On the selection of the Archbishop of Canterbury

You know, one thing that's wonderful about having a blog is that when you put a mistake in print, it will stay in the blogosphere forever, like one of those rogue satellites.

I found this little tidbit today from the London Times:

And, despite Africans' claims that the process was a colonial imposition, they did choose him: although the appointment was formally made by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the Archbishop's name was put forward by an electoral college made up of Church members. It consulted widely, in a process that took far longer than a papal convocation, and was endorsed by a meeting of all the Anglican primates in the Communion. As Anthony Sadler, the then Archbishops' Secretary for Appointments, wrote to The Times yesterday about the meeting of the primates: “I have never attended a meeting where the presence of the Holy Spirit was so clearly and movingly in evidence.”

Which just goes to show how little I know about the mechanisms of the Anglican Communion.

One thing I do not know: can someone beyond the UK be appointed by the Queen to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury? Even looking at the procedures for the appointment of the ABC on the Church of England's website, it is not clear.

One thing I would like to point out is the way this comment in the Times protests against "Africans' claims that the process was a colonial imposition." But despite his use of the plural, this is Archbishop Orombi's claim, not the continental church's claim as a whole.

I have to say, after looking through the procedures for appointing the Archbishop of Canterbury, I still think Archbishop Orombi has made a reasonable point. It's hard not to think that the C of E and England's government has the upper hand on the ABC's selection when you read, "The Prime Minister, after consultation, appoints a communicant lay member of the Church of England to chair the Crown Appointments Commission, which oversees the selection of a new Archbishop of Canterbury." And et cetera and et cetera and so forth. Still sounds rather imperious to me.

Archbishop Orombi in the London Times

I'm a bit behind the times here (pun really unintended, because it would be a lame pun), but last Friday in the Times, Archbishop Orombi of Uganda published a column as a guest contributor that is worth noting.

He writes, "We believe that our absence at this Lambeth Conference is the only way that our voice will be heard. For more than ten years we have been speaking and have not been heard. So maybe our absence will speak louder than our words." Which reminds me very much of the time that my sister and my mother were] having an argument and my sister's side consisted of the refrain: "You're not listening to me! You're not listening to me!" and finally, "You're not agreeing with me!"

But the Archbishop has a very good point (i.e. I'm agreeing with him) when he says, "Since that meeting [of the primates in 2003, after the election of Bishop Gene Robinson there have been numerous other “betrayals” to the extent that it is now hard to believe that the leadership in the American Church means what it says. They say that they are not authorising blessings of same-sex unions, yet we read newspaper reports of them. Two American bishops have even presided at such services of blessings. Bishops have written diocesan policies on the blessings of same-sex unions. It is simply untrue to say they have not been authorised."

It's driven me crazy, too. There's all sorts of legerdemain in the church about how, "Oh, no, no, we're not authorizing blessings; that's for the national church to decide at General Convention and they never have. We're just proposing rites of same sex blessing" I'm sorry, but that's just sissy talk. It's quite clear that those who are opposed to same sex blessings are opposed to them happening at all. And I can understand why they feel betrayed when the Episcopal Church says they won't authorize same sex blessings and then offers them. It's like the old "I'm not touching you!" torture. Technically, no, but surely we must realize this is pouring salt in the wound.

Why not be up front about it? Why not brave the possibility that we would be kicked out of the club for doing what we think is right? As it is, our behavior makes us look like jerks, and in this article, at least, Orombi is too much of a Christian to say so outright.

The final major point of the Archbishop's article is to state that the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury is a colonial remnant, and he certainly has a point here, too. The only person who can invite people to Lambeth or not is chosen...by the British government. "Even the pope is elected by his peer," the Archbishop notes. And it is indeed very odd. The Archbishop further says, "The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government." And I don't think it is, but he raises an issue that I haven't seen mentioned before.

I think the Archbishop, of course, has every right not to attend Lambeth if he doesn't want. I am very sorry if (and I don't have all the details aside from Bishop Mwamba's comments) he prevented other Ugandan bishops from attending Lambeth against their will. But I do think his statement in the Times is more than just a fit of pique and is worth listening to, even if we don't agree.

Considering...

Since my last entry, I could have noted any number of things, but I felt they would be a rehash of previous entries or else not considered enough to be of use.

I've heard from Joselyn, but not from Sally as the email did not go through. I need to call Sally, but am not looking forward to the prospect.

Meanwhile, the only thing I feel worth noting about the Lambeth Conference as it relates to Africa is a comment from Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana. Many have noted that the Bishops of Uganda and Nigeria have boycotted Lambeth. Bishop Mwamba points out that this is not exactly the case, in an interview reported by "Thinking Anglicans"

Bishop Mwamba described the situation as it had been in Uganda, “where a special Synod is organised and provision passed which would penalise any bishop coming to the Lambeth Conference. That denied freedom of expression in terms of any individual bishop. The invitation to Lambeth is in the gift of the archbishop and it is up to a particular bishop, not a particular province, to say I will come or I won’t come.

