I once interviewed Professor Timothy Sedgwick after he addressed clergy in the Diocese of Colorado in the early 1990s. More than a decade before General Convention confirmed Gene Robinson as the ninth Bishop of New Hampshire, Sedgwick predicted that the Episcopal Church could not live forever in the cognitive dissonance between its official teaching and its practice on sexuality. More important, at least to my memory, was Sedgwick’s plea that whichever side prevailed ought to show grace to those wounded by the changes.
I thought of Sedgwick’s pastoral words while writing about General Convention last year, and I’ve thought about them again while awaiting the report of the Lambeth Commission. Speculation has been rife in the British press since the commission submitted its report to the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s as it should be. Reporters are paid to break exclusive stories, and they shouldn’t have to sit like passive schoolchildren if sources are willing to talk.
Still, some of the speculation has sounded more dramatic than even the most optimistic conservative might have dreamed: the Episcopal Church will be expelled from the Anglican Communion; Bishop Robinson personally will be expelled (if that were even possible); many British clergy may resign in protest. Neither the Anglican Communion as a whole nor its many committees are known to have a vocation of making radical decisions. While most speculation in the British press suggests that the Episcopal Church faces some form of discipline from the broader communion, I will be surprised if the commission’s report does not provide disappointments for the left and the right.
As I write this speculative column about a report I cannot yet read, I’ll mention some of my hopes for the Episcopal Church on the other side of the report’s public release. During the next year, I hope my fellow Episcopalians will:
- Listen attentively. Let’s heed not just the words of the Lambeth Commission, but also the spiritual concerns behind those words. No report can quite capture the precarious state of the Anglican Communion today. If you think this conflict simply represents a déjà vu moment of what greeted women’s ordination, I’m not sure you’re counting Anglican primates’ miters adequately. Papua New Guinea once offered to stand in solidarity with Episcopalians who did not ordain women as priests. Nigeria, with its more than 17 million Anglicans, is not merely the Papua New Guinea of 2004. Neither is Kenya. Neither is Uganda.
- Show some grace. It is distressing to watch various bishops’ responses when a priest joins the Anglican Mission in America or otherwise seeks adequate Episcopal oversight from another province. Almost without fail, bishops will inhibit such priests (in a church version of “You can’t quit, you’re fired”) and file lawsuits to keep the parish’s buildings within the diocese.
Yes, the ideal is that any departing priest or congregation will leave behind all property and possessions, and most courts may indeed affirm the legal right for the Episcopal Church to retain this golden handcuff. But have our conflicts grown so entirely toxic that our only hope of resolution rests with lawyers and judges? If the majority of a parish remains in the Episcopal Church only because it doesn’t want to lose its building, is this spiritual unity? Is it reconciliation? Is it justice? Have we learned nothing from Scripture’s warnings about legalism?
Ask yourself: How much do I love being an Anglican Christian? Am I willing to make any sacrifices for the sake of broader Anglicanism? What might I sacrifice that wouldn’t violate my deepest theological convictions?
Ask this too: What do I understand Anglicanism to be? My friend and colleague Terry Mattingly loves to recall a moment from the Shaping Our Future conference, which occurred nearly a decade ago in St. Louis. The Rev. Jon Shuler, chief organizer of the conference, asked the rhetorical question of whether Anglicanism has a unique chrism. The Rev. Stephen Freeman offered a one-word answer, “Compromise,” and he didn’t mean it as a compliment.
I think compromise can still be a gift of Anglicanism, but I have no idea how we might compromise between those Anglicans who consider homosexuality a God-given orientation and those who consider homosexual activity sinful. I think many good-natured and sincere people across the theological spectrum love the gifts of the Anglican Communion. May our love for God, for Anglicanism and for each other somehow be enough to help us think through this issue with patience and humility.
To respond to this column, write to Episcopal Life or e-mail edge@episcopal-life.org.
