ARTICLES OF FAITH: A surprisingly trenchant verdict from the Lambeth Conference

[06/08/98 - Opinion - Web - http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?1055868]

Nobody witnessing yesterday's impassioned debate at the Lambeth Conference could doubt the importance that the issue of homosexuality has assumed in this decennial gathering of the leaders of the Anglican Communion. Attempts by the Lambeth spin-doctors to claim otherwise were misguided; the decision to conduct plenary debates in open session was a needed corrective to over-anxious efforts to control public perceptions of the proceedings at Canterbury - efforts whose principal result was to suggest a defensiveness which should have no place in a confident, thriving Church. 

To lament that sexual politics has been permitted to dominate and distort the agenda, deflecting attention from the vocation of Anglicanism in the world, is to miss the point. Theologically uncomfortable as this debate has certainly been, it is anything but irrelevant to that vocation. On the contrary, it has compelled close and anxious scrutiny of the very identity of Anglicanism. 

It is one thing to "glory in diversity", as the Archbishop of Canterbury most sincerely and creatively does; but that cannot be the same as an easy relativism which accepts the legitimacy in some provinces of the Communion of practices which, in the deep conviction of others, are incompatible with biblical teaching and thus with the Christian faith. 

The Lambeth Conference has never aspired to more than moral authority over its autonomous provinces; it has wisely sought to accommodate the many differing cultural traditions within which its clergy preach the faith in 167 far-flung lands. Conciliation and tolerance are its watchwords. But conference resolutions are not just pieces of paper; they are public statements of what, after prayer and careful thought, Anglicans believe. 

Adherence to Scripture is one of the four "quadrilaterals" at the core of Anglican belief which were established a century ago at the 1888 Lambeth Conference. Once the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement and its mainly Western supporters had forced into the open the acceptability of ordaining practising homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions, this inevitably became part of a wider debate about how the Bible should be interpreted in modern society. In seeking to reflect both biblical truth and the spirit of Christian charity, mere agreement to disagree would have been not only a shirking of Christian duty, but a source of anguish that would, especially although not exclusively within the devout and rapidly expanding African dioceses, have weakened the cohesiveness and integrity of Anglicanism. 

Yesterday's resolution, adopted by an overwhelming majority, was a surprisingly and uncharacteristically trenchant dismissal of the liberal position. There was indignation that the original official text, condemning homophobia while making no reference to homosexuality, was at odds with the more conservative text drafted by the relevant committee. But the outcome also reflects the growing weight at Lambeth of doctrinally conservative Third World bishops. 

The final version states that "abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage", rejects homosexual practice as "incompatible with Scripture" and opposes the blessing or ordaining of "those involved in same-gender unions". The passage condemning homophobia - code, for liberal clergy, that legitimises homosexual relationships - was subtly altered to speak of "irrational fear of homosexuals". Liberals may feel that Lambeth has erred on the side of a fundamentalist theological outlook. But this is not an intolerant document. It clearly declares that homosexuals are loved by God and that "all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ". From there to arguing that they should not therefore be excluded from the ministry may seem but a short step. Lambeth has not laid this issue to rest for ever. But it has said with some firmness where it believes the boundary lies between tolerance for individual choice and fidelity to the tenets of Christianity. It has not been a smooth process. But it has revealed a readiness to grapple with the difficult and divisive that should carry the Anglican Communion with greater confidence into the third millennium of Our Lord.