“What are we saying about our leadership styles? It was the same in Nigeria- many would have been glad to come. So when they say 200 of our brothers have boycotted the conference – definitely no. Maybe given the freedom, one or two would have stayed behind. It must be clearly understood: the reason why they didn’t come is that they were forced not to come.”

I find this incredibly sad. What might Lambeth have been if all the bishops who wanted to come had come?

The heartbreak continues

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote about the companion relationship between the Diocese of Lui in Sudan and the Diocese of Missouri. I said that I thought this was the way to go. Which just shows how much I know.

Today's news from the Lambeth Conference is that Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul held a press conference. In it he said, not only that Bishop Gene Robinson should step down for the sake of the church, and that "Asked if he has talked to Robinson, Deng replied, 'I have nothing to say to him.'" But furthermore,

"He also said he cannot participate in the Anglican Communion's Listening Process because homosexuality is not 'approved by the Bible' and 'is not part of my culture, I cannot talk about it.' Deng said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan."

(This was reported by Episcopal Life Online, and more specifically by my friend and fellow CDSP alum, Mary Frances Schjonberg.)

Reading this, I zipped on over to "My Manner of Life" , written by Lisa Fox whom I quoted the other day and who chairs the companion diocese committee. It's pretty devastating, in several senses of the word, and I encourage you to pop over there to get Lisa's view on all of this.

My own view is, How can he have visited the Diocese of Missouri, met Lisa, met gay clergy, had members of the diocese come to his diocese, shared and prayed with and gotten to know all these people and not be changed at all? How is that even possible? How can you completely shut yourself off from listening? I simply do not understand, and I cannot imagine the amount of effort it takes to hold yourself with such forced rectitude that you cannot bend no matter what you see or hear or do. It just baffles me.

I continue to realize that I don't understand much at all. Which is not going to stop me from trying. But I begin to wonder if I personally will make any headway at all, or if any headway is even possible.

The way forward

The Lambeth Conference started this week and it has been amazingly quiet. They're on retreat, don't you know, and many of the Anglican websites report how the press is upset there is no NEWS (meaning no kerfuffles).

One of the blogs I read is called "My Manner of Life," written by a woman in Jefferson City, MO. Her diocese has a companion relationship with the Diocese of Lui in the Church of Sudan, and she reports of her reaction to seeing a photo of Bishop Daniel, waiting for a bus to go to the Lambeth retreat. It's quite lovely, and I do recommend a trip over there to read it. Here is the link. (My life has changed since I found out how to use that link function.)

And here, I think, is the key point.

Folks like to draw a thick line between the Episcopal Church and the churches of the "Global South." But I met this man. I spent a lot of time with him. I have no doubt that he will argue for the Gospel. From what I heard in my time with him, that means feeding people who are starving in Sudan, bringing them water and education and health care, and building a healthy society in Sudan. Those are the priorities I heard from him. When it comes to the "issues du jour," I hope his view will be informed by the time he spent in Missouri, where many folks introduced themselves and their partners.

And to me, this is key: actually meeting face to face, getting to know one another as members of the family of God. Some of them you like and some of them you don't, and that's not related to race or place of birth. But you can love one another all the same.

It's a shame that the bishops of Nigeria and Uganda (alone of all the African nations) are completely boycotting Lambeth. I wonder if deep down the real reason for doing so is that if they met those with whom they disagreed, these bishops might find they actually like them, and the internal conflict would be unbearable.

Kudos to Missouri for making connections with Sudan. For what it's worth, I think this is the way to go.

Update on Ugandan bishop at Lambeth

An alert blogger noticed that the story in the New Vision I quoted a few posts ago isn't quite what it was made out to be. I have cast false aspersions upon the Archbishop of Canterbury--mea culpa!

The Anglican Mainstream--yet another Anglican blog--reports the story here. Apparently, Christopher Ssenyonjo has been invited by Integrity USA to come to Lambeth and be at the Integrity booth.

Remember that thing about money? The Integrity website notes that "Bishop Christopher's trip is being underwritten thru the generous donations of IntegrityUSA's members and friends."

Let's be clear: both sides of the debate are funding both sides of the debate. And it very much complicates the relationships between the West and Africa in the Anglican Communion.

One Ugandan bishop (maybe) at Lambeth

Man! So many articles! So little time!

I found this article on The New Vision website, dated July 6, with the mild headline, "Bishop Ssenyonjo invited to Lambeth."

The contents, though, are a bit more interesting: "In 2002, Archbishop Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo (now retired) defrocked Ssenyonjo because of his support for homosexuality.

