A House Divided
As noted on this blog, the Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser, Vicar of Putney, is spending a bit of his sabbatical with us here at All Saints Church in Pasadena. Here's his piece on the Anglican Civil Wars posted in today's Guardian:
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The American civil war began with the secession of South Carolina from the United States. They left so as to defend their "right" not to have a liberal agenda imposed on them by campaigning progressives from the north. Interfering do-gooders weren't going to force proudly independent southerners to accept that slavery was wicked.
Parallels with the escalating crisis within American Anglicanism are now being made. The diocese of Pittsburgh, led by Bishop Bob Duncan, has just voted to quit the Episcopal church, and other conservative dioceses in the south might follow suit. They are sick to death of liberals telling them that gay is the new black. They want independence to protect their homophobia. And so they have reinvented the idea of the confederacy.
Whatever else can be said about this analysis - and conservatives do their nut about it - this is the script through which liberal US Christians understand the theological culture wars over homosexuality. To them the argument over gay bishops is manifestly a civil-rights issue that requires strong leadership and moral determination: General Grant and Abraham Lincoln. That is why US progressives are so frustrated with Rowan Williams, for the only thing he has in common with Lincoln is the beard.
In 1858 Lincoln famously quoted from Matthew 12:25 to insist that "a house divided against itself cannot stand". For Lincoln, all talk of compromise was useless: the idea that each state determines its own attitude to slavery was morally indefensible and politically unsustainable.
The nightmare for Williams is that if Lincoln's basic philosophy is correct then Anglicanism is in deep trouble - and so too is the Church of England, which is, almost by design, a house divided against itself. The fact that 46 members of the church's general synod, its parliament, have this week written to Bishop Duncan expressing their support for his secessionism, bodes very ill.
Effectively, the C of E is a peace treaty between Puritans and Catholics forged in response to the religious culture wars of the 16th and 17th centuries that drenched Europe in blood. As a reaction, compromise and a deep dislike of ideology became the defining genius of the English church - and, through that, the English national character.
The C of E was a peculiar settlement that kept most Christians, despite their huge theological differences, around the same communion table. The moral of the American civil war - at least for progressives - is that what is right requires strength of purpose to force through the cause of justice. In contrast, the moral of the English civil war is that unqualified belief in one's own rightness can lead to violent and destructive chaos.
Thus far the Archbishop of Canterbury has maintained the traditional Anglican via media with impeccable impartiality, trying to hold things together with a generous policy of being kinder to his enemies than his friends. But the truth is, the only people who now believe that Anglicanism can survive the current crisis in one piece are those holed up in Lambeth Palace.
Both conservatives and liberals agree that a house divided cannot stand. The battle lines are drawn. Conservative theologians once defended slavery by refusing to accept the Bible as radically inclusive. Similarly, today's conservative theologians are twisting the Bible into bad news for homosexuals rather than good news for all. It's the very opposite of the gospel message of God's generous and inclusive love.
The head of the US church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has threatened the neo-confederate leadership with disciplinary action. Some US liberals hope she is leading the church to a new Gettysburg, a decisive victory over prejudice. Yet they may also recall that Gettysburg was one of the bloodiest days in US history. The fight for right is seldom cost-free. And this fight will be no exception. Glory, glory. Alleluia.
The Rev Dr Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney, is currently on placement at All Saints in Pasadena, California
12 comments:
i agree with your analysis, fr. fraser. there simply are times in human history when 'toleration' of another point of view, in this case, the homophobia of +duncan and his ilk, is not acceptable on moral grounds or on fidelity to the gospel.
ps: i was present for your homily at trinity cathedral in cleveland.
A very simplistic commentary by one who is ill-informed, and not Southern. Obviously the worn-out diatribe of the supremacy of the Northen intellect and morality has been swallowed wholesale. It would be a convenient "truth" to believe that 8 million Southerners were racist, ill-bred, and without moral compass. Amazing that the so-called tolerant people (especially LGBTs) are so judgmental in a way that they themselves decry against those who abuse THEM. The poverty of the opening statements disclose an inability to rationally approach issues except by polemic.
allen -- just for the record, Giles is English and straight.
To all my fellow LGBT and Straight Ally Christians,
As a self-identifying evangelical Christian (with all the trappings and beliefs that come with that in an Episcopal/Anglican form) and as a man with a stable bisexual identity who believes fundamentally that "gay is okay," I must say I have some sympathy with both sides.
On the one hand, I do believe this is a cloaked homophobia. On the other hand, it is an imposition of ideology on persons who have firmly said, "No!" to this. What is hard to accept is that an amlicable seperation is probably best for all parties.
The water gets particularly muddied when it becomes apparent their are financial and career-dependent issues involved. If we all seperate, those who depend on denominational structures stand to lose what pays the mortgage, pays the bills, and puts food on the table. The same goes for this vertible cottage industry of hate that has sprung up to "stop the gay agenda".
