(Adrian Thatcher is Professor of Applied Theology at the College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth, UK. He is an Anglican, and author of many books and articles, including The Daily Telegraph Guide to Christian Marriage (Continuum, 2003), Living Together and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, 2002) and Marriage after Modernity (Sheffield, 1999)).

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Lesbian and gay week hosted by LGCM, with Cass Howes and Urs Mattmann.

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The LGCM Counselling Helpline in its present form will close on Wednesday 17th December 2003 and will be relaunched in 2004 with helpliners working from home instead of working from the LGCM National Office.  LGCM is grateful for all that the Helpliners have given in assisting those who have called the Helpline over the years.  We urgently need to recruit a helpline Co-ordinator to work with the Board and LGCM staff in shaping the new style helpline and planning the relaunch.  This would be a voluntary role with expenses offered.  If you are interested or know anyone else who could be, please contact Counselling Helpline@lgcm.org.uk.

To the Primates of the Anglican Communion, Preparing to Assemble on 15-16 October 2003 in London to Discuss the Church's Attitude to Homosexuality

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An Open Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement

Events in recent months around the Anglican Communion have shocked and disturbed many Anglicans. Developments have brought joy and relief, and to others pain and distress. Many have experienced all these emotions at different times, for different reasons. Conflict and passion, assertion and counter-assertion have become commonplace.  

It is unsurprising that Archbishop Rowan Williams has felt it necessary to call the Primates together for an emergency meeting to discuss these matters. So far as we are aware there has been no invitation to self-affirming lesbian and gay Christians to be part of these discussions. The very people who are at the centre of this debate, whose very presence has caused the debate, will in all probability not be directly heard at your meeting. This is very strange and calls into doubt the validity of the meeting. For this reason we ask you to consider soberly this Open Letter; to follow seriously the call of the Lambeth Conference 1998 to listen to the voice and experience of lesbian and gay people in the Church.

There have been moves by provinces and dioceses to ratify services for blessing same-sex. There have been many who have responded to these moves with thinly-disguised contempt if not  vilification. Remember the tawdry campaign to smear the Revd Gene Robinson, so easily swept aside, when the ECUSA was considering his appointment as Bishop of New Hampshire? Remember the attacks on Revd Canon Jeffrey John when he was nominated as Bishop of Reading?

More recently there was an astonishing attack on lesbian and gay people in general by one of your own number, The Most Rev Peter Akinola, Primate of  All Nigeria. As this article was written by a leading Primate it seems fair to use this as the starting point for addressing you. It may be that you do not agree with Peter Akinola, but he is speaking as one of the Primates of the Anglican Communion and therefore appeared to some to have been speaking, if not on your behalf, at least with the goodwill and support of some of you.

Our hope is that if you do not agree with Peter Akinola, you will join us in providing a different voice and a more rational argument, thus showing that he does in no way represent the mind of the Communion. We applaud the actions of another of your company who has already done this. Archbishop Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, Primate of Southern Africa has spoken with great courage and integrity, denouncing the arrogance and intolerance of those who would interfere in the affairs of other jurisdictions. Archbishop Winston proves that Archbishop Peter does not speak for the entire Anglican Communion, nor even for all the Primates of Africa.

Archbishop Peter's arguments can easily be countered under four main headings.

1) Recent Study.

Many recent studies have shown that homosexuality is not a choice; The word 'homosexuality' was coined about hundred and fifty years ago, before which other ideas, words and definitions held sway. One of the reasons why a new term was needed, was the recognition for the first time of a class of person who could be defined by that term although, of course, homosexuals have existed for all time. There have been good and bad results of defining a class in this way, but the basic point is that the class did not exist before, so whatever the biblical writers may be speaking of, it is not the class of person 'homosexual' as we define it today.

More recently, social and biological, psychological and psychiatric studies have also shown homosexual inclination to be far more widespread in society. Over the past fifty years, medical experts have changed their opinion of what homosexuality is from moral defect to psychological illness to perfectly acceptable variation in human behaviour. In most institutions outside the Church and in some parts of the Church this has led to a far greater understanding of persecution of homosexuals as inhuman and homophobic. This is not 'yielding to the permissive and satanic spirit, the worldly spirit of a materialistic age, which seeks to mould everyone into its own tainted mould', as Archbishop Peter Akinola says. It is listening to how human beings are expressing who they are in a real world and bringing them the good news of God's love for them in Jesus Christ.

2) Biblical Interpretation

But it is not only in the fields of 'secular' science and understanding that Archbishop Peter has not kept up with the current of study. The river of theology and biblical hermeneutics has also flowed past him. This is not 'relativising' the issue of homosexuality; homosexuality is not discussed in the Bible - not even in the Levitical passage, because, as we have seen, the concept did not exist when it was written. There are various theories about what Leviticus is condemning, but Leviticus had no idea whatsoever about loving, stable relationships in the way we understand them today. A small nomadic society under threat from all sides would have had a natural vested interest in promoting heterosexual sex for reasons of procreation and the survival of the tribe, but they could not have been condemning what we think of as homosexuality today. And even if they were, then why have we chosen to ignore many of the other equally clear condemnations of other practices? Why, for instance have we completely ignored the condemnation of usury, the lending of money at interest? This particular practice, as seen in the activities of the World Bank and the IMF in the affairs of Nigeria, has caused far more, and more serious problems for Archbishop Peter's people than same-sex relationships or gay bishops could ever cause.

