THE commission set up by Rowan Williams to determine how the Anglican Communion can remain in union on the subject of homosexuality has issued its report. Its conclusions reflect both an effort at damage control and an inadequate understanding of its subject matter. Because the commission has recommended what the Anglican Communion has no authority to accomplish, the ultimate result of its reco- mmendations would, if implemented, be the destruction of the peculiar genius of the Anglican Communion.

This study is deficient because it does not diagnose the real source of the crisis. Our present pain was not caused either by the ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, or by the authorisation in Canada of the blessing of same-sex unions. The damage that needed to be addressed happened at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, and came about because of the weak leadership of the the Archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, aided and abetted by the evangelical wing of our Church that had more zeal than wisdom. Lambeth 1998 was unforgettable for many things. The debate was punctuated by catcalls, made when those who opposed the active homophobia present in the ranks tried to speak about the issue. It was a conference that ignored a report, adopted with much struggle and compromise in the section assigned to deal with homosexuality, that had provided a tenuous consensus with which no one was satisfied, but all were on board. In the plen-ary sessions this report was gutted with a series of hostile amendments until the final resolution was mean-spirited.

In 1998 Dr Carey sought to impose his narrow evangelical worldview on the whole Communion. He did not seem to recognise that this Communion is made up both of Churches with women bishops, living in nations where women occupy top positions in law, politics, business and education, as well as Churches in lands that still practice polygamy and female circumcision and who do not allow women to be ordained or to receive equal education. No Church anywhere can survive an attempt to impose cultural uniformity on such wide diversity. Attitudes toward homosexuality run a similar gamut. In the United States, gay males from both political parties are elected to the Congress. In parts of Africa and Sout East Asia, an openly homosexual person runs the risk of being murdered. Only those with a limited understanding of modern life could ever imagine that a debate about homosexuality could be settled by quoting the Bible.

Dr Carey wanted a vote on the morality of homosexuality. He got it, but that vote was so out of touch with modern reality that it was a hollow victory and made inevitable our present divisions. The truth of rising consciousness can never be determined by majority votes.

Dr Carey, like the present commission, wanted every province of the Anglican Communion to be bound until a worldwide consensus had formed. It was and is an impossible demand. The developing consensus on this subject in Western countries could never be bound by the culture of the Anglican Church in Sydney, Chad or Sudan. Only a leader who imagined that his version of truth and Truth were the same could have thought that a proper tactic.

The Commission made its first mistake in that it spoke to the symptoms that it erroneously assumed were the causes of our division. Its second mistake was to presume that the great moral issues of our day can be made secondary to the Church’s unity. When-ever a prejudice dies, there is always conflict and dislocation. A Church united in either prejudice or ignorance can never be the Body of Christ.

This commission also called upon the 38 national branches of the Anglican Communion to sign a covenant expressing their support for current Anglican teaching. That is a remarkable request! Where is current Anglican teaching enshrined? Is it in the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference where only bishops have voices? Would Anglicans in the Western world be asked to subscribe to a pre-modern mentality that opposes evolution or demands that the Virgin Birth be interpreted as literal biology? Would we destroy the tradition of the great Anglican scholars of the past and try to place modern minds once again into the pre-modern straitjacket of the 39 Articles? Will we reinstitute a version of the Anglican Inquisition so that we will no longer produce a William Temple or a John Robinson? These ideas are too ludicrous to contemplate. But if the report’s recommendations are implemented that will be the certain result.

The Anglican Communion had a relatively minor crisis as new consciousness about homosexuality struggled to be born in the face of ancient prejudice. This commission has taken this minor crisis and turned it into a major revolution that will move Anglicanism toward the literal-mindedness that now threatens not just Christianity, but religious systems all over the world. That is not a future that anyone should welcome. If this report is adopted, it will create a church ill-equipped to live in the 21st century. Death comes in many forms — the inability to embrace new reality is one of them.

It is now time to measure the mettle of our elected Anglican leaders. Spines will have to stiffen as they are not used to doing. Popularity will have to be sacrificed for the sake of truth and witness. The next years will determine whether our present leadership has the ability to meet the challenge that they themselves have allowed to develop.

John Shelby Spong is the former Bishop of Newark

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