Toronto, April 16, 2007
Transcribed by Sue Careless,
News Editor of the Anglican Planet.
Not all the questions posed were clearly audible. After a few introductory remarks about being “delighted to be here” the Archbishop announced that he would visit the United States.
It’s taken a few weeks to put together all the details with a number of members of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council. These are complicated days for our church internationally so all the more important to keep up personal relationships and conversations of this kind.
I intend to visit the US [sometime during the scheduled House of Bishops meeting Sept. 20-25 in New Orleans] and whatever may have been said in the press in the last few weeks, there had never been any suggestion that I should decline that invitation. It’s a complicated job putting together a diary for a large number of people.
Yes, these are difficult days because the Communion in recent years has had to face the fact that the division on certain subjects, especially sexuality, has been getting much more deep and bitter and threatening to divide us. My aim is to try and keep people at the table for as long as possible to understand one another and to encourage local churches not only on this side of the Atlantic but elsewhere to ask what they might need to do to keep in that conversation, to keep around the table.
What will you say to those Anglicans who are going to General Synod in Winnipeg who will be voting on whether dioceses can vote on whether to have same-sex blessings? Have you got a word for them in advance of this historic gathering?
There is a touch of catch-22 about this. If I give a very strong steer, people will say I’m a colonial bully; if I don’t, people will say other things. What I would say is ask the question: “What is for the health of the Body of Christ both locally and globally?” People will answer that question in good faith in different ways.
How do you account for your evolution away from being inclusive of gay and lesbian people to now being actively opposed to their full inclusion in the Church?
Well that’s quite a pointed question, isn’t it? It’s partly an evolution of different kinds of responsibility in the Church. As a theologian and as a teacher for many years naturally I had the liberty to raise certain questions and to express personal opinions on the matter. As a bishop I have to keep people around the table in discussion on this. I’ve tried to say throughout that I’m strongly and consistently opposed to anything that suggests that gay and lesbian Christians are less than human, less than fully baptized, good faith members in the Church. The question is what are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom and authority to bless? And for the Anglican Church that is not a question that can be settled by fiat means. What’s for the health of the Church? Can we maintain unity on this? Can we move ahead together in this rather than having different people finding different solutions?
Do you feel that the unity of the Anglican Church is more important than the full inclusion of homosexual and lesbian persons?
I don’t see that as an either/or, for any attempt to include gays and lesbians in the local church has to include how they are going to be included in the life of the whole Church--not just one corner of it. So if there is to be any change in the Church’s attitude to gay and lesbian persons then I hope it will be a change in the attitude of the Church as a whole. Otherwise it becomes just one group saying, “Well it’s alright with us.” and that doesn’t really help the church as a whole. Second point, it is a question on which there is real and principled disagreement. It’s not just about nice people who want to include gay and lesbian Christians and nasty people who don’t. What are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom to bless and be faithful to Scripture, tradition and reason? That is the question that is tearing us apart at the moment because there are real differences of conviction.
How would you describe the process?
Slow because we are a very dispersed church. We don’t have a single, central executive so it takes that much longer. And the lack of that central executive makes it so much more complex. I don’t want to see a situation where there is a central executive but the cost is patience. It bears particularly heavily on those who still feel they are the objects of prejudice or exclusion in the Church.
You’ve been accused of being indecisive. How do you handle that charge? When does slow consultation become indecision?
I’ve had, in the last few years, to make a number of decisions which have been complex and often unwelcomed and hard to sustain. I hope I haven’t shrunk from making those kinds of decisions. At the same time there are some kinds of decisions that I can’t make solo. I need to make them along with my colleagues. I need to allow the time to be taken so that when a decision is made it really is owned. I would rather a slower process of decision-making that ends up with a decision that is more fully owned and agreed.
[Question about the Episcopal Church’s initial rejection of the Primates’ Communiqué]
I’m still waiting to see what the Episcopal Church will come up with as an alternative. The reaction from the Episcopal Church was a very strongly worded protest against what was seen as interference, although that wasn’t the intention of the primatial Communiqué. So the next question is “If not that, then what?” Is there another possibility on the table? I’ve spoken privately to people in the United States and am waiting to see what opens up.
[Question about the power of the primates]
It’s not a question of central authority. The primates do represent their churches. And although people have said this is prelacy as opposed to democracy the fact is every primate of the Anglican Communion works within a synodical and consultative system. Every primate within the Anglican Communion is elected. My own experience as I travel round the Communion--as I speak with people on the ground--it’s not as if their primate doesn’t represent what they are saying. Second point: the primates cannot make decisions for any province. Where we’ve come to is the primates’ meeting felt it needed to spell out possible consequences of continuing division or diversity in practice and to suggest some ways in which the unwelcomed consequences might be avoided. Those proposals are there on the table but they can’t be imposed, of course.