There is more than one method of Biblical interpretation, depending on such variables as culture, education and history. The hegemony of one method of Biblical interpretation over another is alien to Anglicanism and to permit such hegemony is detrimental to Anglicanism

3) Pastoral Considerations.

How do the lesbian and gay Christians in Archbishop Peter's province, attempting to live godly lives in communion with God and with their church, respond to being described as 'slaves', 'flagrantly disobedient', practitioners of perversion, and grouped together with those who practise bestiality? This is extremely inflammatory language which does not taken any notice of their own lived experience as lesbian and gay Christians; their experience of God's love in their lives. And should Archbishop Peter try to tell us that such people do not exist in Nigeria, that they are a Western phenomenon we see further evidence that he has failed them desperately. The 1998 Lambeth Conference made certain statements about what the Communion thought it believed about same-sex relationships and the ordination of lesbians and gay men. But it also called for the church to listen to the experience of lesbian and gay people. This Archbishop Peter Akinola and other primates have patently not done, according to testimonies provided to LGCM, for instance, by gay Nigerian Christians.

4)  A New Model of Authority in the Anglican Communion?

Much of the debate around these issues has been characterised by an understanding that is unAnglican and a new introduction into Anglican thinking. In Anglicanism Authority has always been seen as vested in the Diocese. The bishops in a certain province have come together collegially to made decisions that affect the whole province and have delegated a certain responsibility to a Primate. For many years, bishops from all over the world have come to Lambeth every ten years to consult with one another as brothers (and recently sisters) on issues that affected the whole communion. But the Lambeth Conference has never had any legislative authority. It can advise, and has some authority as the mind of the whole communion, but it cannot order the entire communion. Thus the actions of bishops in any individual diocese or province cannot be directly ordered by the Lambeth Conference. The suggestion that individuals should wait for the mind of the church when deciding how to deal with issues of local concern in local situations has not previously been found in Anglicanism. But there is a strong push from the more totalitarian sections of the Church for a more top-down model of authority in the Anglican Communion. We believe this would be deeply unAnglican, and dangerous to the communion.

There is certainly a danger of schism in the Anglican Communion at this time. But the danger is from those who wish to force an outmoded method of biblical interpretation which takes no notice of scientific development and a totalitarian model of authority, both of which are deeply unAnglican and seriously worrying.

Some Questions for the Primates of the Anglican Communion as they come together to discuss homosexuality.

1. Is it important to keep up with the developments of science and use them as part of our hermeneutical toolbox or is this simply pandering to the spirit of the age?

2. How do we reconcile different hermeneutical methods and models which give different understanding of the issues under discussion?

3. How are you as primates dealing pastorally and sensitively with the people who are deeply affected by these issues on both sides of the debate? How are you fulfilling the Lambeth call to listen to the experience of lesbian and gay Christians?

4. Is there a threat to the model of authority which has subsisted in the Communion up till now?  How serious is this threat and what are the implications for the communion if it is so?

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The British Empire may have passed into history but, like many Imperial powers, Britain left behind some rather strange legacies.

The Anglican Church is among the most enduring of those echoes of a past age. This rather idiosyncratic and peculiarly English Church has not only survived the Imperial era, but has flourished in many former British colonies.

Some say that as many as 70 million people throughout the world now worship God as Anglican Christians. For the most part they constitute a loose confederation of national churches that identify their communality by being “in communion” with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Every ten years since the end of the 19th century the bishops of this communion gather together at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This meeting, called the Lambeth Conference, is a sign of their shared life, and though it sometimes makes pronouncements, the character of Anglicanism has never been to create central decision making bodies, and their deliberations have only a persuasive force on any of the autonomous churches of the Anglican Communion.

Indeed all the international organs of Anglicanism that developed to give some structure to the Communion are similar in that their authority is persuasive. This leaves the Anglican family in a position where, lacking any central decision making body, its autonomous affiliates can, and do make decisions that irritate, annoy and even infuriate each other.

The Mother Church, the Church of England, was in a period of intense activity during the Imperial age. It had awakened from a long slumber in the mid 18th century with the emergence of two groups within its ranks that engaged in a divisive and sometimes bitter struggle for the soul of the Victorian Church. 

The two groups were the Evangelicals and the High Church parties. The Evangelicals reflected a Protestant Bible based faith, while the High Church party taught a Catholic, ritualistic faith. Both these wings founded separate Missionary Societies and saw the growing Empire as fertile ground for their particular brands of Church of England piety and what we see today in the world-wide Anglican Communion, is the fruit of their labours.

Modern world-wide Anglicanism still, in part, bears the marks of their founding fathers and while the battle grounds have shifted somewhat in the past 150 years or so, the Mother Church and its offspring are still engaged in a struggle for the soul of the Church and the ordination of practicing homosexuals is the most recent of the divisive issues that have torn at its fabric of unity.

