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VirtueOnline - News - Exclusives - AUCKLAND: ABC Says Majority of Anglican Communion Will Never Accept SS Marriage:
AUCKLAND, NZ: Archbishop of Canterbury Says Majority of Anglican Communion Will Never Accept Same Sex Marriage
By David W. Virtue in Auckland, NZ
www.virtueonline.org
October 26, 2102
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams told more than 2000 Anglicans gathered for the ACC-15 welcoming ceremony at Telstra Pacific Center that the vast majority of Anglicans will never come to terms with same sex marriage. He added that while some will recognize "public partnerships" they are not sure marriage is right.The opening fanfare of the 15th the Anglican Consultative Council's brought the Archbishop of Canterbury on a Pacific tour that included Papua New Guinea in his final swan song before he departs as leader of the Anglican Communion. It also brought together the Anglican Communion's most liberal glitterati that include US Presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Southern Africa Archbishop Thabo Makgoba and other Anglican leaders from across the globe.
However the Ugandans took a decision about two years ago not to participate in the Anglican Instruments, so they are not present. Kenya, on the other hand has sent three representatives. The Province of Nigeria is represented by New Zealand born CANA/ACNA Bishop Julian Dobbs. Notably absent are representatives of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) primates and numerous archbishops of the Global South who are shunning this event having made clear that they will have nothing to do with the left leaning ACC that has ignored their concerns over the drift of several branches of Western Anglicanism that have wandered away from gospel imperatives, endorsing a variety of sexualities that have no biblical base, and caused profound eruptions in the communion.
The multi-cultural event held mainly in Maori saw an aging group of mostly white people listening to a mostly Maori service. The civic welcome opened in the native Maori language and Maori hakas brought smiles and laughter from the audience in the opening moves by Maori Anglicans. Marching in procession behind them were young New Zealanders carrying signs representing Central Africa, Congo, The Episcopal Church, Hong Kong, Indian Ocean, Japan, Kenya, Korea Melanesia, Mexico, Burma (Myanmar), Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, North India, Rwanda, Philippines, Scottish Episcopal Church, SE Asia, Southern Cone of America, South India, Southern Africa, Sudan, Wales, West Africa, Sudan, West Africa, West Indies, Aotearoa (New Zealand).
A panel of four archbishops of the Communion that included Dr. Williams, Thabo Makgoba of Southern Africa, NZ Archbishop Winston Halapua of the Tikanga Pasefika, which includes the Diocese of Polynesia, and US Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori fielded questions in a lively give and take with Anglican youth.In response to a question by one young Anglican student on the issue of same sex marriage, Williams replied, that the short answer is that the Anglican Church has quite a lot to say about this issue but it's not always the same thing.
"For the vast majority of Anglicans in the world the idea of same-sex marriage is not one they can come to terms with. Even those who want to say that some kind of recognized public partnership for people of the same sex is a good thing, even they are not too sure whether calling it marriage is right if 'marriage' is something with all the symbolic and theological focus that it's had in the Bible and in history."
Williams said the disagreements must focus people on "another set of very delicate and difficult issues" around the fact that Christians "have been rejecting and even violent towards people with same-sex attraction and we have a lot of repenting to do there."
Jefferts Schori acknowledged "many people have found it difficult to hear what the Episcopal Church has said about these issues through its General Convention."
"Our understanding as a whole church is that people with same-sex attraction seek the same ability in life to live in a covenanted relationship with another person whom they love, that that can be a good thing, that human beings were not created to live alone - that is what Genesis says - and that therefore the church's task is to help all human beings live in holy relationships that can show the love of God to a world much in need of it," she said.
The Episcopal Church has been having this conversation for 50 years and we do not all agree, added the Presiding Bishop.
"Where we differ is what that [covenanted relationship] looks like, and that's where the conversation is having its most creative possibility. I doubt that we will ever all agree about what that covenanted or holy relationship will look like and what the boundaries are but, if we are unable to have the conversation, we are going to do violence to human beings who need not to live alone."
Calling the question "a pastoral matter," Makgoba said there is pain on all sides of the issue, adding "what is important is to respect the dignity of each person as created in God."
"As one of my predecessors once said about this: 'the Holy Spirit is not yet finished with us on this matter,'" he noted.
New Zealand Aotearoa Archbishop Winston Halapua of Polynesia said NZ is on a journey with this pastoral matter. "It is painful that the church is divided over this. What is important is to respect the dignity of all people involved. The Holy Spirit has not yet finished with us on this matter."
Asked by one young Anglican if it was fun being leader of the church, Williams replied, "It is unavoidable to take some decisions in the name of the whole church and you know that they are going to hurt people very badly and you just have to be aware of the need to stay with the people that it hurts, and do the best you can," Williams said, adding that that reality about decision-making is not limited to the church and its bishops.
Asked whether it is fun being the leader of the Anglican Communion, Williams replied, "It depends which day of the week you ask me."
He went on to make a distinction between something being fun versus being joyful.
"And when I thank God for calling me to this job, which I do sometimes - sometimes through gritted teeth - I say thank you for the joy, the unexpected joy, even when it's not exactly fun," he noted.
Another young person raised the issue of women priests and added that some parts of the communion do not have priests. Archbishop Makgoba replied that the Anglican Church should have women priests, "All are created in God's image. God has no favorites, God has called us all of us to serve. We have had women priests for 20 years in Southern Africa."
Dr. Williams said attitudes have changed very rapidly and agreed with his two fellow bishops that while "we rightly celebrate the way in which women's ordained ministry has become part of the life of so many bits of the Anglican Communion," all of society must pay attention to the larger issue of the "dignity and security of women."
The question, he explained, of "whether we live in a society that degrades women, a society that doesn't allow women to be safe, a society which turns its face away from violence against women" is going to be "very much on our agenda during the weeks ahead."
Questioned on why the [Anglican] Church seems to be declining and why should young people join the Anglican Church, Jefferts Schori said the Anglican tradition has a lot to offer. "We should not accept answers handed down, but to wrestle with in Holy Scripture.
The New Zealand archbishop said, "You are the church today, challenge us."
Dr. Williams responded saying, "Christ died to take away your sins not your mind. The Christian faith puts before us an imaginative blazing of what to means to be a human being. He pours out his love and it explodes our humanity. It is not dull. Christianity gives us a vision of what it means to be a human being, it also promises to let us enter into the profundity of God's mystery. Our Anglican tradition tries to keep in play as many things as possible. Don't treat the bible as an infallible book of rules. We get help from tradition and we need to make the most of if it by using your mind. We must ask the hard questions. The Bible, tradition and reason bring together to play to our natural skill and humanity God has put into our persons. Our humanity then explodes."
The ACC is one of the four instruments of communion, the others being the archbishop of Canterbury (who serves as president of the ACC), the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, and the Primates Meeting. The ACC was formed in 1969 and includes clergy and lay people, as well as bishops, among its delegates. The membership includes from one to three persons from each of the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces. Where there are three members, there is a bishop, a priest and a lay person. Where fewer members are appointed, preference is given to lay membership.
The Episcopal Church is represented by Josephine Hicks of North Carolina; the Rev. Gay Jennings of Ohio; and Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.
Jefferts Schori is attending the meeting in her role as a member of the Anglican Communion Standing Committee, which met here prior to the start of the ACC meeting. Douglas is also a member of the Standing Committee.
Many orthodox Anglicans believe that the ACC has taken on international ecclesiastical and metro political power under former Archbishop George Carey that it was never intended for it to have. They also believe that it has been co-opted and paid for by The Episcopal Church which is the single biggest contributor to the ACC.
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