The Root of
the Present Anglican Crisis
By Dwight Longenecker
A friend
of mine who has never been a
member
of the Church of England has
been shocked by the recent
developments in the Anglican
Church. Within one month an
Anglican Diocese in Canada
has authorised and conducted
the first official ‘same-sex
weddings’, a homosexual man
who has left his wife and children
to live with his ‘partner’ has
been elected the new Anglican
bishop of New Hampshire and
Canon Jeffrey John, a homosexual
activist who maintains a relationship
with his long time lover, has
been appointed a bishop by
the Bishop of Oxford.
The present
crisis is not confined to Anglicans
of a lavender hue in the rarefied
air of Oxford. An American
correspondent of mine who is
a Catholic deacon told me that
at his clergy fraternal he
asked how many of his fellow
clergy would perform a ‘homosexual
marriage’. The ministers of
all the mainline Protestant
denominations put their hands
up. Only he and the Baptist
demurred.
But this
week the headlines are focussing
on the Anglicans. ‘What on
earth is going on?’ my friend
asked. ‘Do the Anglican bishops
really think this sort of thing
will bring ordinary people
back to church? Are they totally
ignorant of Scripture and the
church’s teaching? Are they
being vulgar, stupid and offensive
on purpose?’
I had to re-assure
my friend that Anglicans like
Rowan Williams and the Bishop
of Oxford do not mean to be
offensive. They are clearly
not stupid, and above all they
are never vulgar. Indeed, for
these apostles to the chattering
classes, vulgarity would be
the worst crime of all.
In fact,
an examination of the present
crisis’ root causes are fascinating,
and reveal some disturbing
truths not only about Anglicanism,
but modern Western Catholicism.
We can get to the root by asking
why intelligent, tasteful and
spiritually minded men like
Rowan Williams and Richard
Harries would ever wish to
support openly homosexual men
and women to be Christian leaders.
On one
level, they treat this issue
in the
same way that they approached
the issue of women’s ordination
ten years ago. Then three forms
of argument were predominant:
the sentimental, the utilitarian
and the political. The sentimental
says, ‘Canon Elton is a good,
prayerful man with a lovely
sense of humour. Why shouldn’t
he be a bishop? It would be
hurtful and unkind to exclude
him.’ The utilitarian recognises
that Canon Elton is a good
administrator, an able theologian
and a charming pastor and concludes
that he would do a good job.
The political is that not to
ordain Canon Elton would be
discriminatory. Indeed, one
of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
officials said, ‘We are not
in the business of discriminating
against people due to their
sexual preference.’
The reasoning
runs deeper than this however,
and it is this deeper level
which is most revealing. Archbishop
Williams’ own views are outlined
in a paper called The Body’s
Grace which was originally
delivered as an address in
1989. It is now
part of a series of essays
collected in Theology and
Sexuality (ed. Eugene Rogers,
Blackwells 2002). In his
essay Dr Williams argues that ‘good
sex’ is simply the sort where
each partner desires their
own arousal to generate a mutual
arousal in their partner. The
absence of any desire for this
mutual arousal is why rape,
paedophilia and bestiality
are "bad sex.” The Archbishop
then argues that biblical Christianity
endorses this understanding
of sex. He says that God's
intention is that sexual experience
should help us understand that
our needs can only be met by
giving to others.
So human
sexuality is simply the Golden
Rule for
bedtime: ‘Do unto others as
you would have them do unto
you.’ That seems to be it.
Any sex is okay as long as
you hope your partner is having
fun too. Thus the whole mystery
of human sexuality is reduced
to a ‘spiritual lesson’ of
the sort that might be found
on an inspirational greeting
card.
Dr Williams’ conclusions
might seem incredibly trite,
but he is no slouch theologically.
He has done his homework. He
condones homosexuality because
he has thought things through
and followed his own logic
home. It is in his concluding
comments in The Body’s Grace that
he reveals the prior assumptions
that bring him to his conclusions.
He concludes his essay by writing, ‘In
a church that accepts the legitimacy
of contraception, the absolute
condemnation of same-sex relations
of intimacy must rely either
on an abstract fundamentalist
deployment of a number of very
ambiguous biblical texts, or
on a problematic and nonscriptural
theory about natural complementarity,
applied narrowly and crudely
to physical differentiation
without regard to psychological
structures.’
In other
words, if we accept that there
is
no necessary link between the
sexual act and pro-creation
it is impossible to condemn
homosexuality except by recourse
to crude Biblical fundamentalism
or shallow arguments about
the ‘complementarity’ of male
and female that are really
only personal preferences.
If sex is for recreation and
not pro-creation, then why
shouldn’t homosexual sex be
a valid form of sexual expression
for those who are so inclined?
The Archbishop understands
the underlying issues perfectly,
and for this he must be admired.
If only some of our own Catholic
theologians were as clear minded.
When Dr
Williams’ links
homosexuality with contraception
one cannot help but think of
that most unpopular, subversive
and difficult of papal encyclicals: Humanae
Vitae. At the heart of
the document is Pope Paul VI’s
prophetic insistence that the
sexual act cannot be separated
from pro-creation without doing
violence to the whole concept
of marriage and sexual love.
In a paradoxical way, Rowan
Williams proves Paul VI’s point
when he says that a church
that accepts the legitimacy
of contraception cannot logically
ban homosexuality.
No matter what
struggles and quarrels we may
have with Humanae Vitae, we
must admit that it was a clear
and courageous pronouncement.
Paul VI refused to change the
church’s teaching because he
saw where it would lead. Happily,
the Catholic Church has not
been resting on her laurels
since 1968. Lest Humanae
Vitae be understood as
merely a negative statement,
Pope John Paul has used his
amazing teaching ministry to
amplify and expound the profound
meaning of human sexuality.
Between 1979
and 1984, during his Wednesday
audiences, he has given a systematic
theology of the human body.
His reflections are grounded
in his phenomenological philosophy,
scripture and tradition. They
discuss the history of humanity,
who we are and who we are meant
to be as men and women. He
applies his wisdom to the vocations
of marriage and celibacy to
bring out a rich understanding
of how our sexuality is interwoven
with our spirituality. John
Paul II, both in his Theology
of the Body and his earlier
work Love and Responsibility picks
up the baton from Paul VI and
show us a creative way forward
in this most troublesome of
areas. The church’s teaching
may not be to our liking. Her
views are extraordinarily difficult
to explain and to live out,
but we should give them a fair
hearing, because rejecting
them will lead us into the
same moral morass into which
our Protestant brothers are
now sinking.
This article
was first published in The
Catholic Herald—England’s
leading Catholic weekly.
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