"Ssenyonjo, formerly the bishop of West Buganda Diocese, in 2004 formed a new denomination called the Charismatic Church of Uganda and was consecrated bishop.

"In 2004, Archbishop Luke Orombi wrote to Ssenyonjo informing him that he was 'no longer entitled to wear the robes of a deacon, priest, or bishop in the Church of Uganda.'

"He was later excommunicated."

Excommunicated??? I didn't know we did that in the Anglican Church.

Although I'd like to think that Bishop Ssenyonjo was invited because the Archbishop of Canterbury supports him, I suspect it's because the Archbishop wasn't au courant with the doings in Uganda.

Not much room for disagreement here, is there? Makes all those complaints about how MEAN PB Katharine Jefferts Schori has been to Bishop Schofield, et al., seem silly.

#44 and #42

As the Lambeth Conference approaches, the Daily Telegraph is publishing a series on the 50 most influential Anglicans in the world today, can you believe. Two Africans are in the list from 41 to 50, published today:

44 Esther Mombo - Dean of St Paul’s theological college, Kenya

A vital member of the Anglican Communion’s doctrine commission, Esther Mombo has taken issue with the view of many African bishops that homosexuality is a Western phenomenon.

She says that it’s not a Western issue but a human rights issue.

She was also a member of the group that produced the Windsor Report, which attempted to heal divisions in the Church after the consecration of Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual cleric, as the Bishop of New Hampshire. A campaigner for women’s ordination.

42 Davis Mac-Iyalla - Changing Attitude, Nigeria
One of the few black Anglican gay activists, Davis Mac-Iyalla, has endured death threats and attacks since he founded Changing Attitude Nigeria in 2005.

He now lives in exile in Togo but remains the most visible critic of the anti-gay Nigerian leadership.

Originally accused by Archbishop Peter Akinola of being a con-man, he has shrugged off these claims and is to be found campaigning at Synods, Bishops’ meetings and will be present at this month’s Lambeth Conference.

***
Which just goes to show that "The African Church" is not one huge block with one perspective. I'm thinking some more conservative Africans will be higher on the list. I'll keep you posted.

The Listening Process

As many of you know, every 10 years the bishops of the Anglican Communion are invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to what’s called the Lambeth Conference. The next one is coming up in mid-July; some bishops are refusing to attend, including many African bishops. But more on this later.

Right now I’m more interested in looking back at Lambeth 1998. Although lots of other business got done, I would guess nothing has gotten as much attention as Resolution 1.10: Human Sexuality.

Now, I’m not doing a whole lot of research here, but as I remember it, the general feeling was that the group that had spent the entirety of the conference crafting language for this resolution was outvoted by a new Global South majority. Ten years earlier, in 1988, the North and West still held most of the seats, but that had changed by 1998. A more moderate view that allowed for differences of opinion on the subject of human sexuality was taken out of the resolution and replaced with the unambiguous stance of “rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.”

I’ve been looking the resolution over again as I write this and it’s a much less violent statement than I remembered. The debate at the time was so very impassioned--even harsh. But looking merely at the language that is left in the resolution without the painful context of the actions around it, there's a lot that is commendable. That statement I just quoted is not the sum total of even that subsection of the resolution, which says “while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex.” Certainly there’s some of value in that, if one could indeed minister pastorally and sensitively to people under these circumstances.

Reading it now, I was intrigued by a statement from the resolution offered by the West African region that I had never seen before, which “accepts that homosexuality is a sin which could only be adopted by the church if it wanted to commit evangelical suicide.” I’ll want to think more about that.

The main reason, however, that I called up Resolution 1.10 was to talk about the “listening process,” oft mentioned when talking about homosexuality in the Anglican Church. Certainly this part of the resolution is both hopeful and charitable. Here’s what the resolution called for:

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.

A couple of things. First of all, this resolution says the bishops will listen to the experience of homosexual persons, not vice versa. Oft times it has seemed that there’s been serious resistance to that with a call for equal time for those who have (truly) suffered under colonial powers. But the resolution doesn’t say this should be a two-way street.

Second, one of the struggles in this listening is that the experience of homosexual persons very often comes from the West. I’m generalizing here, but some African bishops refuse to listen to anyone from the West saying homosexuality is a Western deviation and doesn’t exist in Africa. And anyone who is gay in Africa is assumed to be corrupted by Western influence. It’s kind of a no-win situation, there. Katie Sherrod who writes a blog called Desert’s Child out of Fort Worth, Texas, has gone to Africa to interview LGBT Africans. You can read about what she did here.

I have to go back to the West Africa resolution’s comment on “evangelical suicide,” because I do have to wonder what the African church loses by listening, or by changing its mind. I’ll be curious to learn more about this. I’ll keep you posted.