There have, of course, been gay priests and bishops in the Anglican church from its inception. But the issue of having openly lesbian and gay ministers of the Church is a relatively new phenomenon.

The “liberal” agenda of Anglicanism has been fired by the Church in the United States of America which was first to regularly ordain women to the priesthood and episcopate, then openly lesbian and gay priests and now, the first openly gay bishop.

While many of the autonomous Anglican churches throughout the world threatened a break up over the ordination of women – and sizeable minorities left those churches where it had taken place. – the promised fracturing of Anglicanism was put off. 

A Commission under the Primate of Ireland, The Most Revd Robin Eames, smoothed the feathers and calmed the tempers and the disorderly family of Anglicans clung together. Still, the women ordained to the priesthood and particularly those ordained as bishops are unwelcome and unrecognised in the large majority of Anglican Churches. The cracks had only been “papered over”.

But for Anglicanism wall paper is a substantial part of its basic structure. It is true to say that there is little agreement on most of the significant ecclesiological or doctrinal issues within the Anglican Church. While those on the extremes of the two opposing wings of Anglicanism, the Conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, have together agreed to reject openly lesbian and gay ministers, their understanding of Church, Sacraments, and Order remain diametrically opposed. 

The decision of the diocese of New Westminster (Vancouver) in Canada to authorise same sex blessings earlier this year also caused the tensions to rise to a new fever pitch. 
The loose confederation that constitutes Anglicanism can occasionally extend even into national Churches where separate diocese can take independent decisions without reference to the national church. So it is within Canada where New Westminster’s authorisation of same sex blessings is unique (for the time being) this leaves other, more conservative Canadian bishops deeply troubled

Viewed alongside the fast moving changes to Civil Law in Canada allowing same-sex unions, the proposed changes in Britain to register same-sex partnerships and the striking down of the last anti gay sex laws in the United States of America and the possible striking down of the Federal Law preventing same-sex unions there, the Anglican Church in the West has found itself caught up in a whirlwind of change.

With all these events on the horizon last year the post of Archbishop of Canterbury became vacant. 

The appointment of The Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams, a liberal, to take over from the conservative evangelical George Carey was a crisis point for many within Anglicanism, particularly for the extreme Evangelical wing of the Church of England who almost immediately declared him a “false teacher” and began the process of separation.

So the first of the cracks began to appear within the fabric of Anglicanism and its proud boast to be a “broad church” began to look a little shaky. 

Rowan Williams had been a Professor at Oxford and a published theologian, his openness to lesbian and gay people in the ministry well known and he willingly admitted ordaining a gay man when a bishop in Wales whom he knew to have been partnered. He was the worst possible choice for those who saw coming what seemed to them the final, and not just another, battle for the soul of the Anglican Church.

All the many facets of Anglicanism had a variety of expectations of Dr Williams, but it was events beyond his control that came to drive his agenda over the last year. What emerged was a leader whose natural liberalism was tempered by his traditional view of the church and authority. He found himself in a place he did not want to be and making decisions he did not want to take.

His first major decision was to stop the ordination of Canon Jeffrey John as a bishop. Canon John is an openly gay priest who, although he has a partner, had decided to obey the rules laid down by the English Bishops in 1991 and had ceased sexual activity. The rules allow only sex within marriage for the clergy. Although John had been obedient he had not, according to the conservatives, been repentant.

This sent a shock wave through the liberal wing of the Church of England and a message of hope to conservative Anglicans, particularly in Africa, Asia and South America, as well as the conservative elements within the countries where the liberals were in control.

But it was the ordination of Gene Robinson, openly gay and living with his partner that signalled a fracture point for many conservatives within the world wide Anglican Church. The argument now rages over the place of the Bible in the Church which the conservatives hold, forever condemns homosexual practice. A new orthodoxy has emerged and the test of this appears to be where one stands on the issue of sex.

Once again the Anglican Communion is on the verge of breaking up and once again the Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames has been given the job of a new Commission to see if he can hold it together. It may prove an even more difficult task this time.

The Anglican Communion has changed since Gene Robinson became a bishop, the ties that held it together have been considerably weakened, that nobody can deny. What happens next is of key importance for the lesbian and gay Christians who are within it.

We will see fractures in the Anglican Church of the United States, and probably in Canada. Two separate bodies will probably emerge in both those countries. But the question is which will be recognised by the Archbishop of Canterbury as the legitimate representative of Anglicanism.

In other countries like England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa the debate goes on over the place of openly lesbian and gay people in the Church. Nothing is decided, but what eventually emerges when the new Commission reports in twelve months will have a great impact on the lives of lesbian and gay people throughout the Church. 

It seems to many that the price of an inclusive church will be the unity of the Anglican Communion, it is a high price to pay. Lesbian and gay Christians are themselves divided on the cost of this inclusivity, for many it means the loss of influence on churches that will now go their own way confirmed in their prejudice with little hope for the lesbian and gay people within, but for others it will mean a safe home at last where they can live openly before God and his Church.