Anglican Primates at Canterbury: do they hear the still, small voice?

Through a resolution of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, bishops of the Anglican Communion committed themselves and their churches to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons and .... to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ." At the heart of that commitment was an acknowledgement by many of the bishops present in 1998, of the pain experienced by gay Christians, whose lives of loving and being loved were not being affirmed, nor celebrated as given and blessed by God, but rather were being diminished, and even rejected.

It is astonishing, therefore, that the Primates in their statement (later added to their final communiqué as Addendum A) at the end of their discussions in Canterbury last week, speak only of the “deep pain” throughout the Communion, caused by a recent change to the marriage Canon of the Episcopal Church (of the U.S.A.). In the statement itself there is no reference to the continued suffering of LGBT people, not only in much of Africa and Asia, but even in North America and parts of Europe. Threats and intimidation, physical violence, verbal abuse, denial of civil rights and employment opportunities, and exclusion from Christian fellowships, are on the rise, not decreasing. However fine the Bishops’ words sounded back in 1998, in practice love and support for LGBT people simply has not happened in many parts of the Anglican Communion. The North American churches stand alone as exceptional in their unconditional, sacrificial love for them.

In the Primates’ communiqué there was, it has to be said, a repeated acknowledgement that the Anglican Communion has acted “in a way towards people on the basis of their sexual orientation that has caused deep hurt .... and the Primates reaffirm their rejection of criminal sanctions”. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the press conference gave a personal apology to lesbian and gay people which seemed sincere. Yet in most countries represented by the Primates, there is still repressive legislation against LGBT people, and many of the Primates have returned home and will continue to support it. Even Justin Welby will, no doubt, continue to argue that the Church of England should be exempt from much of the landmark U.K. equality legislation and its outlawing of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which has transformed the lives of so many LGBT people in the U.K.

But perhaps we should not have been so surprised that the Primates’ statement refers only to the deep pain of heterosexual persons who are opposed to the full inclusion and acceptance of baptised LGBT people. It is my understanding that there has not been much listening to LGBT people’s experiences in many provinces of the Communion over the last 18 years. Even in Wales, where we have had, belatedly, consultations on same-sex relationships, few LGBT people openly took part. That may be because since 1998 they have become a rare species in the Church in Wales, as many have opted for self-exclusion.

 However, though the failure of many parts of the Communion to listen to the voices of LGBT people is serious, it is not as serious as the unwillingness to be open to what the Holy Spirit may be saying through those voices, or even to be open to the possibility that LGBT people have the Spirit at all. Yet I believe there is evidence in the Primates’ statement that the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit is finding a way through the clamour of the demands of some of them for “godly order”. For the statement acknowledges that more than one view of marriage is now held within the Communion, and that it is possible more provinces will soon take the Episcopal Church’s position. Yet all, with the exception of Uganda for the moment, “desire to walk together”. A significant majority of Primates refused to back a call for the Episcopal Church to withdraw completely from the Communion. There is some comfort in that.

So there seems to me to be a tacit acceptance amongst the majority of Primates, that the traditional understanding and doctrine of marriage, as many of them see revealed in the Biblical witness, may not be God’s final revelation on the subject. I feel so grateful to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry for standing and speaking up for LGBT people, and that his and others’ still, small voices were probably heard and heeded in the end.

I express my sincere condolences to Wales’s Archbishop Barry on the death of his dear wife Hilary, and my sympathy for his own personal pain at this time, which meant, of course, that he could not join the other Primates in Canterbury. If he had been able to go there last week, I am sure his would have been one of those still, small voices. So I am optimistic that the Church in Wales will be one of those provinces which will, in the near future, decide to celebrate the relationships of same-sex couples, and to offer generously and unconditionally God’s blessing on them. Enough people will, before long, accept that it is possible that the doctrine of marriage we now work with, can develop and change.

Human understanding of God and God’s creation has changed and developed through the last 20 centuries of the Christian Church's, and, as indeed the witness of both Old and New Testament faith communities demonstrate, it always has done. People of faith must, to be sure, consider the witness of past generations, and assess their own experience of God’s ways in the light of that witness. But then they must respond to what God is doing now, through the Spirit, in the lives of God’s people. That includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.