If there are irreconcilable differences, isn’t a schism inevitable?
It’s possible we may come to a point where people feel there are irreconcilable differences. And one of the things that seriously complicates the discussion is a certain overlap between the question of human rights that is civic and human dignities appropriate for gay and lesbian people in a democratic society and the question of what the Church theologically can approve or endorse. That latter question can’t just be settled by appeal to human rights. That’s what complicates the matter.
Will we get to an irreconcilable point? I can’t say. Naturally I hope we will find a way of working together on this because I believe very passionately that we need each other in the Anglican Communion. I believe that an Anglican Communion divided into–to use the stereotypes--a liberal segment and a conservative segment would be very much impoverished on both sides. And to the degree that that would isolate some of the churches in the so-called developed world from some of the more vulnerable churches of the global south, once again, all would be the losers.
I was recently at the conference in Johannesburg dealing with how the Anglican Communion is responding to the Millennium Development Goals. I was profoundly aware of the amount of work that is being done cooperatively across the Communion, even across theological divisions, on some of these Development Goals. I’m very reluctant to see that work imperiled.
So back to the question of unity and rights again. The loss of unity is not just the loss of some kind of institutional fiction; it’s a wound in an organism that tries to work together and that’s why it’s worth preserving as far as we can.
How much is the current controversy really about sex and morality and how much is it about formerly missionized countries asserting their place in the Anglican Communion?
An important question. There is a deeply global political element to this, a sense in some churches that others are making decisions for them, in a way that the West or the North have always made decisions on behalf of other people. Let me illustrate that. Both in ecumenical relations and in interfaith relations the decisions of the Episcopal Church have had complicating consequences. If you’re an Anglican Christian in Sudan or in South Korea or the Pacific you may very well feel that you are associated with a decision made by somebody else that has consequences for you locally that you haven’t chosen. There is a great deal of resentment and uncertainty arising from that. “We didn’t vote for this yet we have to carry the consequences locally.”
Is the Anglican Church obsessed with sex?
No. We’re trapped by questions about sex at the moment. If you ask almost any of our primatial colleagues, “Is this the subject you want to be taking about?” they would say no. But decisions have been made, problems have been raised which have proved very intractable. We’re drawn back into it again and again.
What level of consensus is needed?
General Synod will have to answer that for itself. I hope whatever decision is made will be made out of a resolution to maintain the highest degree of communion possible across the Anglican world, and not just to say “That is an unfortunate casualty.” Secondly, with some awareness of what level of consensus is needed for a church to go forward with a sense that a decision is owned--not just by a slender majority--but by a solid, defensible body of prayerful opinion.”
[There was also one question and answer on the environment.]
If General Synod does decide to allow dioceses to make their own decisions about same-sex unions what effect will that have on global Anglicanism? What signal will it send?
I won’t go into reactions to hypothetical outcomes but I don’t think it takes rocket science to work out that it will pose some problems.
You are a theologian. What doctrinal issues are involved in same-sex blessings?
Two doctrinal questions are tied in with same-sex blessings. First is the doctrine of marriage. Is there more than one form of covenanted sexual union that is sacramental of God’s grace? The Church has always said: only marriage is sacramental. The second is, what about the authority of Scripture and indeed of Tradition. I think there is more than one way of answering that, but that is clearly one of the questions.
You spoke earlier of not basing an important decision on simply a slender majority. Is sixty percent, which is currently the figure being proposed for local option, sufficient, or should the traditional canonical way hold, of a majority in all three houses over two consecutive General Synods?
I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on local issues.
If you had the decision to make over again, would you have become the Archbishop of Canterbury or would you have remained a theologian and the Primate of Wales?
I think it’s completely useless to speculate about that. I took on this job in the belief that I was called by God to do it and when God calls you to do things he never shows you the small print.
What outcome would you hope for in your meeting with the American bishops?
The minimum I’d hope for is simply a better understanding of the issues the primates are attempting to communicate on their part and a better understanding on the part of myself and the other members of the Primates’ Committee of what the evident problems are of the American Church’s constitution which are holding us up a bit.
Who will make the final decision on the issue of same-sex blessings?
Anglicans will answer it for themselves, eventually. The particular job I’ve been given to do is to steer and pastor the church in the process of discernment. I’m not like a prime minister elected with a manifesto to implement nor am I like a Pope who can end a discussion by fiat. My job is like that of a bishop in any diocese, trying to explain people to one another, creating an atmosphere of prayer in which it’s possible to make a decision that is not just reactive and prejudiced, and see how the Church moves forward. I know that sounds a very modest description of the Archbishop’s job but I think probably an accurate one. I have to be a servant of the churches and put into the discussion whatever I can of qualification, alternative perspective, which can look like time-wasting but I think in God’s timetable it isn’t. I say that in faith.
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