From one lower than the cattle…
To my regular readers: this is another discussion of religious issues. If that’s not your cup of tea, feel free to skip. I’ll talk about other things in a couple of days or weeks, when this starts to blow away or at least calm down.
Here’s a summary of what the conservatives in the Anglican Communion are up to, from The New York Times and the Episcopal News Service.
In essence it boils down to this: they are threatening to break the Anglican Communion apart if they don’t get their way. They are, to use their own words, “prepared to respond” should either Gene Robinson be approved as bishop of New Hampshire or if the Liturgical Commission is directed to prepare blessing/union/still-less-than-marriage liturgies for future approval of the church.
I’ll leave the discussion of whether they can actually break the Communion to far superior ecclesiologists, but from what I can tell, since we’re not in communion with them, but we are all in communion with Canterbury, it seems not.
When asked if they would care to inform the church what that response might be, the group responded, “We are trying to preserve an element of surprise. That is part of the strategy here.”
First, do the actions of a cabal (for the secrecy surrounding this group’s maneuverings are surely quite like a cabal) reflect Christ’s admonition to walk in light, not darkness? The statement that the group made was crafted in secret, over the course of two days. I don’t recall that Christ, his disciples, or the heroes of the New Testament plotted politics in secret. If we’re asking what Jesus would do, I have rather severe doubts that He’d act like this.
Second, for all their talk about love shown within the marriage and how this reflects Christ’s love of the church, where is the talk about God’s love for anyone else, especially those of us who are gay? Repeatedly, at Lambeth 1998, at General Convention 2000, and on other occasions (I can provide the list of you really want to see it), they have promised to engage with their Christian brothers and sisters on this issue and to try to at least understand. In this case, have they even talked the talk? Again, it seems not. No conferences, meetings, or anything of the sort has occurred. Even Jerry Falwell, loathsome fellow that he is, at least met with Mel White. Two faults in the reasoning seem to have occurred. First, these misguided souls seem to have concluded that the relationship of God to the Church is a reflection of Christian marriage, rather than that Christian marriage is a reflection of the spiritual relationship. Even though they use the language of the latter form, how can it be other than I say? In the relationship between Christ and Church, is there a male element and female element? What are the relevant points of analogy here? The relevant understanding seems to me that the relationship between Christ and his Church has nothing to do with gender, but with the self-sacrificial love each has for the other. Christ gave himself up for the Church, and the Church gives itself up to him. That’s the element that marriage reflects. Unless the Church is a woman….
Also, what’s the primary expression of Christian faith? It’s NOT marriage. The greatest metaphor and analogy comes in the Baptism and Eucharist. Mentions of gender or marriage? None, unless you count Christ’s maleness, which I can’t see as relevant here (but which might be relevant in a discussion on the ordination of women). Mentions of God’s extraordinary, selfless love for his people? Five in Baptism, and I find five in Eucharist. And you’ll find the same pattern throughout the “lesser” sacraments — the emphasis is not on institutions, but on love. Love — regardless of ascriptions — is and should be the central concern of the Christian faith.
Third, is this a threat? “Should these events occur, the majority of the Primates anticipate convening an extraordinary meeting at which they too will respond to the actions of General Convention.” I think it is. How “christian” (small-c intentional) is a threat? Are we supposed to work out our salvation in love or threat?
Fourth, in portraying themselves as the “mainstream,” these bishops engage in a lie, or at least a disingenuousness. There are 39 Anglican primates. Only six signed this statement, all of whom have stated their ideas on the record before. We know what they think. Of the 300 living US bishops, active and retired, only 15 signed; only 10 of those can actually vote on the matters at hand. They represent in number of communicants, less than 10 percent of the church. Most Episcopalians and Anglicans are probably much more middle of the road that either side would have us believe. This may make both “sides” uneasy, but I have hope that the majority are willing to at least start some sort of process of discussion, inquiry, and resolution.
Fifth, Archbishop Akinola. From his provincial website: “In the aftermath of the recent violent protests…resulting in many deaths, injuries and loss of properties, Most Revd Peter Akinola, has warned that repeated unprovoked attacks on Christians would be met with stiff resistance, warning that Christians have already turned the other cheek and there was no more they could turn….Akinola said if Christians are pushed to the wall, they would be forced to defend themselves.” My question to the archbishop: where would he be if Christ had taken that attitude somewhere on the Via Dolorosa?
