Leader: Wheat and tares in Canterbury

Church Times editorial

IT CAME sooner than anyone had expected. On Tuesday, only the second day of the Lambeth Conference programme, the province of Sudan issued a statement about sexuality. There was nothing particularly new in the statement: we have heard for years the plea to sort out the sexuality issue so that the Church can stop being distracted and get back to the business of spreading the gospel and feeding the hungry. The sentiment is a universal one. The only thing that prevents its leading to agreement is the problem that, of course, everyone would like to sort out the sexuality issue in a different way. As we said last week (Leader comment) to those who suggested that the University of Kent campus would be full of liberals all agreeing with each other, nothing could be further from the truth. The Archbishop of Sudan, the Most Revd Daniel Deng, came to the press room after a meeting of Global South bishops attended by 150-200 bishops (he first suggested 400-500), and they all supported the Sudan statement, he said.

As a summation of what faces the Communion, the episode could hardly have been sharper. Not only was the statement unequivocal about what was expected of the Episcopal Church in the United States: Archbishop Deng went on to call for the resignation of the Bishop of New Hampshire, the gay man at the centre of the row; and he expressed no desire to listen to his story unless he repents. There were no gay people in Sudan, he said.

This is troubling stuff, especially when taken together with the GAFCON verdict that the latest draft of the Anglican Covenant falls far short of anything that the conservatives could work with. If there were any doubt in the bishops’ minds about what was expected of them at Lambeth, it ought to have evaporated by now. They have two more weeks to find a formula that might give the waiting Communion some hope. This is more than an affirmation of the Covenant, though that may be part of the solution. What has to be demonstrated is that the different factions are prepared to work together. Archbishop Deng seemed to suggest that the reason for the Sudanese presence at the Lambeth Conference was merely to express its will. Having done so, however, he must be active in finding a way forward. The Communion contains views other than his own, as he must know.

The Gospel appointed for last Sunday was the parable of the wheat and the tares. The bishops heard it expounded in Canterbury Cathedral. Its point is that all must live in the world side by side, leaving it to God to make his judgement at the final harvest. If coexistence is the only solution foreseeable to the bishops, here is good authority for it.