modernisers’?

After he had finished grovelling, Griswold explained that the Anglican church in the US has been trying to live the gospel “in a society where homosexuality is openly discussed and increasingly acknowledged” and went on to talk of the other provinces of the Anglican church which are “blessed by the lives and ministry of homosexual persons”, but where it is “unsafe for them to speak out the truth of who they are”. There again, trying to bring yesterday’s doctrine in line with today’s accepted norms has always been a bit of a problem for followers of institutionalised superstition.

The only concrete recommendation of the Windsor report is the call for a “moratorium” on the promotion of any person “living in a same gender union” to the episcopacy. In other words, just stop consecrating openly gay senior clergy if they openly live out the truth of their lives. The subtext says that if they have forsworn and denied any expression of their sexuality and live a celibate life, or even perhaps if they keep it under covers, then they can be bishops. How pathetic can you get? The “moratorium”, backed up by some kind of as yet undrafted “covenant”, is to remain in force “until some new consensus in the Anglican communion emerges”.

Clearly the Anglican church, whatever the views of many prelates, theologians, pastors and ordinary church-goers, is far from ready to come to a tolerant understanding of homosexuality in general. The lessons of history suggest that, as in the case of women priests, some kind of compromise might eventually be put together. But any such fudge would be wholly inadequate.

It was Marx who said that to be radical is to get to the root of things and that “for man the root is man himself”, acknowledging the essential dignity and worth of all human beings, whatever their gender, race or sexual orientation. Historically, none of the institutions of organised christianity have lived up to this message, which is actually implicit in the practice of the man-god they follow - Jesus, the apocalyptic revolutionary.