Or what about this comment of the man of God? “‘I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don’t hear of such things.
“‘When we sit down globally as a communion, I am going to sit in a meeting with a man who is marrying a fellow man,’ he added. ‘I mean it’s just not possible. I cannot see myself doing it.'”
Since we (GLBT people) are lower than cows, he won’t commune with us. Leaving aside the biology here (’cause he’s wrong about that too), let’s look at Akinola’s theology. Again, the dichotomy between the commandments of his faith and his bigotry cuts him off from others with whom he claims to share the love of God. Doesn’t seem like a very deep or transformative experience of God to me. Jesus ate dinner with whores, corrupt politicians, lepers and other designated untouchables, but His priest seems unwilling to do even that, at least by his comments.
What’s the second new commandment? “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No conditions, no clauses, no elisions. Perhaps the problem is that Mr. Akinola has very little love for himself. His friends might have the very same problem. From all we know, we don’t know.
Sixth, Archbishop Akinola is from Nigeria, for God’s sakes. I study international relations. I speak from some authority when I say that his country and church have got more serious matters to deal with than sexuality in the American church. Interreligious violence, the mass corruption that is endemic in Nigerian society, an AIDS pandemic, and several countries in the surrounding region that are “failed states”. And this is what he comes up with to spend a huge amount of his time on? (He’s been the most outspoken primate on sexuality issues.) Speck and plank, my friend.
Kendall’s site is a great one, and I have the feeling that we could have a great conversation about these issues and others. I don’t know that we would agree, but we certainly seem to both be willing to have the conversation and, I hope, to grow in love with one another.
(Ken, in light of what I wrote above about Akinola and most of the public statements that come out of his mouth, I’m a bit skeptical about what you wrote. “I was just with Peter Akinola for two days, and he struck me as a man of deep spiritual insight and authority.” But I’m open to belief that my mind can change. However, it seems to me that, at least in public, he’s got a lot of room to grow in these respects. At the very least, he needs to work at being less intentionally provocative and insulting. But I’m willing to have faith that since we’re both adherents of a transformative religion, he may one day be able to see I’m not lower than the animals, and I may be able see his insight and authority.)
I’m tired of this battle. I have been fighting it since I grew up evangelical, and I came to the Episcopal Church not because it was good about gays but because it seemed to me to be binding up the wounds of society and its members better than the conservative evangelical churches I experienced. And as long as we focus on sexuality, we leave hungry people to starve, poor people to suffer and die, abused people to die internally and externally, prisoners and prisonkeepers to treat each other violently, and all of us not to be ministers and minstrees of grace and love.
When we’re called to account for our sins, whether in this life or the next, the accounting will not be for whether we were right or wrong about gay sexuality. We’ll have to explain why we continued to be obsessed with our penises and vaginae instead of taking care of a world in need.
Ecto blogging software
27 July 2003 at 1:09 pm.
I’ve spoken with my theologian(s), and the marriage metaphor is more complex in theology than either Anglican conservatives or me think. There’s a vassal-lord component to marriage as Paul apparently describes it and as much of medieval and early modern theology addresses it. But only within the last few decades, as the idea of marriage has moved from a property contract model to a love model (relatively) have we had to think in new ways (not at the expense of old) about this analogy.
Anyway, the point is that it’s all much more complex than the rhetoric would have one believe. But to say that the admission of gay people to marriage denudes the nature of the relationship between Christ and his Church indicates a very restrictive theology.
30 July 2003 at 1:09 pm.
One more thing.
No matter what Archbishop Akinola thinks of the “practices” of homosexuals, he has an obligation to treat all of his brothers and sisters in the Baptismal covenant as that — brothers and sisters. Whether gay and lesbian people are wrong or right, we are in the same relationship to Christ that he is. Archbishop Akinola, even though he seems not to want to even acknowledge this, is inextricably and irrevokably linked to gay and lesbian people, women, and all sorts of other people who are presumably “stained.” Through baptism into Christ’s death and life, we are linked to Him with all sorts of other people, all of whom we are commanded to love.
But ranking some of God’s children as lower than cattle and such does not appear to fulfill the commandment of love. By their works shall we know them?
I don’t mean to sound vituperative, but Akinola doesn’t seem to be demonstrating the transformational power of the Gospel and God’s love. And that’s why I doubt his credentials of spiritual integrity.
(I included this comment on Ken’s site.)