Goddard2Goddard Letter 7 part 2: Giles to Andrew

I have read your responses to the Episcopal Church's General Convention in Columbia and to the deliberations of the Subcommittee set up to consider TEC's response to the Windsor Report. A friend of mine described them as "resolutely uncharitable” but they come across to me more as affronted; it's almost as though you are asking how an institution which claims to be Anglican can dare act in such a way, and how a Subcommittee of the Anglican Communion cannot see the outrageousness of TEC's behaviour!

I say these things because I am beginning to wonder whether the conflict in which we are all involved is not a result of these different understandings of Anglicanism. And it seems to me that this conflict is in danger of becoming a sickness which will affect the health and life of the Communion and undermine our mission.

The problem is that my position - our position - is solidly, classically orthodox Anglican. I have said to you before that I was deeply impressed by the Anglican conviction which underlay the deliberations of General Convention 2006. We (progressives) recognise that the Communion did not stop developing with the passage of resolution 1.10 at Lambeth 1998; we recognise that we are being led into truth by the Spirit; we derive our position from a proper, detailed consideration of the scriptures in the light of reason and tradition. You implied in your last letter that I read the scriptures expecting to find a certain result; in fact, I reached the views I have on scripture - which required a significant change - after many years of agonised study, reflection, prayer and learning.

It seems to me that homosexuality is, for many conservatives a "presenting cause”. Under it lies a desire which, if realised, would bend the Anglican Communion out of shape. Moving it away from the breadth and diversity which has been the Anglican watchword (mainly) since the Elizabethan Settlement and making it into a confessional church more along the lines of some of the reformation churches of the Continent. Thus conservatives are setting up a conflict within themselves - dividing their own house, so to speak - and in dividing their house they are finding it cannot stand. Hence, anger and frustration. Which in its turn finds its way into the progressive part of the church… leading towards a descending spiral out of love and into darkness.

We have to move on. We are bringing the church and the Gospel into disrepute by our undignified and anguished arguments.

We have to rediscover that hermeneutic of love through which we are led to understand the scriptures, so that we can reaffirm the gift we have been given which is the Gospel as lived out through the Anglican Communion.

The listening process needs to form part of this process of moving on. But I am starting to wonder whether conservative evangelicals aren't beginning to fear that a genuine listening process is a Trojan horse, which will require them to give up dearly held views on human sexuality. And that, as such, it must not be undertaken seriously - more as a sop to lesbian and gay people in exchange for the massive sacrifices we, and TEC, are being asked to undergo.

I think that need not be the case. The problem with our correspondence so far, it seems to me, is that you have not been able to acknowledge that there may be potential that my view might have validity. If you were able to do that, we could then move on to working out what an Anglican Communion which contained different views on human sexuality as expressed in loving relationships might look like. The listening process, to be meaningful, needs, explicitly, to contain a recognition that alternative views may be held with integrity; that those who think like me need not automatically be expelled from the Communion.

The value of theological diversity is not about 'you have your opinion and I have mine'. There are opportunities to learn from one another if there is exchange and sharing. And if people with different experiences and views can worship together, talk and listen to one another and cooperate to try to bring in the Kingdom of God, maybe the Holy Spirit will get a chance to shine through and help us all towards a deeper understanding of the truth.

I acknowledge that there are those who believe that the views I hold and way I love will lead God to reject me, and who believe that they are doing me and everyone else a favour by emphasising how serious it is to accept same-sex relationships as potentially valid. Their understanding of the promises in the Gospels and what Jesus says about the character of God is clearly very different from mine. But in any case, why single this issue out above all others (Anglican churches for instance include peace activists and soldiers whom they may believe have engaged in murder, but somehow they co-exist) and why is it suddenly necessary to achieve uniformity of belief when this has not been the Anglican way through the centuries?

So my question to you and to your fellow conservatives, before we return to the vexed questions around homosexuality, is - are you prepared to allow the potential for a diversity of views on this subject within full members of the Communion? If you are, we can begin to find a way forward together. If not, then, clearly, in the end, a split must come.

I have the prophet Isaiah in my head as we move towards Holy Week and Easter. In particular, second Isaiah. In particular, Isa 43.19 -

Behold, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

In love and fellowship

Giles

[ For part 1 of this letter, please click on www.inclusivechurch.net/article/details.html

For an explanation of the project, go to www.inclusivechurch.net/article/details.html ]