In the finaly analysis and a pretty sick sense, we need to all stay together in order to keep fighting in order to generate the revenue to support our careers.
Old theological arguments are revived, such as "we will not allow congregations to arise in the midst of established congregations" which were used by Anglicans against Congregationalists in the 16th and 17th century to keep people in the territorial organization by pointing a gun to their head in the form of taking their buildings if they leave "The Episcopal Church USA."
We should let our sisters and brother depart if they want to leave or we are no better than foreign primates telling us what to believe and how to worship our LORD.
Giles misunderstands Lincoln in part as I noted at Thinking Anglicans. Lincoln in fact was willing to compromise with those states that already allowed slavery as can be seen in the continued allowal of slavery in border states that did not secede from the Union. Only after secession did he move to free those enslaved in seceding states. Lincoln was an extremely complex person and his thinking about the human person is often difficult for Americans who are steeped in the Reformed waters that tend to black and white thinking.
Susan,
Never implied that Giles was anything except parroting old elitist ideals. Bottom line: his argument fails in the opening comments that the Civil War was a righteous cause of hard-working abolitionists against 8 million bigots. If one dares, please find and read, "The Burning" by John Heatwole. Gives a face and a depth to the 8 million "morally challenged" Southerners, and the "righteous" Northeners, including the thousands of European bounty-seekers who joined the Federal Army.
Now, if one wants to criticize Duncan, et al, there needs to be a better premise than the "righteous" versus the "bigot". That wide brush sweeps through the pews too and won't stand the test in the end.
Here is my response to Fr. Fraser:
http://thanksgivinginallthings.blogspot.com/2007/11/lets-get-our-history-straight.html
What a load of self aggrandizing bologna. The condescending narcissism, the hypocrisy, and the self important “suffering” that the aging 60s Boomers love to wallow in would be funny if it weren’t so destructive to everything they touch. People who pretend that the suffering they experience when people tell them that they just might be wrong really cheapens the real suffering that has occurred over the last several centuries.
What I find amusing is that the younger generation is doing exactly what the Boomer generation taught them to do: rebel against the Elders! Throw off Father's authority! And, of course, the Boomer generation, lost in its narcissistic fog, is so ill-prepared to deal with anything more substantial than an Ennegram workshop, simply cannot compute our total lack of interest in anything they have to say. By making themselves so radically relevant, they've guaranteed their irrelevance for eternity.
I hear an awful lot of blah, blah, blah here. I'm a 50 year old gay man with a 60 year old partner, a 20 year old gay son and I've been a church musician all my life. Do I tell the gay and lesbian teenagers in my community's youth group that this is a safe church for them to come to or not? Well? Most of them have been thrown out of the churches they grew up in and they want to know if this is a safe place. Some of them are bullied, some of their parents wish they'd never been born, some are suicidal, some are on the verge of homelessness. Do you give a shit about them or not?
Is this church going to be a safe place for queers to be part of a Christian Community? That is THE only relevant question. The rest is just evasion, transferance and hypocracy.
There is a lot of commentary here that seems, for me, to miss the point. I take the point, "a house divided cannot stand." That hits home. The issue for me, though, is whether it is the presenting issue of GLBT inclusion which is the one that is truly dividing the house, or the issue of what gives the Bible its authority, or-- better yet-- what allows the house to live in unity.
Focusing either on the presenting issue (which, of course, is terribly important) or on Biblical authority (which is important too) moves the house only further apart. The only way for this house to keep from ending up in the battle of Gettysburg-- if in fact it can-- is to figure out what allows the house to live in unity; what makes the house a house.
Simplistic answers like "Biblical authority" or "tradition" are not sufficient as even those who put forward those answers do not agree on what they really mean. It seems we have learned nothing from our bloody heritage of killing each other in order to achieve a via media.
j
Contentious American Civil War anologies aside, we are faced with a basic difference in understanding between two groups of principled people. One group believes that it is better to have conflicting opinions in a single church and the other believes that it is better to have conflicting churches, each with its own opinion. Can the two positions be reconciled?
I very much disagree that the issue is between two groups of principled people. The denegration of women and sexual minorities is not about principles. It is about the treatment of people - God's people. It is about withholding Christian community from people based upon their gender, and who they love. There are victims in this dispute, there is injustice in this dispute. Denying God's gay and lesbian children a place at the table very literally means kicking our own chidren out of the church. There are those seeking to leave the Episcopal Church who are honest enough to state that this is what they are about. Those in the global south have no trouble saying they not only want us out of the church, but want us killed or imprisoned. Imagine if you will, how gay couples explain to our children why they should be Christians. Much of the gay community views Christianity as the source of hate, intollerance, sexism and bigotry. The Episcopal church has a chance to prove that wrong, or just add itself to the huge list of those who've proved it right.
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