Wednesday Word from Denny: When Christians/Anglicans/Episcopalians Disagree
When Christians/Anglicans/Episcopalians Disagree
Disagreements are, let’s face it, disagreeable! We don’t like them. We go out of our way to avoid them. BUT we encounter them anyway. Yuck.
Most of the Anglican Communion (largely in the Global South, consisting mostly of people of color) disagree with The Episcopal Church’s permitting LGBTQ persons to be ordained as priests & bishops and disagree with its blessing same-sex marriages. Here’s how Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, described this deep disagreement this summer:
Thie is a fair and insightful description of the situation within the Anglican Communion regarding LGBTQ issues.
This summer’s Lambeth Conference of 650+ Anglican bishops from around the world did not push to agree on ONE position throughout the entire Anglican Communion, but instead “remain[s] committed to listening and walking together to the maximum possible degree, despite our deep disagreement on these issues.";
That is a MAJOR accomplishment and a principled decision – NOT a “chicken’s way out”! As Archbishop Justin points out, there are good reasons for BOTH positions. In many nations in the Global South, LGBTQ people are criminalized. There, the need is for basic human rights and to prevent oppression and violence against LGBTQ persons – and the Lambeth Call on Human Dignity affirms the importance of addressing those needs! In those locations, to bless same-sex marriages or to ordain LGBTQ persons would undermine and imperil those more basic efforts. Archbishop Justin similarly defends The Episcopal Church’s position against those who dismiss it as a merely flippant abandonment of Christ or of Scripture. It is neither! The Episcopal Church is attempting to address faithfully the needs of our society.
In the Church’s communal life and in our own individual lives of faith, we daily need to discern what it means to be faithful to God in OUR situations. That can lead us to disagreements with others – and that is okay. Scripture itself is filled with disagreements, in which one part of Scripture actively argues against other parts of Scripture, due to the different circumstances being addressed. We hospitably need to recognize that others’ situations may require a different response to the Spirit’s call to faithful witness and service than what we see for our own. That’s part of what it means to “respect the dignity of every human being” that we affirm in our baptismal covenant.
I invite you to join the discussion of the Lambeth Call on Human Dignity as part of our Sunday morning adult formation this week.
Dr. Denny Clark
St. Thomas Parish Theologian
